Never thought I would make paella with Sushi rice! Tomatoes in dad's garden is incredibly sweets and full of umami 🍅🍅🍅he's been feeding them with Japanese fish bones! #paella #tomatoes #japanese #sushirice

Fun time😊 developing sushi recipe with healthy brown rice✨ cannot beat @kinmemai_rice @japancentre @specialityfinefoodfair

My beautiful homemade tamari soy sauce. Wonderful byproduct of miso making. Totally gluten free! #glutenfree #glutenfreevegan #misomaking #miso #japanesefood #healthyeating #lovefood

It was a remarkable discovery. A gem found in the farmers market. #vegetables #funnyvegetables #nature #jamiemagazine #olivemagazine #bbcgoodfood

Sushi for main course? Tuna, scallops and salmon all pre marinated in different Japanese sauce🍣 #koji #sushi #yuzu #dinner #dinnerparty #japanese #japanesefood

Nothing is better than home made miso

Miso making is a bit like growing vegetable in a garden. It takes a long time to mature but the joy it brings after 6 months of maturation is very special and worth waiting for. 

First, we must choose the ingredients carefully: soy beans, koji and salt. The final produce is influenced enormously by the quality and the character of each ingredient. Organic soy beans are good start and go for a simple sea salt rather than rock salt. Koji is a fermentation culture planted on steamed rice, barley or soy beans , the vital ingredient for sake and miso making. I normally source dry rice koji from Japan as fresh koji has a short shelf life. Koji is available to buy from large Japanese supermarket. 

Next stage is preparation that involves soaking, cooking and mincing. The soybeans are soaked in water for overnight to ensure the sufficient water absorbtion before they are cooked for several hours in a pot with low heat.  Soy beans are then ready to be minced with salt and koji. 

Miso mix is best stored in a clean sealed jar or a ziplock in a dark cool place while koji fungus slowly work their way in to breakdown starch and protein for the following 6 months. Miso made with different ingredients become different miso, some are rich and dark some are mild and flavoursome. 

Miso making is typically conducted during autumn and winter time which helps the slow fermentation with low temperature. We had a lovely warm summer but I am feeling the cold flushing air in my cheek. The autumn is probably much closer than we think.

Bump up your dinner party

4 fabulous looking sushi in just 2 hours, my Dinner Party Sushi class in SOZAI Cooking School is cerebrating the 3rd anniversary! It was featured in TimeOut and The Telegraph, got me to C4 Sunday Brunch for 9 minutes sushi making lecture for Simon and Tim. The class creates 4 unusual sushi, starting with a very easy, fabulously pretty ball-shaped ‘TEMARI-SUSHI’, before moving onto ‘INARI (tofu parcel sushi) and ‘CHAKIN’ (smoke salmon sushi wrapped in paper thin omelette). By the time they reach the last sushi, a geometric shaped ‘SHIKAI-MAKI’ the students’ muscle are so relaxed that anything is possible. Class details click HERE.

Veg is beautiful

I strongly argue with anyone who thinks vegetables are boring. Look how colourful and appetising they are, all simply 'gorgeous'.  You can be as inventive and experimental as you wish for sushi with veg. Goji berry with broccoli, okura with roasted red pepper and red raddish, salad cress with pan fried baby aubergine, shiitake mushroom with mashed garden pea sushi rice, lemon and dill with yellow roasted pepper. Equally exciting sushi roll with avocado, rocket, pomegranate, sesame with mayonnaise and Japanese 7 spices 'shichimi'. 

SEA GRAPES from Okinawa

I LOVE trying new food and the moment arose last night at SO Restaurant. We were meant to have a serious meeting about the feature of the cooking school but it was interrupted every time the chef brought us a small dish of surprise. It started with 'half dried smoked flying fish'. Bright red flying fish roe is commonly used as an ingredient for sushi roll but I never came across their parents in the British soil. Thinly sliced, it was smokey and full of flavour. Yummy. We were enjoying a bottle of award winning sake called 'Cho-Kai-San 鳥海山’ (means 'bird, sea and mountain') which was a perfect companion for this type of 'tsumami (hors d'oeuvre)'.  The next offering was lightly toasted 'dried smoked salmon strip' from Hokkaido, it was so tender and delicious, when we reached the last piece on the plate I almost cried. But then, this came along. 'Sea Grapes' or 'Green Caviar' from Okinawa. Never had it before. Their official name is 'caulerpa racemosa' consumed both raw and cooked. Japanese,  Malaysian, Indonesian LOVE them. Mr H brought this back from his latest trip to Japan, it was so fresh and heavenly with ponzu sauce, I could not get enough of it... We went on and on tasting interesting food until the bottle became empty. 

'Human-cup-cake' lovely ladies in COSparade in Hyper Japan 2013

Hyper Japan 2013

Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) kindly invited SOZAI Cooking School to take part in their demonstration stage TASTE JAPAN to showcase the best of Japanese food. Sounds fabulous? Hyper Japan is an annual event taking place in Earls Court Exhibition Centre attracting over 600,000 visitors in 3 days, it focuses on two elements of Japanese culture; food & sake and COSparade (parade in manga-costume!). Seems like an unthinkable combination, it’s quirky but I am warming toward it…

My demonstration was Oshi-Sushi, or 'Pressed Sushi'. Traditionally a wooden mould is used to shape sushi rice and topping, but my mission was to make it easy without fancy equipment. So I came up with the idea: A 6cm pastry ring and a fish shaped cookie cutter. It's so satisfying to see sparkles in the eyes of the audience when the sushi was presented to them. The round sushi is layered with sesame seeds, flaked teriyaki-salmon, egg crumbles, king prawn and tender stemmed broccoli. But it was the little fish sushi that stole the show!