Doyo no Ushi (the day of  Unagi)


July 26

Today is the day to eat Unagi(eel).
You can smell this grilled Unagi flavor everywhere.

It is different way from Kansai(west) and Kanto(east),how to cut and grill.
And people eat this eel in the hot day like today to get some stamina.

I cook some very thin egg sheet.

Today I got this grilled Unagi from my favorite fish store.
They were so busy day.

This is Donburi dish.

The bottom is rice with unagi sauce.

I put a piece of unagi, sprinkle sansho pepper,shreaded egg on top of the rice.
Then steam it.

Serving with dashi soup and pickles.

Cooking for hot day


Today was very hot in Kyoto,actually everyehere in Japan.
It was 35 degrees and strong sunshine.
My body wanted some vinegar dish very much.


Then I decided to make Hamo Sushi.

I prepared grilled hao(pike conger fish),sushi rice and sansho pepper.

I put some sansho pepper between hamo and rice.

And roll it using clean cotton towel and bamboo matt.

 

I love home made sushi rice flavor.

We eat a lot of colorfulled vegetables in summer time.

One of my favorite summer vegetables is Nasu(eggplant).

I cooked it with dashi.Cold one is also beautiful taste.

Cold somen noodles with tomatoes and okura.

This is the aka-Zuiki ,which is the leafstalk of japanese popates.

We eat this traditional vegetable in summer time,escecially

Obon week (August 12-16).

This is dressed with sesame sweet-vinegar dressing.

Shimple Menu



Today it is officially ended rainy season.
Summer start.

It was really hot day,but I prefer this weather to raining.
One of my favorite summer noodle is Somen.
I prepare the dipping soup by my self and store in refrigerator
all the time.

Somen is very fine wheat noodles, but this is the finest one.

I like this very much. I boil them for a few miniutes and wash

with cold water to remove the salty and oil.

As a topping, sprincle the sesame seeds.
This is very elegant texture and flavor.

This flavord rice is one of the popular dishes in my classes.

We will besaticefied although we don't have main dish.

Why don't you eat such as this simple menu when it is hot?

The Gion Festival



July is the month of one of the largest and most histrical festival of Japan,

Gion festival.Actually it is July 1st -31st.

You can see the Yama and Hoko  32 floats in streets central of the city .

My house is very close to this area,so after my guests joined my cooking class,

they went to  see this festival.

Also I went to Yoi-Yama(eve-night festival) with my neighbors after the lesson.

This is the Friday nigts,so there are a lot of people.

This is the view from the hoko float.
There a lots of peole in small street.

This is "Moon"Hoko.This is one of the beatiful decoration in evening.

July 17 9:00 morning,

The 32 Yama and Hoko floats moving and parade begins.








At my kitchen,

We eat often Hamo fish (pike conger) in July.

This is traditional ingredient for Gion festival dishes.
We use for soup,sushi,tempura using this Hamo.

This is Hamo tempura with shiso leaf.

Summer in Kyoto,very hot,unbelievably humid.

I like to eat a lot of summer vegetables like tomatoes,cucumbers,

ginger,or egplants,to cool the body.

At the same time ,we also favor stamina improving foods like unagi(eel).

I feel summer is the most important season of the year for a balanced,

healty diet.

I cook vinegar marinated dishes in summer time very often.

One of the popular dishes is Aji no Nanban-zuke.

The conbination of rice vinegar and the fish oil flavor is said to be

perfect to stimulate a sluggish summer appetite.

Ko-Aji (small horse mackerel)

Deep fired fishes.

Cut the vegetabes in thread.

Marinated with rice vinegar,dashi,sugar and soysauce for 1 day.

Delicious!!