Japanese

March 7, 2002: Spring-like Chirashi sushi
	We will have the last committee of the year of Oita Group of Friends (GOF.) I think it is a good idea to have Chirashi sushi for lunch. I started the preparation from last night. The first thing I did was to take enough stock using kelp and dried bonito thin flake.
Today, I started to make many kinds of ingredients such as quickly boiled shrimp and squid.
Dried Shiitake mushroom, carrot, burdock, and dried gourd shavings are boiled down carefully with seasonings.
	The next step is to make "Kinshi Tamago", or golden egg thread, to be topped on the product. Egg and seasonings are first filtered then poured thinly onto warmed egg pan.
Careful and quick turn over with a pair of chopsticks needs a big skill.
Six eggs resulted in 25-sheet of egg films. They are sliced into threads after cooling down.
Here all the ingredients for Chrashi sushi lined up. From left, clockwise, shrimp, squid, lotus root pickled in vinegar, roasted conger eel, golden thread egg, gingerroot pickled in vinegar, boiled rape blossoms with green young leaves, sweet boiled Shiitake mushroom, boiled sweet gourd shavings, burdock, and carrot.
The sushi rice has now boiled up. Well, start to make the sushi.
	Just cooked rice is quickly turned over on a shallow wooden cask called "Sushi-oke" and quickly mixed with sugared vinegar.
Put the lid over the cask just for a while for steaming.
	Then "cuts" the rice using a rice paddle with fanning to remove excess vinegar from the surface. This process will give luster to each rice particle.
The ingredients are then mixed carefully with the rice. First, cooked Shiitake is mixed to give a good flavor, then carrot, sweet gourd shavings, and burdock in this order.
	Next, lotus roots pickled in vinegar, roasted conger eels are beautifully put arranged on the top.
In the end, golden thread egg is scattered (Chirashi) on the surface together with properly boiled rape blossoms.
	Here you are. "Spring Chirashi-sushi" has been completed.
We have a review committee every year in this time to talk about many things including the expectation to the coming new fiscal year and organization of the Group. The lunch was very pleasant, however. Ms. Anan brought-in cheese cake, Ms. Tanaka "bush warbler rice cake", Ms. Matoba Hijiki sea kelp boiled with soy and sugar, and Ms. Takahashi orange jelly respectively. They were all good.