Japanese Cooking Online with Aiko

Learn to make oyakadon (a sweet and savory rice bowl with chicken,eggs, and onions), paried with gomae-ae (crisp cooked green beans tossed in a sesame and soy dressing)!

Since Aiko can’t physically welcome you into her home, she wants to do so virtually!

Our online classes are designed to be special, meaningful opportunities to share cooking, culture, and connection--just like our real life experiences. We want you to cook along, and we promise there will be plenty of time for questions, conversation, and stories. It will all end with a virtual dinner party where you'll get to share in the fruits of your labor, apart, but together!

In this 2.5 hour interactive online experience Aiko will guide you through making two of her family recipes. First you'll learn how to make Aiko's very snackable gomae-ae (cooked green beans perfectly dressed in a sauce made from toasted sesame seeds, sesame paste, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, and mirin). You'll then prepare oyakadon (fluffy rice topped with an umami-rich mixture of chicken, eggs, and onion)..

Here’s how it works:

After registration you’ll receive an email with the Zoom link, shopping list, equipment list, and recipe packet.

At the scheduled time of your class, you’ll click on the Zoom link and join your class live! Afterwards, you will receive a link to a video recording of your class that you can revisit at your leisure.

Shopping List for this class:

• 2 cups short grain rice
• 2 medium yellow onions
• 3 scallions
• 9 tablespoons soy sauce
• 6 tablespoons mirin
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 6 medium eggs or 5 large eggs
• 4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 pound green beans
• 1 tablespoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon Japanese/Chinese sesame paste or creamy peanut butter, or 2 tablespoons tahini
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 1/3 cup untoasted/raw white sesame seeds
• 2 pieces of 2-inch-by-2-inch kombu kelp (to make dashi-a traditional Japanese broth)
• 1 gram bonito flakes (about 1/3 cup or a small handful) OR 2-3 dried Shitake Mushrooms (for dashi) 
• 1.5 cups chicken broth (as a substitution for dashi if you can't find kelp and bonito)