Hiroko’s Kitchen | Blog

For my ramen demonstration and tasting offering at March 6th event Kurosawa Shoyu (another visiting food manufacturer from Ibaraki Prefecture and founded in 1905) donated me one of his company’s exclusive shoyu (soy sauce), Niemon Shoyu. Niemon Shoyu is produced using Saishikomi method. Ordinary shoyu is made with toasted wheat, steamed soybeans and salt water. In the Saishikomi method salt water is replaced with high quality produced shoyu, therefore the resulting shoyu has doubled or tripled flavor and aroma. Saishikomi mehod costs money to the company, but Kurosama Shoyu (http://www.fujini-shouyu.co.jp/) commits to produce shoyu which are exceptional. I flavored pork belly in the mixture of Niemon Shoyu, mirin and sake, and used the cooking liquid to flavor the ramen stock. Look at the attendees (photo) who are enjoying the very special ramen. Mr. Kurosawa has a big dream. He wants to market his shoyu someday in the future in USA. Ganbatte-kudasai.

Kiuchi Brewery (http://www.kodawari.cc/?jp_home/products/nestbeer.html) was one of the featured companies at International Culinary Center’s Japanese Food Producers from Ibaraki Prefecture and Ramen Event yesterday. Kiuchi Brewery? This is the brewery which produces in Japan one of the best selling beers for the US market – Hitachino Nest Beer. The logo is a little, cute owl which stands out among competitors at bars and food stores. The old sake brewery, Kiuchi Jozo, which was founded in 1823, began production of beer under the rein of the present president, Toshiyuki Kiuchi, 15 years ago. Today the company have ten popular products, including red rice ale, pale ale, weizen, sweet stout and amber ale. At this event Mr. Kiuchi brought with him a new beer from his brewery! It is Nipponia. This beer is brewed using almost disappeared strain of Japanese barley along with the historic Sorachi Ace hops. The color of this beer is deep brown. A hint of citrus is hidden in rich, round flavor. Oishii!

Today’s event with Ramen and Japanese producers from Japan at ICC went very well. Over 60 people enjoyed the ramen demo (hand-made noodle too and tasting unique and tasting of delicious food from Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. Here is the group photo of us. I will be posting more photo and story of each manufacturer later. Finally, thank you Angela and Tara for your dedicated assistance. Thank you for Luke and Caroline.

, 2012

INTERNATIONAL CULINARY THEATER
EVENT SCHEDULE
All demonstrations are open to students and alumni and are held in the International Culinary Theater on the 2nd floor from 3:30pm-5:30pm. Demo’s are subject to change, please check the events calendar at My.FrenchCulinary.com for up to the minute information.

Tuesday March 6: Hiroko Shimbo & a celebration of Japanese ingredients

Demonstration topic: Tasting of products from Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

Join us to discover true ramen. This delicious noodle dish 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 introduce a 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

Wednesday March 7: Andre Soltner, Dean of Classic Studies

Demonstration Topic: Classic dishes from Lutece

Chef Andre will share three classic dishes from Lutece, including a classic meat pie, roasted monkfish with potato galette, and beignets souffle with chocolate sauce.

Chef Andre began his career at the age of 15 at the Hotel du Parc, Mulhouse, in his native Alsace, and later became chef-owner of New York City’s legendary Lutece, which achieved a four-star rating from the New York Times. Chef Andre has received more than 25 awards, including the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, Officier du Merite National, Chevalier du Merite Agricole, James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and, most recently, Legion d’Honneur. The co-author of The Lutece Cookbook, Chef Andre has served for more than 20 years as Delegue General of the Master Chefs of France. Chef Andre joined The FCI in 1990.

Thursday March 8: Fabrizia Lanza of the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School in Sicily

Demonstration topic: Meals for the feast of Saint Joseph

Fabrizia Lanza runs the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School in Sicily and is making a special trip to the International Culinary Center Theater to share her passion and love for Sicilian cusine with a demo featuring meals that celebrate the feast of St. Joseph. She will be demonstrating Macco (dried fava been soup), stuffed artichokes, and Sfince (fried puffs) with honey.

Fabrizia Lanza was born in Palermo on 8 March 1961. Feeling asphyxiated on the island, she left Sicily at 18 years old. She wanted to make her life outside of a protected and sheltered nest. She graduated with a literature degree in Art History and worked for twenty years in the museum world. At 45 she ended her life as an art historian and decided to move back to Sicily. Her mother Anna needed help, and Fabrizia’s food-impassioned roots were calling!

Anna introduced Fabrizia to her American audience in 2007 and before long Fabrizia found herself speaking about Sicilian ritualistic foods at a conference at Boston University. Fabrizia slowly took matters into her own hands, helping Anna at the school, with travel, with the set up of school programs, with creating new contacts.

Fabrizia has since begun to travel independently to the United States to produce events focusing on Sicilian cuisine in the best restaurants on the East and West Coast. She teaches young talented chefs at the school, teaches annually at the Masters in Gastronomy at Boston University, and hosts interns who work for her at her cooking school. Currently, she is writing a book on the history of olive oil for the publishing house Reaktion.

Space is available on a first-come, first-seated basis.
Please arrive early to secure a seat

To have your email address added to the Theater Event Information electronic mailing, send an email to Events@intlculcenter.com

The International Culinary Center | 462 Broadway | New York, NY 10013-2618

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!

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.