Yakitori, Hinai-ya

Posted on Aug 13, 2012 in Hiroko's Blog

Hinai-ya is a good quality, reasonably priced yakitori restaurant to which I frequently go back on my visits to Tokyo, Japan. Hinai is the name of one of the towns in Akita Prefecture, northern part of main island of Japan. There they raise jidori called “hinai-dori”, which is a cross-breeding between native chicken and Rohde Island Red. Chickens are free-ranged in a grass field for 160 to 170 days until slaughter time. The meat of hinai-dori is noted with its...

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Essentials of Japanese Cuisine Day 1 and Day 2

Posted on Oct 6, 2011 in Hiroko's Blog

I am back on the Essentials of Japanese Cuisine teaching at French Culinary Institute. Day 1’s highlight was the preparation of dashi stock (requires a state of zen mind), fun home-made udon noodles and perfect tempura using seasonal vegetables. Here are some of the photos from the class. To roll the dough out I had to stand on a stand….short person’s dilemma. Everyone rolled out the udon dough into perfect thickness, resulting delicious cold udon dish...

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