Cooking with Kikkoman and gatecrashing Ocado

A few weeks ago I was invited to a ‘Cooking with Kikkoman‘ event at the gorgeous Matsuri St James in Mayfair. The event was to showcase Kikkoman Soy sauce, to give us a little idea about how it’s made, how it’s different from other soy sauce and how it can be used.

To kick off we were introduced to Bing-yu Lee, UK Manager of Kikkoman who explained how their Soy Sauce is made. We were given Kikkoman and ‘Brand X’ Soy Sauce to compare the two, the Brand X was notably darker and sweeter. Bing explained most other brands are made by adding caramel or sugar, often high fructose corn syrup to them. Kikkoman is just made with Soyabeans, Water, Salt and Wheat.

Then it was time to do some cooking with Kikkoman, and we were introduced to Simon Hulstone the chef behind the Elephant Restaurant (I *REALLY* want to go there!). He knocked up in a matter of moments some scallops and brocolli, whilst explaining how he uses Soy Sauces in some of his dishes, even desserts!

We then got a Masterclass from two of the Chefs from the Masturi in making Sushi, they really made it look so incredibly simple. We got some top tips on how they make them, although I don’t think mine would ever look anywhere near as good as theirs! They crafted an amazing selection of Sushi for us, they looked too good to eat, I’ll admit to leaving the one with the fish eggs, I’m a little grossed out by such things! Didn’t like the thought of them popping in my mouth *shudder*

Next up was our Main Course – I chose to have the Scottish Angus Dry Aged Steak – although the Ginger Marinated Alaskan Black Cod did REALLY appeal. As the Matsuri specialise in Teppan-yaki, our chef cooked both dishes right infront of us! I’ll let the pictures do the talking here (it really was as good as it looks!)

The wines they served with each course were spot on (and plentiful! Hic!), too soon my main was eaten and I was keen to see how the heck ‘Fireball Ice Cream’ would work. Incredibly this too is cooked Teppan-yaki style! It really has to be seen to be believed..

Big blocks of ice cream are put on the griddle..

..and then.. WHOOSH!

They served the ice cream with pineapple and pancakes, and a delicious almond-y dessert wine, it was so good, the ice cream had a slight ‘charred’ taste to it – I’ve never enjoyed Vanilla ice cream so much! The evening was drawing to a close, it was really nice to meet some fellow bloggers from the ‘Foodie’ side – Bailee from The Model Foodie, Annie from Scrummy Suppers & Quirky Cakes and Tash from Food I Fancy in particular. Our hosts, Kikkoman, Simon Hulstone and Matsuri had been wonderful, it was a great event, and I don’t think I’ll consider all Soy Sauces to be equal in the future!

Me, being me, and having a belly full of food and several glasses of wine, I didn’t really fancy going home JUST yet, thankfully Tash had similar thoughts and she knew of another Blogging event around the corner. With a swift phonecall to her colleague to check the event was still going we headed over to Tibits to see what the Ocado peeps were up to. The evening was rounded off with some more wine, beer and a chat with their lovely PR people, I had a last train to consider so had to make my excuses and leave not long after!

All in all a wonderful night, and TWO goody bags – GET IN!