Ueda Sōko Ryū – Spring Kaiseki

Earlier in November I went back to Ueda Sōko Ryū Melbourne to honour the season of Spring with a special Kaiseki (note: you can read about my first experience at this Japanese Tea Ceremony School here). In fact, this time around I helped prepare food for the day. Sugoi!

The first few dishes consisted of ichimonji (plain white rice cooked in an earthenware pot), marinated salmon sashimi cubes with avocado, ponzu, freshly grated Tasmanian wasabi and toasted nori, and the most delectable bowl of pippies in a clear broth made from konbu and seasoned with usuguchi (light) soy sauce and mitsuba (wild Japanese parsley).

We followed this with a huge hanwan filled with Chirashizushi, which literally translates as ‘scattered sushi’.  The bottom of the bowl (which you can just see peeking through) is seasoned sushi rice.  On top we placed a generous scattering of fresh prawns, salmon sashimi, kampyo (rehydrated seasoned gourd shavings), sliced shitake mushrooms reconstituted with dashi/soy/mirin, sliced mini cucumbers, shreds of fresh and pickled gingers, sliced egg omelette, shredded nori, sliced snow peas and carrots cut into sakura (cherry blossom) flower shapes for decoration.

For the azukebachi course we had a fresh Spring-like salad of hakusai (Chinese cabbage), sliced nashi pear, watercress, Georgio’s ricotta and goji berries.  The dressing consisted of sliced spring onions, sesame oil, rice vinegar, honey, chilli peper, salt and toasted ground sesame seeds.

One of the tenets of a seasonal kaieski is to utilise the best of the season, and in this case, some fresh asparagus that was so tender it didn’t even need to be blanched! We served it sliced and mixed with a dressing of sushi vinegar, white miso and the gel-like substance and juice from a couple of spring onions that had been boiled for a short time.  Some recipes call for a little extra sugar, but apparently nuta (vegetables or seafood dressed with white miso) is best made so that the dressing is not too sweet.

One of the vinegar dishes was a simple mix of julienne carrots and daikon seasoned with brown rice vinegar, a little sugar and a light usuguchi soy sauce.

A kaiseki meal is not complete without some good pickles, in this case yellow blocks of daikon.

The daikon blocks have a use other than eating.  After the kaiseki meal is over, guests clean their lacquerware bowls in a way that is similar to a practise undertaken in Zen monasteries. The pickled daikon acts as a scraper to clean each plate into the one rice bowl, which is filled with a ladleful of yuzuke, a very light soup made within a toasted rice. Once the bowls are cleaned, they are usually blotted with wadded tissue paper until dry.

After the meal we paused for a leg stretch (entirely necessary after sitting on your knees for two hours), before returning for koicha (thick green tea) and Sakura (cherry blossom) Mochi.  How damn fantastic do these look?

This type of sakura mochi originates in Kansai and uses the whole mochi rice grain (a sweet short-grained glutinous variety) that results in a fantastic texture.

To start with the mochi rice is soaked overnight in water and scraped through a uragoshi (Japanese sieve) to make smaller grains.  This is covered with water before adding a small amount of red food dye; the grains will take on the colour almost immediately.  The rice is strained and spread on a damp cloth in a steamer and cooked till al dente.  A small amount of water and sugar is brought to the boil to make a syrup, and the cooked rice is mixed in with a cutting action till the grains absorb the sweet liquid.  A small amount of salt is added,  and the grain is returned to the steamer for another five minutes.

After steaming, leave the “dough” to cool.  When easy enough to handle, golf ball sized amounts are flattened on the palm (with wet hands) and anko, a red bean paste, is placed in the centre. The sides are brought in to make a seal and it is formed into the shape of a tawara (straw bag), before being enveloped in a sakura leaf.  In this case, we had some fresh cherry blossom leaves, but if unavailable, salted or pickled leaves can be used.

This was my first mochi making experience (but not the last – stay tuned for an upcoming post!), and is a sweet that I have grown very fond of.

I am now looking forward to Summer Kaiseki!