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I wish I would have taken my camera to my friend's apartment today so you could see what we made, but I will do my best to describe it! Yoko is teaching me some Japanese cooking skills in exchange for talking English on Skype every Saturday morning. We both enjoy both of our tasks! Today we made what I call "fish balls"--you know--like meat balls, except fish! We started with a little pack of 3 inch long sardines. We chopped off their heads, gutted them, and pulled out their backbone and washed them in salted water. Then she has this special device that is used to cut them up and turn them into a sort of gray fish paste--hmmm. I could probably achieve the same thing in the blender. Then we dropped a ball of fish paste in fish broth water to cook and then added a green leafy vegetable--mitsuba--at the end. We tasted it--actually it was very good!
Next we started on sushi rolls and she pulled out this interesting looking package that looked like white rope. "This is food?" I am thinking! We boiled it 5 times in water--exchanging water each time and then seasoned it with sugar, soy sauce, and other Japanese seasonings--it became soft and flat. Apparently it is some kind of vegetable product. We put it in the sushi rolls with cucumber and an egg omlet and it also was very good! We added some pickled plum to the rice and made a sushi roll that had a flower in it--very impressive! Needless to say, Akihiro really liked his supper tonight!