Our teacher for the Ramen Craze Plus class was Chef Seiji Kamura, who has written two Japanese cookbooks with The Maya Kitchen, and has been teaching Japanese cooking. For this class, we were taught four Japanese noodle dishes:
Hiyashi Chuka, a cold noodle dish, perfect to be eaten during summer. Topping the bed of noodles are Japanese cucumber (which I learned is a great kind of cucumber as it has less seeds compared the locally grown cucumbers), crab sticks, crepe egg, wakame, and chasu (pork belly seared in little oil and boiled in shoyu base). It also has a dressing made from soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, garlic and Ichiban.
The dressing was very flavorful and the combination of the noodles, pork, and cucumbers was amazing! It was my first time to taste wakame and I really loved it!
Yakisoba, which I dubbed as Japanese pancit canton, but tasted very different (of course) because of the ingredients used.
Miso Ramen, which had a very intense miso flavor as the base used had a combination of black and white miso. Personally, I am not a big fan of miso, but the ramen was very hearty and comforting.
Shoyu Ramen, my favorite of all the dishes prepared because the soup base was thinner than the Miso Ramen, and also because it had wakame, egg, and big slices of Chashu (yum yum).
Aside from making the noodle dishes, we were also taught how to make the soup base and other secrets to Japanese cooking, allowing us to make our own at home. I realized preparing the dishes weren't as challenging as I thought it would be, but sourcing the ingredients will be the most difficult part.
I am still learning how to fully appreciate Japanese food, but slowly I am getting there.
I come from a family who loves cooking and eating. I never had any formal training in cooking and that I taught myself how to cook based on the handed down recipes, but I could say that I can cook good food. In 2008, I started documenting my food trips for my