Hiroko’s Kitchen | Blog

Here are some more peaks for special Temaki rolls which I have developed for the restaurant. Please stand by.

Thank you again for having me. Glad to have a chance to introduce gorumet ramen!

Mark your calendar for this event on March 6th (Tuesday) – from 3:30pm to 5:30pm. FREE.

Join us to discover true gourmet “ramen”. This delicious noodle dishes has already become the next “star” of Japanese cuisine after the sushi boom. In New York City you may have already enjoyed ramen at popular spots such as Ippudo, Minca and Totto Ramen. But in Japan there are more than 37,000 ramen restaurants. The flavor and composition of the stock, and the types of noodles differ from one establishment to another, but no one can say which is best. It is all a matter of each diner’s opinion. Chef Hiroko will explain this diversity and the history of ramen, and will show you how to prepare the key elements of excellent ramen: the best ramen stock, chashu pork (simmered and flavored pork belly) and miso and shoyu (soy sauce) seasonings for the stock. You will enjoy a tasting of both shoyu and miso ramen.

After the ramen tasting, Chef Hiroko will introduces group of food manufacturers who have come to the US from Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan to showcase their unique products. Each company specializes in the production of a classic Japanese food. These include soy sauce, miso, dried sweet potato, coffee, beer and sake. Chef Hiroko will introduce each manufacturer and his product. Following the introductions, at convenient tables you can enjoy a taste each of these unique products. Among the products is a delicious local Ibaraki beer, already available in America, to enjoy while sampling all of the others. This will be a great finish to this exciting event.

The products introduced at this event:

Tsukemono Shoyu by Kurosawa Shoyu
Special Shoyu by Kurosawa Shoyu
Koshiki miso by Uchiyama Miso Company
Nokke miso by Uchiyama Miso Company
Dried Izumi variety sweet potato by Shonuma Katsuichi Shoten
Dried Tamayutaka variety sweet potato by Shonuma Katsuichi Shoten
Coffee by Saza Coffee
Sake by Kikuho Shuzo
Hitachino Nest Beer by Kiuchi Jozo

Grace Young let everyone know on her Facebook that the books by Grace, Naomi Duguid, Andrea Nguyen, Madhur Jaffrey, Eileen Yin Fei Lo and Hiroko Shimbo (The Japanese Kitchen) were selected as one of the 100 best cookbooks in the past 25 years by Cooking Light Magazine. What an honor it is! I thank everyone who was involved in my book production to work hard and make it happen. Big thank you to Dan Rosenberg, Bruce Shaw, my mom and dad, Buzz, Linda Zeidrich, food producers in Japan.

Thank you Mary and Katie. I was featured as an Author of the Day at www.cookstr.com. Please visit the link.

Great visit at Slippery Rock University!

I have visited Slippery Rock University – one of the best State University in the country – to introduce gourmet ramen to chefs and students, and conduct a Japanese tea ceremony to introduce the culture of Japan to the students. Before my visit I was curious to find out what made the school to be called Slippery Rock University. The school is built in 1889 in the town of Slippery Rock and here is the town’s historical story from Slippery Rock University website (www.sru.edu). “There are a lot of legends about how Slippery Rock got its name. Legend has it that in colonial times, soldiers were being chased by the local Seneca Indians. The troops, wearing heavy boots, were able to cross the creek, but the Indians, wearing moccasins, slipped on the rocks in the creek bed. They named the creek Wechachochapohka – a slippery rock. Some versions of the story have George Washington as the object of the Indians’ pursuit. While a young Washington did visit the area, (we are near the George Washington Trail), his place in the story is highly suspect. As is the rumor that Elvis’ “everybody let’s ROCK” was inspired by a visit. ”

At SRU the beautiful university cafeterias are run and operated by AVIFoodsystems. Devoted chefs from AVIFoodsystems are every day producing modern, healthy, attractive and delicious meals to their students. It was a great honor to be there to introduce the real, gourmet ramen (unfortunately, ramen is known as a convenient, cheap quick, filling meal eaten from plastic cup) production, including the hand-made ramen noodles, to many chefs. After I trained the chefs in the kitchen, we have produced one of the best ramen noodles in the country (believe me, it is true) for the next day demo and serving. The students had a rare ramen opportunity – the best ramen soup bowl with hand-made noodles! We served shoyu ramen (soy sauce flavored) and miso ramen (miso flavored). Many of them came back to savor two flavors! We got great students feedback.

In the kitchen I had a great pleasure to work with Chef Dan. Chef Dan, thank you very much for your hospitality during my visit to your kitchen. Another many thanks to Chef Ed, Tom and other cooks in the kitchens.

Thank you very much for attending the Japanese Tea Ceremony event! I hope every one had a time to relax and focus on yourself (meditate). I wished that I had more time to share with you. On my next visit if it will happen let’s plan a real Tea Ceremony practice session!

Now I am developing recipes for a new quick-serve sushi concept restaurant which will be open in East Village, NY, at early summer. I will write more about it when I can put out more information. Delicious and great surprise.

It’s been already 10 days since my last blog post. Time flies…and I cannot catch up with it. Thank you for joining me the hands-on sushi class sponsored by Zojirushi America (www.zojirushi.com) at the Chef Central, NJ. Tricia, thank you very much for dropping by to say hi to me. It’s been almost 10 years(?) since you worked for me in the Hiroko’s Kitchen. Now you are pride mother of two children.

In this post I want to share the recipe which my students loved. It is not a sushi dish, but cooked rice with shrimp and Spanish chorizo. Instead of serving simply cooked rice (no salt, oil or flavorings) with every Japanese meal, we often cook rice with seasonal delicacies – vegetables, seafood or chicken – in order to celebrate the season. This type of cooking is called takikomi gohan, and we flavor the rice with sea salt or shoyu (soy sauce). At the class I showed how to prepare American friendly (flavor-wise and texture wise) takikomi gohan in the rice cooker. The choice of rice is not short- or medium-grain, but long-grain rice. Long-grain rice has drier and fluffy texture when it is cooked. Here is the recipe for you and please try it right away!

Japanese style shrimp and Spanish chorizo rice

4 to 6 servings
3 cups long-grain rice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 cup clam juice
About 3 cups chicken stock
5 ounces small shrimp, fresh or frozen, shelled
2 ounces chorizo, sliced thin
1 1/2 ounces green peas, fresh or frozen
1/4 cup thinly sliced ginger

Rinse the rice thoroughly by changing water 3 times. Drain the rice and let it stand in a colander for 20 minutes.

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet. Add the onions and cook over medium-low heat until they are transparent, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 20 seconds.

In a rice cooker bowl place the rice and pour in the clam juice. Add as much chicken stock as you need to fill the bowl to the 3 cup water line. Add the cooked onion and garlic on top of the rice and scatter the shrimp, chorizo and green peas evenly over the rice. Do not stir the rice. Cook the rice using the MIXED RICE setting. After the rice is done, open the lid of the rice cooker and add the sliced ginger on top of the rice. Close the lid and let the rice rest for 10 minutes. Open the lid and gently fold the rice and ingredients with a spatula. Divide and serve the rice in 4 to 6 bowls.

February 3rd at Chef Central (240 Rt. 17 North, Paramus, NJ 07652; 6:30 – 9pm

This is the correct information for my additional Zojirushi sponsored sushi class. Hope to see you all!