Marmalade in Japanese cooking: one of my hopes with the @yawatahama_marmalade_festival was that chefs would start to get inspired and think of ways to replace gentle sweetness and citrus in recipes with marmalade. One of the distinct characteristics of Japanese preserve-making is that the sugar is kept as low as possible (or suitably minimal) and that the natural fruit freshness and acidity is kept at the forefront.
So I was overwhelmed with excitement when it was told that chef #ShojiKubota @shoji_japanese_cooks, head chef at #道後温泉 Dōgo Onsen #ふなや Funaya restaurant in #Matsuyama, would be holding a hands-on cookery class at the huge #Yawatahama wholesale fish market, using marmalade in place of citrus and sweetness in traditionally inspired Japanese dishes.
I’ll have to come back with the exact details but it was like this: sashimi of yellowtail in a marinade of dashi, marmalade, soy sauce & egg yolk, served raw on rice with toasted sesame, cress & nori; a Japanese style of sweet & sour fish w peppers, chillies & raw very fresh white onions; and a fast “boiled” home-style casserole of pre-blanched fish tail, bone & skin on, w aubergine & #snow peas, in a marmalade & soy flavoured stock.
Then, after watching the chef make it once, all the students went off to make all the dishes (in groups of four students), starting with fish caught that morning, stiff as a board with freshness and still to be de-scaled, gutted and cleaned, getting it all done within the hour. Don’t know whether the students or the chef impressed me more, quite brilliant to watch.
