Miyuki Sedhora was brought up on good, home-cooked food in Japan, and she is now inspiring others to cook in Far Eastern style at her cookery classes at home in Churchill, near Chipping Norton.

Miyuki, who was born in Hiroshima, moved to England 28 years ago, when she was 24, and worked for a Japanese company in North London supplying sushi and other authentic Japanese foods to a number of high-profile restaurants.

She says of her background: “I do not have any special training in cooking or food in general, but my mother always cooked for us and one of my aunts is a fantastic cook whose food was very much appreciated by our extended family.

“Eating home-made food with natural ingredients has been my training — and this is what I would like to pass on to people who come to my classes.”

Her cookery courses include a basic introduction to Japanese cookery, as well as the trickier art of sushi.

I was invited to take part in a class, and the diminutive Miyuki greeted us at the door with slippers to exchange for our shoes. We were welcomed and introduced to each other over a cup of Sencha green tea (one of Miyuki’s favourites) and a traditional sweet offering of Yokan — a jelly concoction made from sugar and beans.

We were being instructed in the rudiments of Japanese cookery, with demonstrations of how to cook plain and seasoned rice, Japanese stock (Dashi), Miso and clear soup, and a couple of marinades and dressings.

The course took place in Miyuki’s kitchen, which she confided ate up the biggest part of the budget during the renovations undertaken by Miyuki and her husband Robin Walden, who specialises in making Japanese-inspired pottery.

Miyuki took us knowledgeably through a baffling list of ingredients including Kezuribushi (dried Bonito fish), Kombu (kelp), Miso (bean paste) and rice wines Sake and Mirin. There were also helpful hints on where to buy the ingredients, with local health shop Oats, in Chipping Norton, proving a good source, as well as Waitrose stores and the website www.japancentre.com Miyuki’s demonstrated techniques, with some assistance from the class in food preparation, and they were easy to follow. We even learned the odd bit of Japanese along the way – moshi moshi (how to say hello on the telephone) and hashi (chopsticks), for example.

There was a nice combination of the traditional style of cooking - as Miyuki’s mother taught her as a girl - as well as the shortcuts that the modern Japanese women take today. For instance, although we are taught how to cook rice traditionally – which involves initial washing of the grains, adding a precise ratio of rice and water in the pan and a lot of bringing to the boil and simmering and subsequent standing for set amounts of time – most modern Japanese women, including Miyuki, now use rice cookers instead.

Miyuki’s frequent trips to Japan, often involve the purchase of a preferred model from the airport for friends.

She said: “You do not have to worry about the rice, the rice cooker will cook your rice and even keep it warm until your dinner, leaving you to concentrate on other trickier components of the meal.”

Similarly, trips to London for her two children Freddy and Tazu to learn Japanese at the Japanese Saturday school also result in shopping expeditions to the Japanese supermarket in Acton.

A couple of hours into the course and we had an impressive array of dishes on the table. which we were then invited to eat. Particularly impressive was the clear soup which involved passing beaten egg through a slotted spoon, a delicious roasted and ground sesame seed dressing, using our home-made Dashi, for cooked greens, and seasoned rice - which is a meal in itself with three types of Japanese mushroom, Shimeji, Enoki and Shitake.

The food was served on Robin’s ceramics, which he creates in his garden studio. Robin was born and brought up in Hong Kong, with a father passionate about collecting Chinese ceramics.

It was a seed that took a while to germinate, but after several other careers including musician, teacher and broker, Robin finally decided at the age of 48 to follow his heart and become a full-time potter.

The whole experience concluded with a toast using the couple’s home-made plum wine, to a recipe passed down the family.

Miyuki’s Japanese cookery courses are running tomorrow (June 18), June 25 and July 3, call 01608 641944 or 0794 4748 457, or e-mail miyukisedohara@yahoo.co.jp

Robin’s ceramics can be seen for the month of July at the West Oxfordshire Arts Centre, Bampton, and by appointment at his studio by calling 07887 550727, www.robinwaldenceramics.com