Donabe Cooking for Flavors of Los Angeles Event

My donabe chicken sukiyaki, ready to serve

Last Sunday, I had a pleasure participating in a big charity event, hosted b American Liver Foundation.


The event was titled Flavors of Los Angeles, and many talented chefs from popular restaurants in LA gathered to cook for the guests in this event. The chef chair of the event was Chef Kevin Meehan of Kali, one of my favorite restaurants in LA!


I teamed up with my friends and super talented chefs, Kuniko (formerly the head chef at Hinoki & The Bird) and Shiho (partner/ chef of Sweet Rose Creamery) to offer 5 courses for 12 guests at our table. Our table was set up and ready to go.


We started with Kuniko's kombu-cured fluke carpaccio dish.


The second course of roasted yam dish was also made by Kuniko. Both of her dishes were so beautiful and delicious.


Other tables were busy, too.


Sommelier, Mark, talking about the wine he poured, to the guests at our table.


Time for my donabe dishes!


I made Tori Suki (chicken sukiyaki) with classic-style donabe, Hakeme and Kyoto Ame-yu.


I also made English Peas and Hijiki Rice in my double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san". I used the large 5 rice-cupsize of Kamado-san, and it came out very nice.


Shiho made really delicious matcha parfait and everybody fell in love with it. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the finished dish, as I was busy helping plating the dish.

I had such a great time working with such talented people, and it was also my honor to be part of this charity event for American Liver Foundation!

A post shared by Naoko Takei Moore (@mrsdonabe) on May 1, 2017 at 5:32pm PDT

Happy donabe life.

Roots 2013...Team Donabe Presentation!

Team Donabe!

Monday, September 9

It was Day 2 of Roots conference.


I started a busy morning preparing for the presentation with Chef Kyle Connaughton. We (a.k.a. Team DONABE) were going to give a presentation about donabe cooking! Kyle harvested all the vegetables from The Chef's Garden and prepared for a vegetable hot pot with classic style donabe, "Iga Ame-yu".


Our presentation was the finale of the conference. The theme was "The Present and the Past: How understanding history makes us wiser people and better chefs". To be honest, I was quite nervous before the presentation in front of all the top level of culinary professionals, but once I started speaking, I really enjoyed it! I talked about the history and culture of donabe, and I made rice with double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san", to give tasting samples for the audience. It came out to be especially special rice, as I used Koshihikari rice from an organic farm in Uruguay, grown by a Japanese master rice grower, Mr. Ichiro Tamaki. Mr. Tamaki and Mr. Morihiro Onodera (master sushi chef in LA) are the partners of Uruguay rice project and this was their first commercial harvest to be available this fall. The rice is a real premium quality, and it was cooked so beautifully in the donabe. Everybody fell in love with it. With this rice was a little sprinkle of "Moshio" seaweed salt from Hiroshima, Japan! The producer of the "moshio" sea salt kindly sent me a boxful of sample packets, so everybody who were at the presentation got to take home a little gift.

I really had a special time.
Below are some additional photos, taken by The Chef's Garden.


I feel extremely honored to have been able to participate in this special event. And, I am extremely grateful to Farmer Lee Jones and his amazing team.

Donabe catering project...6 Healthy Japanese Dishes for 50 People

Last Sunday, I did a big catering project for a wedding party.
In the past, I only specialized in catering for small groups, so it was going to be an exciting challenge to serve at a big party.

The wedding party was going to have about 100 invited guests, and I was requested to make 50 servings of assorted Japanese appetizers.  Besides my dishes, there was also going to be burger catering truck and Japanese takoyaki station.  What a great concept!

Most of last week until the wedding day were spent on shopping and prepping.
Then, the day of the service, I had the super helpers...Asami and Jason.  We worked non-stop from early morning on Sunday.  Asami and I cooked, and Jason cleaned.  We made a great team, and I can't thank them enough for all the professional help (including Asami taking nice pictures) they gave me!!

Here's the menu...4 vegetarian dishes (of which 3 were vegan) and a fish dish.

Japanese Appetizers

Menu

“Shira-ae” Creamy Tofu Salad

-Haricot Vert, Roasted Walnuts, Mix Seaweed,

in Creamy Paste of Meiji Tofu, Saikyo Miso & Kyoto Tamahime Vinegar-

•

Long Hijiki Seaweed & Lotus Root Salad

-Quick-braised with Abura-age and Carrot-

•

Cauliflower & Caramelized Sweet Onion with Soy Sesame Sauce

•

Cinnamon-scented Kabocha Pumpkin & Mozzarella Croquettes

•

Roasted “Shio-koji” marinated Scottish Salmon

-Topped with Tangy Lemon & Ume Salt Yogurt-

•

“Satsuma” Sweet Potato & Azuki Bean “Onigiri” Rice Balls

-Cooked in Donabe Rice Cooker, Kamado-san, from Iga, Japan-

We never compromised in details.  Every piece of ingredients had our attention and care.  We also made multiple batches of donabe mixed rice for onigiri rice balls with the double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san".  I can't do catering without Kamado-san...I'm that attached to this donabe!  Some lucky people got to taste the onigiri with nice "okoge" crust.


In the evening, we got to the venue and set up our station.  We originally wanted to take photos of the entire set-up before the service.  However, as we were getting the dishes out, it was too late...guests were ready to eat already!  (That's why we didn't even have a chance to take pictures of the hijiki and onigiri dishes with decoration.)


Most of the dishes were gone in a matter of short time...I mean, really fast.  Can't ask for better compliment than that!  I was so happy that the guests seemed to like the flavors, and I could even hear some of them commenting nice things about the dishes.

It was such a beautiful party, and it was my honor to be part of it!