Antony Worrall Thompson

I had some good luck today. I met celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson by pure chance! I went to Piccadilly circus to see my friend this afternoon. It was raining and I had some heavy bags after visiting wholefoods market. My friend and I ran into the cafe in Waterstone's book shop to escape the heavy rain. However, as i was leaving the cafe, I saw a familiar face near the entrance of the book store. It was Antony Worrall Thompson signing copies of 'The People's Cookbook'! I picked up a copy and he wrote a personalised message for me. I spoke to him for a minute and he wrote his message (above). He is a really nice gentleman. It has given me more motivation, so I will cook more to improve my cookery skills. Someday I would like to cook with him. It's my dream! I now have his book proudly on display in my kitchen.

Keep smiling!

When I wasn't well...

I wasn't well last week. I didn't have any energy to go shopping or spent much time cooking. My fridge was almost empty. I thought that I really would like a local organic fruit and vegetable grocery store near my flat rather than a shoe shop that I really desired two weeks ago!

I went to central London to work. Although I was quite tired after work and I knew it was busy around 5pm rush hour, I took a chance and popped to the food hall in Selfridges to buy some fresh vegetables. I craved onion so I grabbed some large onions and returned home.

I used to eat raw onion salad as a side dish in Japan. It goes well with almost everything. Particularly in spring, onions are less sharp and contain more water. These onions are perfect when raw.

Nowadays, we are lucky as the customer is not affected by seasonal harvest; you can buy all type of vegetables through out the year. Despite having a wider and more interesting selection, I think seasonal food has more flavor. We didn't have much sunshine this year, the tomatoes growing in my kitchen have finally ripened. I made a salad with the white onions from Selfridges and tomatoes from my kitchen.

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I saw this on the shelf and thought i would give it a go. I will see if I love it or hate it!

What's about Japanese sweets?

Like many Japanese girls, my favorite sweets are French. If I make a dessert for a dinner party for friends, I generally choose to make Italian desserts as they are quicker and I have a lot of experience through my work. ( I am teaching Italian as well as Japanese!)

However, Japanese sweets have the advantage of being health as traditional Japanese sweets are made with Azuki bean paste and rice flour. This means that traditional Japanese sweets are gluten, dairy and fat free!

In Japan, there are many specialist sweets shops much like you would find in France. The display and presentation is very beautiful. I stop to watch display whenever I find sweets shops! Japanese sweets have developed over time to accompany tea ceremonies. In there tea ceremonies, very strong green tea is served. Therefore a sweet is a perfect company. For the ceremony, the presentation is the most important. The sweets for the ceremony have brighter natural colouring and quite often express season and nature. For example, you will have a cherry shaped and pink coloured sweet in March. The creation of these traditional sweets must be trained for many years, much like sushi chefs.

I sometimes combine European style sweets with Japanese ingredients. I made some biscuits for a little cookie monster! He is a son of my friend's sister. It's really easy to make and gluten free!



Gluten free biscuits

200g rice flour, shifted
50g corn starch, shifted
150g unsalted butter, softened
120g caster sugar
1 egg york
1 lemon zest
1 tbsp soy milk, milk or water
a pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 150C
Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and cream until it becomes pale and smooth like mayonnaise.
Add the egg york, the salt and the lemon zest and mix well.
Add the flour and cornflour and blend briefly, just until thoroughly combined. If its difficult to mix, add a little soy milk into the mixture.
Turn the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and knead to form a smooth dough.
Shape into roll and put in the fridge for about 1 hour.
Make 1 inch ball shapes and press the middle of each ball with your finger.
Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until pale golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Shime saba

Mackerel is not a luxurious ingredient.When I was little, I couldn't stand the smell of mackerel. There were no escape when my mum cooked mackerel. The smell was very strong! I only managed to eat Shime saba which is pickled mackerel. Now I grew up and changed my taste. I like mackerel very much. But the biggest reason I like the fish is good memory with my dad.

For many years, my dad have traveled around Japan on business. He often went to Kyushu which is south part of Japan and bought back beautiful mackerel called Seki saba. Saba means mackerel in Japanese. Seki is the name of place in Kyusyu. The mackerel is very popular. The skin is shiny and the flesh is a pale pink. It doesn't have strong fishy smell. At the age of 14, I already preferred fishes to sweets. My dad doesn't like sweet at all. He liked that I asked the fish rather than sweets. The shime saba using Seki saba is the best!

Though I mainly eat Shime saba as it is, I introduce a nice recipe. Having this dish with Sake together is perfect! You can find Shime saba in some Japanese store in London. Alternatively you can use pickled herrings which is almost as tasty.

Shime saba salad
Serves 4

Ingredients
100g shime saba fillet, sliced
200g daikon (white radish), skinned, julienned
4 shiso leaves, thinly sliced
25g gari (pickled ginger), thinly sliced
1 tbsp black sesame seeds, toasted
Soy sauce

Place all ingredients (except soy sauce) in a large bowl. Toss until well mixed. Serve with soy sauce in separate plates.

Pork Ginger

After a busy day you don't want to spend much time on cooking. I don't even want to take time to think what I will cook for dinner. I have the perfect recipes for such days. This evening I found some pork loins in my fridge. British pork is one of my favorite ingredients as it has nice flavor, is generally tender and is fairly cheap! You might think pork is not the ingredient for Japanese, but it is becoming more popular. To be honest with you, I didn't like pork before.

When I visited Tokyo, I went to a restaurant called 'Pork Club'. There is only one choice in the restaurant which is 'Tonkatsu'(breaded pork cutlet). First, you must specify the part of the pork, then choose region. All pork are special breeds. I chose 'Genton fillet. The pork have a unique taste as they are fed on sweet potatoes and drink mineral water. I was very impressed by the taste of the pork. So I bought some pork from the same region and cooked a pork dish at home which was ginger pork. When I got back to London, I tried the recipe with British pork. It was as tasty as with the Japanese pork! Since then, the recipe is one of my favorite quick meals!

Pork Ginger

Serves 4

Ingredients
400g pork loin
3 tbsp tamari
3 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp sake or white wine if unavailable
1 tbsp ginger, minced
Rapeseed oil
Corn flour

When I make this recipe in Japan, I use finely cut pork. However, to speed things up, I just score each side in a shallow diamond pattern and then cut into stripes.

Soak the pork stripes in the sake and ginger for about 10 minutes. Wipe off the excess moisture.

Coat the pork slices with the corn flour thoroughly.
Heat a frying pan and add the oil.
Stir-fry the pork over medium heat until they are almost cooked.
Pour the mirin, sake, tamari and ginger in the pan and cook until the liquid becomes thick.

Serve with rice.