Japanese Macrobiotic Vegan Cooking Class

Yesterday my friend Kazuyo from Pine Valley B&B invited me to attend one of the classes she hosts at her place. This was part of a course for Japanese living in New Zealand.

The tutor was Eri Ishibashi, a pastry chef turned Vegan and interested in macrobiotic food. Here is the lesson for the day...

Oh dear...

Better!

I was the only Westerner there, and the class was run in Japanese, I know enough to understand (most things, for the rest Kazuyo translated for me) but reading! I only know the basic kanji characters, and even for those I need a long time! Very nice of Eri to organize for me some instructions written in English!

We looked at the ingredients, a lot of whole grains, from amaranth to buckwheat, and then sorghum, quinoa, linseed... some I knew, others I never used before. On the menu, a part from the brown rice with a selection of other grains and seeds (including daikon seeds), we had to make Tofu burgers, fried imitation fish, marinated cucumber (plus other veggies) and Ichigo Daifuku. I was particularly interested in the imitation fish and the daifuku, so I joined the ladies who wanted to prepare those. We split in groups and started cooking!

The base of the imitation fish is done with cooked millet and ground linseeds, plus ginger juice, flour and salt.

Spread on a sheet of nori and cut.

Brush the top with a batter made with flour and iced water.

And fry. In the meantime the other ladies where busy with the tofu burgers and the vegetables.

The daifuku is hard work, you really have to make it with someone to understand it, but it was so much fun!

No sugar was used, for the glutinous rice we used rice syrup (which was also used for the teriyaki sauce), and to sweeten the azuki beans for the paste, we used dates.

In the end we all enjoyed our own bento boxes, and they looked so pretty too! Kazuyo also organizes classes on classic Japanese and Korean cuisine (and more, last here I came here for a special Italian Cuisine class with designer Paola Navone) at her B&B, to contact her visit her site by clicking here.

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©