"The beauty of Japanese cuisine is its simplicity. There generally aren't a lot of seasonings or spices, the ingredients themselves do the talking. Because of this, it's especially important to get good quality food. Genetically modified monster cucumbers aren't going to have any flavour, and you'll end up eating soy sauce with a side of sushi, just to get a bit of taste.
"Another bonus that comes from this simplicity is that Japan cooking requires minimal equipment and minimal cooking time, which saves time, money and precious nutrients!
"But enough about all that, what did we cook tonight?
"As far as equipment is concerned, we used pretty much the same things as last week: a knife, a couple bowls, a pot, a cutting board, and chop sticks. Plus I used a candy thermometer for deep frying.
"I made Vegetable Tempura, and even though it was my first time attempting it, it turned out great. The key to success for anything deep fried is a candy thermometer. I bought one a little while back at Home Hardware, it cost less than 5 bucks, and it is a must if you're going to deep fry anything or make candy or yogurt. They usually come with a little chart for temperatures, the one we got has it on the case, which is nice and convenient.
"Making something like tempura can sound intimidating, partly because the first thought that comes to mind is that you'll have to buy a bunch of specialty ingredients, or go through some complex process. On the contrary, everything I used we already had in our cupboards/fridge, and I barely glanced at the recipe that I found. Plus, I replaced the corn starch with more flour and nobody was the wiser.
"You can use whatever veggies you'd like, but we had shitake mushrooms, carrot, yam (these were our favourite), and broccoli. The batter is easy enough to make, the only thing I had trouble with was the fact that the recipe didn't say what consistency it should be. I really like when recipes tell you things like "Mix X, Y and Z together until a stiff dough forms", so you know if you've got it right or not. Especially when you're substituting ingredients, or are too lazy to use measuring spoons! But anyways, mine was something along the lines of pancake batter, without the lumps. Then it's just a matter of dipping and frying, just make sure your oil is around 375F, it's crucial!"
Ceilidh says:
"Alright, I have been craving sushi lately like mad. If I could only pick one food to eat for ever it would defiantly be some kind of sushi. But, I kind of have an issue with buying a bunch of ingredients, like ginger and wasabi, that come from so far away, along with things like avocado and mango that you can't even grow in Canada! So, this weekend when Dan and I went grocery shopping at our local awesome shop, Herb & Spice, I decided I wanted to buy some sushi ingredients and try to focus on making a more local kind of sushi! I would say it was a pretty successful mission! The more unusual ingredients that we had to get before making our sushi was Nori Sheets, Rice vinegar and Sushi Rice.
"We already had all the veggies and Braggs (which is a really good kind of soy sauce). The rice vinegar was actually made in Quebec, so that was a really good find, and I was really excited about it. I suggest becoming a label reader to find out where the food you purchase actually comes from!!! The sushi rice was grown in Cali- which is too bad because it is traveling too far!!!!- and by mistake I bought Nori sheets that were from china but I know for sure you can get ones from Maine and I am sure there is a west coast Nori supplier.
"Other than that I just cut up a bunch of carrot, cuke and some cooked beets and packed in some alfalfa sprouts that Dan sprouted last week. This turned out to be nontraditional, as we didn't use ginger and wasabi.... or fish, but it did turn out really, really well! Sushi is really fun to make and is so beautiful and I always feel satisfied making it and using my hands so much. I challenge you to make some sushi that supports local food and see how good it is for yourself!"
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