SUSHI MAKING FOR THE SOUL

Happy Pancake Day!

Watch the funny segment by clicking on the image.

And a simple, vegetarian kimchi pancake to share with your friends and family:

KOREAN KIMCHI PANCAKE RECIPE

(You can get these ingredients at any Asian supermarket ie. P.A.T, Galleria, TNT, Hmart etc.)

MAKES 6 PANCAKES

INGREDIENTS FOR BATTER:

• 1 cup Korean pancake mix

• 1 cup naturally-carbonated water

• 1 cup kimchi (look for one with no fish sauce), thinly chopped

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 tablespoon mild gochujang (Korean chile paste)

• 1 teaspoon coarse gochugaru (Korean chile flakes)

• 1 scallion, sliced one inch segments, then cut lengthwise in half

• Vegetable oil

INGREDIENTS FOR DIPPING SAUCE:

• 3 tablespoons of Korean soy sauce for soup

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar

• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

• Sprinkle coarse gochugaru on top

METHOD:

• Combine all ingredients in a bowl, except for oil and dipping sauce ingredients

• Refrigerate the bowl for 15 minutes

• Add oil to skillet and set the burner to medium-high heat

• When the oil begins to give off a nice sheen, ladle ½ cup of batter (enough for one pancake)

• Bring the heat down to medium-low and fry for 4-5 minutes until golden-brown on the edges

• Flip the pancake over and fry for another 3-4 minutes (longer if you like it crispy)

• Repeat with remaining batter ie. slick with oil, heat up, batter, heat down etc.

• Place finished pancake on a plate lined with a paper towel (to remove the excess oil) and cut into any shape you like.

• Serve with dipping sauce

Happy Chinese New Year!

Click on the image to watch the hilarious segment:

Three of our most popular classes are now up for the month of February. Book soon because it is limited seating and these classes are historically the quickest sell-outs. Email us at classes@sushimakingforthesoul.com to register.

VALENTINE’S DAY LOVERS EDITION: COUPLES ONLY SATURDAY FEB 11th + TUESDAY FEB 14th, 7pm-10pm

Two classes are on offer. Begins with a presentation on the theme of romance and sushi. Edamame snack to begin. You and your partner make 8 sushi rolls together. Dessert treat at the end. Candlelight, great music. All about kindling and re-kindling that spark through sushi with your partner. Vegetarians, Vegans and Pescatorians all equally welcome! $100 (+HST) per couple. A selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are also available for purchase during the class.

FAMILY DAY FUN CLASS: FAMILIES ONLY: MONDAY FEBRUARY 20th, 5pm-7pm

Specially discounted class on Family Day. The workshop is 1.5 hours long. Everybody makes four sushi rolls each- this is your dinner for the night. This class is all about bonding between children (8-18 years of age) and between parents and children. *Parents do not have to participate. This workshop is nut, shellfish, dairy, MSG and Gluten-free! Children: $20 (+HST). Adults: $25 (+HST).

NIGIRI + SASHIMI CLASS: SATURDAY FEBRUARY 25th, 7pm-9:30pm

LEVEL II Nigiri + Sashimi class. You learn to make proper sushi rice. Cut salmon, butterfish, tuna sashimi. Make shrimp, unagi and ika nigiri. And a California Roll. LEVEL I Making Makimonos class is highly recommended. $70 (+HST) per person.

In this segment Chef Sang teaches the lovely hosts of The Social a thing or two about Korea’s most iconic dish, Bibimbap, while reading their personalities based on what ingredients they used.

To watch the segment, click here:

What Does Bibimbap Say About You?

If you’ve never heard of Bibimbap, it’s time to get on board. Chef and restaurateur Sang Kim returned to The Social to tell us all about one of Korea’s most iconic dishes.

The original form of the dish goes back to the early Chosun Period (14th century). The distribution of ingredients in a rice bowl was dictated by the five basic yin and yang elements: earth, fire, wood, water, metal. Each of these elements/ingredients was offered in the bowl together and in balanced formation.

WHAT DOES BIBIMBAP MEAN?
The word “bibimbap” literally means “mixed rice.”
Bibimbap is only about 100 years old and became super popular in the 20th century.
It’s traditionally eaten on the even of the lunar new year to finish off all of the leftovers of the previous year. It’s kind of like a cleansing.

HOW DO YOU MAKE IT?
A rice cooker is typically used for the rice but a pot with a glass lid will do, too.

WHAT INGREDIENTS SHOULD BE USED?
Bibimbap is usually made with different types of sauteed and seasoned vegetables (i.e. shiitake mushrooms, spicy radishes, zucchini)
A raw or yolky egg
Meat (usually beef)
Chili pepper paste, fermented soybean paste and soy sauce

HOW TO ASSEMBLE IT
It’s more than simply piling the ingredients on top of one another. Part of the challenge is to assemble the prettiest bowl.
Most chefs assemble the ingredients in small piles around the bowl with a raw or cooked egg placed in the centre.

THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START ASSEMBLING
Think about the first ingredient you put into your rice bowl because it says a lot about your character. It could be a colour you’re drawn to or a food you fancy.
The five colours (or “obangsaek”) represent the traditional five elements of the universe. The colours white black/brown, green, red and yellow have a deep philosophical meaning.

BIBIMBAP READINGS
If you choose yellow (i.e. bean sprouts, eggs)
Yellow represents Centre:
Element: Earth
Organ: Stomach
Sense organ: Mouth
Prominent emotion: Pensiveness

If you choose black/brown (i.e. shiitake mushrooms)
Black/brown represents North:
Element: Water
Organ: Kidneys
Sense organ: Ears
Prominent emotion: Fear

If you choose red (i.e. spicy radishes)
Red represents South:
Element: Fire
Organ: Heart
Sense organ: Tongue
Prominent emotion: Joy

If you choose green (i.e. zucchini)
Green represents East:
Element: Wood
Organ: Liver
Sense organ: Eyes
Prominent emotion: Anger

This year, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will be honouring the great Japanese-Canadian Chef, Hidekazu Tojo, for inventing the California Roll. His eponymous restaurant is one I recommend to anybody visiting Vancouver, and his signature rolls, including Pacific Northwest and Great BC, are some of the finest locally-sourced makimonos anywhere. He is also one of the bonafide innovators of omakase in North America, when the diner at a sushi bar leaves the selection of small dishes in the chef’s hands. In Toronto we have Kaji and Hiro, the Alpha and Omega of local sushi chefs, successfully striking that right balance between nurture and nature. But Omakase in our land-locked city is an achingly serious conundrum because we are thousands of miles from the three coasts, where a chef in closer proximity, like Tojo, can tap into the wealth and variety of fresh seafood, not only along his B.C. coast, but from where he stands, just a stone’s throw away in Japan’s Tsukiji Market.

After the announcement was made about Tojo, I was asked by some news agencies to comment on the inventor of the California Roll. And because my students do a version of it in my Making Makimonos class, I sometimes share the story about its origins. So, I thought I would throw my two-cents into the tank and clear the record so as not to be perceived as promoting fake news by my beloved minnows.

Today, the California Roll is as recognizable a brand as the Big Mac and as ubiquitous as Ikea furniture. A sushi bar in North America will not succeed without some variation of this money-making maki on its menu. In the late 1990’s, when the war against the hosomaki (a traditional Japanese roll, where a maximum of four ingredients are used, and wrapped in nori- roasted seaweed wrap) was declared, sushi chefs with little classical training began to pave the New Road for the Roll. Every imaginable ingredient under the sun was shoved between a sheet of nori and rice.  These uramaki (American-made, larger-than-life-rice-on-the-outside-rolls) could have as much as eighteen ingredients in them, and were christened with all kinds of attention-grabbing names: the ominous Red Dragon; the unappetizing Caterpillar; even the nostalgic (“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”) Rainbow. Thankfully, many of the sushi bars that mass-produced these rolls have been shuttered, and a new wave of neo-conservative, classically-trained chefs have taken their place. Sushi bars began the march back to its roots, which meant the hosomaki inched its way back into favour (read: kappa and tekka). Even still, the California Roll has remained a staunch staple.

My favourite variation is the California temaki (cone-shaped handroll), which is delicious with less vinegary rice and a firmer avocado because the shredded shirimi (imitation crabmeat) and softness of the rice demands textural contrast.

And, of course, what would anything from California be without two slices of “just-like-my-grandma-used-to-bake-it” bread bookending it? Enter the California Roll Sandwich for those who don’t believe (in spite of the evidence of my elbows and knees after taking a bite of it) that gluten causes inflammation. It’s a homage to the great Alice Waters reincarnated as a Japanese sushi chef.

The origin of the California Roll has petrified into myth; and like all creation myths, origins get muddied. The re-telling of it is full of drama and suspense, with a dose of shifting invention for flavour. And as proudly Canadian as I am, as much as I believe he is the cream of the crop in the broadening landscape of fine sushi chefs in our country, the story of Tojo inventing the California Roll is the merely another muddled creation myth.

The Californians invented it, of course.

The name of the roll was not intended for ironic effect, and the sober story is well-documented. For starters, my friend Trevor Corson, the writer and sustainable seafood activist, wrote a bestselling book about sushi, and in it he also discusses its origins.

*    *     *

It is the 1960’s in L.A.’s Little Tokyo. The restaurant is called Tokyo Kaikan, one of the first tempura bars in America. It also had a small sushi bar. Besides the many Nehru-jacketed, love-beaded, tie-dyed hippies disembarking from their hippy vans, TK’s clientele was otherwise Japanese businessmen, and they all longed for the rich flavors of toro– the fatty belly part of the bluefin tuna, which was prized back home. There was little of this to be had in California. What was readily available, however, were truckloads of fresh avocados crossing the Mexican border. With almost a third of its content being fat, avocados offered the texture and melt-in-your-mouth qualities of toro. So, in an inspired moment, Ichiro Mashita, the sushi chef at Tokyo Kaikan, sliced some ripe avocado and blended it with chopped boiled shrimp to give the mixture the reddish coloring of tuna meat. Later, due to prohibitive costs, he switched from shrimp to shirimi (made sausage-like from non-usable bits of white fish), which until then was tossed to the seagulls from the docks of Cannery Row in Monterey. It is still used today. Finally, to hide the cheap quality of the nori that was being used, he turned the roll inside-out, to keep it (forgive me) under wraps.

These two innovations (replacing tuna belly with avocado and putting rice on the outside) rocked the sushi world almost as much as Prince hating sushi shook the Rock world. Purists back in Japan mocked the roll for creating simulated flavors and deemed the hiding of the nori sacrilegious. Americans, however, preferred not to see the “black paper”, as their palates were not used to the taste of roasted seaweed.

So began our undying love affair with, not to mention the misappropriation of, the California Roll.

And despite nay-sayers and tongue-waggers of recent years, this Roll-To-End-All-Rolls has taken on iconic status. And like some of the other great American culinary ideas, from Spaghetti-and-Meatballs to Philly Steak to the bafflingly un-Chinese Egg Foo Young, the California Roll  is sure to endure the real test: Time.

In the end, who really cares who “invented” it? Let’s celebrate and champion our great Canadian chef. When you make it as well as Tojo does, you may as well take the credit for it. It is, after all, just a roll. But allow me this final nugget of truth: some of the students in my classes rock it, too.

The very popular annual FAMILY FUN DAY is back! Any sized family (6yrs and up). Sushi games and some funky creations are on the table. Adults $30 and children under 12 years of age, $25. Children must be accompanied by parent/guardians. Runs from 5pm-7pm and you get to have your sushi and eat it, too! Dinner portions and take-home containers are available. This class sells out quickly, so act now!

June dates for regular Making Makimonos classes are now up as well. Go to CLASSES for more details.

(Courtesy: The Social)

Check out Chef Sang teaching the fabulous hosts on CTV’s The Social how to make a classic Canadian uramaki (roll) and talk a bit about the cardinal sins of sushi etiquette, something former students know a thing or ten about!

A wonderful surprise to make it onto this select list. Thanks to all former sushi chefs who vouched for the class- immense gratitude to you! Multiple April dates for both Making Makimonos and Nigiri + Sashimi classes will be posted in the first week of March. Stay tuned!

Due to a high volume of private/corporate events, March Break, and Easter Weekend, there will only be two Level I classes posted for the month of March. The new dates are Friday March 4th and Friday March 11th. These spots sell out very quickly, so act as soon as you can!

Go to CLASSES & LOCATION for more details about the classes.

Two classes are added for this class due to demand. In this intermediate-level workshop, you will learn how to prepare sushi rice properly and cut fish for both nigiri + sashimi. Like the Level I Making Makimonos class, you are guaranteed great value and even greater fun. 10 pieces of nigiri + 6 pieces of sashimi + 8 pieces of California Roll are on offer, using tuna, salmon, tai, unagi (fresh water eel), shrimp and much more. Go to CLASSES & LOCATION to book your spot now!

This class is not recommended for vegetarians, but still WELCOME!

Two dates for this most popular annual class now up.

Saturday February 13th and Sunday February 14th.

Limited seating and they move very quickly- so book now!