Japan

I debated with myself for a long time over what I was going to make for Japan. I didn't want to be too on the nose (like just doing sushi) and I wanted it to be something more special than ramen. Late last year, we watched the show The Final Table, where chefs have to cook a pre-determined dish from a different country every round. For Japan, the judges decided on kaiseki for the meal the contestants were to prepare. I realized that this would be the perfect meal for this project as well.

Kaiseki is kind of like a chef's "tasting menu," a collection of individual dishes, each with their own attributes and method of cooking. Each dish highlights different flavors, textures, etc. And usually each dish is much smaller and nicely plated than you see above. Kaiseki has been around for centuries and has evolved into modern haute cuisine, as well as the more casual version that most are familiar with: the bento box.

The meal usually starts with an appetizer, known as sakizuke. For this course I made edamame with peanuts, tossed in a ponzu-rice vinegar sauce.

The second course is known as hassun and generally consists of sushi with some other bite-sized foods. I did just sushi since we were actually eating everything together rather than course by course (it's hard being the chef and the diner at the same time). Hassun usually highlights seasonal produce and flavors. I made simple sushi with carrots, cucumbers, and daikon radish. I actually hadn't planned on making sushi; I bough nori with the intent of making something else. I wasn't sure what, but I figured I could incorporate it somehow. I had never made sushi before, so my rolling skills leave much to be desired. But at least it mostly tasted like sushi.

The next course is a sashimi dish, otherwise known as mukozuke or otsukuri. Sashimi refers to thinly sliced fish (or beef) eaten cold with soy sauce. Since I don't eat fish or meat, I decided to do a faux sashimi, using tofu, cucumbers, and carrots. When I looked up vegan or vegetarian kaiseki, I saw multiple menus using tofu skin (or the skin from boiled soy milk), but I think just thin slices of tofu is much more appetizing.

Next up is takiawese, a dish consisting of vegetables simmered separately before being plated all together. I decided to cook eggplant, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, and daikon in soy sauce based broths.

I was actually able to use the mushrooms for two dishes, as the next one up is futamono, or a "lidded dish." Typically this means soup. I had boiled the mushrooms, daikon, and some scallions with soy sauce and ponzu to create a mushroomy broth which served as the fifth course.

After all the healthy vegetables and soups comes a grilled or fried dish. If it's a grilled dish, it's usually fish or some other type of meat. Since I don't have any way to grill anything, I went with agemono, a fried dish. Tempura is the most common, so I decided to lightly fry some zucchini in tempura batter. I think my batter was a tad thin, since the box only gave instructions for using the entire contents, and dividing it didn't work super well. It still tasted good though!

Next on the menu is su-zakana or sunomono, which is a vinegar based dish designed to cleanse the palate. In many cases, such as mine, this consists of nothing more than pickled veggies. I went with beets, more daikon, and scallions.

Toward the end of the meal a kaiseki diner will enjoy a bowl of miso soup along with some white rice. I'm really glad I bought these packets of instant miso soup mix instead of trying to make it myself while juggling everything else.

It was very salty but it's a good thing it was a small portion.

Last but not least comes dessert, or mizumono. After so much food, it's best to keep dessert light. I went with strawberries and honeydew melon with some coconut whipped cream.

It was a lot of work, but luckily so many of the dishes could be eaten cold or room temperature, so I didn't have to keep heating things up. If you google kaiseki and look at pictures, you'll find a lot of flowers and leaves and garnishes. There's no way I could have cooked all this, had it all ready at the same time, and made sure everything was perfectly presented on every plate. I would probably go insane. Honestly, I think everything turned out pretty well considering! Another great thing about this meal is that so many of the dishes shared ingredients. I'm pretty sure I used soy sauce, ponzu, and rice vinegar in almost every dish.

My only regret is that we didn't have a bottle of sake to wash down each dish!

Side-note: I didn't actually follow any recipes; I mostly winged it when it came to developing dishes. I drew inspiration from restaurant menus and any examples I could find online but it really is a personal presentation of who you are as a cook so I was happy enough developing my own unique dishes.

Recipes used: Kaiseki cuisine // Kaiseki ryori // Kaiseki on Wikipedia