Kitchen Culture Cooking Club
EXPLORE and PRACTICE Japanese cooking in your own kitchenAbout Kitchen Culture Cooking Club
Welcome to the Kitchen Culture Cooking Club, a community space providing encouragement to those who want to EXPLORE and PRACTICE Japan’s washoku wisdom in their own kitchens.
To facilitate this, themed projects will be posted to this page periodically. Project Assignments and links to relevant reference material stored on this site will be posted to this page. Anyone, anywhere in the world, with a sincere interest in Japanese food culture is welcome to browse the contents of this page and then replicate the themed project in their own kitchen.
For those who wish to display-and-discuss their projects with like-minded people, I invite you to join the KITCHEN CULTURE Cooking Club Facebook Group (formerly the TSUDOI Project), an interactive community space.
Temari Sushi
HINA MATSURI is celebrated March 3 and sushi, either a platter of scattered chirashi-zushi and/or temari-zushi (bite-sized spheres of tart rice topped with various ingredients) is often on the menu.
This KITCHEN PROJECT is featuring temari-zushi, bite-sized sushi. Download a recipe for Pom Pom Temari-Zushi.
Try your hand at making these.
About TEMARI… Like many frugal Japanese women who managed households in the early and mid 20th century, my mother-in-law, Kiyoko Andoh, practiced thrift in and out of the kitchen. She saved bits and pieces of cloth, turning them into quilted cushions and throws. Odd lengths of thread were transformed into charming string-ball ornaments of various patterns. Called temari, string balls are made by winding colorful strands around a spherical core.
In the kitchen, my mother-in-law would take bits and pieces of pickled or soy-stewed vegetables to make what she called temari-zushi, bite-sized spheres of tart sushi rice each with its own decorative topping. Though not especially fluffy, the pert, plump sushi balls with colorful toppings reminded me of pom-poms… which is why I named them Pom Pom Sushi.
Tart Sushi Rice (Su Meshi 酢飯)
Slightly sweet, vinegar-seasoned rice called su meshi (literally “tart rice”) is the basis for all sushi dishes. For optimal flavor and texture when making su meshi, use freshly cooked and still-warm, Japanese-style short-grained white rice that has been rinsed really well to remove surface starch. As warm rice cools it is most receptive to absorbing the seasoned vinegar (that is why freshly cooked rice is best). If surface starch remains on the rice because it has not been thoroughly rinsed away, the cooked rice can become unpleasantly gummy and gluey.
DOWNLOAD instructions for making SU MESHI, tartly seasoned rice for sushi.
Download the FEBRUARY 2025 newsletter, about cooking cloth.
Recipes and Resources
Stock (Dashi)
Dashi stock is essential to making soups and simmered or stewed dishes. Dashi is also used when making many egg dishes and all sorts of sauces, dips and dressings. Using good dashi will make a noticeable difference in the outcome of so many dishes you prepare.
Click to download recipes for (vegan) Kelp Alone Stock or Standard Sea Stock + Smoky Sea Stock
How to Cook Rice
In Japanese, the word for cooked rice, ご飯 GOHAN, is the same as the word for a meal, ご飯 GOHAN. Indeed rice is central to the meal. Download the Rice with Mixed Grains recipe.
How to Prepare Sushi Rice
Sushi dishes are made with rice that has been seasoned (with sweetened vinegar) AFTER being cooked. Download the Classic Sushi Rice recipe.
Quick Pickles
The Japanese enjoy a wide variety of tsukémono pickles, many can be assembled quickly and are ready to eat within a short time.
Download a recipe for Quick-Fix Hakusai Cabbage.
An Edible Ode to Winter: Sleet & Snow
Winter weather reports predicting SLEET (mizoré), are rarely welcome news. After all, the bone-chilling mixture of rain and snow is messy under foot and creates hazerdous road conditions. But when mizoré appears on a menu, it conjurs up tasty fare. Snowy white daikon...
Year-Passing SOBA; New Year-Welcoming UDON
Year-Passing SOBA... New Year-Welcoming UDON The Japanese bid farewell to the current year by slurping l-o-n-g noodles at midnight. Though most areas of Japan eat soba, calling the noodles toshi koshi (year-passing), those hailing from the Sanuki region eat udon....
PROJECT Noodle-Slurping
NOODLE-SLURPING Anyone who has ever spent time in Japan, or regularly eats at Japanese restaurants, knows (all too well) the sound of slurping. Noodles, for sure, but soup, tea and other liquids, too. Although noodles, soup and beverages are part of every food...
Project Kayaku Gohan
Vegetables cooked into RiceKayaku (Takikomi) Gohan加薬 (炊き込み) ご飯 In different parts of Japan, rice that is cooked in a flavored liquid with a variety of ingredients (that went to flavoring that liquid) goes by various names. The most generic is takikomi because it...
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