Octopus to Gauva

JapaneseCuisine has always been special to me ever since I tasted Sushi’s at Morimotto New York,

Themellowness of the sushi and techniques involved always amazed me, Just cos howa simple prehistoric food still finds the magic and the charm to be around allthese years, The ingredients of Japanese cuisine are versatile and also canbecome complex with enriched flavors which one could easily get carried away,My inhibitions towards those robustic ingredients did not hamper my eurekamind,

Notto forget the techniques of Tepanyaki, The teriyakis & Yakitoris are no different,each has a character distinctive in nature, all but true to its owningredients, So when the time had come to amaze my superiors, I had procuredBaby Octopus after constant distress with the fellow where I was thinking toexploit him as a counterpart in Cobb Salad, It became a bit oblivious that I mightnot be true to his flavors, Hence after a bit of spark from my mentor whoinsisted he is better off in a soup, I felt the need to try him out on a soupwhich will compliment him, and hence the Suimono crossed my Mind, Suimono Suimono ,or "Osuimono," A clear soup is served as one of the first that wasTraditionally kaiseki dishes,

Idrenched my self down to make this simple yet prolific soup called suimono, Itsrich in Sake and a ting of soy, with a volumetric amount of Dashi ( Stock), Forbaby octopus, I cured it with Mirin & a touch of sesame salt, let it standfor 6 hours and just griddled it for a split second, Then covered the same withdashi and agar, allowed it to set on a mold then layered it with Miso Glee andfinally a Pickled ginger glee, Just to contrast my blandness on the over allglee, set and demoulded it and severed with Suimono, to pair a crisp i went onto use a simple wonton stuffed with prune but baked it to get the even color,

Thefirst course still looked Incomplete, Guess I need to enlighten the sorrylooking plate with a bit more color and style of japan, an out came an oldtrick off my sleeve, remembered Nago Guavas and its richness so on to reversespherefication,  where I used somecalcium lactate to metabolize the action against Sodium Alginate, to top it offno Japanese dish is content sans Weed, I mean seaweed , thin chiffonades arefried in sesame oil and mounted over the Nago Bubble which looked pleasant andeven more pliable when it hit the tongue.