Japanese Cooking Class in Kyoto

Today I had the honor and pleasure of being inside of a Japanese home (above) to take what turned out to be the highlight of my experience so far here in Japan. Along with one of my colleagues on this trip, Aimee, we took the "class" together, meeting our hostess and teacher, Emi Hirayama, near her home at a local university and walking to her house where we began our "lesson."

What a pleasure and delight it was to be inside her home, in her kitchen, learning about all of the different kinds of vegetables and other ingredients used in Japanese cooking! She is a lovely person and while Aimee and I did our best to "cook" along with her, I found that it took some time to take all the photos, write down the recipes and that there were many, many steps involved to making some typical summer Japanese dishes. We peeled off the skin of soybeans, cut eggplant, chopped prawns into a paste-like substance, ground fresh ginger, wrapped eel with shisho in soymilk skin (yuba), made tempura, made soup, made and molded sticky rice into beautiful molds that provided a lovely presentation, grilled scallops, prawns and eggplant, drank sweet homemade plum wine that Emi makes every year, and ate a delicious meal at the end of it all!

Most of all, our hostess was so kind and knowledgeable. I highly recommend this experience to anyone visiting Kyoto, and particularly if you are looking for an escape from the hotels and other tourist sites and want to get an glimpse into the Japanese kitchen in a real life home. She can accommodate up to 4 people, but I think doing this with one other person was quite meaningful, as there was space and room for both learning along with Emi, but in conversing with her as well. She is fantastic and has it all so well organized and is very pleasant company while you learn. I will always remember this experience and I also know that if I ever come back to Kyoto, I will definitely want to do this again.

To learn more about Emi and her cooking class, please visit her blog and her website.

Rather than try to write out the "recipes" I learned (and quite honestly, I didn't get all the names of things, but got most of them), I thought I'd share a few visual images that will give you the idea of the rich experience and delicious food we learned to make today.

Here's a taste. Enjoy!


Soymilk skin (Yuba)


Shitake Mushrooms & Kyoto Peppers


Lotus Root


Name? This was used a special garnish


Shisho


Deveining Fresh Prawns


Ready to Roll The Yuba-Filled with Shisho & Eel


Ready to Fry the Tempura


Frying Prawns, Scallops & Eggplant


Molding The Sticky Rice


Beautiful Rice Mold Result


Hot, Bubbly Oil Making Tempura


Draining Tempura


Ready to Eat (minus soup)