Japanese Cooking Lesson

Yesterday, our Japanese teacher Mami took us to a local community center for a Japanese cooking lesson. There were many other foreigners there, mostly Middle Easterners. Even though we were the only Americans, it was still really fun talking to other foreigners. We met a really funny woman from Romania that has lived in Japan for 4 years. She's the one on the left in the picture below. The picture on the right is of some women preparing the rice for the sushi rolls we made. It was very interesting listening to women from all different countries speaking Japanese.

We learned how to make sushi rolls and tempura. Here are some pictures of us making the sushi. First, we put a dried seaweed sheet on a bamboo mat. Then we added white rice over 2/3's of it. We then put cucumber, cooked mushrooms, egg, and crab on top of the rice. After it was all on top, we used the bamboo mat to roll it and it was ready to eat. It tasted delicious!

To make the tempura, we first washed and cut all the vegetables. Next we made a batter with egg, salt, and soy sauce. After dipping the veggies in the batter, we put them in a pan full of grease and fried them until they were nice and crispy. Before eating them, we had to shred a Japanese radish in order to make a dip for the tempura. They said that the tempura is really fattening, but the radish is very healthy, so eating the two together kind of evens things out! No wonder they're all so tiny!

Here we are about to enjoy our feast!