party food

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

maki — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:08:55 +0200

It seems that quite a few people have been trying out the kasutera/castella recipe recently, and running into problems. Castella is not an easy cake. So, since it's Easter, I thought I'd haul this out of the archives attic. These little Rich Tea Cupcakes are much easier to make, and while they have an entirely different texture they are really quite delicious. I hope you'll give them a try! The cupcakes are delicious unadorned, but the icing is dead easy, and the fondant is not too hard if you can get a hold of the glycerin. Alternatively you could use store bought Easter themed cake decorations. Originally published in March 2005, as part of the late lamented Is My Blog Burning food blog event; edited and updated.

One of the first attempts at baking that I remember tackling on my own was cupcakes iced with pale pastel icing. I had seen a picture of them in one of my mother's magazines, and they looked so elegant to me. The one thing I remember about those cupcakes is that they tasted peculiarly like uncooked egg - I think I hadn't whipped the eggs enough or something. But the whole process of making the icing, tinting it with food coloring that I had begged my mother to buy for me, and swirling it on the tops of those cakes, was quite fascinating.

This isn't quite an attempt to remake those cupcakes. For one thing I now know how not to make cakes that taste overly eggy. But I did want to make something pastel colored and kawaii (cute) -- and, since it's Easter time, pink and blue bunnies and pastel colored mini-eggs seemed like perfect embellishments.

I'm not a big fan of buttercream icing unless it's very chocolatey, but chocolate was out of the question since I wanted that pastel color scheme. So I've avoided this usual cupcake topping; instead I've used a much easier icing, which is just powdered or icing sugar mixed with lemon juice. It's appropriately shiny and translucent and adds a little tang to the whole experience. And it's dead easy to apply - just drizzle a spoonful or two on top of each cupcake. At this point you can just leave it as is, or use any kind of colorful decoration that strikes your fancy: the icing acts like a sort of glue for the embellishments too. I made some bunny heads and eggs with fondant, but this is a bit fiddly. In Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess has all kinds of ideas for decorations on top of the icing (she uses plain water for the icing though) such as little candies, a cherry, a knot of cream, and so on. Of course standard cake decorations such as sprinkles and other sugar ornaments work too. I was originally planning on using small chocolate eggs, but then I thought of the bunny theme - and the cake decorating sections of the supermarket are sadly lacking in bunny-themed items. Besides, I just love that pale, half-translucent quality of fondant. The soft, melt-in-your-mouth sugariness is a perfect match for the top of this cupcake too.

I'm calling the base cake recipe without the adornments Rich Tea Cupcake, since the original cake recipe is adapted from one for a tea cake. I'm not sure what exactly a "tea cake" is -- I presume it means it's good for serving with tea. (For the matter, I'm unsure about what a "coffee cake" is either, and how it differs from any other cake....) This is rich yet fairly simple to make, apart from the beating the eggs and sugar vigorously over hot water (or bain marie ) part. This step is common in a lot of European cake recipes, and makes for a cake crumb that is quite crumbly and delicious, with not a trace of raw-egginess about it. The cupcake sans icing is delicious just plain or with an apricot or red currant jam glaze on top. It's very mildly spiced with lemon peel, nutmeg and vanilla, and is not overly sweet. Yes, it has 4 egg yolks plus 4 whole eggs in it.

Recipe: Rich Tea Cupcakes

250g / 8 oz unsalted or salted butter (I used unsalted, since salted butter is not common here)
2 tsp finely grated lemon peel
1 tsp real vanilla extract
4 egg yolks from 'large' eggs
4 whole 'large' eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plain white flour)
2 Tbs cornstarch (cornflour)
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt if you used unsalted butter
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 150°C / 350°F. Make ready the cupcake cups. Hint: if you stack 3 paper cupcake cups together, they are sturdy enough to hold their shape when you pour in the batter without needing muffin tins or something. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Put the butter in a bowl and microwave it on low setting for a minute to soften it. You don't want to totally melt it but it should be easy to cream. Add the lemon peel and vanilla.

Heat up a pan of water to simmering point. In another bowl, beat together the egg yolks, eggs and sugar. Put the bowl over the water, and let it come to lukewarm temperature. Beat this mixture over the hot water vigorously (an electric hand mixer helps a lot, or you can think of it as good toning exercise for your arms) until it's about tripled in bulk and is a pale lemon yellow. When you lift your beater, the batter should form a thick ribbon.

Take off the heat and add the sifted together flour mixture slowly, Don't overbeat. Add the butter mixture bit by bit too until it's all incorporated.

Spoon or pipe the batter into the cupcake linings about 2/3rds full. (Hint: this goes a lot faster if you use a plastic bag as a "piping bag". Put the batter into a plastic zip bag, push the batter towards one corner, and holding the bag ready to go over a cupcake liner quickly cut off that corner with scissors - just a small hole does it! You'll fill the cupcakes up in no time.)

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15-25 minutes, depending on the size of the cupcakes, until a skewer inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Let cool completely before applying the icing.

Recipe: Lemon Icing

This amount will be enough to cover 12-16 medium sized cupcakes, depending on how generous you are with the icing.

250g / 8 oz icing (powdered) sugar
2-3 Tbs lemon juice, strained of all pips and pulp
additional water or lemon juice if necessary

Mix together the sugar and juice until it's quite runny. The amount of juice or water seems to vary on how humid the weather is. It should form a slightly runny paste, and drop slowly but easily off your spoon when it's ready to go. You can color it with food coloring if you like.

Drizzle with a spoon over the tops of the cupcakes.

Recipe: Fondant

Fondant is the stuff that covers those almost unreal-looking, smooth wedding cakes that you see in glossy magazines. It's also used to cover petit fours. It's not that hard to make, though a bit fiddly. The only special ingredient you need is liquid glycerine, which you can get at a pharmacy (drugstore). Be sure you get pure liquid glycerine, which is safe to eat, not something pre-formulated for cosmetic use! You can use this as a cake icing, or to make cake decorations as I have here, or even on their own as little 'fancies' or candies.

500g / 8 oz icing (powdered) sugar
50g / 2oz liquid glycerine
1 Tbs. egg white (approximately the egg white of one 'large' egg)
Food coloring of your choice

Mix together the ingredients until all the liquid is incorporated. Knead for a few minutes until totally smooth. Don't worry if it's a bit sticky, but if it's too dry add a tiny bit more egg white. Let rest in a plastic bag for at least an hour or overnight in the refrigerator (this seems to make it a bit easier to handle).

To make the fondant decorations, take a small bit of the fondant and color with the food coloring. There are different kinds of coloring, but the key is to always add a tiny bit at a time. I prefer to use paste or powdered food coloring, which gives me more control than the liquid kind.

The bunny heads are made by making a small, thick sausage with a fat middle and tapering ends. Fold this over and pinch the middle to make the face. Pinch the ends to make the ears. Smooth out any cracks with your fingers. Prick out the eyes and mouth with a toothpick.

The eggs are rolled balls shaped a bit to resemble eggs.

Prepare these in advance and leave out to dry a bit. Apply to the cupcakes while the lemon icing is still wet.

Leftover fondant can be frozen; just defrost at room temperature - never defrost in the microwave! Knead well after it's defrosted until it's supple. Or, it will keep for a couple of days well wrapped in the refrigerator.

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

maki — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:52:50 +0100

From the archives, originally posted March 2, 2007. These delicately colored sushi are a great way to use usuyaki tamago. I know I’ve been re-posting things from the archives a lot lately, but I hope you’ll forgive me - I’m moving tomorrow! In any case, I hope you’ll give these delicate sushi a try, especially if you have daughters or granddaughters.

The 3rd of March is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyou-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

In Japan there is a long standing stereotype that girls and women like very sweet things, while manly men like less sweet and bitter things. So, for Hina Matsuri the guests are served sweet things like amazake (a very thick non-alcoholic hot drink made from the lees of sake, rather like eggnog in color and cloying sweetness), hishimochi (tri-colored mochi cake) and okoshi (colored sweetened puffed rice). Although there were three girls in our house, none of us liked amazake at all. However, my mother often made some kind of sushi for Hina Matsuri, which we really loved.

Here are two kinds of very pretty, girlie sushi in feminine pink, yellow and white with a touch of green. These colors fit the theme of Hina Matsuri perfectly: the traditional hishimochi is colored white, pink (or light red) and green.

The first is hamaguri-zushi or clam sushi, pictured here. It’s supposed to look like a clam, but to me it looks just as much like a little yellow flower. (Hamaguri are in season in March in Japan.) It can be filled with any kind of sushi rice, but here I have made a slightly pink-tinged sushi rice with lemony smoked salmon, mitsuba or flat-leaf parsley and white sesame seeds, wrapped in a usuyaki tamago or thin omelette. It’s related to chakin-zushi, where the omelette is wrapped in a bag shape and tied, but slightly less fiddly since all you have to do is fold it into quarters.

Besides making a very pretty spring party dish (for an appetizer maybe, or as part of a buffet), these work very well as bento items too since the sushi rice has good keeping qualities, and the omelette keeps the rice from drying out. Plus you can just grab them with your hands to eat.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

The rice:

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock
1/4 cup plum vinegar or raspberry vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
About 60g/2 oz smoked salmon, finely chopped, or 2 to 3 tablespoons of salmon furikake
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbs. toasted white sesame seeds
2 Tbs. chopped mitsuba or flatleaf parsley leaves

The wrapping: * usuyaki tamago using 6 eggs

Garnish:

Salmon roe (aka salmon caviar) or ikura (which are salmon eggs marinated in a soy sauce mix)

Equipment:

Small non-stick frying pan
Rice cooker (will make your life a lot easier)
A heat-resistant brush for brushing the oil onto the pan, or a wad of paper towel
Spatula to turn the omelette
Rice paddle or spatula for mixing the rice

Make the usuyaki tamago. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or chopsticks (not a whisk or it will become too bubbly) with the sugar, salt and the cornstarch/water.

Heat the small frying pan over a medium-low heat. Brush lightly with oil. Put about 1/8th cup or 3 tablespoons of the egg mixture in the pan, swirl carefully so it coats the bottom of the pan but doesn’t slosh up the sides. Hint: use the same scoop or spoon to measure equal amounts of the egg - I use a 1/4 cup measure, half filled.

Cook just until the top is barely set, then carefully pick up the omelette with the spatula and flip over. Cook for about 10 seconds just until it’s set, then flip out of the pan. The omelettes should be yellow, and not browned.

Repeat for the rest of the egg. You should end up with about 12 to 14 omelettes.

The omelettes can be made the day before and kept covered with plastic in the fridge.

Make the sushi rice the day you plan to serve it. Cook the rice following the basic instructions. Turn the hot rice out into a bowl and break up lightly with the spatula. The sushi vinegar in this case is made with a red colored vinegar, either plum or raspberry (don’t worry, this won’t make the rice taste weird). Mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt in a pan and heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour over the rice, and mix/fluff the rice until it’s all a uniform pale pink. Let cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, sprinkle the chopped up smoked salmon with the lemon juice, and let sit for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

Fold the sesame seeds, salmon, and mitsuba or parsley into the rice, trying not to smoosh the rice grains too much. Here is how the rice looks. You can just make this into small rice balls and serve too.

Assembly

Divide the rice into as many portions as you have omelettes. Put the portioned rice on one quarter of one of the omelettes.

Fold the omelette in half, then into quarters.

Turn over so the rice part is on top (the weight of the rice helps to keep it stable). Squeeze the sides a bit so the insides can be seen.

Garnish with a few salmon eggs. This is optional but makes it really pretty. You can also sprinkle a bit of mitsuba or parsley instead.

Note that you do not need dipping soy sauce for this, since the sushi itself is already flavored quite well.

Ehoumaki (ehou maki): Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi

maki — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:17:25 +0100

(Another one from the archives. Today (February 3rd) is once again Setsubun no hi. Unfortunately, what with trying pack up the house by the end of month when we are moving, and the Bento Challenge going on over at Just Bento, I haven’t had much time to do post-worthy cooking for Just Hungry. But some should come… In the meantime, if you want to eat a big whole sushi roll for luck today, here’s how!

This year’s ehou (lucky direction) is a bit to the right of East-North-East. While I’m at it, here are the ehou for the next four years:

2009 - East-North-East
2010 - West-South-West
2011 - South-South-East
2012 - North-North-West

Enjoy your ehou maki! Originally published February 1, 2008.)

This year, setsubun no hi (節分の日)　falls on the 3rd of February (some years it’s on the 4th). It marks the start of the spring season or risshun (立春) in Japan according to the old lunar calendar. It’s not an official national holiday, but it is celebrated in ways all meant to drive away bad luck and bring in new, good luck. Most of the traditional rituals revolve around beans, because beans are considered to be very lucky. But there is another way of celebrating setsubun no hi, and that’s with a big, long, uncut sushi roll called ehou-maki.

I grew up in and around the Kanto region, which is the area around Tokyo, so I didn’t know about ehou-maki （（恵方巻き）growing up, because it’s a Kansai region (the area around Osaka and Kyoto) custom for setsubun no hi. Nowadays though the ehou-maki tradition has become popular nationwide. They are sold everywhere, especially at convenience stores, who take this as an opportunity to get people to celebrate, buy and eat in that awkward gap in between New Year’s feasting and Valentine’s Day chocolate gorging.

[Edit: ehou is pronounced eh-hoe by the way, not ee-haw.]

This made me react in So, what makes an ehou-maki different from a regular sushi roll? There are basically three rules:

It must contain seven ingredients, because seven is a lucky number.
It must not be cut, because it might cut (off) your luck.
You have to eat it while facing the lucky direction, which changes every year! This year’s lucky directly is hinoe (丙 (ひのえ)), which is a little bit to the south of south-south-east on a regular compass. If you can read kanji, this page has a good chart.
Finally, you must eat the whole roll in total silence.

A seven-ingredient sushi roll is basically a futomaki, or fat sushi roll, and that is what the directions are for. I’ve suggested several filling variations.

Last year, the Superbowl fell right on Setsubun no hi, so there’s a New York-Boston (remember it was the Giants vs.Patriots or something) filling combo below. This year, I guess the Cardinals were out of luck, ehou-maki wise. (What would have been a good Pittsburgh-themed sushi roll filling?)

You can of course order a regular futomaki from your favorite sushi takeout, and ask them to put in seven ingredients and to not cut it. Then on Sunday, face the right away, and solemnly eat your roll in total silence.

Ehou-maki, lucky seven-ingredient sushi roll

The ingredients for one roll. Increase proportionately according to the number you want to make.

A bit less than 1 1/2 cups (about 300ml) prepared sushi rice
1 sheet of nori seeweed
Seven ingredients of your choice - see below for suggestions

Equipment needed:

a sushi rolling mat. In a pinch it is possible to roll a sushi roll with plastic wrap and so on, but for futomaki the support given by a sushi rolling mat is pretty useful. Besides, they are quite cheap and available at any Japanese or Asian grocery these days.
a bowl of cold water with a little vinegar (sumizu). This is used to wet your hands, rice scooper and other utensils, to keep rice grains from sticking.

Rolling a big fat maki

Put the nori sheet, shiny-slick side down, on your sushi rolling mat.

Spread about 1 1/2 cups (lightly packed into cup; don’t smoosh down!) of sushi rice evenly over the nori, leaving about a half inch or 1 cm gap on the far side. Use your fingers dipped in the bowl of vinegar water to spread out the rice.

Pile up your filling in the middle of the rice. Don’t try to pile on too much here if you are a beginner.

Grab the near end of the sushi rolling mat to start rolling. You may need to reach around with your fingers to keep the filling in place.

Roll over the filling in one go - stopping in the middle will make for a messy roll. Squeeze tightly, and finish rolling.

Unroll. (Practice does help, so do over if your first one didn’t work.) If the roll looks a bit uneven, gently squeeze again to even out.

Optionally serve with wasabi and soy sauce for dipping.

Remember that for a ehou maki you must not cut the roll. But if you’re making a futomaki for a regular day, cut off the ragged ends (which go in your mouth) and cut the rest into 5 or 6 even pieces. Having a very sharp knife and wetting the blade before cutting helps.

Lucky seven ingredient combination ideas

Traditional Japanese

All ingredients can be bought at a well stocked Japanese grocery store.

1 dried shiitake mushroom, soaked in water until softened, then cooked in 2 cups of the soaking liquid with added 2T mirin, 1/2 cup soy sauce, and 3T sugar until very tender (about 20 minutes or more)
1 piece of kanpyou or dried gourd strip, soaked in water until soft, and cooked with the shiitake. Larger Japanese groceries like Mitsuwa often have precooked kanpyou - look in the refrigerated section.
Tamagoyaki or usuyaki tamago (Japanese style omelette)
A small piece of sushi-grade tuna or other sushi-grade fish, cut into thin strips
Some denbu （でんぶ）- pink flaked cod - found in the refrigerator section. It looks like bright pink fluff (the bright pink comes from food coloring, if that concerns you)
Grilled anago eel (kabayaki, 蒲焼き), cut into thin strips　- found in the freezer section usually
Thin stick of cucumber

The fillings I used

This rather turned into a Japanese meets Swiss sort of combo. It tasted good!

1 dried shiitake mushroom, cooked as above
Kanpyou, cooked with the shiitake as above
Finely julienned carrots
Smoked salmon (could not get sushi-grade tuna!)
Datemaki - a fish-egg combo tamagoyaki. I’ll give the recipe for this very soon, but you can use tamagoyaki instead. Datemaki is often sold at Japanese groceries (it looks like a bright yellow rolled cake), so you can use that instead.
Thinly julienned cucumber
A mild local cheese called Bachtel-Stei. You could use something like Monterey Jack or Fontina.

A vegan combo

Shiitake
Kanpyou, both cooked as above.
carrots cut into sticks and cooked with the shiitake briefly
Thin fried tofu (aburaage), blanched in hot water then cooked with the shiitake. You could also use prepared inari zushi skins.
Blanched and slivered green beans
Blanched and well squeezed out spinach
Thin stick of cucumber

A New York/Boston combo for Super Bowl Sunday

If you want your team to win, make sure you’re facing the right way when you eat the roll, and don’t say a word!

Smoked salmon or better yet, belly lox
Cream cheese mixed with mayonnaise
Thin stick of cucumber
Chopped cooked lobster (or, imitation crab sticks if you are on a budget)
Finely chopped chives
Thinly julienned pickled jalapeno peppers
Boston lettuce, cut into long thin strips

Ham and cheese combo

Almost like a Subway sandwich in a sushi roll.

Julienned boiled ham…or even spam, maybe
Avocado, cut into thin strips
Thinly julienned cucumber
Cream cheese
Thinly julienned pickles
Shredded iceberg lettuce
A couple of watercress sprigs

The Mediterranean combo

Cooked and flaked salt cod
Mayonnaise
Finely chopped olives
Boiled shrimp, finely chopped
Salt-cured anchovies, de-salinated a bit
Toasted pine nuts
Arugula

The poor student’s combo

Canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise
Finely chopped hardboiled egg
Thinly sliced onions, sprinkled with a little salt and massaged to soften, then drained
Thinly julienned carrots
Thinly julienned cucumber
Shredded lettuce, any kind
A few capers or chopped up pickle

Think up your own combinations! Just come up to seven and your karma factor is set.

Here is a TV reporter eating an ehou maki in Times Square:

And here is some dude dressed up as Homer Simpson eating an ehou maki:

More about setsubun

The way we celebrated setsubun when I was growing up was with beans. We’d go to a nearby jinja or Shinto shrine (Buddhist temples also do this), where the priests would throw toasted soybeans wrapped in paper at the crowd while everyone yelled oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! (Demons outside, luck inside!) Traditionally you are supposed to eat as many beans as your age, but the paper-wrapped beans often had about 10 to 12 beans. So, when as a 10 year old I ate 10 packets of beans, I got quite a tummy ache. Depending on the shrine or temple, the priests also throw little gifts at the crowd, and that can make things a bit scary as everyone shoves and pushes to grab them! I never caught a gift but I did get hit square in the face with something hard once at one of those things.

As I said earlier, ehou-maki is really a Kansai tradition. In the Kanto area the only real food tradition associated with setsubun is those toasted beans. Basically, raw soybeans are slowly roasted until they are crunchy and edible. Nowadays, peanuts are often substituted for the toasted beans. Some families might make some osekihan, azuki (adzuki) beans and rice which is a sort of an all-occasion celebratory dish.

A final way of celebrating setsubun no hi is to take a nice long relaxing bath, with some slices of yuzu in the water. Bathing in hot yuzu-infused water is supposed to get rid of bad spirits. At least it smells nice! In Japan you can get bath essences with yuzu oil. I’m guessing that theoretically any citrus would work, but who am I to try to play with old superstitions.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on setsubun no hi.

Classic Sukiyaki, The Quintessential Japanese Beef Hot Pot

maki — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:36:58 +0100

Sukiyaki (すき焼き）is a Japanese word that is widely known outside of Japan, but very few people have actually had the real thing　unless they’ve been invited to a Japanese person’s home for dinner - or gone to a traditional inn or ryoutei (high end traditional Japanese restaurant) where it is cooked for you at the table. This is because, like tori nabe, this is really another nabe that is cooked at the table, at home, rather than eaten at a restaurant. You may encounter ‘sukiyaki’ on some restaurant menus, but if it’s been cooked in advance in the kitchen, it really isn’t sukiyaki. (I’m not sure why there are dedicated shabu-shabu restaurants but no sukiyaki restaurants, but I think it’s because sukiyaki is so strongly associated with home cooking.)

Unlike tori nabe, sukiyaki is not inexpensive, since you need top grade steak-quality meat. If you have access to a Japanese grocery store or a butcher that is familiar with the ‘sukiyaki’ cut, you can buy ready-cut meat there. (In New York, I used to get sukiyaki meat from Schaller and Weber on the Upper East Side). If you can’t get sukiyaki meat, get a piece of sirloin with a good amount of marbling and a thick piece of fat attached. Allow for about 100 grams / 3 1/2 ounces of meat per person. You do not need to use wagyuu or Kobe beef - that would be overkill. In Japan, sukiyaki is the quintessential gochisou (御馳走) - feast or treat, because good beef is the most expensive kind of meat. It’s what you have for a special occasion, or just after payday.

Sukiyaki can be enjoyed at any time of the year, but any kind of nabe seems to be best suited to the winter, when the family can gather around the dining table helping themselves from a fragant, steaming pan of food.

There are two basic methods of making sukiyaki: Kanto, or Tokyo-area style, and Kansai, or Kyoto/Osaka area style. Since I’m from the Tokyo area I’ll show you how to do the Tokyo style, with a recipe for the Kyoto method below.

Recipe: Classic Kanto Style Sukiyaki

Feeds 4 adults

1 lb / 450g well marbled sirloin or similar, with a chunk of fat on the outside; OR about 1 lb of sukiyaki beef with a small chunk of beef fat
1 block of firm tofu or yakidofu (firm tofu that has been lightly grilled on the outside, available at Japanese grocery stores), cut into chunks (allow for 2 chunks per person)
1 small or 1/2 large chinese/napa cabbage, cut up into chunks
a bunch of green leafy vegetables - I used pak choy here (traditional green is shungiku; use what you have)
4 large or 8 small/medium raw shiitake mushrooms, stems cut off (you can use portobello mushrooms instead, sliced - 1-2 big ones)
The white of 1 leek, sliced
2-3 packs of fresh or frozen udon noodles
1 pack of rinsed and blanched shirataki noodles

For the sauce, called warishita (割り下）

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup sugar

Optional:

4 raw eggs, to serve as the dipping sauce

Equipment:

A tabletop burner (see the tori nabe article)
A sukiyaki pot (a flat cast iron pot), or a large sauté pan or frying pan with fairly high sides so that you can pile in the vegetables and so on
Long chopsticks or a long fork or tongs
Smallish bowls for serving, one per person. Breakfast cereal sized bowls are good.

If you got the hunk of steak meat, put it in the freezer until it’s half-frozen and stiff. This makes it easier to slice. Cut the outer fat off and reserve. Slice the rest against the grain into thin slices. Arrange neatly on a plate.

Cut up the vegetables and put into bowls, ready to go. Take the udon noodles out of their packets Rinse and briefly blanch the shirataki noodles. (The amount of udon noodles depends on whether you will be having rice with the meal or not. If yes, then you only need 1 or 2 packs of udon; if not, then go for more udon.)

Mix all the liquid ingredients for the warishita together and put into a jug or something. Have the sugar ready. (Note: my stepfather just pours each ingredient directly into the pot, but pre-measuring things will probably be easier for beginners)

Set out the burner, the pan, the bowls and utensils We’re ready to go now!

Heat up the pan on the burner, with the reserved piece or pieces of beef fat. Rub the fat around the pan a bit until it’s melting.

Once there’s a good film of melted fat all around the pan, pour in the sugar and mix around a bit. Then add the liquid ingredients. If the pan is hot enough it should boil up almost immediately.

Let it simmer for a bit to evaporate the alcohol in the sake and mirin. Then, add around a quarter or so of the beef slices. (Take out the beef fat pieces at this time.)

These first beef slices plus the beef fat provide the base flavor for sukiyaki, together with the warishita ingredients. Once the beef is cooking, you can start adding the other ingredients. Start with the vegetables and shiitake mushrooms, then add the tofu and shirataki. Remember to scoop out the beef slices and eat them!

Keep eating the vegetables and things as they cook. About halfway through, add the udon (if you add it earlier it can get a bit overcooked, though it will still be very tasty). Now, this is optional, but the standard dipping sauce for sukiyaki is a raw beaten egg. But only do this if you are sure of the quality of your eggs - they should be farm fresh, maybe date-stamped, or pasteurized.

Keep on taking out cooked stuff and putting more stuff in to cook. If the pan gets too dry, just add a bit of water and maybe a bit more soy sauce. Near the end of the proceedings, this is how the pan looks - everything a mellow light brown, having slurped up the goodness of that sauce.

Leftover sukiyaki, mixed with some egg and cooked, is delicious over hot rice. (You could also simmer it in a pan until the liquid is almost evaporated and use it in a bento the next day.)

Variant: Kansai Style Sukiyaki

With Kansai style, you pan fry all the meat before adding everything else. Melt the beef fat in the pan as per the Kanto style, then add the meat slices. Add the sugar to the pan and let it coat the meat. Then add the warishita, and proceed as for the Kanto style. I prefer the Kanto style because I think the meat can get a bit tough with Kansai style - and besides, that’s the method I grew up with. In Kansai style, you often add fu to the pan (reconstitute the fu in water first, squeeze out well, and add to the sukiyaki pot).

Extra: The Sukiyaki Song, which has nothing to do with sukiyaki

In 1963, a Japanese song named The Sukiyaki Song became a no. 1 hit in the U.S., even though it was sung in Japanese by a singer unknown to the west, called Kyu Sakamoto (坂本九). It was called Sukiyaki because some record executive decided that that word would sound Japanese. As the Wikipedia entry says, the original lyrics have nothing to do with sukiyaki - it’s actually a rather sad song about someone walking alone at night with a broken heart. And the original title is 上を向いて歩こう (Ue o muite arukou) - Let’s Walk Looking Upwards. Here are the original lyrics, with my translation:

上を向いて　歩こうよ Let’s walk looking upwards
涙がこぼれないように So that (my) tears don’t fall
思い出す　春の日 (I) remember that spring day (with you)
一人ぽっちの夜 A lonely night

上を向いて歩こう Let’s walk looking upwards
にじんだ　星をかぞえて Counting the blurry stars in the sky
思い出す　夏の日 (I) remember the summer day (with you)
一人ぽっちの夜 A lonely night

幸せは　雲の上に Happiness is above the clouds
幸せは　空の上に Happiness is above the sky

上を向いて　歩こうよ Let’s walk looking upwards
涙がこぼれないように So that (my) tears don’t fall
泣きながら　歩く (I) walk while crying
一人ぽっちの夜 A lonely night

思い出す秋の日　 (I) remember that autumn day (with you)
一人ぽっちの夜 A lonely night

悲しみは　星のかげに Sadness is in the shadows of the stars
悲しみは　月のかげに Sadness is in the shadow of the moon

上を向いて　歩こうよ Let’s walk looking upwards
涙がこぼれないように So that (my) tears don’t fall
泣きながら　歩く (I) walk while crying
一人ぽっちの夜 A lonely night

一人ぽっちの夜 A lonely night (I am alone tonight)

Here is the original singer, Kyu Sakamoto, singing Ue o muite arukou when he was 22 years old in 1963:

Kyu Sakamoto, known affectionately as Kyu-chan, was very popular throughout his lifetime in Japan as an all around entertainer. I was too young to know him during his singing heyday in the ’60s, and when I did become cognizant of him I rather disliked him because he was known as a do-gooder and self-promoter (he did a lot of charity work (much of it well publicized) which was not really that common for Japanese celebrities). Besides, his singing was considered awfully old fashioned by us kids.

He died tragically in the Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash at the age of 44. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate his unique singing style as well as his persona a lot more. His best songs were those with upbeat music and rather sad or wistful lyrics. Here’s another one of his big hits in Japan, 見上げてごらん　夜の星を　(Miagete goran yoru no hoshi o : Look Up At The Stars In the Sky):

I think he was so popular, especially in the 1960s, because the combination of youthful bravado and cheerfulness tinged with a sadness, even tragedy that he was able to convey, perfectly fit the mood of the times, when Japan was growing as a nation at an alarming pace while experiencing the side effects of such growth such as environmental disasters, stress and alienation. I’m not sure if he’d still be a hit in today’s more cynical Japan though.

Tori Nabe: Japanese Chicken and Vegetable Tabletop Hot Pot

maki — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:17:04 +0100

Nabe (鍋, pronounced NA-beh) is the Japanese word for a pot or pan. But it also means a one-pot dish where several ingredients are cooked together in a broth. While nabe can be cooked in the regular way on the stovetop, the most popular kind of nabe are cooked at the table on a portable burner. The quintessential image of a Japanese happy family is one that gathered around the dining table eating a nabe. (Nabe cooked at the table is also called yosenabe (寄せ鍋), which just means a nabe where the ingredients are gathered together (寄せる、yoseru). Because a nabe is piping hot, it’s a great winter meal, with very little preparation.

A lot of Japanese nabe recipes call for ingredients that are only widely available in Japan, but this is a recipe for a nabe that you can recreate wherever you are. It uses chicken and a lot of vegetables, so it’s very healthy and frugal - perfect recession cooking! The only special equipment you need is a tabletop cooker of come kind, that can sustain a boiling heat. See more about tabletop cookers in the Notes at bottom.

Recipe: Torinabe (鶏鍋), Japanese Chicken and Vegetable Tabletop Hot Pot

To serve 4 hungry adults

1 large piece of dried konbu seaweed, or about 1 Tbs. of dashi stock granules or 1-2 regular chicken stock cubes
400g / about 12 oz. boneless chicken, dark or white meat (I used dark meat) cut into cubes
1 block of firm tofu or yakidofu (firm tofu that has been lightly grilled on the outside, available at Japanese grocery stores), cut into chunks (allow for 2 chunks per person)
1 small or 1/2 large chinese/napa cabbage, cut up into chunks
a bunch of green leafy vegetables - I used spinach
1 pack of enoki or staw mushrooms, separated into small bunches
4 large raw shiitake mushrooms, stems cut off (you can use portobello mushrooms instead, sliced - one big one should do it)
The white of 1 leek, sliced
1 pack of fresh or frozen udon noodles, or 2-3 cups of cooked rice, or 1 pack of rinsed and blanched hirataki noodles, or any combination of the three

Condiments:

Soy sauce
Ponzu or yuzu or lemon

Equipment:

Tabletop cooker (see Notes below)
A stable, heavy bottomed pot, ideally one that’s attractive enough for the table (I used a medium size powder blue Le Creuset pot)
Long chopsticks or a long fork or tongs
Ladle
Smallish bowls for serving, one per person. Breakfast cereal sized bowls are good.

Put the piece of konbu seaweed in the pot and fill up halfway with water. (Ideally you want to soak the konbu for a while, so if you can plan ahead put the water and konbu in the pot in the morning or something.) Bring up to a boil. If you can’t get hold of konbu, dashi granules like Hondashi are ok. Or you could even use regular stock cubes or stock powder, though of course it won’t taste as nice. You could even use canned chicken or vegetable stock. Here I’ve used a generous piece of konbu.

Make your ingredients ready in the meantime. Here you see the cut up Chinese cabbage, spinach and enoki mushrooms. (The traditional nabe green vegetable is shungiku (edible chrysanthemum leaves), but that’s not that easy to get outside of Japan, or if you can get it it can be expensive - though look for them at you Asian grocery store. Any green will do though - here I’ve used plain old spinach, but pak choi /bok choy is good, as is Chinese broccoli, Swiss chard, and so on. Use what’s available to you. And the mushrooms can be switched around too - if you can’t get enoki or shiitake, use something else, though white button mushrooms are not that nice in this. Portobellos, chestnut mushrooms, shimeji, maitake - all are good. )

And here’s the chicken. I did leave the skin on but you can take it off if you prefer. 3 ounces / 100g may not seem like much but people will be full! Not pictured: tofu, shiitake, and the sliced leek. (The photographer forgot them.)

When the pot comes to a boil, lower the heat a bit and just start putting the ingredients in. You may want to start with the leeks, then the other vegetables - but really, there are no hard and fast rules. All you need to do is to simmer until done. The tofu and the shiitake benefit from being in the pot longer, so they can soak up the flavors from the broth, which will get more and more flavorsome as the meal progresses. Note: skimming off any scum that rises to the surface will make the broth taste better.

When things get cooked, take them out into the individual bowls with the chopsticks or tongs and the ladle. (In Japan they sell nice short wooden ladles for nabe. See if your local Japanese grocery store carries them.) Each person then adds the condiments to their taste. The traditional ones for tori nabe are ponzu and soy sauce. You can get ponzu at a Japanese grocery store or even at many regular grocery stores in the U.S. these days. If you can’t get it, fresh lemon juice will do. (If you’re in Japan, you can go one step better than ponzu and get a fresh sudachi (すだち, a greenskinned citrus fruit) and squeeze that on. Yuzu juice is nice too.)

Here’s a helping of the hot pot. Lots of vegetables, a little chicken, tofu, and some of that broth.

As the pot gets depleted, just keep adding things until you run out, or until everyone is almost full. Don’t throw out the leftover broth though - that’s the tastiest part of the meal! Usually you would cook some udon noodles in that flavor-packed broth, and serve that to end the meal. I didn’t have any udon noodles on hand, so I just put in some rice. Other things you could put into that last broth: dumplings, shirataki noodles (for the low-carb or dieting crowd), etc. - anything that can slurp up that flavor.

Nabe are great for parties, but they are really easy on the cook too since all you have to do is to cut things up and take out the burner and the pot.

Notes

Tabletop burners are not that expensive, and can be great fun. This type of gas burner is perfect. I use an electric burner since gas cooking is almost unheard of here. It’s similar to this one. The burner has to be able to sustain a boiling heat in the pot. (See if your crockpot can do this.)

Do be careful of little kids around a hot pot and burner on the table! Remember to use a heavy pot that can’t easily be tipped over.

A Proper Swiss Cheese Fondue

maki — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:14:20 +0100

Martha passed away on the 26th of December last year. When she was still healthy, we shared many a pot of cheese fondue with her during the cold winter months. Her fondue was without question, the best I’ve ever had anywhere. So in her memory, we made a proper cheese fondue.

I’ve already posted Martha’s fondue recipe 5 years ago (she was still making them then), but since it was one of the very early posts here on Just Hungry, it has no relevant picture to accompany the recipe or anything. To rectify that, here again is Martha’s proper Swiss fondue, with many photos and detailed instructions.

In Switzerland, Fondue is Cheese Fondue

Cheese fondue is a traditional Swiss dish that originated in the Alps, mainly in and around the canton of Valais (French) / Wallis (German). Contrary to popular view outside of Switzerland, it did not originate as an après-ski snack; it’s a hearty peasant dish, using ingredients that were available in the winter: cheese, wine, coarse peasant bread. And since it a traditional dish, it never went ‘out of fashion’ or ‘died out’, as you might think it did if you live in the UK or the US or any place that had the Great Fondue Craze of the ’70s, when a fondue set was a ubiquitous wedding present.

In Switzerland, ‘la fondue’ means a cheese fondue and nothing else. Other types of dip-bits-of-food-in-a-communal-pot dishes are specifically called fondue-something, e.g. fondue bourgignonne (bits of beef filet fried in a pot of oil), fondue chinoise (thin slices of beef or other things cooked in a pot of broth), and so on. (You might be surprised to know that chocolate fondue isn’t that popular in Switzerland. It may be served at touristy restaurants here, but is not a home cooking fixture by any means.)

Finally, fondue is always served as the main dish, not an appetizer or as part of a multicourse meal.

Equipment needed for a proper Swiss cheese fondue

So, what do you need for la fondue? First you need an appropriately shaped pot. The traditional shape is a fairly shallow, rounded ceramic pot with handle, like this one. The critical part is the rounded part, as we’ll see later. This is one of the two pots we have.

You also need something to keep the cheese warm. You actually cook the sauce on the stovetop, so you don’t need a tabletop burner, though you can use one on a low flame. The ideal is a spirit burner, like this one. The pot is suspended over it on the iron frame.

Finally you need fondue forks. Fondue forks are long and thin, perfect for skewering the bread. (Antique chipped hand-me-down plate is optional.)

The cheeses and other things in the sauce

The cheese sauce is usually made up of 2 or more types of cheese. A good moderately aged Gruyère (aged at least 8 to 12 months) is usually one of them, since it has such great flavor.

Another popular cheese is Emmenthaler, the stereotypical ‘Swiss cheese’ with the big holes. Emmenthaler does make the sauce very stringy and somewhat gooey, which can make it a bit hard to handle.

Martha’s preference was to use Vacherin Fribourgeois, which has a full, distinctive flavor and does not make the sauce stringy.

Her secret ingredient was one block of the ‘spreadable cheese’ that comes wrapped in foil triangles in a round cardboard box (e.g. Laughing Cow). The otherwise icky cheese helps all the cheeses melt together and stay together coherently.

The other important components in a fondue sauce are white wine and kirsch. Here in Switzerland, a young Chasselas Romand, aka Fendant, with a slight sourness is used. If you can’t get hold of such a wine, a Sauvignon Blanc will do, perhaps with a squeeze of lemon juice. And kirsch just adds that extra kick.

The bread

In Switzerland, only bread is dipped into the cheese. Any kind of bread with a sturdy crust and a fairly robust crumb is good: a decent baguette, any kind of ‘artisan’ bread. Here we used a Weizenbrot, a hearty country bread. Notice all the pieces are cut so they each have a side with crust.

I guess you could dip other things, but you will still want to have a good quantity of bread. I know people like to dip things like raw or boiled vegetables, apple or pear slices and the like (in Japan they like to dip things like boiled quail eggs, wiener sausages and chikuwa (fish sausage-like things)…), but I think that if you need vegetable crudités or fruit, they are best served alongside the fondue, and to just dip bread in the sauce. (And if you get invited to a Swiss home for fondue, you’ll only get bread in most cases.) If you are gluten-intolerant, use a gluten-free bread.

So, let’s make fondue!

Recipe: Martha’s Cheese Fondue Sauce

This amount of sauce will serve 4 people as the main course. If you only intend to have fondue as part of a bigger meal, adjust the amounts accordingly.

1 garlic clove
50ml / about 1/4 cup kirsh
2 tsp. cornstarch
400 g / a bit less than 1 lb Gruyère cheese (aged at least 8 to 12 months), shredded
400g / a bit less than 1 l Emmenthaler or Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese, shredded (Please use real Emmenthaler. A generic ‘Swiss Cheese’ will not do. Note that in Switzerland you can buy bags of pre-shredded mixed cheese called “Moitié-moitié”, meaning ‘half and half’.)
1 piece of ‘spreadable’ cheese, e.g. Laughing Cow/La Vache Qui Rit (not the mini-Babybel type, the triangular foil-wrapped soft gooey double-creme type)
3 dl / 1 1/4 US cups of young slightly sour white wine such as Chasselas or Sauvignon Blanc

Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the garlic clove. Discard the garlic. (This optional step adds a little extra flavor to the sauce.)

Dissolve the cornstarch in the kirsch. Set aside.

Put the fondue pot on a medium-heat. Add the wine and cheeses. Heat while stirring, until the cheeses melt. Add the kirsch and keep stirring until the sauce is smooth and bubbly. This takes about 20 minutes.

Now, set up your fondue pot stand and burner and transfer the pot to the stand. The burner flame (or tabletop cooker) should just be hot enough that the sauce stays how and just sort of seething on the surface. Any hotter and the cheese will burn on the bottom.

Take a piece of bread, and spear it firmly on the fork so that the crust is on the outside. You can optionally lightly dip it in kirsch at this stage.

Take your speared-bread fork and stir it around in the cheese sauce. Each person should scrape the sides and the bottom of the pot at least once with each go. This prevents the cheese sauce from sticking or burning on the sides. None of that namby-pamby dip-and-go!

Here the bread being used to scrape off the cheese bits that stick to the surface of the pot. Now you see why a rounded-sides pot is ideal; a pot with sharp angles is much harder to scrape around properly.

If you do insist on dipping other things into the sauce, you will just want to dip those lightly, but still use the bread for that stir-wipe action.

(A point of etiquette: Pull the bread off the fork with your teeth, trying not to touch the fork itself with your mouth. And absolutely no double-dipping!)

As the cheese sauce gets less and less, it will get thicker. It’s important to keep stirring-wiping. You may gradually want to lower the flame’s intensity if you can too.

When there’s just a little cheese left in the pot, turn off the heat. Keep scraping off the cheese. If you’ve done it right, you’ll just be left with a small circle of burnt on cheese, which you can carefully pry off. (Note how the pot is scraped almost clean.)

The burned bit is considered to be the final treat of a fondue. A generous cook may cut it up and share it, but a more selfish one (cough) will just pop the whole thing in her mouth.

So, there you have it. A proper Swiss cheese fondue, eaten the Swiss way.

What to drink with a fondue, and what’s for dessert

The same wine that you put into the fondue would be perfect. You could also have kirsch in shot glasses. Martha always served stron black tea, which served as a perfect palate cleanser to counteract the strong taste of the cheese sauce.

The winter fruit salad she also served as dessert (usually just whatever citrus fruits were available, like grapefruit, blood or regular orange, etc.) was a nice refreshing ending to the meal.

If you can’t use alcohol for some reason

Do remember that this sauce is properly cooked on the stovetop, not just heated through until the cheese melts, so most of the alcohol content will evaporate. Swiss kids eat fondue along with the adults and grow up to be fine upstanding citizens. If you can’t have alcohol for religious reasons and so on, this recipe is not for you I’m afraid. To satisfy your cheesy urge, try a bagna cauda - fontina cheese melted in milk. It won’t be the same though.

OMG, Turducken

maki — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:47:09 +0100

From the archives. I did this 3 years ago, and will likely never do it again. This is offered as a cautionary tale should you be contemplating creating a Turducken for your Thanksgiving or other holiday feast. Originally published on December 28, 2005.

I am not sure what came over us. We were planning a quiet, simple Christmas dinner - maybe roast a goose, or a nice chicken or two, or something. But then someone blurted out the infamous words.

"Hey, why don't we try a Turducken?"

In case you are not familiar with turducken (likely if you are not American), it is basically a Tur(key) stuffed with a duck(en) stuffed with a (chick)en. It supposedly originated in Louisiana, and has been popularized by famed New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme.

Turducken has intrigued me for some time because of the sheer American-ness of the thing. America is many things, but one of the images it has around the world is that it is a land of abundance and excess. Recently retired ABC news presenter Ted Koppel once told the story of when his family immigrated to the U.S. from post-war England. On the radio, he heard the commercial for an antacid remedy, where the jingle went "Eat too much, Drink too much, take Brioschi, take Brioschi". The young Ted burst into tears, horrified that people could actually eat so much that they had to take medicine to cure it.

I had a somewhat similar experience when my family moved from England (where we'd spent 5 years), to White Plains, a suburb of New York. At the time England was not nearly as Americanized as it is now. We were absolutely stunned by the abundance, and color, and noise, of this new country we found ourselves in. Millions of TV channels! The huge portions at the diner where our mother took us for lunch! The chef's salad bowl for one at Swenson's that was the size of a bathtub. The too-big-even-with-two-hands sandwiches where the fillings were three times thicker than the bread slices! At my first school picnic, I remember staring at the huge tubs of ice filled with what seemed like unlimited cans of soda. Back in England, soda was a rare treat, but here the kids were downing it like it was tap water. It was just too much.

Anyway, when I first saw Chef Prudhomme presenting a Turducken on CNN some years ago, I was struck by the outrageous abundance of it. Three whole birds! Three kinds of stuffing! But I never really had the urge, let alone the chance, to actually attempt to make it. The recipe on Chef Paul's site suggests that one Turducken serves 24 to 30 people. I don't know about you, but I've never made food for a party that big, excepting nibble/cocktail things where you basically put out lots of hand-to-mouth-able food. A Turducken is clearly meant for a sit-down dinner, as the centerpiece of a table that is about to collapse from the weight of the food placed upon it. In other words, a quintessential American Thanksgiving.

Here in Switzerland the American holiday of Thanksgiving is unknown, but at Christmas there was the opportunity to make a Turducken once and for all. Since I am the Resident American in these parts, it was up to me to orchestrate the making of our Swiss Turducken.

I more or less followed Chef Paul's recipe, with adjustments. The gory tale (warning: some gruesome photos) follows.

Phase One: The Planning

Frankly, I didn't plan well enough. For anyone who thinks of attempting a Turducken, here is the first word of warning:

It's going to take at least 14 hours.

The Turducken takes about 8 hours to cook, plus it needs to rest for an hour, as per Chef Paul's instructions. And the preparation takes a long, long time.

Also:

You can't do it without an assistant.

Normally I tend to discourage help in the kitchen - it hampers my movements - unless the helpers are doing menial tasks such as washing vegetables, or washing the pots and bowls that get tossed in the sink vicinity. But Turducken cannot be conquered by a single warrior.

You need a food processor, and sharp boning knives, one per worker.

Phase Two: The Purchasing and the adjustments

Turkey is not a traditional holiday food here in Switzerland. For Christmas, normally a roast goose or something is prepared. However, due perhaps to the fact that Zürich is actually quite a cosmopolitan city, it was quite easy to procure a fresh, unfrozen, and disconcertingly large turkey. LIkewise, a tiny little chicken weighing in at around 800g was available (an Aargauer Güggeli, for those in Switzerland). The duck turned out to be a bit of a problem, in that none was available in any form. (Due to the amazing pre-planning capabilities of the parties involved, the shopping was done on the afternoon of the 24th.) A frozen goose was hastily purchased, but we told him sternly that he was a duck and to shut up. The frozen part turned out to be good after all, since we dumped the three birds into a cooler overnight. The goose duckie kept its big and little brothers cool and safe whilst it defrosted.

The recipe I followed more or less called for Cornbread Stuffing, Andouille Sausage Stuffing, and Shrimp Stuffing. I couldn't even contemplate adding even more meat to this whole mess, and shrimp is expensive here in this landlocked country, so we went for a cornbread stuffing, a generic sage-and-onion stuffing using breadcrumbs and a 2 cut-up bratwurst for flavor, and a mashed squash - chestnut - sweet potato stuffing.

Here's the rough shopping list for the adjusted Turducken:

1 8 kg fresh turkey
1 3 kg frozen goose duck
1 800g fresh Aargauer Güggeli aka a small chicken
1 bag of fine-ground Polenta Mehl, aka yellow cornmeal
1 huge bag of onions, about 12 medium total
1 big bunch of celery
1 head of garlic
1 large loaf of generic country-type white bread (or homestyle loaf or Toastbrot or pain de mie, if you're in Europe)
2 large sweet potatoes
1 pack of frozen chestnuts
1 wedge of winter squash
3 bell peppers
More butter than you ever imagined possible (have at least a kilo or 4 lbs of it ready)
6 large eggs
200g or about half a pound of coarsely ground sausage (I used a bratwurst; use sweet Italian sausage or similar)

In addition, the following items we already had were used:

Paul Prudhomme's Magic Seasoning - Meat. I had purchased a bunch of these convenient mixed seasoning powders in the U.S.(they don't really exist here) - besides a couple of Magic Seasonings, I also got some Old Bay, Emeril's, and generic Poultry Seasoning and a new one for me, Montreal Steak Seasoning. I hadn't planned on making Turducken back then, but it was very convenent to have the actual mix called for. (If I didn't have it though, I would have mixed paprika, pepper, salt, thyme, sage, and whatever other dried herbs and spices that struck my fancy to come up with something similar.)
Fresh sage, still growing bravely in the frosty snow-covered garden
Salt, pepper, sugar
White flour, baking powder, baking soda

Phase Two: Stuffing

Note: if you ever attempt Turducken, Make the stuffing the previous day.

We made things in the following order:

Cornbread for the cornbread stuffing. The recipe on the Chef Paul site for Cornbread is odd - 7 tsp of baking powder? That would surely taste chemical and awful. I scrounged the web for a suitable bland cornbread recipe and used this one from About.com.
A huge mound of basic Louisiana holy trinity - that is, chopped onion, celery, and bell peppers, plus some garlic (my addition), to flavor the stuffings. Actually I did the onion/garlic/celery and the bell pepper separately, since I only wanted to put the bell peppers in the cornbread stuffing. I used a whole bunch of celery, 10 onions, and about 6 cloves of garlic, plus 3 bell peppers. All were chopped in the food processor, then sauteed in butter until transparent. We ended up with about 4 cups of the onion/celery mix, plus a small mound of the bell pepper.
The sweet-potato-squash-chestnut stuffing. This was something I just came up with, to replace the shrimp stuffing in the original. I peeled and cut up the wedge of squash and the 2 sweet potatoes, and threw them into a pot of stock-cube stock with the frozen chestnuts and simmered all until tender. The stock was drained, and the whole was mashed roughly, leaving some chunks for texture. A small amount of the "holy trinity" minus the bell pepper was added, plus a lump of butter, and the whole seasoned. It's a bit sweet but very yummy even on its own.
The sage-onion-bit-of-sausage stuffing. This was basic bread-crumb stuffing. About 8 slices of bread where whirred into rough breadcrumbs in the food processor, to make about 8 cups of the stuff. A cup or so of the "holy trinity" was added, plus about 6 chopped up fresh sage leaves (about 1 tsp of dried sage). The whole was then moistened with stock-cube stock until moist but not runny. Chunked up and sauteed bratwurst was added, and the whole seasoned.
Once the cornbread was baked, we made the cornbread stuffing. It's basically the same as the sage-onion-breadcrumb stuffing except that crumbled cornbread was used of course, and the bell pepper was added along with the rest of the "holy trinity". The seasoning was salt, pepper and the Magic Seasonings. Sage was not added.

Phase Three: Poultry Surgery: The De-boning

The time had come, to confront the birds. They all had to be almost completely deboned. I have cut up my share of chickens many times before, but had never deboned a whole bird. It's a messy, slippery, exhausting business.

The instructions on Chef Paul's site are very thorough. The only thing I didn't do was use a hammer to break bones and joints - I'm morbidly afraid of bird-bone splinters getting stuck in my throat (or worse, someone else's throat due to my cooking). All the deboning was done by patient, tedious cutting away of flesh and sinew from bone. When joints were encountered, they were just slowly cut through. No violence was used. (Well, apart from the slashing.)

This made the whole deboning process extremely long - more than 3 hours. At one point I got leg cramps because I was standing in one position for too long. I also nicked my fingers with the boning knife 5 times. (My assistant, more careful, only nicked his fingers twice.)

The most difficult bird was the turkey, simply because of its size. If I were to do this again I'd start with the chicken and work myself up to the monster. As it was, we started with the monster. For the turkey, a strong-armed assistant is essential to hoist it and turn it.

Here are some pictures of the turkey, in the process of being flayed. The whole bird was completely deboned, including the legs and the upper wings. We cut the lower wings off.

Phase Four: Time to sew up the patient

At this point I was almost ready to call it quits. I was covered in Bird Fat, my legs kept cramping up (yes I need to get into better shape), my assistant was showing signs of wanting to make a getaway. But the mound of bird had cost a total of about 120 CHF (US $100 or so). Besides, there were people to feed. We soldiered on.

The instructions called for putting each flayed bird on a sheet and spreading with stuffing. We did this, only to realize that the birds weren't also seasoned. We scraped off the stuffing, seasoned, and re-grouped.

The chicken was small enough to gather up in one hand and place in the duck. The duck could be handled with two hands, to place in the turkey. But then, we had to close up the turkey. We tried toothpicks (ha!) and skewers (we didnt have enough), but it was inevitable - the bird had to be sewn up.

This was accomplished with some kitchen twine, which we miraculously had (the last time I used it was for delicately bundling together a bouquet garni), and a tapestry needle. My assistant held the skin of the patient turkey while I laboriously pushed the needle through. At the end, he ended up looking like this.

Phase Five: Finally, into the oven

The assembled Turducken was very, very heavy, and it took the two of us to turn the thing over onto its back, so that it didn't look so much like a Frankenbird. It barely fit on the largest baking pan we had, with the legs tucked in.

Another problem was discovered once its breast side was facing us - the skin had split quite a bit, and had to be sewn together. This ended up making him look a bit like he had on a corset, but I was fairly sure the string would sort of 'burn off' and not look so gruesome once it was all cooked. (I was right.)

Well seasoned all over, the Turducken finally went into the oven, at about 105° C (the recipe calls for 225° F) The timer was set for 4 hours.

I went to wash up and take a nap. (The assistant had enough energy left over to dump the bones into two large pots with onion, celery, bay leaves and water to make stock.)

Four hours in, an aluminum foil tent was placed on him, and 3 hours more cooking ensued (the probe thermometer stated it was at temperature, 75° C, at that time. I think it cooked faster than in the Chef Paul recipe because we used a convection oven.). Then a 1 hours worth of resting time.

We watched movies, 3 in total, while we waited.

The result

Like a pretty girl with no bone structure, the Turducken is rather pretty in person but is not very photogenic. It sort of looks like a short overweight man lying on the beach at Ibiza.

We made some gravy from the drippings and the bone-stock. As for side dishes - we were planning some, but the sheer size of the Turducken was so overwhelming that we just made a green salad.

(Another bit of great planning: we didn't have any dishes big enough to hold the Turducken, so it was just carved and served from the baking plate.)

Post Mortem

As for the tasting: well, it was a bit disappointing, though no one complained (and an amazing amount of the big bird did disappear). I was hoping that the slow cooking would somehow make the turkey come out moister, but the breast meat was still rather dry. In addition, the Turducken has one big fundamental flaw - the skin of the duck is enclosed, so the fatty skin comes out flabby and inedible. If you have ever roasted a duck or goose you know that the crispy skin is the major attraction. Duck and goose are not cheap to buy, so I don't know if I would want to waste one in this way and not be able to enjoy the skin at all. The turkey skin comes out very crisp, but is too tough and leathery to me, though some others did enjoy it.

The stuffings were very good, and the turkey legs, stuffed full, were quite good. The inside part other than the turkey were all delicioius, as a matter of fact. This makes me think that perhaps a Ducken (duck stuffed with chicken) or Goosen might be more successful - and easier to consume - than a Turducken. I think I will try this some time.

But not for a long, long while. At the moment, the mere thought of deboning another bird make me want to turn into a strict vegan. Next year, we are having a nice big bowl of pasta.

Postscript: the leftover turkey tasted a lot better than it did on the actual day.

Postscript 2: For Christmas 2006, we did a simple roast goose.

Tamago dofu: Cold savory egg custard

maki — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:17:35 +0200

Previously, I explained how some dishes that are not tofu are called -tofu, because of the shape, texture or both. This is the case with tamago dofu　（卵豆腐） , a smooth savory egg custard that’s served cold.

You can make it in a square mold, to make it look tofu-like. But I prefer to keep it a lot simpler by cooking the tamago dofu in the serving container it will be served in. This can be anything as long as it’s heat-proof. Here I have used some sturdy glass cups made of pressed glass, but I’ve also used little pudding molds, tiny glass bowls made for holding ingredients while you’re cooking, and even coffee cups.

There are very few ingredients in a tamago dofu: dashi or soup stock, eggs, and a few flavorings. Because of this, each component should be of top quality, because you’ll taste each one quite clearly. Traditionally the soup component is dashi, but I don’t really like the fish flavor of dashi when it’s cold. So I prefer to make a simple vegetable stock instead.

Tamago dofu should be served ice cold. It’s a great appetizer for a summer meal, or an interesting and soothing snack. I have been guilty of making 4 cups and ‘hiding’ them so I can eat them all by myself.

Recipe: Tamago dofu in a cup

Makes 4 servings of about 3/4 cups each

For the vegetable stock:

1 medium onion
1 celery stalk
1 small fennel bulb
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
1 bay leaf
1 piece of fresh ginger, about 1 inch / 2 cm square
1 piece of kombu seaweed about 15-20 cm / 6-7 inches long

Chop up the vegetables roughly. Put everything in a pot, and add enough cold water to cover. Bring up to a boil them simmer slowly for about 20 minutes. Strain out the vegetables. (This makes more stock than you will need for the recipe; use the rest in a soup, stew, etc.)

For the tamago dofu:

4 ‘large’ eggs
2 cups / 440 ml vegetable stock or dashi
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. salt
grated fresh ginger
parsley leaves for garnish

Equipment needed:

4 heat-proof molds or cups or glasses
a fine meshed sieve, or a tea strainer
a large pan or pot with a tight fitting lid
plastic wrap
a kettle or something to boil water

Boil some water in a kettle while you assemble the tamago dofu. (I use an electric kettle.) You’ll need enough boiling water to come up at least halfway up the cups or molds you’ll be using when placed in the large pan.

Mix the soy sauce and salt into the stock. Taste and add a little more salt if needed (remember when it’s cool the flavors will dissipate a bit).

Beat the eggs with a fork or chopsticks, trying not to make it too foamy. Add 330 ml / 1 1/2 cups of the soup stock to the eggs, and mix thoroughly.

Strain the egg mixture through a fine meshed sieve. This smooths out the texture by getting rid of the bubbles and any bits of unincorporated egg white. You can skip this step if you can’t be bothered - it won’t affect the flavor, though the texture may not be as velvety smooth.

Pour the mixture slowly (so you don’t make any bubbles) into the 4 containers. Cover each with plastic wrap, then punch a few holes in the plastic with a skewer or knife tip. (The plastic prevents water drops from falling into the egg custard, and the holes allow excess steam to escape).

Put the containers into the large pan. Very carefully (don’t splash the water into the custard) pour boiling water into the pan so that the water comes at least halfway up the sides of the containers. Cover the pot with the tight fitting lid. Leave it there for 15 minutes.

At the end, the custard should be fairly firm and the color will have turned pale. It will still be wobbly. Very carefully remove the cups from the pot, take off the plastic film covers and slowly pour the rest of the stock evenly over the top of the custard. This prevents the surface from forming a film. Leave to cool to room temperature, then re-cover each cup with fresh plastic film and cool in the refrigerator until ice cold.

You can make this up to a day in advance. Serve with a little grated ginger and a parsley leaf garnish on top.

Notes

Normally tamago dofu is cooked in a steamer, or steam-cooled in a simmering water bath. Some people also make it in the microwave. For me, using any of these methods makes custard all bubbly and spongy instead of smooth. By leaving it in boiling water as specified the custard cooks all the way through but remains silky smooth. However, this method only works if you’re making individual portions as I am here - if you make a large square of tamago dofu, you will need to add heat.

If you serve this hot with some added ingredients like shrimp, ginko nut, etc. in it and serve it piping hot, it becomes chawanmushi, a classic winter dish.

(Sidenote: Sorry I took an unintended week off from blogging! What with a cold and being buried in boxes all of last week, I totally lost my appetite and my foodblogging mojo. Fortunately both seem to have returned somewhat. The cold is almost gone, though the boxes are multiplying like bunnies.)

Red, White and Blue Dessert

maki — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:48:36 +0200

(From the archives. If you’re planning a big Fourth of July party, consider this very colorful, cool dessert, which I made for a party 2 years ago. There are a lot of steps involved, but you can cut corners with storebought meringue and sugar cookies if you prefer.)

I love outdoor parties (except for the bugs!), especially when it means a barbeque. July the 4th barbeque parties are the best, and I miss them sorely when I am not in the U.S. This year though, we are going to have a July the 4th party on Sunday (since the 4th is not a holiday here), complete with grilled hamburgers, wurst, and chicken. Someone else is going to do all that grilling, so I am making the dessert.

A good dessert for a barbeque party is ideally something that you can make in advance - or at least, make most of it in advance and then just assemble it before serving. Ice cream or other frozen desserts fit the bill, but I wanted to do something a bit different. Since this is a July the 4th party, even if it will be a bit early, I needed to have something that looked all-American. And what’s more American than the flag? I think that the two nations most obsessed with their national flags are the Swiss and the Americans, so I’m sure my Swiss friends will appreciate the symbolism of red, white and blue.

Right now, local strawberries are in full season and really delicious. So that’s the red. The only edible blue I can think of short of using food coloring is blueberry, so though they are a bit early they had to do. And the white? Whipped cream and meringue. I even added a few star shaped cookies, made from a typically Swiss cookie recipe.

This red, white and blue bowl of fruity creamy goodness is a variation of a very English dessert called Eton mess. Eton mess is crushed strawberries and meringue folded together with whipped cream, and originated at the famous public school of that name where Prince William and (as far as I know) all royal family boys went to. I didn’t crush the strawberries - I sliced the big ones and left the little ones whole. I also gave them my favorite treatment: a short marinade in balsamic vinegar and a bit of sugar, which really seems to bring out the soul of the strawberry. Instead of dark balsamic though, I used white balsamic vinegar, which is mild, sweet and colorless. This left the redness of the strawberries without darkening it as the regular dark brown balsamic does. (If you can’t find white balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar is a good substitute.) Finally, instead of all whipped cream I used half whipped cream and half creme fraiche, just for a bit of added tartness and depth.

The most time consuming part of this is making the meringues. I’ve given a recipe for them which is easy to do if you have an electric beater. If you can find readymade meringues though, by all means use those.

The cookies are a type that is very popular in Switzerland called Mailander. I guess that means they originally come from Milan (Mailand is German for Milan), but they seem to be a part of Swiss culture now. They’re usually just served around Christmas, cut into little shapes. Here I have cut out tiny little stars and sprinkled them with sugar to give them sparkle. The cookies are so delicate that they crumble into the creamy, fruity, delicious mess.

The meringues and the Mailander cookies can be made way in advance (up to a week) of when you intend to make this. Here’s a rough schedule:

Day before or earlier: Make the meringues and the cookies, using the same eggs.
Night before: Prepare the strawberries and let them macerate in the balsamic vinegar.
1 hour before serving: Wash the blueberries and whip the heavy cream. Put them in the refrigerator.
Just before serving: Assemble.

The one I made and took a picture of is the rehearsal for the actual party - and of course, the model for this article! It’s not too sweet, and is really nice to eat. Don’t ask about the calorie content though…

Red, White and Blue Mess for July 4th

1 small carton of ripe strawberries
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. white balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar
1 small carton of blueberries
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 carton creme fraiche
2 Tbs. powdered (icing) sugar
About 3 cups of roughly crushed meringues
Cookies for garnish

Wash and hull the strawberries. Slice the big ones and leave the small ones whole. Put in a bowl with the vinegar and sugar and mix. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form, then whip in the sugar. Fold in the creme fraiche.

Drain the strawberries, reserving the liquid.

In a large bowl, put in half the blueberries and strawberries, the cream mixture and the crushed meringue, and rapidly fold together with a large spoon. Put into a glass serving bowl and put the rest of the fruit on top. Drizzle with the reserved strawberry liquid. Decorate the top with the cookies.

Serve immediately.

Meringue Kisses

3 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated (or castor, or superfine) sugar
A pinch of cream of tartar (optional: I find I don’t really need this)

Equipment needed:

electric egg beater/mixer. Whipping meringues by hand may be a rite of passage in a fine French restaurant but not for a warm summer day in a home kitchen.
a plastic bag
scissors
baking sheet
parchment paper
mixing bowl, spatula, etc.

Preheat the oven to 120°C/250°F.

Line two baking sheets with silicon baking pads or parchment paper.

With an electric mixer/beater, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar a spoonful at a time, whipping all the time, until the whole thing is shiny and very stiff.

Put the meringue into a plastic ziplock bag, and squeeze the mix towards one corner. Cut off the corner with scissors to make a small hole. Pipe out the mixture into little mounds onto the baking sheets. (You can also make the little mounds with two spoons, but I find the bag method way faster.)

Bake for 40 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave there for an additional 5-10 minutes. Take out and let cool.

This will make more meringues than you need for the mess, but meringue kisses are great just as cookies.

Lemony Mailander Cookies

225g / 8 oz. unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbs. lemon juice
2 Tbs. grated lemon zest
2 1/2 cups plain white regular flour (all-purpose)
Extra granulated sugar (or if you can find it, decorating sugar is nice; it’s more sparkly than granulated.)

Equipment needed:

baking sheets
rolling pin
silicon baking pads or parchment paper
small star shape cookie cutter
mixing bowl, spatula, etc.

Note: I do this in a food processor - it mixes up in no time. You can mix by hand too.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and mix. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest.

Add the flour gradually and mix until a soft dough forms. (If using a food processor, pulse to mix.)

Put the dough into a plastic bag and chill until firm.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F. Line two baking sheets with silicon baking pads or parchment paper.

Roll out the dough to about 1/4cm / 1/8th inch thick (or fairly thin..it’s not an exact science!) on a lightly floured surface. Working as fast as you can, cut out your star shapes and put on the baking sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes or until very lightly browned. Take them out and sprinkle with the sugar. Let cool.

This will make a lot more cookies than you need for the garnish - just pass out the rest, they are sure to disappear. Or, keep them for yourself to enjoy later.

Takoyaki, the great street snack that's fun to make at home

maki — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:55:35 +0200

[Note: The video I mention below that was so great has been withdrawn due to copyright violation from YouTube. I’ll replace it with more complete instructions as soon as I can, but in the meantime you can still make takoyaki from the recipe.]

Takoyaki is the small, round cousin of okonomiyaki, and like okonomiyaki it originated in Osaka. It’s basically a flavored batter with a tiny piece of octopus (tako) inside, and is a quintessential street food snack.

Since my family is from the Tokyo-Saitama area (the Kanto area), this puts me at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to making takoyaki. Sure I’ve had it dozens of times, but I can’t say I have had the chance of seeing it made really up close. With okonomiyaki, my ex-brother in law was from Osaka and we got to enjoy his okonomiyaki making prowess, which was one of his few redeeming features, quite a lot. But his tabletop cooking skills did not extend to takoyaki.

I do have some books and so on dedicated to the subject. But I didn’t really ‘get’ how to make takoyaki until I stumbled upon a terrific how-to video. It’s far better than anything I can come up with myself, so I would simply like to transcribe and translate it for your benefit, with my notes. The recipe and method described turn out terrific takoyaki - piping hot, slightly crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

Takoyaki maker or takoyaki plate?

Takoyaki making is quite time consuming, and the little balls are best eaten while piping hot, so I recommend a tabletop model over a takoyaki plate you put on the stovetop. Also note that if you have an electric, ceramic top or induction range (as I do), a regular takoyaki plate will not function properly since there won’t be enough contact surface. My takoyaki maker is a fairly inexpensive single-purpose electric model. You can also get fancier models with interchangeable plates for grilling, teppanyaki, etc besides the takoyaki plate.

Takoyaki makers are available at Japanese-oriented electronic or housewares stores. Cheap ones are also available on eBay, but be aware that most are Japanese 100W - 50/60hz models, which will not work as-is in Europe. They will work on U.S. 110W but could potentially be a fire hazard, so for safety you should use them with a transformer. (If you’re buying a takoyaki maker in Tokyo, be sure to let the salesperson know you will be using it overseas. If you’re shopping in Akihabara they’re used to dealing with this situation.)

It’s generally not recommended to use takoyaki plates on a tabletop gas cooker by the way, because the plate can trap heat underneath and potentially damage the cooker surface. So if you do get a takoyaki plate, just use it on your stovetop.

Other equipment you need

A brush or a wad of cotton wool or paper towel to oil the takoyaki plate. You can get a dedicated takoyaki brush, but I just use a makeshift paper towel ‘brush’.
A wooden skewer or two to flip the takoyaki. Never use metal skewers, which can damage the surface of the plate. Cocktail sticks are not good either since your hand will be too close to the hot surface of the griddle.
A small ladle to pour the batter.

The best takoyaki instructions ever

So, here is the video that teaches you all! It’s a segment from an NHK program called _Takmeshite gatten_ （ためしてガッテン）, which sort of means “Try it out and be convinced”, a show that tries out various theories and methods (not just related to cooking) and sees what the best way is. Anyway, watch the video all the way through first. The title of the segment is “Make pro quality takoyaki at home!”

(The video has been removed since it’s no longer functioning. I’ll replace it with my own instructions as soon as possible. You can still use the recipe below though.)

The batter recipe

This batter is really easy to make, and yields great takoyaki! No fiddling about with grated nagaimo or anything, and no need to buy special okonomiyaki flour. They say it’s for 4 people. I’ve found makes about 60 balls in total (allowing for some mistakes).

300g / 10.5 oz hakuriki ko (low-gluten white flour): use cake flour (preferred) or all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 liter (4 1/4 cups) of ice water, with the cubes strained out before adding to the mix
3 grams salt (about 2/3 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. kombu dashi stock granules
1/2 tsp. katsuo dashi stock granules
2 tsp. soy sauce

My adjustments: I made dashi stock using the cold water method instead of using the dashi stock granules, and increased the salt to 5 grams to compensate. The dashi was ice cold from being in the fridge anyway, so I just put in a few ice cubes. The water/dashi is ice cold to prevent the gluten in the flour from developping. If you are using dashi granules, you can just use a teaspoon of one type (such as Hondashi).

To make the batter: Beat the eggs, and mix together with the ice water and dashi stock granules (or ice cold dashi) and soy sauce. Add the flour, and mix together lightly. Don’t worry about getting all the lumps out - it’s best not to overmix the batter. So easy!

The octopus (tako)

You just need a small amount of boiled octopus legs. It should ideally be cut up so each piece gets a bit of the suckers, for texture.

Now, call me blasphemous, but I do not think you necessarily need octopus to make takoyaki. You just need a little bit of something to provide a change in texture. I have used things like cut up chikuwa, squid legs, or (gasp, horror) wieners instead of the octopus. (My experimentation in this area came about when the fishmonger refused to sell me a single octopus leg, and I didn’t want to deal with a whole ugly octopus.) Whatever you use, just have it cut up into little squares and ready to go.

The oil

You need some flavorless cooking oil to oil the takoyaki pan. I use peanut oil.

Making the takoyaki

The points:

Heat up the pan before starting.
Oil the little sections (they are using a dedicated oiling brush, but you can use a wadded up paper towel or a wad of cotton wool held with chopsticks. Be sure to oil the top of the pan too.)
Pour in the batter - don’t worry if it overflows a bit. You don’t need to fill all the compartments either (I find that dealing with 14 or 15 compartments at a time is my maximum. If you are just starting out, try about 8 or 10. For some reason, all Japanese takoyaki makers have 18 compartments.)
As soon as the batter is poured, drop in the octopus bits, one per compartment.
When the outsides are sort of dried out, cut through the connected bits (where the batter ran out) and turn them over about 90 degrees with the wooden skewer. If you turn them too early the takoyaki will collapse and turn into a sad, ragged lump of goo. It takes a bit of practice to gauge when to turn the balls over, but you soon get the hang of it.
Turn the balls over all the way. Keep flipping then round and round with the skewer.
If the ball has a little hole, add a tiny bit of batter to an empty section and put the ball hole-side down into the batter (around 2:20-2:40)
The takoyaki are done with they feel lighter when you poke and turn them with the skewer, and are lightly browned a a bit crispy on the outside.
The key is for the takoyaki to be hollow on the inside. This allows the insides to steam, which cooks them nicely while retaining a creamy texture.

It only takes them a minute or so to make the takoyaki in the video, but it is edited down. I find it takes about 7-8 minutes per batch. Your results may vary.

Serve immediately with chopsticks or cocktail sticks, and dipping sauces.

The dipping sauces

When you buy takoyaki, they usually come smothered in okonomiyaki or ‘Bulldog’ sauce, sometimes mayonnaise, bonito flakes, powdered aonori (a green nori) and pickled red ginger. But I really like the less-is-more suggestions. They have three dipping sauces:

Okonomiyaki or ‘Bulldog’ sauce, the conventional dipping sauce. You can mix this with mayonnaise. (My suggestion is to buy either one type of ‘Bulldog’ sauce and adjust if necessary for things like okonomiyaki and takoyaki instead of buying a bunch of sauces that are labeled as okonomiyaki sauce and so on. They all taste fairly similar.)
Nihai-zu: 150ml (about 2/3 cup) dashi stock, 1 Tbs. soy sauce, 2 tsp. vinegar. This is my favorite - the slight sourness with the saltiness is very refreshing.
Osumashi (clear soup): 500ml (a bit more than 2 cups) dashi stock, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. soy sauce. This is good if it’s ice cold, to counteract the piping hot takoyaki.

You could also try: regular American ‘steak sauce’ mixed with a bit of mayonnaise; oyster sauce; sweet chili sauce; barbeque sauce; even olive oil mixed with salt. Experiment!

Once you have had freshly made, hot off the griddle takoyaki, you will never buy those frozen dough balls again. Cold takoyaki can be reheated, but really - they are so much superior freshly made, that I never bother to make extra.

I do hope the video doesn’t get taken down - if it is I’ll replace the instructions here accordingly. In the meantime, watch it a few times and witha little practice, you’ll be on your way to takoyaki perfection! (Footnote: At the end of the video, the celebrities each write a little poem (haiku-like but not quite) about takoyaki. A bit corny perhaps, but it made me think about writing little poems to some of my memorable meals!)

party food

Easter Bunny Cupcakes

Recipe: Rich Tea Cupcakes

Recipe: Lemon Icing

Recipe: Fondant

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

Assembly

Ehoumaki (ehou maki): Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi

Ehou-maki, lucky seven-ingredient sushi roll

Rolling a big fat maki

Lucky seven ingredient combination ideas

Traditional Japanese

The fillings I used

A vegan combo

A New York/Boston combo for Super Bowl Sunday

Ham and cheese combo

The Mediterranean combo

The poor student’s combo

More about setsubun

See also

Classic Sukiyaki, The Quintessential Japanese Beef Hot Pot

Recipe: Classic Kanto Style Sukiyaki

Variant: Kansai Style Sukiyaki

Extra: The Sukiyaki Song, which has nothing to do with sukiyaki

Tori Nabe: Japanese Chicken and Vegetable Tabletop Hot Pot

Recipe: Torinabe (鶏鍋), Japanese Chicken and Vegetable Tabletop Hot Pot

Notes

A Proper Swiss Cheese Fondue

In Switzerland, Fondue is Cheese Fondue

Equipment needed for a proper Swiss cheese fondue

The cheeses and other things in the sauce

The bread

Recipe: Martha’s Cheese Fondue Sauce

What to drink with a fondue, and what’s for dessert

If you can’t use alcohol for some reason

OMG, Turducken

Phase One: The Planning

Phase Two: The Purchasing and the adjustments

Phase Two: Stuffing

Phase Three: Poultry Surgery: The De-boning

Phase Four: Time to sew up the patient

Phase Five: Finally, into the oven

The result

Post Mortem

Tamago dofu: Cold savory egg custard

Recipe: Tamago dofu in a cup

Notes

See also

Red, White and Blue Dessert

Red, White and Blue Mess for July 4th

Meringue Kisses

Lemony Mailander Cookies

Takoyaki, the great street snack that's fun to make at home

Takoyaki maker or takoyaki plate?

Other equipment you need

The best takoyaki instructions ever

The batter recipe

The octopus (tako)

The oil

Making the takoyaki

The dipping sauces