Heny Sison shares popular Japanese recipes in cooking class

The easiest way to learn a recipe is by using a cookbook. But none really beats attending a cooking class and learning from the masters. The number of lessons is limited, but at last you’ll be able to know insider secrets and precious tips that aren’t otherwise imparted in the books. Most of the classes these days are interactive,which I think is better than sweating it by your lonesome doing ‘trial and error’ in the kitchen.

And this is how I found myself attending a cooking class by Cake Queen Heny Sison one rainy weekend. Ms.Sison has a spacious cooking school-cum-coffee shop in Waltermart Makati which was filled that day with eager students. No, we were not set to learn about how to make her trademark desserts. It was for something Ms. Sison wasn’t really known for, but for which she was an expert just the same - Japanese cuisine.

Am sharing below some recipes, as well as some snippets from the session.

First on the agenda was Temaki-Zushi or do-it-yourself sushi rolls.

First, make the sushi rice. Rinse 360 g. of Japanese rice, strain and let stand for 30 minutes. Add 19 oz. water and put in rice cooker. As the rice is cooked,let it stand for 10 minutes. Prepare ingredients for sushi vinegar: 4 tbsps. rice vinegar, 3 tbsps. sugar and 1 1/2 tsp. salt. Stir together. Transfer hot rice to a large wooden sushi bowl, make a mound. Pour sushi vinegar over and mix rice by cutting across it in a fast slashing motion. Cool by fanning.

Assemble the temaki-zushi. For this, you need 800 grams of the prepared sushi rice, plus 120 grams of tuna,kani stick,mayonnaise,cucumber, eel, nori seaweeds and Kikkoman soy sauce. Squid, shrimp, sea urchin, salmon roe and tamago or rolled omelette can also be used.

Take a half sheet of nori and place it on a rolling mat. Spread a thin layer of cooked rice evenly over the nori, leaving a one-fourth inch of nori on each side. Dab a little wasabi in a line across the rice.Place other ingredients on top or the side of the wasabi,but too many or it will not roll well. Roll it carefully and evenly away from you, pressing it firmly. Remove the rolling mat, trim any ingredients that are protruding from the ends of the roll and cut into 2-3 cm. length.

Serve with wasabi and soy sauce, horseradish and sweet-vinegared ginger.

The second recipe for our cooking lesson was the beef gyudon which is best served as a topping on a hot bowl of rice. Gyudon is a popular dish in most Japanese restaurants,including fastfood joints like Yoshinoya. I was quite happy to know that making it is moderately easy. You just need to have good, thin slices of beef.

How to prepare gyudon or beef on rice: Cut 500 grams of white onions lengthwise and then slice thinly. In a medium-size saucepan, bring a cup of white wine and 1/2 cup of water to a boil over medium heat. Add 500 g. of thinly-sliced beef and simmer for a few minutes, skimming the surface of the broth as it foams.Add 3/4 cup soy sauce, 3/4 cup mirin, and 4 tbsps. sugar. Press down lid of the saucepan and simmer for three minutes.

Remove cover, add the onions and again simmer until the onions are transparent and soft. Ladle cooked beef and onions together with some sauce into a bowl filled with rice and garnish with pickled red ginger.

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