East Meets West... Chef Keisuke Aramaki at the Dolce & Salato Cooking School, Maddaloni (Ce)

Chef Keisuke Aramaki

The first time I had sushi...real sushi was when I lived in Japan.  It was everywhere, neat little rows of colorful little packages of rice and seafood.  I learned how to eat it,chop sticks and all... but not how to prepare it. So when I noticed that the Dolce and Salato Cooking School in Maddaloni was hosting  Chef Keisuke Aramaki for a three day course on Japanese cuisine, I knew that I'd have to stop by for a few hours for a look  and a bite to eat.

I arrived after lunch on day two.  The chef was about to show his students how to prepare shake-maki with salmon.  Simple ingredients: nori (seaweed), cooked sushi rice, salmon, cucumber,  mayonnaise,  wasabi  paste, and sesame seeds.

He made it look easy as he went step by step preparing the inside out roll version...
You carefully spread out the rice on the sheet of nori. Then add sesame seeds.

Flip over and spread out a row of wasabi and a mayonnaise, if desired...

 Thinly sliced cucumbers...

 salmon..

 and roll....

now it's time for the sushi mat...carefully press and roll...

 and slice...

The afternoon wasn't over...the chef had time to show us how to prepare oshi-zushi ...pressed sushi  prepared using a mold. Ingredients: sushi rice, stewed fish: we used yellowtail, sifted scrambled egg, spinach,  and tobiko (flying fish eggs).

Each ingredient, layer by layer was place and pressed in a mold...

 Rice...

 fish...

 spinach...

tobiko...

 and eggs...

The mold was lifted, a slice or two of red bell pepper...and our oshi-zushi was ready...

A few short hours at in Maddaloni brought back memories of  another culture that I had the pleasure to immerse myself in many years ago.

Arigatou gozaimasu Chef Aramaki and Dolce and Salato Cooking School...