day after christmas

It is the day after Christmas, are you at the malls? It is just another day here in Japan, in fact, a lot of people are trying to get ready to welcome the New Year--I'll post about that as we get closer to the day.

A while back, I bought a chocolate cookbook, which I posted about here. Remember I also received some dried figs? Well, since I had a bottle of red wine open, I was finally able to try this recipe.

Ganache Figue makes about 16 pieces
5 dried figs
3/4 cup red wine
1/2 cinnamon stick
3 whole black peppers
1 whole clove
125g sweet chocolate
100ml cream
cocoa powder

1. In a pot, put the wine, cinnamon, pepper & clove and bring to a boil. When it comes to a boil, turn down to simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Add the dried figs and let come to a light boil. Turn off heat and put lid on, leave contents in pot overnight.
3. The next day, take the figs out and cut into 1 cm pieces. Save the mulled wine.
4. Cut the chocolate into small pieces and put into a bowl.
5. In a pot, heat the cream on medium heat, before it comes to a boil, turn off the heat. Add the cream to the chocolate and mix with a whisk.
6. When the chocolate and cream is combined, add the figs and 3 tablespoons of the mulled wine. Let cool.
7. After cool, spoon out into 16 balls and place onto a parchment sheet.
8. Cool in refrig for 20 to 30 minutes. Using your hands re-mold it to look like a fig and cover in cocoa powder. From the mulled wine, take the cinnamon stick and cut slivers to be used as the stem of the fig.

NOTES: I ended up with about 20 pieces--I cut the figs into 4 pieces. I didn't add the 3 tablespoons of the wine, I only added 1 because I don't care too much for liquor chocolates. I also didn't read the recipe well and I cooled the chocolate in the refrig and ended up with quite a hard mess. I also didn't use the cinnamon stick slivers at the end. The figs were well soaked and it didn't taste too winey. And because I used dark chocolate, instead of sweet chocolate, it matched well with the wine taste.

The other day, I also received daikon (long white turnip) from a friend, so I tried a recipe for Japanese pickles called takuan. I got the recipe from my mom's church's cookbook. This was really easy to make.

Here's the recipe from "Wisteria Delights"
Takuwan
3 T. salt
3/4 c. Japanese vinegar (rice vinegar)
1-1/2 c. sugar
1/4 tsp yellow food coloring
3 or 4 medium white turnips

Boil the salt, vinegar and sugar until sugar is melted.
Turn off heat, then add food coloring.
Set aside until cool.
Slice turnips, place in a bowl and pour sauce over them.
Leave in bowl, turning often with a wooden spoon.
Next day, put into jars with sauce then refrigerate.
If you like it a little hot, you may add chili peppers to your taste.

NOTES: I didn't add the food coloring.

Hope you are having a great week!