I am so happy to announce the new schedule for our Donabe & Japanese cooking classes for October. Please check out the details on toiro's website. You can sign up from there also. Our upcoming class is Shojin "Bento" class on October 9 (Sat). Then, we will have Donabe steaming class on October 16 (Sat).
Hope to see you there!
Now, here are some more leftover pictures of my dishes from September...
Mozzarella-stuffed kabocha and walnuts "korokke" (croquettes)...Jason's favorite.
When I make Inari Sushi, I also often cook the used dry shiitake (for making "shojin" dashi stock) in the seasoned broth with the abura-age, then serve as a side dish. To me, it feels like a nice bonus when making Inari Sushi.
I got a jar of bottarga/ tomato/ pimento sauce from Italy when I went to Eataly in NYC, so I made a simple pasta dish with it. Very nice with Launois, Champagne Brut "Cuvee Reserve", which is a Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru.
With the double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san", I made hijiki seaweed and shirasu (baby white fish) rice. The side dishes were simple tofu and wakame miso soup (with our homemade miso) and steam-fried "broken" lotus root (seasoned with brown rice vinegar, sake, and soy sauce), made with the tagine-style donabe, "Fukkura-san".
Azuki bean and multi-grain rice, with "Sake-kasu Jiru" donabe hot pot dish. The broth is made from dashi stock, "Sake-kasu" (sake lees) and miso. Sake lees is sold in a hard paste form, so I first broke it into small pieces and dissolved in a small amount of broth before adding to the pot. Sake lees gave such a nice aroma and warm taste of sake. I cooked yellowtail, tofu, and vegetables in it. Beautiful.
This is another one-pot donabe dish. Seabass "mizore-ni" (soup with grated daikon), which was cooked in the light-weight handleless donabe, "Yu-series, Kizeto". I made very nice dashi stock and seasoned very simply just with sake, usukuchi shoyu, and a pinch of salt. So delicate and tasty.
Happy donabe life.
