We continue 2015 as the year of ‘all things Japanese’ by taking a Japanese cooking class (HOSF 9214) at George Brown.  The class is taught by Chef Frederick Oh who also taught our recent sushi class.  Twelve students are taking part so the space is a little tight in the demo kitchen. (I was on the far side  – the photos were the best that I could manage from that angle.)

The first class was all demo and no lab (meaning that the chef showed us how to cook everything but we didn’t get to cook ourselves).  Tonight we learned to make teriyaki sauce (hands down the best that I have ever tasted!), chicken yakitori and beef sukiyaki.

Home made teriyaki sauce is amazing!  Browned chicken bones and ginger are gently simmered in a mixture  mirin, soya sauce, chicken stock with added garlic and mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot).  Sugar is added the strained sauce before thickening with cornstarch.

Chicken yakitori is simply chunks of chicken thigh placed on skewers and grilled.  Yakitori is an example of yakimono or grillrf food, however, we didn’t have a charcoal (or gas) yakatori grill so we pan fried the chicken before dipping in the teriyaki sauce.

Sukyaki is a slightly sweet broth (water with soy and mirin) in which vegetables (cabbage, mushrooms), tofu and beef as cooked.  The beef is delicious when it is washed gently in the broth and topped with teriyaki broth.  (I thought this was called shabu shabu but apparently that is a little more savoury than sukiyaki.)