My chef assistant Anna Yeung one day stopped by Hiroko’s Kitchen with an immensely long vegetable which I have never seen in my life. According to Anna, her father purchased cucuzza plants which were about 5 inches tall from Whitestone Nursery in Queens sometime during the first week of June this year. After carrying the plants back to his home he dug six circles into his garden about a food apart from each other and planted them. Fortunately, all plants grew...
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Read MoreHiroko’s Essential Japanese Cooking Course at ICC
Hiroko’s Essential Japanese Cooking Courseis running next year at International Culinary Center (ICC)/ French Culinary Institute (FCI)! Anyone who wishes to learn the art of Japanese cooking to a thorough extent should join my Essential Japanese Cookuign Course at ICC/FCI in New York in July and October, 2011. The course consists of five consecutive days of classes. Here you will have the opportunity to master the complete key aspects of Japanese cooking. The...
Read MoreUMass Worcester Dining Hall Curry Night
On September 7th Hiroko prepared and hosted a Japanese curry night at the Worcester Dining Hall of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Preparing for an army of voracious college students at UMass is a real challenge. Thirty five pounds of onion, 3 pounds of flour, 3 pound of butter….house made chicken stock, curry powder, sweet chutney…all in a huge steam cooker were cooked down nicely until a wonderful dark brown color, stew-like texture with a...
Read MoreWhat is like being in a -75 degree F freezer?
Yuji Haraguchi of True World Foods (www.tsukijiexpress.com) offered me and my assistants, Anna and Jennifer, a tour of his NJ company of his company very early one day last week. One of the high points of our tour was the -75 degree F freezer where the flash frozen tuna delivered to the company are kept. -75 degree F is the most desirable temperature for preserving the quality of tuna. At this temperature the myoglobin is stable and there is no oxidation which turns the...
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