re-connect

I made a small batch of coffee azuki gelatin yesterday, it's been a couple of years since the last time I made this.

I had a small amount of anko (sweet bean paste) that needed using up.

Some cherry trees have started blooming.

We've been having nice temps but are heading for a cold snap tomorrow.

How is the weather where you are?

odds & ends

Awhile back, I had this bread. Since it was World Bread Day yesterday and since I had some leftover sweet potato from making gnocchi and some leftover an from making anpan...I tried to re-create it. I used the bread recipe that I always use, but didn't have enough filling. And for some reason, these guys came out HUGE and I weighed them as I was dividing the dough! The bread I had tried before was harder, more like a country-style bread. Still, with the slightly sweet potato and the sweet bean paste, it made a great snack.

Remember I made rafute and told you that Satoshi doesn't like it? Well, I fessed up to using his awamori and told him, " I made rafute, but since you don't like it, I didn't save you any." He quickly said, "But, I like rafute!"

So, I made some last night, I couldn't find pork belly and ended up buying the thigh portion instead which had less fat. For dinner we had rafute don (braised pork belly bowl), Satoshi bit into the pork and said, "ooh, what kind of fish is this?".....

Okay....so Satoshi's breakfast was shiru soba (soup noodle). This dish uses the stock from the boiled pork (remember I threw it out the last time?). Here is an adapted recipe from "Shiawase no Okinawa Ryori":

Serves 2
2 bundles of Chuuka soba (chinese noodles)
4 pieces sliced rafute (braised pork belly)
handful chopped green onion
some sliced beni-shoga (red pickled ginger)
500cc (about 2.5 cups) katsuo (bonito) stock
250cc (about 1.25 cups) pork stock (the one from making rafute)
1 tablespoon rafute sauce
3 eringi mushrooms, sliced thinly

Follow the directions on the package to cook your noodles.
In another pot, add the pork stock, katsuo stock and rafute sauce to heat. If your rafute is straight out of the refrig, add it to the stock to heat.
After noodles are cooked transfer to bowl and add the heated stock.
Top with eringi mushrooms, green onions, beni-shoga.
Serve with koregusu (chili pepper water)

Since the nights and mornings are kind of nippy, I figured I should protect all my plants that don't appreciate the cold, namely tomato, basil, strawberry and italian parsley. I bought these plastic sheets from the 100 yen store ($1 store). It is actually a cover for your a/c but I made it into a "hot house", there were 2 in a package, so it only cost about $.50 to make each one! During the day, I take it off, so that they can "breathe" and the bugs and bees can do their thing.

Hope your week is going well, Satoshi is off on a business trip for the next 2 days.

keeping cool

After reading this on Sue's blog in May, I've been wanting to try her recipe for Bi bim kook soo. 

2 tablespoons kochujang

2 tablespoons vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon sugar 

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

I only used her recipe for the sauce and put some bulgogi on top so that it would make this a bit more hearty for dinner. The sauce has just the right amount of zing to it, not to sweet, not too spicy, just right. I would definitely make this again.

A new limited edition beer from Minoh Beer, a local brewery. I've tried their Stout and written about it here. 

This beer was a bit different though, they used the juices from the cabernet and viognier grapes and then added the hops and stuff to turn it into a beer. 

It smells like wine, tastes like wine with fizz then the wine taste ends with a beer taste. Different indeed!

The other day, I made another batch of Coffee Azuki Gelatin. 

This time I didn't use condensed milk, I substituted skim milk for it and just let the sweetness come from the an (sweet bean paste).

It was a little bitter, yet refreshing and helped me forget about the heat and humidity if only for a bit.

Hope you are keeping cool/warm (depending on which hemisphere you are in)!

coffee azuki gelatin

There was a dessert, coffee azuki gelatin, that I used to make in Hawaii for office parties and kind of forgot about. Then, last month, when we were going to entertain Satoshi's friends and I was trying to plan a menu, I remembered about the dessert. I asked my mom for the recipe since the books that I have, didn't have it.

By the time I got everything together it was too late for the dinner party, but I still wanted to try it. The recipe called for gelatin, but I wanted to try it with kanten (agar). The only thing with kanten is that it has to be heated for it to start to congeal and once it sets, you can't re-heat it again to get it soft.

I used the kanten, koshian (smooth sweet bean paste), condensed milk and instant espresso and regular coffee. I cut the recipe drastically, because I didn't have much koshian, I also don't have a 9x9 inch pan and it was only for Satoshi and I.

It came out so hard that the spoon could barely pierce it! Plus, there wasn't that nice layered look that it is supposed to have. See, when you mix everything together, the an (sweet bean paste), sinks to the bottom and the milk and coffee tend to make layers too. Oh, well, so much for trying to use kanten...guess I'll have to tweak the recipe more if I want to use kanten.

I hated the fact that I failed, so I decided to try it again with gelatin and cut the recipe in half....success! I used a coffee that is made on Miyako Island (Okinawa)--Banbo(previously Ruka Coffee), they have interesting flavors, like Pineapple, Hibiscus and Sugar cane flavors, and they also have a very nice flavored coffee called U-ji Caramel. If I remember correctly, u-ji means sugar cane. The aroma of this flavored coffee is very sweet and paired nicely with the condensed milk and tsubuan (chunky sweet bean paste).

This is what the coffee azuki gelatin is supposed to look like--a nice gradation of colors.

The consistency came out nicely too--not hard as rock! This dessert reminds me of the times I used to ask my father to drink some of his coffee. Of course, he would say that coffee is only for adults and then he would save the last sip of his coffee, pour in LOTS of milk and sugar in it and then give it to me.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to give it a try yourself.
Coffee Azuki Gelatin from Favorite Island Cookery Book IV (Hongwanji)
3 packages unflavored gelatin (1 packet of gelatin that is about 7g)
1/2 cup cool coffee
2 cups hot strong coffee
1 (14 oz) can condensed milk (about 414 ml)
1 (12 oz) can tsubu or koshi an (chunky or smooth sweet bean paste) (about 355 ml)

Dissolve the gelatin in cool coffee. Add hot coffee and stir well. Add milk, an and stir well. Pour into a 9 x 9 inch pan. Chill.

NOTES: Follow the directions for your gelatin, the one I had said to dissolve it into hot water, so dissolved the gelatin in the hot coffee instead of the cooled coffee. Also, I didn't have enough condensed milk so I poured out what I had and added regular milk to it to make up the rest. I mixed the milk and an together to soften up the an, then added the coffee with gelatin and then poured into different dessert cups.

Enjoy!

bagels (part 4)

My student Yoshimi gave me a little tub of cream cheese at our lesson on Wednesday. (Thank you!) With my newly acquired cream cheese I wanted bagels for breakfast so after our lesson, I went to a bagel shop nearby, but to my disappointment, they were closed.

Since I couldn't buy bagels, I made bagels yesterday. I previously tried making bagels and have posted my adventures here, here and here. This time, the bagels came out great except for it sticking to the parchment paper that I had put them on while baking.

Here is the translated recipe if you'd like to try making them.

From "Bagel & Bagel Book 1" makes 4 bagels.

For bagels:
250g flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
15g sugar
140ml water

For kettling:
2 liters water
2 tablespoon honey

Bagels:
Add the flour and make a well. Add the rest of the dry ingredients into the well. Add the water (in winter, you may need to use warm water).
Knead the dough for 15 minutes.
Divide the dough into 4 (about 100g) pieces
Make into balls and let rest under a dampened cloth for 10 minutes
Get a pan that you can rest another pan into
Form your bagels by rolling them between your palms and the board--cylindrically. Form a ring and overlap the ends a bit and pinch to seal--it should look like a bagel.
Sprinkle some flour and put your finished bagels into the smaller pan and then fill the bigger pan with hot water (30-40C (86-104F)) and cover with a dampened towel for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes kettle bagels as follows.

Kettling:
Add honey to water, bring to a boil
Put bagels in and cook on each side for 1 minute.
Wipe off and place on a baking sheet.
Bake at 190C(375F) for 15 minutes.

Also in this book are recipes for different kinds of cream cheeses. I usually like to mix a jam like blueberry jam into cream cheese, but the two recipes that intrigued me were a bit different and Japanese-y: matcha & azuki.

Here are the recipes for each:
Matcha (green tea) cream cheese
55g cream cheese
5g honey
1/2 teaspoon matcha (green tea)powder

Azuki (adzuki bean) cream cheese
35g cream cheese
25g sweet azuki bean paste (smooth or chunky)

If your cream cheese is a bit stiff, leave it out for a couple of minutes before mixing. Mix each well and slather on your bagels!

NOTES: Since I was following this recipe given in the book and everything was listed by weight, I used a scale to measure everything out. I think I needed to dry the bagels better before putting them onto the parchment paper.

The honey mixed in with the cream cheese and green tea balance the bitterness from the green tea and tartness from the cream cheese. And the pre-sweetened azuki paste mixed in with the tart cream cheese are a great match. Both spreads are great on bagels and they aren't too sweet.

goma-azuki-satsumaimo bread

Have you ever seen a bread this intense?

Yesterday, I had a dentist appointment in Umeda. After my 3 month cleaning and check-up, I wandered the food floor of the Daimaru department store.

I bought myself a bento (boxed lunch) for lunch and also found this great bread made by Paul Bocuse, a well-known French chef--sorry but I had not known about Paul Bocuse until coming to Japan.

This bread ( I think this bread had some kind of French name, but it was in katakana and I couldn't remember it. )is a crusty french bread filled with kurogoma (black sesame seeds), azuki (adzuki beans), chunks of satsumaimo (sweet potato) and shirogoma (white sesame seeds) on top.

In the past, I had tasted another bread made by another bakery with just sweet potato and black sesame seeds, which was also very delicious, so I figured this bread with the azuki beans was a bonus layer of flavor.

I guess a slice of this might have tasted wonderful with butter and/or jam on it, but why would I want to cover up the natural sweetness from the beans and sweet potato?

Looking forward to having more of this for breakfast tomorrow!

bagels (part 3) and grains, grains, grains

I tried making bagels again today. This time with a little more success. I increased the amount of flour, yeast, sugar and water and also increased the amount of time to let the dough rise. The dough got bigger, though it was hard to roll to form the bagel, which resulted in all of them falling apart as I "kettled" the bagels in hot water. Still, it was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside (I had one, fresh out of the oven with dinner--a veggie soup).

On another note--I don't know about you, but I love grains, in breads and in my rice. I wanted to show you what I add to my rice before cooking it. In Japan, there are all sorts of grains called zakkoku to add to your rice like corn, amaranth, quinoa, sesame seeds, barley, adzuki beans, black soy beans and assorted millet.

This is the 16-grain mixture by a company called HakuBaku. By adding grains to your rice, you can add more fiber and minerals to it. They also have a 5-grain mixture which I've also tried.

I put about a tablespoon or two of the grains into a fine sieve and run water over it, to rinse it. Caution: If you wash the grains with your regular rice, you will lose most of the millet, since they are VERY tiny. Then I add the grains to the rice, add the water and cook.