Kyoto cooking circle

photograph: Kyoto Cooking Circle

Today I attended the Kyoto Cooking Circle's monthly cooking class, in the gleaming kitchen of the Wings Kyoto building. It was absolutely fantastic, from the professionalism of the all-volunteer staff to the delicious food and warm, chatty company. The class is held once a month, with a new menu each time. For Japanese participants the class costs 2000 yen, for the foreigners whose participation they actively encourage the cost is 1000yen. We made an onion salad, easy miso soup and tri-coloured chicken, egg and snow pea rice 'donburi', which was delicious and I will be definitely trying this out at home. For dessert, uguisu-mochi; a traditional Japanese sweet made essentially from rice flour and red bean paste, that requires deft handling of burning hot sticky rice paste, but is actually not as complicated as I thought to make. I'll definitely be trying this out for my wagashi-loving mum! Everyone receives the recipes in Japanese and English to take home with them.
There's a limit to how many people can participate and the classes always seem to book up, so to reserve a place head to their website:
http://kcc.fc2web.com/e_main.htm