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!!

Minazuki     June 30


Minazuki  means "June" in Japanese.
Also Minazuki is the name of traditional this sweet.


June 30 is the day we eat this sweet.
This shape is from "ice" and people eat  for our health and luck for
coming summer in histrical meaning.

Obanzai

This in one of the typical "Obanzai" dishes.

Obanzai is the way to call "home dishes" in Kyoto.

This is the cooked koimo(japanese potato) and daikon(japanese radish)
with dahi,soysauce and mirin for a hour to simmer very well.

This type of  dishes is good matching with sake because the taste has deep
soyflavor with vegetables.

 

 

This green pepper is kyoto local vegetable"Manganji-Togarashi".

This is not so hot but has beautiful flavors.

I cook this with Konnyaku(japanese noodles like jelly).

Konnyaku is the one of the healthy ingredients in Japan.

Cooking with dashi,soysauce and a little bit mirin

 

Western style dish

 

I like Italian. I sometimes cook simple spagetti sauce by myself.

These are the ingredients for "Sora-mame"(broad bean) creamed spagetti.

Pasta,sora-mame,parmezan cheese,onion,cream and milk.

 

This is very simple dish but this has beautiful sora-mame flavor.

Tomorrow is the beginning of July.

I would like to introduce summer dishes to keep our stamina!!

Seasoned Rice


My favorite dish is seasoned rice.
I cook flavored rice each season.
In Spring,bamboo shoots rice is famous dish.
In Autumn,Matsutake gohan(special mushroom rice) is very popular.
So When you put some special season ingredient into the rice and cook with dashi,
you can feel that season.


Nowadays,we can get  many things through a year,but I think
It is very important to use the specific time,specific ingredient.

In May,I use a lot of Endo-mame(green pea) for the rice or egg dish.

 

When I was a child, it was always  my job to remove the peas.

Rice,water,Endo-mame,a little sake and salt.

This cooked Endo-mame flavor goes into the rice.

We call this "Mame-gohan"


June is the season for Ajisai(hydrangea).
This is one of my favorite flower.

Early summer time

Shin-shoga(young ginger).

We use this ginger for sweeten pickles beside of sushi.

This is the best from June to autumn.

Thin strips Shin-shoga and Age(thin deep fied tofu).

Cook with dashi,usukuchi soysauce(the light one)and salt.

This rice has a beautiful fresh ginger flavor.

It is very simple,but we will enjoy the Shin-shoga itself.

I immagine summer is coming soon.