Today proved to be quite interesting day. Met with friend of my Japanese teacher I had met last year as well. Plan was to do some cooking and I would be doing parts of it myself! Originally thought I would be meetig with just her but turned out two of her sister joined in(actually we went to house of her sister as place where she had planned was booked fully. So I knew I would be meeting with one sister. 2nd one was complete surprise though).
Well won't be going on full details on what we talked though obviously lots of discussions about Finland, Japan, my travels, comparing bit of languages(not surprisingly they found idea of conjugating nouns "mendokusai" or in english "bother(some) to do" :D But that's probably hardest part of Finnish grammar. Auto, autosta, auton, autolla, autoon, autoa, autoja. All meaning car but which one depends on what you use it. Car, from car, car's, with car, into car etc). I noted that for me initially lack of plural forms were annoying to which they reacted with some surprise(after all isn't it EASIER if you don't have them?) but it required bit of to get used to idea that "car is car whether there's 1 car or 100 cars").
Overall very fun time and of course learned bit of Japanese cuisine and received bit of ingredients with which I could do similar in Finland. Think I'll introduce mother, sister and little brothers(and niece) to Japanese food :D And dad as well! (hopefully ingredients suffice!).
But before leaving did eat breakfast as well. This time udon, nikuman, hot chocoate and some sort of pudding I won at the 7-eleven lottery.
At the target station. Try to guess what's the rush hour :D Train every 2 minutes. Sheesh!
Too bad didn't ask to have photos taken from the get-go. This is basically after powdery stuff and water is mixed in and mixed up real well. (following photos are bit of a staged since it didn't really need it but I did do that far myself).
There. Next up while process with soba noodles continued I got to try myself preparing gyoza which are crescent-shaped(well there was another shape as well) pan-friend dumblings with minced meat(pork I think) and vegetables. These were btw ridiculously tasty. Need to check if the Japanese ingredient store in Helsinki sells the stuff to which the meat-vegetable mix is put.
So you can see one of those things at my hand. I'm about to take the mix up.
Setting it up. Soak the edges with water, then you tie them up but Japanese loving interesting shapes in their food don't just tie them up. They sort of fold them. Hard to explain but creates interesting look.
One of them done!
Elsewhere noodle mix was made into solid thinnish layer of which I then started cutting them as thinly as possible.
Cutting them thinly is trickier than it looks.
Not sure what was done to them later(cooked? But we ate them cold) but did get guide on making them(in Japanese) so I'll be checking that later.
Those are the gyoza. As I said they are absolutely DELICIOUS! I'm at the moment totally stuffed up. Can't eat a thing at this time. Part were crescent shaped(lower plate) while other was left open at the center. This way more of mix could be added in.
And this is soba + various types of tempura.
Top of soba thin(even thinner would have been better they said) nori seaweed pieces was added.
itadakimasu!
For dessert this chocolate-azuki(red japanese bean) cake and cream was provided. Azuki isn't my favourite ingredients but here chocolate balanced the taste nicely.
Oooh that was again fine meal. And was fun trying my hands on Japanese cooking and the soba+tempura at least didn't look too difficult to replicate in Finland(particularly seeing I was given some ingredients as a souvenir). Need to check if there's required ingredients(or I can find recipe for doing it myself) for the gyoza in Helsinki store as well.
Back home bought dinner in advance and got yet another "atari"(hit/success) at the lottery. This time "daifuku", rice cake stuffed with bean jam and this being some sort of frozen ice-creamy version. "ice milk" reads on the label.
Rest of evening I'll be just reading I think. Already getting dark + rains so don't feel going on anymore.
Tomorrow laundry+test packing to see how much room I have in bags + meeting so not sure how interesting blog post I can do or if I even do one.
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