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Leaf shaped black sesame cookies with matcha tea icing

maki — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:34:18 +0200

[From the archives. These sesame cookies with matcha icing look and taste quite dramatic. In leaf shapes they are rather spring-like, but try simple rounds or squares for year-round appeal. Originally published in April 2007.]

Flavor wise black sesame seeds aren’t that different, if at all, from white or brown sesame seeds. But there is something about their dramatic black-to-grey color that is quite exciting. At the moment I’m quite enamored with black sesame seeds, and have been using them instead of the regular brown ones in everything from sauces to salads.

These leaf shaped cookies contain toasted and ground black sesame seeds, dark brown muscovado sugar, and whole wheat flour, and are decorated with matcha (powdered tea) royal icing. The sweetness is quite restrained, both in the cookie and in the icing. You are first hit by the tea-flavored, very slightly bitter icing, followed by the nutty darkness of the cookie. It’s an intriguing combination. They are a wonderful accompaniment to tea, black or green, hot or iced. If the ultimate cookie to you means something very sweet and gooey you may not like these. They are quite adult cookies.

I had to shoot the pictures in a hurry, because they were disappearing faster than almost any other cookie I’ve made recently.

Since I don’t have a leaf shaped cookie cutter, I just made a simple paper template and cut the leaves out with a knife. You can cut them out into any shape you’d like of course, though given the coloring leaves seem appropriate. Quite spring-like, in fact.

Black sesame cookies with matcha icing

For the cookies:

50g / 1.75 oz. raw black sesame seeds
120g / 4.25 oz. dark brown or muscovado sugar. In Japan I would use kurozatou （黒砂糖）preferably from Okinawa.
250g / 8.8 oz. whole wheat flour
100g / 3.5 oz. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 tsp. salt
1 large egg
A few drops of pure almond extract

For the icing:

8 Tbs. powdered (icing) sugar
2 Tbs. matcha tea powder
1 Tbs. egg white or egg white substitute

Equipment needed:

kitchen parchment paper or baking paper
cookie cutter or sharp knife and a paper template
mortar and pestle or suribachi for grinding the sesame seeds
rolling pin

Toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until they just start to pop. Immediately remove from the pan.

In a mortar and pestle or suribachi, or with an electric grinder, grind up the sesame seeds until they have turned into a fragrant powder.

In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the ground up sesame and almond extract. Beat in the egg.

Add the flour a little at a time. The dough may not form a ball - it will be a bit on the dry side. Put into a plastic zip bag, and roll flat with a rolling pin. Put in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon sheet.

Take the cookie dough out, and cut open the plastic bag with scissors. Cut out the cookies with cookie cutters or using a paper template and a sharp small knife. Place the cookies on the lined baking sheet.

Bake for 25 minutes. You may need to rotate the baking sheets once if the cookies are baking unevenly.

As the cookies area baking, make the icing. Mix together the icing (powdered) sugar and the matcha powder. Add the egg white, mixing well to a spreadable but not too thin paste.

When the cookies are baked, take them out and cool, preferably on a cooling rack. Let cool completely.

Once the cookies are cooled, spread with the icing. Let dry on the cooling rack until the icing has firmed up.

Store the cookies (if any survive that long) in a cool, dry place.

Notes

Make absolutely sure that the sesame seeds are fresh, and not rancid. Taste and sniff - if it seems even the least bit off to you, it’s Not Good and has to be thrown out. The best way to store raw sesame seeds? Well wrapped, in the freezer.

If you can’t get a hold of whole wheat cake flour, use regular white cake flour or all-purpose flour. Regular whole wheat flour might make the cookies a bit dry.

Use the best quality matcha you can afford - keeping in mind that matcha is not cheap at all.

You can also use white icing - mix powdered sugar with a little lemon juice and egg white to form a paste. Or, leave the cookies unadorned - they look quite interesting that way too.

(Want more matcha? Check out these matcha shortbread cookies by Clotilde on Chocolate and Zucchini.)

Savings Techniques for Women Who Can't Save

maki — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:44:11 +0200

This article about my favorite Japanese personal finance book is part of Frugal Food Month. While it’s not directly about food, I hope it’s of interest to Just Hungry readers anyway!

Previously, I wrote about some household budget management tools and methods which are fairly standard in Japanese society. While I’ve known all about these things for years - the kakeibo household ledger, the envelope management method, and so on - I had a hard time following these methods myself for a very long time. As a result, my personal savings have always been on the meager side, to put it mildly.

It actually took a small book that I picked up a couple of years ago to make me really see the light. The book is called Finally This Time! Savings Techniques for Women Who Can’t Save (貯められない女のためのこんどこそ!貯める技術). It’s actually a manga (comic) book. In Japan, it’s quite common for difficult concepts to be explained with manga. And what’s more important to really understand than how to manage your money?

The book starts by recounting how the author, Kyoko Ikeda, was totally unable to accumulate any kind of savings. One day she discovers that she only has about 11,000 yen in the bank (roughly US $110 at current exchange rates), and that has to last her for 10 days until her next client payment (she’s a freelance illustrator and manga artist) is due in. She somehow manages to make it through those ten days, and goes to the bank fully expecting the client payment to be in…and it isn’t. She has a serious moment of panic, especially when she goes home and tries to get online - and she can’t. Has her internet already been cut off due to nonpayment? What is she going to do? What about the rent that’s due?

She survives that crisis when the payment is credited to her account later that day. Some time later, she goes to a class reunion, where she talks to a former classmate who not only have bought their own home already, but has paid off the mortgage. She realizes that she’s single, in her late 30s, has no savings or any kind of assets to her name, and is always living from payment to payment, walking a financial tightrope.

She wonders, where has all the money gone? It’s not like she hasn’t been earning a good income. Her basic expenses like rent are not that high either. She doesn’t buy expensive clothes or accessories, or go on lots of trips. When she really analyzes her past spending habits, she realizes that she’s just been frittering her money away. Where did it go: On things like an expensive computer she really couldn’t afford (on ‘easy monthly payments’ of course); lessons for things she was all fired up to learn, but never followed through on; equipment and stuff for hobbies soon abandoned. She also has a habit of comforting herself with food (chocolate, an ice cream sundae, a nice curry at the local restaurant…) or little trivial, non-lasting purchases (Aromatherapy! Miracle skincare products!) Finally, she’s also always fighting clutter and disorganization at home, and constantly buying new organizing gear - more shelves, more boxes, more…

Does any of this sound familiar to you? To me, it was almost like reading about myself, especially the parts about using small purchases to make myself feel better. And getting frustrated with all the clutter and going out to buy more and more organizing gear. Oh, and the part about spending too much on computer stuff too. And the supplies for soon-abandoned hobbies (ouch!). And the lesson fees for half-finished courses (ouch again!). And, and… The similarities were quite shocking.

Keeping it simple

Of course, it wouldn’t be a personal finance book without solutions. What made sense to me was that she kept it very simple.

Every month, she’d subtract her fixed costs - rent, utilities, and so on from her income.
The rest, she withdrew as cash and divided up into envelopes (see the envelope method described previously). She made a strict pact with herself never to let one envelope/category “borrow” from another; e.g. if her entertainment expenses envelope ran out, no transferring from her office supplies envelope!
She kept a kakeibo (household ledger), but didn’t use a commercially available one, since she found the categories to be too complicated. She just used a regular notebook, using 2 pages per week, and used broad categorizations that fit her lifestyle and spending patterns. One that made a lot of sense to me is that she divided her food spending into ‘food for survival’ and ‘food for comfort/entertainment’ categories. Things like eggs, milk, vegetables were ‘food for survival’; chocolate, cake, or eating out for the sake of eating out were ‘food for comfort/entertainment’. Most if not all Japanese pre-printed kakeibo divid ‘food’ into too many categories (carb, protein, vegetables, etc) which can get tedious to keep track of.
Instead of writing down what she spent, she just stuck down her receipts and wrote down the totals.
She got rid of unplanned spending. Whenever she wanted to buy something, she would write down her requirements first, and carry the notes around until she found something that fit.
She had a couple of variations on the coin saving scheme. First of all, whenever she could she paid with bills rather than coins, so she’d always end up with change. Then any change, especially ‘big’ change (500 yen coins) left at the end of the day was put into the coin jar. (That would be easier to duplicate in countries that have big-denomination coins; here in Switzerland I try 5 franc and 2 franc coins. In the US, you could try quarters, those elusive dollar coins, or even $1 and $5 bills.) At the end of the month, the contents of the coin jar were deposited into a separate savings account, at a different savings institution from her regular bank (she chose the post office).

Decluttering leads to saving

Ms. Ikeda’s best known books are actually about decluttering and organization. I picked those up before getting to her savings book. In any case, she says, and I agree from my own experience, and decluttering your personal space leads to saving money too. Not only do you stop wasting money on duplicate purchases (10 pairs of scissors because you keep misplacing them, etc.) but clearing your physical space seems to clear your mental space too.

So, has it worked for me?

Since reading this book as well as her decluttering books, I can say that I have improved my personal finances quite a bit, as well as decluttered my environment and life. It’s been a small yet significant factor in leading to the situation I’m in now, looking for an ideal place to live and work, with just enough funds to make that choice. So I’d say it has worked, and is continuing to work.

Ms. Ikeda has a lot of other ideas in her little book, some of which go a bit too far for me (like when she determines that white flour is the cheapest carb, and tries to live on udon, okonomiyaki, and so on). But I truly love this book. Maybe it should be translated into English! In any case I’ve tried to cover the highlights of the book here. If you do read Japanese at all, and have problems with saving money, I highly recommend it. Besides being practical, it’s very cute and funny too, and while the title says ‘For Women Who Can’t Save’ it’s just as useful for men too I think. (Her organizing and decluttering books are just as good, if not even better. If you all are interested I’ll try to describe them also in an upcoming post. She’s also published a couple of books on investing in stocks, and new one on dieting, but I haven’t read those yet.)

(Note: a related post on my language blog about a term she uses often…that leads to a lot of wasteful spending!)

Inarizushi (sushi in a bean bag) Redux: Cooking your own inarizushi skins

maki — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:02:50 +0100

Four years ago I posted a very basic recipe for inarizushi, homely sushi that is stuffed into a fried tofu skin or aburaage. It’s been one of the most popular articles here on Just Hungry ever since. That only gave instructions for stuffing pre-made (canned or vacuum packed) skins, so I thought I’d update it with instructions for making your own inarizushi skins from scratch. These instructions will be particularly useful to vegetarians and vegans, since most if not all premade skins are cooked in a fish-based traditional dashi stock. And, for all of you who have had problems making Eggs in Treasure Bags with those small, thin canned skins: You’ll find that making the eggs from your own, sturdy skins is so much easier.

Preparing aburaage (fried tofu skins)

Aburaage (油揚げ) are made from plain tofu that’s been sliced and then deep fried. When the slices are deep fried, they turn crinkly and form an air pocket inside. You can find aburaage in the refrigerated or freezer section of a Japanese grocery store. They are made in the same way as Chinese ‘tofu puffs’ or ‘bean curd puffs’, except they are large and flat instead of small and puffy.

This is how plain aburaage look.

They usually come packed 2 to 3 to a bag. I always keep aburaage in the freezer until I need them.

In Japan, aburaage are mostly used in stewed dishes, soups, and so on. Before it’s cooked, you must blanch and de-oil it. This process is called aburanuki (油抜き) or yudoushi (湯通し); any Japanese cook knows how and when to do this, but it’s one of those details that can get forgotten in translation so to speak. Anyway, it’s very easy to do. Just put the whole aburaage in boiling water to cover for a couple of minutes.

Then drain the boiling water off. This gets rid of some of the surface oil. Let the aburaage cool down before handling further. You can wipe off even more surface oil by patting the aburaage down with paper towels. (Untreated aburaage is about 80-100 calories each, depending on the size; the de-oiling treatment gets rid of 15-20 calories worth of oil.)

At this point, you can use the aburaage as-is, cut into strips and put into miso soup for example, or just cut into half and simmered for a bit in udon noodle soup for kitsune udon. But do remember: When simmering aburaage, always de-oil it. It makes all the difference.

Recipe: Inarizushi skins

Once you have de-oiled your aburaage, making inarizushi skins from them is easy. I like to cut them in half first so that they are ready to stuff once they’re cooked. I’m finding that the aburaage I can buy these days have nice big air pockets inside, so I don’t have to do anything for them to naturally form bags. But if you find yourself with skinny aburaage where the sides ‘stick’ inside, you can loosen them up by rolling a chopstick over the surface before de-oiling. Then after de-oiling, you can gently pry the sides apart to form the bag.

Once you have your cut-in-half aburaage ‘bags’, it’s time to cook them. This amount of poaching liquid is enough for 12 skins, or 6 (2 packs) of aburaage cut in half.

About 1 1/3 cups (350ml) vegan dashi stock, traditional dashi stock, or plain water with 1 tsp. of dashi granules, OR just plain water
3 to 4 Tbs. sugar (depending on how sweet you want them to be), or an equivalent amount of alternative sweetener
2 Tbs. sake
2 Tbs. mirin
3 to 4 Tbs. dark soy sauce (depending on how salty you want them to be)

Combine all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and put in your de-oiled and cut in half aburaage skins. Simmer for about 15 minutes, until the liquid has evaporated down to about half the original amount. Turn off the heat and let the skins cool down in the liquid.

You can store them in the cooking liquid, well covered, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. I haven’t really tried freezing them, but you could try it out.

When you’re ready to use the skins, just squeeze them out lightly so they aren’t dripping. These skins are bigger (not to mention sturdier and easier to handle) than the canned kind, so you’ll need more sushi rice per inarizushi, about 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Here is my basic sushi rice recipe; optionally add a teaspoon extra of sugar to the sushi vinegar mix. You can also try the lower calorie mix with hijiki seaweed, or mix in some toasted sesame seeds, shelled edamame, salmon flakes or furikake - whatever strikes your fancy.

You can present the inarizushi with the open end tucked under and down, as I described in the original inarizushi article. Note that the homemade inaruzushi skins are much lighter in color than the sometimes rather virulently reddish-brown canned kind. They are subtler in flavor too - you can really taste the tofu skin itself.

You can also present the inarizushi with the open end up (optionally fold down the edges for neatness). This is especially nice if you have colorful mixed rice as a filling. Here I’ve used some chopped up umeboshi in the rice, as well as as decoration. The umeboshi gives a subtle pink tint and pleasant sourness to the rice. (I used brown rice to make the sushi rice, which is why it’s beige-ish.)

Another inarizushi stuffing technique, not shown here, is to turn the skins completely inside out, and then stuff as normal. This gives the inarizushi a sort of lacy look, which gives a nice contrast if you line when up with regular outside-in brown inarizushi on a plate or in a bento box.

For people who live outside of Japan, the only drawback to making your own inarizushi skins (besides the slight bother of actually cooking them) is that fresh or frozen aburaage can be rather expensive, compared to the long-shelf-life canned skins. (In Japan aburaage is a great budget protein!) Still, the flavor and texture are so much better, so if you can get a hold of aburaage, I hope you give it a try!

Japanese Basics: How to make Japanese-style plain rice and sushi rice

maki — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:40:50 +0100

This is the first how-to and recipe that I posted on Just Hungry. Properly cooked rice is the foundation of a traditional Japanese meal, and you absolutely cannot skimp on the steps detailed here if you are aiming for anything approaching authenticity. I've edited the text to make some things clearer. Back to basics! Originally published in November 2003.

Rice is the staple of Japanese food, and making it just right can be rather difficult if you don't know how. If you think you will be preparing rice regularly, an electric rice cooker will make your life so much easier. (See About rice cookers.) You can cook non-Japanese style rice and other grains in a rice cooker too.

Japanese rice, or japonica rice, is a very particular variety. For traditional Japanese dishes you simply cannot substitute long-grain rice, jasmine rice, basmati rice, Carolina type rice, and so on. I sometimes hear people saying things like "But I can make onigiri with jasmine rice just fine, as long as I cook it so it's mushy and the grains stick together". No no no no no. A good onigiri, a good sushi roll, a good nigiri-zushi, and most of all a good bowl of rice does not have mushy rice.

The one non-japonica variety that does work fairly well is Italian vialone rice, which is a medium-grain rice similar to japonica rice. Arborio, carnaroli and the rice sold as 'pudding rice' or 'milk rice' in some countries are also medium-grain, but they tend to have too much rice starch, which is what makes that creamy texture in risotto or rice pudding. Vialone has less starch coating and therefore works well. See Looking At Rice for more information about different types of rice.

Ideally, the rice should be quite fresh. The best rice is new rice called shinmai, purchased within 3 months of harvest. Unfortunately, it's just about impossible to buy rice that fresh outside of Japan. Just buy the best rice you can afford. Once you learn how to make rice properly, you will really taste the difference between different kinds of rice.

Some popular 'first grade' Japanese rice varieties include Sasanishiki, Koshihikari and Akita Komachi. They tend to be expensive.

Recipe and Procedure: Japanese style plain rice

The washing and rinsing steps may seem like a bother, but they are absolutely critical to producing properly cooked Japanese style rice. Do not skimp on this! This is a common mistake made by people new to Japanese cooking.

To make 4 cups of cooked rice, you will need:

A heavy-bottomed pot with a tight fitting lid, or an electric rice cooker
2 cups of uncooked japonica rice or 'sushi rice' (or substitute Vialone)
2 1/4 cups of water

Measure out the rice carefully into your pot and rinse vigorously under running water. Swish the rice around with your hands - the water will turn a milky white color.

Drain the cloudy water away and add fresh water, and swish the rice around again. Repeat this step 2 - 3 times.

Drain, leaving just a little water, and rub the grains together several times with the palms of your hands gently as if you were polishing them.

Add plenty of fresh water and rinse out the rice. Drain and rinse until the water is almost clear.

Drain the rice in a fine mesh sieve and leave for a little while, preferably at least 30 minutes.

Put rice in a rice cooker or pot. Add the water to the rice. At this point you should let the rice soak for a while. The length of time depends on the quality and freshness of the rice. The older the rice, the longer it needs to soak. Soaking for at least 30 minutes to an hour is generally recommended, but don't soak for more than 8 hours or so or the rice will get a bit watery and lose any flavor. And if the weather is too hot, it might even start to ferment! (Some rice how-tos emphasize the importance of soaking, but I think the washing and rinsing is the most critical part of making proper rice, which is why it's described in so much detail here.) Brown rice however does need to be soaked before cooking (see cooking brown rice).

If you are using a rice cooker, just switch on (or if you need the rice later, set the timer; you can calculate in the soaking time here.) If you are using a pot, bring to a boil over medium heat then put on a tight fitting lid. Cook on high for 1 minute, then reduce the heat to medium, and cook for another 4-5 minutes until you can see the surface of the rice, then reduce to low heat for about 10 minutes or until the water is completely absorbed. (Don't open the lid to peek!) Turn up to high heat for a few seconds to get rid of any excess moisture if necessary.

If you are using a pot, remove it from the heat and drape a cloth over the pan for about 10-15 minutes to let it fully absorb the moisture and rest. This final step really makes a difference if you want grains that stick together but are not mushy or watery. A good rice cooker includes this resting time in the cooking cycle, and also allows for condensation to evaporate, so you don't need the cloth draping step.

Sushi rice

Once you have mastered plain rice, turning it into sushi rice (shari) just requires a few more steps. Sushi rice (called shari by sushi chefs) is rice that is flavored with dashi, rice vinegar, and salt.

Substitute cooled dashi stock for the water. Cook as per the above instructions.

You will need a large bowl or plate for the next step, preferably a wooden one made for this purpose called a hangiri. You can buy a hangiri at any Japanese kitchen equipment store, and even from Amazon. The advantage of using a wooden hangiri is that the untreated wood absorbs excess moisture from the rice. You can also use a large serving plate or a bowl, though that won't have the moisture-absorbing quality.

You also need a sturdy rice paddle or spatula. rice cookers come with a rice paddle.

Take 1/4 cup of bottled or homemade sushi vinegar (sushi-zu or awase-zu, see recipe below). Moisten your spatula or paddle with a little of the vinegar. Turn your hot rice out into the bowl or plate, Pour the sushi vinegar over the rice.

Working rapidly, turn and mix the rice, taking care not to squish the grains. You should use a cut-turn-fold motion sort of like when you mix in egg whites into a cake batter. This you do with one hand. With your other, rapidly fan the rice to cool it as quickly as possible. This ensures that the grains will be nice and glossy and not mushy. Rope in an assistant to do the fanning, or else do what I do and use a hair dryer on the 'cool' setting. Keep going until the rice has absorbed the vinegar, and has cooled down to about body temperature (it should be just a bit warm to the touch).

Recipe: Sushi vinegar mix (awase-zu)

If you can't get prepared sushi vinegar you can make it thus:

Mix 1/4 cup of rice vinegar or mild cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 tablespoon of mirin, sake or sweet brandy, and 1/2 tablespoon of salt. Heat over low heat in a small saucepan, and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. This is enough to flavor 4 cups of rice, so adjust the amount according to the amount of rice you have.

Melt In Your Mouth 'Raw' Crème Fraîche Caramels

maki — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:37:39 +0100

Since last year, there has been a craze for something called nama kyarameru (生キャラメル, raw caramel) in Japan. The demand has been so great that people form long lines to buy it, and at least at the beginning of the fad there were frequent reports of sell-outs and long waiting lists. Raw caramel means meltingly soft caramel candies that have been made with fresh milk, fresh butter, and no additives. It’s been a great marketing ploy for some dairy farmers in Hokkaido.

Given that getting nama kyarameru from Hokkaido is not that easy for me, and believing firmly in the superiority of Swiss dairy products, I set about to make my own version. After many attempts, here is my version of raw caramel. They have a very slight fermented-sourness from the crème fraîche, and the pure salt flavor from the fleur de sel. And the sugar component is made richer by using golden syrup.

I have a feeling I will never buy caramel candies again.

Before you proceed: Some notes about making sugar candy

Melted sugar can get very very hot, and since it clings it can burn you very badly. Be very careful when making candy. Do not have little kids running around you when you are cooking candy - let them enjoy the results afterwards.

Keep your pan, spatula and so on dry. Don’t let water splash into a bubbling pot of sugar syrup - it may spit at you.
When adding liquid ingredients like cream, take the pan off the heat before adding. The liquid ingredients should also be at room temperature; cold liquid straight out of the refrigerator has a bigger chance of bubbling up violently and spitting when added to boiling hot sugar syrup.
Never, ever, leave a pan of boiling sugar syrup unattended.
A candy thermometer is useful to have, but not absolutely necessary.
A digital scale is good to have to measure your ingredients accurately.

Recipe: Melt In Your Mouth ‘Raw’ Crème Fraîche Caramels

Makes a slab of caramel about 25cm / 9 inches square, to be cut into as many pieces as you like. The quality of your ingredients will really shine through, so get the best, freshest butter, crème fraîche, etc. that you can.

160g / 5.6oz granulated sugar
150g / 5.3oz Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup or clear runny honey (see notes)
70g / 2.5oz unsalted butter
200g / 7 oz. crème fraîche, or the same amount of heavy cream (NOT sour cream) with two tablespoons of a yogurt with active cultures, heated up to lukewarm (see notes)
1 tsp. fleur de sel, or similar sea salt

Equipment needed:

1 small heavy bottomed pan
Another pan, for heating up the cream
Wooden spatula
1 25cm / 9 inch or so square brownie or baking pan
Kitchen parchment paper
A bowl or large glass

Make ready a bowl or large glass or measuring up filled with ice water.

Line your baking pan with the kitchen parchment paper. I just use one large sheet, and fold in the corners. No need to grease the paper.

Heat up the crème fraîche or the heavy cream-yogurt mixture in the secondary pan until it’s lukewarm. Set aside.

Put the sugar and syrup into the main pan. Over medium heat, stir until it is all liquified. Lower the heat to a simmer, and keep stirring. The syrup will get progressively darker. Periodically put droplets of the syrup in your bowl or cup or ice water, and scoop out the little balls to see the texture. Once the balls are of the consistency of hard candy, the sugar syrup is ready. You can continue cooking it a bit longer for caramels with a more assertive flavor, but do not let it burn. Note that this part goes rather fast, so check the sugar syrup in the ice water several times.

Once the sugar is of the darkness and consistency you want, take the pan off the heat. Add the salt, butter and cream, and stir until well blended.

Return the pan to the heat. Cook over low heat, at a gently foaming/bubbling state, stirring continously. This stage takes a while - 20 to 30 minutes. This cooking stage is what determines the softness of your caramels. Let it cook down until the syrup is very thick. When you draw your spatula firmly across the bottom of the pan, the syrup will part for a split second so that you can see the pan bottom. At this stage, put droplets of the syrup in the ice water (you may have to change the water if it’s gotten too warm) and test the consistency. When it reaches the stage where when the cooled syrup rolled between your fingers it forms a soft yet cohesive ball, it is ready. (If you’re using a candy thermometer the temperature should be around 120°C / 250°F.) You can cook it a bit longer for a firmer caramel - keep testing the consistency every couple of minutes. (Note, you can stop the cooking at a softer stage for the most amazing caramel syrup or jam.)

Carefully pour the caramel syrup into the lined baking pan. Let it cool until the caramel is firm - when you touch it, it should not stick to your fingers. Cut it into strips, then cut the strips into squares. I like to cut it into tiny little squares, resulting in about 120 or so squares from this amount, but you can cut them smaller or larger. Any ragged edges on the cut pieces can be gently smoothed over with your finger.

For gifting purposes, wrap each piece in little cut squares of cellophane, wax paper, or kitchen parchment paper. You may want to keep this in the refrigerator if it’s very hot where you are right now, but do not keep longer than a month or so (if that will ever be an issue).

Notes

I have specified Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup (also known as Lyle’s Golden Syrup), which is a boiled down pure sugar syrup. Using this makes the initial part of the sugar cooking process go very quickly and without hitch. If your local supermarket, Whole Foods etc. doesn’t carry it, you can get it from Amazon Grocery in the U.S. I’m assuming it’s no problem to get it in the UK or Australia/New Zealand. (In Switzerland you can get it from Britshop or any place that caters to the Brit expat community.) If you must use a substitute, use a liquid (not solid) honey. Do not use corn syrup or pancake syrup.

If you can’t get a hold of crème fraîche, use heavy cream with some active-culture yogurt instead. Sour cream is not an option, since it can curdle when heated.

Variations

Add a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract for vanilla caramels.
Experiment with different flavored honeys.
Try using molasses or treacle instead of golden syrup - be very careful of burning the initial sugar syrup in this case though. This will make something very similar to, and more intense than, “Black Sugar Caramel” (黒糖キャラメル), a popular kind of caramel from Morinaga. (If you don’t want to bother making your own, J-List sells it by the individual pack or the caseload.)
Melt half a bar of dark chocolate into the caramel syrup near the end of the cooking process for chocolate caramels. To make them even more chocolately, dip the cut caramel pieces in melted chocolate. (This is a messy process though.)
Add a tiny sprinkle of fleur de sel on top for salt caramels.

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.

Toshikoshi Soba or Year-End Soba: A bowl of hot soba noodles to end the year

maki — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:20:23 +0100

Revised and updated: This recipe for Toshikoshi Soba, or Year-End Soba, traditionally eaten in Japan on New Year's Eve, is one of the earliest recipes posted on Just Hungry. I've expanded the directions so that you can use various methods for making the soup. Originally posted December 30, 2003.

Even though Christmas has become big business in Japan in recent years, the real holiday at this time of year is New Year's Day. The end of the old year, called 師走　(しわす　shiwasu), is a hectic time, as people are busily celebrating with friends and colleagues at 忘年会　(ぼうねんかい　bounenkai), "forget the year" parties - besides wrapping up things at work and getting ready to go home for the holidays.

New Year's Eve itself (大晦日　おおみそか　oh-misoka), however, is celebrated rather quietly by many people. There isn't the big urge to go to a party, to send off the old year with champagne and fireworks and tooting horns. In a way Japanese people do things the opposite of how people in the West celebrate Christmas or Hannukah vs. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day: Christmas is an excuse to have a party (it also happens to be a big 'date' day, when couples stay for the night at a luxury hotel for a romantic party of two). New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and the few days afterwards are when you spend time with family at home. On New Year's Eve, you'll stay home and reflect on the old year, watch some year-ending entertainment programs on TV, and perhaps go to the local temple at midnight, while hearing the 108 rings of the bell to "ring away" the evils of the old year.

The traditional evening meal to have while waiting to greet the new year is a bowl of hot soba noodles, called 年越し蕎麦 (としこしそば　toshikoshi soba), which roughly means "end the old year and enter the new year soba noodles". There is no one set recipe for this soba - they are probably as many varieties as there are households. At our house my mother simply prepared a straightforward bowl with hot soup, something on top such as a slice of kamaboko, a rather rubbery fishcake; perhaps some spinach or othe green leavy vegetable, a raw egg dropped on top just before serving. When a raw egg is used like this in a bowl of hot noodles, whether it's soba or udon, it's called 月見　(つきみ　tsukimi) - moon-watching.

Hot soba noodles can be enjoyed at any time of the year of course, but since I usually prefer cold soba, New Year's Eve is usually the only day I have this. It is quite good and comforting.

When I originally wrote this article 5 years ago, soba (buckwheat) noodles, were generally only available at Japanese grocery stores. How times have changed! Now you can buy them at many general supermarkets, health food stores and such. There are many different brands, at all price ranges. Look for one that has smooth, mostly unbroken (a few strands may break) noodles that are fairly thick. Avoid the very cheap brands; with soba you really do get what you pay for.

Recipe: Toshikoshi Soba: Year-End Soba Noodle Soup

Note that the toppings are not that important here. What is important is properly prepared noodles, and a good flavorful soup. I've given three methods for making the soup, ranging from best (using kaeshi) to ok (using storebought readymade sauce).

Per 1 large bowlful:

About 60 g / 2 oz. dried soba noodles
basic dashi stock
Kaeshi, or soy sauce, mirin and sugar
OR instead of the dashi and ingredients above, a bottle of tsuyu or mentsuyu (readymade noodle sauce), available at Japanese grocery stores
Toppings such as kamaboko, spinach leaves, egg (optional)
Green onions, finely chopped
Nanami or shichimi tohgarashi- seven-ingredient red pepper spice (see notes)

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Put in the soba noodles and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook until the noodles are not quite al dente - it should be cooked through. (Dried soba noodles, unlike dried semolina pasta, is rather delicate so you don't want to cook it in a rolling boil.) As soon as it's done, drain the noodles, and plunge it a bowl of cold water. Change the water frequently as you rinse the noodles. The objective is to get rid of any sort of starchy service on the noodles. Once this is done, drain the noodles and set aside in a colander. (See the very detailed instructions on how to cook and rinse soba noodles here.)

Make the basic dashi stock, and use an extra handful of bonito flakes. (You can also use vegetarian dashi stock if you prefer.)

If you are using kaeshi, mix 1 part kaeshi to 5 parts dashi stock. Vary to your tastes (don't make it too weak or too strong, but remember that you'll be putting soba noodles in it, so make it just a bit stronger/saltier than you think is necessary).

If you are using soy sauce and mirin straight, first mix the soy sauce and mirin in a 2 to 1 ratio (e.g. 2 Tbs. soy sauce and 1 Ts. mirin). Add a little sugar (for 2 Tbs. soy sauce add 1/2 tsp. or so of sugar). Add dashi to taste, at about the same 1 (soy sauce + mirin + sugar) to 5 (dashi) ratio.

If you are using store-bought tsuyu or mentsuyu (noodle sauce) in a bottle (such as this one), add plain water to the until it tastes right to you. The ratio depends on the brand and type. Note that even ones that say they are 'straight' (as in, not concetrated) will need to be thinned out for hot noodle soup, since they are meant to be used 'straight' for cold noodle dipping sauce, which is a lot stronger.

Heat up the soup. Put in the rinsed soba noodles, and gently simmer until the noodles are heated through.

Put noodles into serving bowls. Add soup, and any toppings. If you're adding a raw egg (be sure you're only adding a 'safe' egg!), add it at the last moment.

Garnish with a little of the chopped green onion and/or shichimi tohgarashi on top. You could also add a dab of wasabi, a small sheet of nori seaweed, and so on.

Notes

七味唐辛子　（しちみとうがらし　shichimi tohgarashi or nanami tohgarashi) is a mixed ground spice, containing red pepper, dried citrus skin, sesame seeds, etc. It's a commonly used table spice. You could use ground up red papper flakes as a substitute, though it won't have the same complex flavor and aroma. It's quite inexpensive and lasts a long time, so look for it at a Japanese food store. (Or you can buy it from Amazon Groceries.) I consider it to be a very important ingredient in my Japanese pantry.

Soup made with dashi, soy sauce and mirin is used for most Japanese noodles. The saltiness or strength of the soup is controlled by the ratio of soy sauce to dashi - the more dashi, the thinner the soup.

See this kitsune udon recipe for a vegan topping alternative (simmered aburaage or tofu skin). Of course, you could just enjoy the noodles with no topping, just the green onion and shichimi tohgarashi.

Japanese people usually don't do much drinking on New Year's Eve, because it's considered to be a good thing to greet the New Year bright and early. (Drinking during the New Year's festivities is another matter.)

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.

Sweet Potato, Coconut and Shrimp Miso Soup

maki — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:31:25 +0100

This rich fusion-esque soup is something I just came up with while fiddling around with the idea of a bisque-like soup without any cream or milk in it. After a few experiments, I’m happy with this version. I am not lactose-intolerent, but several members of my family are, especially my stepfather. Besides, even those of us with the sturdiest stomachs may have problems when there is tons of butter and cream involved.

This soup also happens to be quite frugal, since I use the shells and heads of peeled fresh shrimp that I stock up in the freezer to make the base stock. You don’t even have to add any actual shrimp, though they can provide a nice texture contrast.

The key to this soup is to balance the sweetness that comes from the sweet potato and coconut milk with the spiciness of the cayenne or chili pepper, plus the sourness of lemon juice.

Recipe: Sweet Potato, Coconut and Shrimp Miso Soup

For the shrimp stock:

About 2 cups of shrimp shells and heads
1 small onion
1 celery stalk
Olive oil
1 bay leaf

Chop up the onion and celery, and sauté in the olive oil until limp. Add the shrimp shells and 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes, skimming off the scum that rises to the surface. Strain through a sieve or a colander lined with a cheesecloth or gauze. You will have about 4 1/2 cups of soup stock. It will be more orange if you have more heads.

For the soup:

1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large sweet potato (I used the white kind, but the orange kind will work too), peeled and chopped up roughly
1/2 large fennel bulb or 1 small fennel bulb, chopped up roughly (If you can’t get bulb fennel, use a couple of stalks of celery finely chopped)
1-2 Tbs. Olive oil
The shrimp stock
1 cup coconut milk (use low-fat if you must, but full-fat will be richer)
2 Tbs. white miso
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
Chopped fresh coriander or parsley
Hot red chili powder or cayenne pepper
A few shrimp (optional)

Equipment:

A heavy bottomed pan, or a slow cooker
A stick blender (mine is a 12+ year old Bamix that still works flawlessly)

In a large heavy bottomed pan (an enameled cast iron one such as Le Creuset is ideal) heat up the olive oil and add the onion. Sauté until limp, then add the other vegetables. Sauté until the vegetables are just turning a bit brown around the edges. (If using a slow cooker, do this part in a big sauté pan or frying pan or wok.)

Add the shrimp stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer gently until the vegetables are totally softened, about 30-40 minutes depending on how small you cut your vegetables.

With a stick blender, puree the soup until it’s smooth. A few small chunks in there are fine. You can also puree it in batches in a blender.

Return to the pot and add the coconut milk. Dissolve the miso in a little of the soup, and add to the pot. Add the lemon juice and pepper. Taste and add salt if you think it needs it (probably around a teaspoon may be needed). You can add more lemon juice at this point too.

Optionally add a few small fresh peeled shrimp just before serving, and simmer just until the shrimp are cooked, a couple of minutes.

Serve topped with a sprinkle of hot chili pepper or cayenne pepper (or chopped fresh red chili peppers), and chopped coriander or parsley. Optionally drizzle a bit of basil scented olive oil or even butter on top. The only accompaniment you need is some good bread or plain rice.

Notes

If you want this to have an even thicker texture, add about 2 Tbs. of potato starch or cornstarch dissolved in a little water; simmer until the soup thickens. Add more of the starch-water mixture to your liking.

Layered Cabbage Casserole - Kyabetsu no Kasaneni (an everyday favorite)

maki — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:00:42 +0100

Some dishes dazzle you with their prettiness. Others may look plain, but are just plainly delicious. This simple, filling yet healthy winter dish belongs to the latter group.

Stuffed cabbage rolls are a staple of Japanese home cooking, believe it or not. I’ve loved it ever since I was little, but I would beg my mother to make it for me. It’s a perfect winter dish, but it can be just a bit fiddly to make.

This stovetop casserole type dish is called キャベツの重ね煮 (kyabetsu no kasaneni) or stewed layered cabbage. It’s basically a deconstructed cabbage roll, made into a round dome and served sliced into wedges. I’ve called it Layered Cabbage Casserole, because ‘stewed cabbage’ in English brings back memories of the greyish limp stuff served in a pool of water that I occasionally had for school lunch in England. (I usually ate lunch at home, since we lived next door to my school, but sometimes when my mother had to go out she’d pay for me to have school lunch. The only things I remember from those school lunches were terrific sausages, and that grey cabbage goo.)

Layered Cabbage doesn’t look very pretty on its own, though it does make an impressive lump. Sliced into wedges though and served with the cooking liquid, it almost looks like a cake, doesn’t it? The cabbage becomes meltingly soft and infused with the flavors of the stuffing and the poaching liquid, which also becomes the sauce.

Here is the big lump (which looks like a rather flat cabbage), with a wedge cut out of it.

It’s a perfect main dish for a cold winter’s night. It’s also very well suited for the slow cooker.

Recipe: Layered Cabbage Casserole (kyabetsu no kasaneni)

This makes a big ‘cake’, enough for at least 8 servings. This is sort of intentional, because leftovers taste even better the next day. You’ll notice that it combines both Western and Japanese flavors, so it belongs in the yohshoku (imported and adapted Western food) category of Japanese cooking.

1 medium to large cabbage

For the stuffing:

1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
1 lb (450g) ground beef, or mixed ground pork and beef (In Japan all pork is used, but in this case I prefer the flavor of beef or a mix)
1 small firm tofu (about 300g / 10.5 oz), crumbled
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (or use about 1 cup cooked rice)
1 tsp. salt
Pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

For the sauce/cooking liquid:

About 4 cups Chicken stock (canned or homemade or even stock cubes will do)
3 Tbs. tomato paste
3 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs. sake or sweet sherry (you can leave this out if you can’t use alcohol)
1 Tbs. white wine or rice vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried thyme, or a sprig of thyme
Pepper, and additional salt to taste

Equipment: One of the following:

A slow cooker/crockpot
A heavy enamelled cast iron casserole pot such as a Le Creuset
Any heavy-bottomed pot

Plus, a pot lid or heatproof plate that is a bit smaller than the circumference of your pot.

Peel off the cabbage leaves, in as large pieces as possible. Don’t worry if some get torn up though, you can still use them. For presentation purposes, you may want to have at least one or two big, intact leaves to place on the top. You will want to have about 20 leaves worth or more. If the stalk part is very thick, shave them down a bit with a knife or vegetable peeler.

Reserve some of the torn-up cabbage leaves. Blanch the rest of the cabbage leaves for a few minutes in plenty of boiling water. Drain and cool.

While the cabbage leaves cool, make your stuffing by combining all of the stuffing ingredients well.

In the bottom of your pot, put down the uncooked cabbage leaves in a layer. This uncooked cabbage layer will prevent the bottom of your stack of cabbage from burning (if the protective layer burns, you can just throw it out). On top of the uncooked layer, put a layer of cooked cabbage, then a layer of stuffing, and repeat until the pot is almost full. The top layer should be a below the top of the pot, with space enough for that small pot lid or plate to sit on top. For aesthetic purposes, try to make the shape of your stack round like a cabbage, and finish up with a large, intact leaf.

Combine the sauce/liquid ingredients, and pour around the cabbage. The liquid should just barely cover the top of the cabbage cake - add some water if it doesn’t. Add the bay leaf, thyme, pepper and salt if needed. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and place the small pot lid or plate on top of the cabbage. This is to weight it down a bit and ensure that it stays intact. (This technique is used often in Japanese cooking; the small lid is called an 落としぶた　(otoshibuta), meaning ‘dropped lid’.)

Simmer gently for at least 1 hour, or longer. (If using a slow cooker, you can set everything and let it cook all day.)

Taste the sauce/liquid again before serving and adjust the seasoning.

Slice into wedges and serve in a shallow bowl or soup plate with some of the sauce, with plain rice (the Japanese way), or bread.

Notes

The tofu in the stuffing mixture lightens it up. You can omit it and use a bit more meat or vegetable instead.

I have not tried it, but you could probably cook this in a heavy casserole dish in the oven too. Just make sure the surface doesn’t dry out.

Try putting a little bit of miso in the liquid (about a tablespoon) to make it richer.

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