First, Happy Chinese New Year everyone! It’s only 初三 (chu san – the third day), so I’m not that late, I hope. Anyway, I’ve had exams for the past three days, so I uh, ‘celebrated’ by studying. Well, at least it’s all over, although that means that my third year is almost over too! I only have one essay and one presentation left.

Anyway, this post isn’t to talk about Chinese New Year (though I wouldn’t mind), or to talk about my studies (because I won’t shut up once I start). Instead, I’m here to talk about food. I’ll probably talk about it tomorrow too, because I went and ate something really, really, chocolaty and awesome today.

But before I get to today, I have to catch up on yesterday. After a really, really long period of time, I finally brought my DSLR to my cooking class. What can I say, if I’m not going to class from school, then I have the space to bring a camera. So…. PICTURES

On today’s menu:

五目寿司 (gomoku sushi) – although my teacher called it chirashi sushi
すまし汁 (sumashi jiru)
菜の花のからしあえ (nanohana no karashiae) – spicy rape blossoms.

This is the すまし汁. It’s made with something my teacher called 一番だし (ichiban dashi – the number one dashi), which is made using konbu and katsuoboshi. But I’m probably most proud of the fact that I managed to tie a knot in the 三ッ葉 (mitsuba). Apparently, it’s related to 縁結び (enmusubi) or something like that.

And this is the chirashizushi! Although my family mistook it for fried rice at first. It’s my favourite dish of the day, although it’s also the most troublesome to make. So many cooking utensils were used. I don’t even own that many cooking utensils! But it’s good, so I may just slowly, very slowly, make this dish one day.

This is the 菜の花からしあえ, which I didn’t eat much of, even though I generally like stuff that has しょうゆ洗い(shoyu arai). By the way, 菜の花 is apparently translated as “rape blossom”? That is so odd… Although I didn’t even know that you could eat this, because I’ve only known it as a blooming flower (this is the pre-blooming plant). Apparently an alternative name for this is broccolini, which I totally prefer. I actually like broccoli.

That’s what I learnt to make yesterday! Tomorrow, CHOCOLATE