Doctor "Fresh for you."

We invited Troy and Nadia to our place for a Doctor Who marathon (1st, 2nd and 3rd episode of the currently screening series with David Tennant as the Doctor) and a Japanese dinner. Ms Trouble seems to have taken a liking to cooking Japanese style since attending the cooking class with Jean and Rashi at the Bugsplat Family Centre the other night. Birthday gift of fiddly little table settings has also been inspiring.

So this is what we made, with Trouble nominally head chef for the afternoon.

We (again) attempted sushi and it was (again) a schmozzle that we tossed straight to bin. Don't want to talk about it. Hate it. Will never attempt it again. Until next time.

The sauces and condiments we put in the middle of the table and they included;
wasabi in a tube
tamari
soy sauce
two types of pickled ginger
grated raw ginger
mirren
rice wine vinegar
Hakubaku chilli soy noodle sauce

1st course: Things prettily arranged on a individual plates, each with a pretty little bowl for sauces.

Raw things included cucumber flowers, carrot flowers, capsicum flourishes and (smoked) salmon. Trouble was aiming for a winter budding kind of look. You know, like the as yet unidentified stone fruit trees out on the block are currently displaying - tidy little sleepy buds. Winter buds.

2nd course: Nori and mushroom soup. Again with the sauces for people to chose from, mix in their little bowls and add to their cups as they chose.

Angelata led a departure from the planned menu and came up with this one because *sigh* Bigsplat supermarket has not heard of miso.

Nori pieces steeped in hot water for a few hours, as did (seperately) saffron. She made a broth of rice grains, fine chopped mushroom and carrot with some nori pieces. The soup was made by straining the broth and then combining the three; rice broth, nori broth & saffron broth and serving. Waiting in each of the cups were paper thin slices of spring onion and finely sliverered dried mushroom.

At this point we watched (and it was FANTASTIC) the Christmas special.

3rd course. Tempura Vegetables

Cauliflower is our favourite tempura vegetable so there were two pieces each of that, and then one each of mushroom, spring onion and sweet potato. The tempura batter was just rice flour, baking power and very cold beer. It was perfect.

Again with the sauces. And lots and lots of very enthusiastic Doctor Who nostalgia and excitement. And, beer.

4th course. Soba noodles with steamed vegetables and steamed cod.

This is pretty obvious. The noodles were great - buckwheat is really yummy. The vegetables were carrots and sweet potato in one dish, snow peas and green beans in another. Keeping the colours together. The cod had been marinated in rice wine vinegar and smashed garlic.

It was great, and lots of fun.

Time for Episode 2. Never trust a cat!

Dessert. Strawberries and Kiwifruit in a bowl, looking beautiful, with yogurt on top and vanilla sauce attempts at Japanese writing. I expect it said "Fresh for you".