yaki kuri gohan

The last time I made kuri gohan (chestnut rice) I used pre-peeled chestnuts (and it was 6 years ago too...yipes!).

This time around, I used the chestnuts I picked up at Hattori Ryokuchi Park.

I checked online and Martha had an "easy" method for roasting the chestnuts...well, nearing 5 minutes before the time was up in the oven, one of the chestnuts decided to explode!

Chestnut matter all over the oven. It wasn't pretty, not to mention it scared the bejeezus out of me as I was standing nearby.

What also wasn't pretty was the fact that the fuzzy skin closest to the chestnut did.not.come.off.easily....sigh.

So, it took me over an hour to peel these even getting some of the fuzzy skin in between my nail and the softest part under it (ow!) . (Thank goodness I didn't wait until right before I wanted to cook the rice to do the roasting!)

I started with about a cup of unpeeled chestnuts but by the time I was done "peeling" (read scraping and digging at) them, I had about a 1/2 a cup.

I ended up with more bits than whole pieces.

1/2 cup roasted and peeled chestnuts
1.5 cup rice
1/2 cup mochi rice
2 cups water
1 tablespoon sake (cooking rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 teaspoon shoyu (soy sauce)

I served this with sanma (saury) and kinpira. Can you believe that the market had sold this sanma with a packet of lemon juice?!

I couldn't see myself using the packet, so I used part of the fresh lemon I had on my table. (Actually this type of fish is usually served with sudachi (a type of lime) I had forgotten to buy some and thought my neighborhood co-op would have some, but sadly they didn't, so I used the fresh lemon that I had.)

Still, whether I bought it with or without the head it was the same price...198 yen each, so of course I went "without".

NOTES: The rice was good despite all the stress, you had a little chestnut in every bite. The flavors were light, and since Satoshi has to watch his sodium, I think it all balanced out because the fish was grilled with salt.

Note to self: find bigger chestnuts (maybe some that are already peeled or someone to peel them for you)...ahem.

All in all though, this was a good experience, and Satoshi enjoyed this.

Whoa?! it is Friday already...enjoy your weekend!

kuri kuri kuri ku-ri ku-ri

Somehow I had this song ("money money money") running through my head while posting this....

It is chestnut season here, we call them kuri and you can find them in almost anything, savory and sweet, but mostly in sweets.

They were the filling inside of these cinnamon mochi called yatsuhashi, a popular item from Kyoto.

The original yatsuhashi is not really my favorite, but this version is nice because the filling is sweet and balances out the spicy cinnamon mochi.

In anpan from Kokoroniamaianpanya, they were a delicious not too sweet filling also.

I recently tried this marron danoise from Abientot.

Danoise is apparently danish in French. This one was filled with chestnut and topped with a marron glace (candied chestnut)...yum!

And the kuri daifuku from Chikujian which I eat every year, the mochi is a little salty but balances out with the sweet bean paste and whole chestnut.

From C3, we had their Dolce di marrone con mallo e budino (chestnut cream & pudding)...made to look like an unpeeled chestnut.

The bottom layer is custard, a thin layer of cake then topped with chestnut custard cream...delicious.

The other dessert was Delizia della uva (a cookie crust with grape gelee & mousse, topped with fresh grapes).

This was delicious, fresh and not too sweet, but we both agreed that the chestnut dessert was better.

Here is a look when it was sliced in half.

From Burdigala, a boule type bread with bits of chestnut and citrus peel throughout. The outside had lots of white poppy seeds.

It's Autumn, what are you enjoying?

kuromame + kuri + matcha muffins

Remember I received some bottled items from my MIL? I used the bottle of kinkan (kumquats) for some muffins. Well with the remaining two bottles, I did something similar.

I mixed green tea into the batter and added the kuromame (black beans) and kuri (chestnut).

Like the kinkan (kumquats), the kuromame and kuri were also packed in syrup.

I cut the amount of sugar for the muffins in half because the beans and chestnuts still had some syrup on them.

Use this recipe, but disregard the earl grey tea and nibs. Also, instead of 150 grams of flour, use 140 grams of flour and 10 grams of powdered green tea.

I added 60 grams of kuromame (black beans), using a slotted spoon, drain most of the syrup before measuring. There were only 9 kuri (chestnuts) in the bottle, so I placed one chestnut into each muffin cup and with the remaining 3, I sliced them in half to garnish the tops.

Bake at 350F (180C) for 25 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick.

NOTES: I had a bit of a disaster in the kitchen. While defrosting my butter in the micro, it sort of "blew-up", leaving me with a lesser amount of butter. I added some EVOO to make up for it, not sure if this is what made the muffins drier. Still, the green tea flavor really came through in these muffins. Cutting the sugar was a good call too, the beans and chestnut were sweet.

little treasure

As I was walking to the train station on Saturday, I passed by a house in our neighborhood that has several kuri (chestnut) trees. Most times when I pass by, the kuri are either not ready and fall off the tree as green "sea urchins", or they are dried brown "sea urchins" and the birds have already taken whatever chestnuts were inside.

On this day though, I didn't see any "sea urchins", just this.

A perfect chestnut. Just lying there.

I looked around to see if anyone had dropped it or was watching me, then I picked it up and put it into my bag and went on my way.

When I came home, I thought, "now what do I do with my treasure?"

I looked in a basic cooking book and it said to peel the chestnut, soak it in water then add them to be cooked with rice. Another method was to just leave the shell on and boil in water.

I didn't have enough to make a rice dish with and I couldn't see boiling water just for this one chestnut, so instead, I peeled the chestnut up until the furry skin, then threw it into a steamer basket with some sweet potato and steamed them for 15 minutes.

After the 15 minutes, I gingerly peeled the fuzzy skin from the chestnut, the chestnut fell apart...but it was really sweet and delicious.

It was definitely a delicious little treasure.

food...nature...blast of heat...repeat

Sunday had to be most sauna-like day to date...this year. Still, we didn't want to stay at home, so we decided to check out the falls in Minoo Park.

From the Hankyu Minoo station to the falls it is 2.8 kilometers. Of course we couldn't just go straight to the falls, on the way we stopped into Hashimoto-tei for lunch.

Satoshi had the loco moco (900 yen about US$9), he knew when he ordered it that he may be disappointed, but ordered it anyway. When his plate arrived, he knew from the aroma that it would be different. He says that Kaka'ako Kitchen's is still his favorite.

I ordered the black curry (900 yen about US$9). This spicy concoction was delicious and had a lot of punch. It may look like a lot of rice, but with the amount of spiciness, you need it.

After re-fueling and cooling off a bit, we checked out the Konchukan (insectarium). The admission was 270 yen (about US$2.70) per person. Can you believe, that for all the years we have lived here, we had never stepped inside this place? We were glad we did though, there were lots of yucky bugs on display as well as a live butterfly area. I was amazed at how some of the butterflies had numbers written on their left wing--I think this is how they keep track of them.

From the insectarium, we continued walking toward the falls. There was another museum of sorts, but I can't tell you what it was (Satoshi didn't know what it was either)--at least there was no admission.

Right across the unknown museum, we stopped into yet another cafe (Yamamoto Coffee) along the way to keep cool. Satoshi had some coffee and I had an iced coffee (600 yen a piece--about US $6 each).

Just as we came out of the cafe and started to make our way up a slight incline, there was a man giving out samples of yamaguri (mountain chestnuts). It turns out that these are from Shiga prefecture, so they weren't local. But they were really easy to peel and delicious. We bought a bag to take home (600 yen or about US$6).

Finally, after 2 hours, we made it to the falls. There were many people in the waters below the falls. After re-energizing in front of the waterfall's spray and seeing a sign that said "beware of snakes" (eww), we started to head back.

You could hear tons of semi (cicada) in the trees and every so often a slight warm breeze would blow.

There were bursts of komorebi (sunbeams) which came through the trees.

Halfway out of the park, we were hungry again. So, this time, we stopped into Per Caffe Bianco. This cafe is right across the street from the train station.

I ordered the zuccotto (850 yen about US$8.50 comes with a drink) and Satoshi had a margherita pizza (1100 yen about US$11). Satoshi said that the pizza was really good, with lots of garlic in it.

The zuccotto had slices of grapefruit, lots of nuts and lots of cream inside. It went nicely with my cute cappuccino.

I think in the U.S. this is called latte art, but since this was a cappuccino...I love cappuccino art!

Not wanting to go out again to find dinner, we bought some ingredients to try a recipe which I saw on Deb's blog. (One thing you should know about us, no matter how much we eat during the day, we almost never skip a meal!)

Deb's ahi avocado towers with sesame-cilantro emulsion were delicious! I adapted the recipe and added diced tomatoes to 1/4 of a chopped red onion, diced 5 ounces (150 grams) of maguro (tuna), sprinkled some red alaea salt, put 1 tablespoon of shoyu, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil and a pinch of black sesame seeds.









For the avocado layer, I used 2 small avocadoes. I couldn't find lime, so I used lemon juice from half a lemon without the zest.

As for the emulsion, I didn't have much cilantro, so we just used the few stalks that were on our lanai, and I added 1 tablespoon of EVOO and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil. I didn't do the crab layer. On top of that, we couldn't find won ton wrappers or tortilla chips, so we ate our towers with okara (soy lees) chips. The chips were too small to layer onto, so we just ate them on the side. I've crushed and sprinkled these okara chips onto Chinese Chicken Salad as they have the same flavor as won ton pi chips.

I was so happy to be able to use my ring molds. Since I don't have 2 ring molds the same size, Satoshi's tower was bigger than mine and he was impressed as to how the tower was put together. The "leftovers" I put into a bowl, but that was eaten up too.

Boy, we sure ate a lot today! At least we bonded with nature while doing so.

Hope you enjoyed today as much as we did, have a great week!

Yamamoto Coffee
2-28 Minoo-koen
Minoo, Osaka
Phone: 072.722.3477
Open 9:00-18:00

Per Caffe Bianco
1-8-1 Minoo
Minoo, Osaka
Phone: 072.725.7111
Open 9:00-21:00
Closed on Mondays (UPDATE: hours have changed to 11:00-21:00)