I have always said there are certain cuisines that you should just pay for and Japanese food has always topped that list. Well, I haven’t changed my mind. I absolutely love Japanese food and as we don’t have a Japanese restaurant on the Island, this seemed an exciting adventure! I picked my cookbooks, chose the recipes, bought the multitude of ingredients and then accidentally invited lots of extra people for dinner. Japan took a day of cooking and if my lovely cousin hadn’t turned up to help roll sushi rolls and slice the sashimi, we may never have actually sat down to eat.

Before I go into detail about the food (which was epic), I’d like to give a smidge more context to the day in question. Sunday 7 August. Facing a day of cooking and prepping, it should come as no surprise that my children (mostly the small one) caused me to have what can only be described as a complete, total and utter parental breakdown. Let me set the scene…..

EEROD, ACOD and I had a lovely morning rolling gyoza skins and filling them. I reached a very high level of parenting.

We got to lunchtime, everyone is hungry and I went to wash my hands in the downstairs bathroom. This is where I found the first of the purple paint. It was clear that a small someone had tried to wash something in the basin and it had gone a bit wrong. So, I called ACOD in and asked what had happened. “I was painting in the craft room and then washing my hands”. Fair enough. I asked her to get a cloth and we cleaned it up. I was busy, I didn’t look closely enough at my child but 5 minutes later she asked if she could change because her dress was dirty. Upon closer inspection, the dress was also covered in said purple paint. This is when alarm bells began to ring.

“Alys, is the craft room tidy?”

“Yes”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

“If I went down there now, would I find it tidy?”

“I just need to check two things….” and I’ve never seen a child move quite so fast. Obviously I followed her down and cannot ever unsee what I found in the craft room. Paint on the table, the walls, the floor and everything except f*cking paper. She had painted a pair of scissors but not in a few brush strokes sort of way but in a I picked them up and the paint flowed off the scissors. Things degenerated quite quickly.

Needless to say I lost my shit. The shouting came from that bad place that makes small children quiver with fear and brings COD from almost anywhere. He also lost his shit and between us we threatened every threat, yelled every yell, slammed a lot of things and made all three kids cry. ACOD because she was properly in the shit, EEROD because I blamed her too and LOD because I blamed EEROD who was apparently innocent in this activity. The real low point was when I turned to COD and said either the kids had to leave or I was leaving. They all went on a very long bike ride. I cried a small amount and then went back to the Japanese feast.

Seriously – always pay for Japanese food! Making this took me the better part of two days when you add in shopping, prep and shit-losing.

J is for Japan

Menu:

• prawn gyoza
• chicken gyoza
• tonkatsu pork
• sashimi, ngiri and rolls (tamago, tune, salmon, sea bream, mackerel)

Gyoza – both these recipes were taken from the Wagamama ‘feed your soul‘ cookbook. I made the skins from scratch which was surprisingly easy and therapeutic. Due to the dietary requirements of one dinner guest, I did not use spring onions, garlic or chives but added coriander which worked really well. I also made the gyoza dipping sauce. I would absolutely put in the effort to make these again but double the recipe and freeze them for an easy dinner.

Tonkatsu pork – this recipe comes from a great book Tokyo stories by Tim Anderson. This book is a canter through the streets of Tokyo with some weird and wonderful recipes! I figured my kids wouldn’t eat the raw fish so deep fried pork seemed a safe bet. Not usually a fan of deep frying, this was absolutely excellent. Everyone loved it and so I suppose worth the 1.5l of oil in a deep pot (what do you do with left over oil?). The tonkatsu sauce recipe came from the Wagamama cook book.

The sushi

The rice and methods for how to prepare the fish all came from the Sushi cookbook. I’ve had this for years and have successfully made tamago a few times.

Sushi rice – ugh, this is so hard. I over salted, the texture wasn’t quite perfect but it was edible and sticky and I will have to keep trying…..

Tamago – this is probably my most favourite thing to come out of Japan. I simply love it and mine was pretty damn good! I had the leftovers for work snacks the next day.

Fish – all the fish came from trusty Waitrose. The tuna and salmon were simply sliced and added into rolls, made into ngiri or sashimi’d. The mackerel was buried in salt for a few hours and then marinaded in rice vinegar and sugar before being sliced. Sea bream was covered in boiling water (poured through a towel) to poach the fish just the tiniest amount. Loved the sea bream but I think I’d sear the mackerel next time.

The following week, in order to recover from the epic Japanese feast and associated parenting trauma, COD and I took advantage of the late Hovercraft and went to the fabulous Sakura in Southsea where we blissfully PAID FOR SUSHI.

In other news:

• Following ‘purple-gate’ and banning the smallest O’D from any screens, ice-creams or fun forever, we found ‘green-gate’ and then ‘foundation-gate’ on her bedroom carpet in the days that followed. I am now at a loss as how to punish / save our carpets / get her to stop putting colour where colour should not be. Any ideas much appreciated.
• The school holidays continue and we have probably all had just about enough of each other. School can start anytime it likes….
• EEROD’s 10th birthday is coming up soon. So, that’s two of them in double digits.
• Running is getting better. I still hurt everywhere but today’s parkrun actually felt good! There is hope yet. Probably helped not having the kids with me this week too!
• We tackled the aquapark this week. I went in a very reluctant person and came out having had a ball but still too chicken to jump from any great heights. Next time…..
• This seems to be the summer for fun things. COD and I have frequented the local pool hall twice now. I am still rubbish but I had forgotten how much fun pool is. Rocket Ronnies, we will be back!
• Kenya is next in the food journey. I have actually already done it but this blog post seems mighty long enough so I’ll save Swahili fish curry for another time.