holidays

Happy Easter!

maki — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:26:12 +0200

A bit too late already for many people I know...but I just wanted to share this bunny bread from my favorite patisserie in Zürich. :)

Ozouni or ozohni or ozoni: Mochi soup for the New Year

maki — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:00:24 +0100

Happy New Year! I wanted to post this a little earlier, but better late than never I hope!

During the New Year holiday period, traditionally rice is not cooked, to give a rest to the cook. Instead, dried mochi cakes were used as the carbohydrate. Ozouni (お雑煮おぞうに), which literally means ‘mixed stew’, is a soup with mochi cakes in it. There is no one set recipe, and there are lots of regional variations. This one is a simple Kanto (Tokyo area) style ozouni, the way my mother makes it. It’s very simple, not to mention economical - just clear soup, greens, chicken and mochi. Garnish is optional.

Recipe: Kanto style Ozouni (関東風お雑煮）

For 4 servings

5 cups of dashi stock, using plenty of bonito flakes
2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. sake (leave out if you can’t use sake)
1/2 tsp. salt
100g / about 3 oz. dark or light meat chicken, cut into bite size pieces
About 200g / 6 oz (a bunch) of dark greens, such as komatsuna (traditional), spinach, etc. (I used bok choi here)
4 mochi cakes
Pink kamaboko for garnish

Heat up the oven to 200°C / 400°F, or use a toaster oven or grill. Grill or bake the mochi cakes until they puff up a bit. They may get lightly browned on top, which is fine.

Wash and chop the greens roughly.

Heat up the dashi if you premade it. Add the soy sauce, sake and salt. Add the greens, and simmer until limp but still bright green. Add the chicken pieces and simmer a few minutes.

Add the mochi and simmer for a couple of minutes until the mochi is soft, but don’t let it sit too long or the mochi will turn into a sticky goo.

Serve in miso soup bowls, garnished with a slice of pink kamaboko. Other garnishes you can use: mitsuba, chopped green onions, a sprinkle of sansho pepper, zest of yuzu.

Notes

There is a reason for using green　leafy vegetables (菜　な　na) and chicken (鶏　とり　tori). Combined they were ‘read’ na o toru （なをとる）which can mean to advance in life.

Kamaboko is a fish cake. You can find it at any Japanese grocery. The pink kind (actually pink on the outside, white on the inside) is used as garnish here since pink is considered to be a lucky/festive color. You can also use pink-and-white naruto instead.

In the Kyoto area, a white miso soup made with sweet Saikyo miso (see miso primer) is made. It has round vegetables in it for luck and peace - 円満　(えんまん　enman) such as taro roots cut into rounds, slices of daikon radish, carrot, etc.

In other regions they add other things. In Hokkaido they might add salmon, crab, salmon caviar (ikura) and so on.

Mochi cakes are also available at a Japanese grocery store. You can get square or round ones. Round ones are traditionally used in the Kansai (Kyoto-Osaka) region and to the west, while square ones are used in the Kanto (Tokyo) region and east/north. Either one is ok to use.

Please be careful when eating mochi, especially when it’s in ozouni. Mochi is very glutinous and dense. Every year, a few people die in Japan around New Year’s from choking on mochi. ou need to bite off small chunks and chew it well. Be careful of giving it to very small children - cut it into very small pieces for them.

Finally, if you’re watching your weight, be aware that one piece of mochi is about 130 calories, so you might want go easy on things like cheese mochi, delicious as it may be.

Mochitsuki in your neighborhood?

maki — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:15:43 +0100

Mochitsuki photo by Ivva

Mochitsuki (餅つき）is a New Year’s ritual in Japan, where people get together to pound some steamed ‘sweet’ or sticky rice into gooey, sticky mochi in a big wooden barrel. Nowadays most mochi is made mechanically, but this energetic manual pounding is still practiced all over Japan. (My aunt and uncle still do it, even though they are both in their 70s.) If you’ve never had a chance to see a Mochitsuki in action, it can be really fun, with just a small thrill of danger (the mochi turner’s hands could get crushed by the heavy hammer!)

This is the week to start looking for mochitsuki events where you are, even if you don’t live in Japan. For example, in London, Japan Centre will hold their annual Mochi Pounding event in-store on January 2nd from 12 midday at 212-213 Piccadilly. In San Francisco, there will be a big Mochitsuki festival complete with taiko (big drums) at the Asian Art Museum on January 3rd.

I haven’t been able to find a lot of info about mochitsuki events online that are current (I’ve found a lot of reports about past years’ events) so look in your local papers, Japanese societies, and so on to see what’s going on. (If you find out anything, please let us know in the comments!)

Galettes Bretonnes, golden butter cookies from Brittany

maki — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:42:10 +0100

When it comes to cookies, I like them rather plain and not overly sweet. This traditional cookie from the Bretagne (Brittany) in France is so plain and simple, that the ingredients really shine. It is made of flour, sugar, egg, and the famously delicious salted butter (beurre demi-sel) of the region. Somewhat related to shortbread or sablé cookies but not as rich, for me they are almost the perfect cookie, and very more-ish.

The salted butter is the key to this cookie’s distinctive nutty, buttery sweet-salty flavor. The best salted butter from the Bretagne and other regions along the Atlantic in France are creamy-fresh and rich, with little glistening crystals of salt still visible. If you can get a hold of really good salted butter, you can use traditional recipes and the cookies will turn out the way they should. If not, some adjustments need to be made. So, I would recommend following the variation of the recipe that meets your butter quality.

(You might see something called galettes bretonnes au sarrasin. These refer to a thin crêpe or pancake made out of buckwheat (sarrasin) flour, usually served with a savory filling. I love those too, but these article is about the cookie galettes bretonnes.)

Recipe 1: Galettes Bretonnes

Version 1: Use this version if you can get really good salted butter with a slightly cultured taste.

250g / 8.8 oz / about 2 U.S. cups all purpose or cake flour (cake flour preferred)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup minus 2 Tbs. sugar
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup / 1 stick salted butter, softened
1 ‘large’ egg, plus 1 egg for glazing
1-2 Tbs. milk if needed
Additional flour for your working surface and the rolling pin

Version 2: Use this version if you are using supermarket-level salted butter, but you don’t want to mess with adding salt and so on (see Version 3).

Add to Version 1:

Large pinch of good quality coarse sea salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Version 2: Use this version if you don’t have access to good salted butter, and want to replicate the salty/cultured taste as closely as possible.

250g / 8.8 oz / about 2 U.S. cups all purpose or cake flour (cake flour preferred), plus 2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup minus 2 Tbs. sugar
120g / 4 oz / 1/2 cup / 1 stick unsalted butter the best you can get, softened
1/2 tsp. regular salt
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1 ‘large’ egg, plus 1 egg for glazing
1-2 Tbs. buttermilk or sour cream (sour cream is richer of course)
Additional flour for your working surface and the rolling pin

Equipment needed:

Rolling pin
Baking sheets
Parchment paper or silicon baking liner
Pastry brush

The method for all 3 versions is the same.

Sift together the flour and baking powder.

Mix together the sugar, salt (if applicable) and butter. Add the flour mixture and rub well into the butter-sugar mixture with your fingers. Add the egg and vanilla if you’re using Version 2, plus just enough milk or buttermilk so that the dough comes together cohesively. Form into a ball, flatten and wrap in plastic.

(If using a food processor or mixer, you can combine the butter, sugar and flour mixture first, then add the liquids. Don’t overmix this dough after you add the liquids or the cookies will be a bit to tough.)

Chill the dough for at least an hour, until firm. This dough is quite soft so this chilling step is very necessary.

Heat the oven to 180°C / 355°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon liners.

Flour your work surface and a rolling pin. Roll out the dough to about 3mm / 1/8 inch or so thickness. Cut the dough out into shapes. Put the cut out dough onto the lined baking sheets.

To prevent the cookies from puffing up in the middle, press down with the tines of a fork, or prick with a fork. (Traditionally the cookies are pressed with a pretty pattern.) (Note: I actually forgot to do the pressing bit for the cookies in the photo! Tastewise they don’t change much, so you can omit the pressing part if you don’t mind the slight dome in the middle of each cookie.)

Beat up the extra egg and add a few drops of milk. Brush the surface of the cookies with this eggwash. (You can just use the yolk with a bit of milk, which would give you a deeper golden glaze. You can also add a pinch of salt for an extra bit of saltiness.)

Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the baking sheets. Bake for another 5-7 minutes, until the cookies are a golden brown on top.

Cool completely on a rack - these are cookies that taste a lot better when cooled and crispy, rather than soft from the oven. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 48 small, 36 medium or 24 large cookies

Cookies on your Christmas tree? A cautionary tale

A few years ago, way before this blog was even a glimmer in my eye, I decided that I was going to decorate our Christmas tree with iced spice cookies. I was inspired by the gorgeous photos of large trees covered with big iced cookies shaped like Christmas ornaments and penguins and such that appeared in - yes, you might have guessed, Martha Stewart Living.

Once I committed to this, I had to see it through. Our tree wasn’t huge, about 6ft / 180cm or something tall, but it took ages to make enough big cookies to adequately cover it, even though we also decorated the tree with several glass ornaments, not to mention the fairly lights. I was baking cookies and icing the beasts for a solid week. I made about 200 cookies in total in the end: about 150 of them ended up on the tree, 20 or so fell and crashed while I was trying to hang them, and the remaining ones ended up as gifts, wrapped in cellophane.

When the tree was finally decorated with all those cookies, it really looked spectacular. (The photos were taken on a pre-digital camera…and the photos are packed away in boxes, awaiting our soon-I-hope move.) Besides looking great, it smelled wonderful too.

My plan for those cookie-ornaments was to serve them with coffee after a Christmas party. I imagined the scene…friends gathered around the tree, picking their favorites…the village church bells ringing in the background…as I lovingly touched one of the hanging cookies.

What greeted my fingers was…soggy sponge. The icing side was ok, but the exposed cookie side was almost wet. Dismayed, I inpected the other cookies. They were all the same - heavy with moisture. I took one off and bit into it. Ugh! It had absorbed Essence of Pine from the live tree. I spat it out.

I don’t remember what I did serve at that party, but it certainly wasn’t Soggy Pine Cookies. Thankfully, the cookies did manage to hang on the tree until we put it all away a week or so later.

So…if you do plan to have cookies or other edibles on your tree, use an artificial tree, wrap your goodies tightly in cellophane or something, or - well, just have some airtightly-packed reserved. (Besides the moisture, there’s also critters to consider…)

This is my last post on Just Hungry until after-Christmas. Happy Holidays to you all!

Just to get you in a holiday mood...

maki — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:00:54 +0100

Some spun-sugar candy Christmas ornaments being sold at the Christmas market in Zürich.

Have a great weekend! I’ll be off exploring more Christmas markets over the weekend.

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.

The easiest Christmas thing to make right now: macerated dried fruits in liquor

maki — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:24:10 +0100

I am suddenly behind on everything - work, holiday tasks, shopping, etc. etc. I was planning to do a lot of Christmas food related thing - you know, make a stollen or six, maybe a Christmas pudding (should have been made a month ago), cookies, etc. I may still have time for the cookies, the rest I’m not sure.

There is one thing that I have done that took me maybe 10 minutes max, and part of that time was spend let’s say, sampling the wares.

To give it a fancy name, it would be Macerated Mixed Dried Fruits. What it is is a bunch of dried raisins, currants, apricots, and so on put in a non-reactive container (like a big glass jar), covered with liquor, and left in a dark place to do its thing. The fruit becomes softened and infused by the liquor, and the liquor takes on the flavors of the fruit.

It’s best if it’s been left for at least a week, but you can start using it the day after.

You can get fancy with the dried fruit selection, the liquors, or both. Just make sure the dried fruit you are using does not have added sugar. I stuck to the basics with the fruits (dark and golden raisins, currants) but splurged on the liquors: a mix of Williams pear schnapps, kirsch (cherry schnapps), and orange-scented Cointreau. You could use brandy, rum, Scotch, Bourbon, vodka…just as long as it’s something with a pretty high alcohol content.

What can you do with this? A lot.

Put it into small, pretty jars to give away as presents.
Stir a spoonful or two into vanilla ice cream.
Pour a spoonful or two mixed with syrup over pancakes for a boozy fruity breakfast.
Mix the drained fruit into a basic poundcake batter.
Mix the drained fruit into a muffin batter.
Add some of the liquor to Glühwein (mulled wine).
Flame the liquor over a storebought Christmas pudding (or indeed, flame it over anything. To flame, warm up the liquor first in a small pan, then set a match to it and pour over the object of your choice.)
Pour the liquor over rocks for a sweet, fruity nerve calming agent just before the dinner guests arrive.
…and whatever else strikes your fancy.

Do you think about the carbon footprint of your holiday feasts?

maki — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:48:15 +0100

As I’ve mentioned her before several times, I’m not a diehard locavore. But I do try to keep an eye on how far my food has travelled to get to me. Admittedly, many of my seasonings and such have travelled a long way, because I need my Japanese food and I’m here in the middle of Europe. For fresh produce and meats and things like that I do try to buy things that haven’t travelled too far as much as I can. I think I’ve fairly typical in that respect these days.

Yesterday there was this news story from the UK about the carbon footprint of a typical Christmas dinner. It was picked up by several news outlets (e.g. here and here, indicating the interest in ‘going green’ I guess. That turkey dinner with cranberry sauce is supposed to “generate the equivalent of 20 kg of carbon dioxide emissions”, according to researchers at the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at the University of Manchester. The main culprit is cranberries, which are usually shipped from the U.S. and account for half of that carbon footprint.

I admit I had two opposing reactions to the story. My kneejerk reaction was to think “It’s the holidays for goodness’ sake. Let me just enjoy my dinner!” That was followed by a twinge of guilt, that I should be caring about the issue even if it is the holidays.

What do you think? Do you think how far your dried apricots have come (probably from Australia), or where your oranges and cloves are grown (around here cloves most likely come from China and oranges from Israel, Spain or the U.S.) Does the carbon footprint issue make you reconsider your holiday menus? Or do you set those concerns aside?

Me, I’m going halfway (as I usually do)…I do enjoy my far-travelled citrus fruit, since there aren’t any fresh fruits growing in or near Switzerland now. But I think we may go with a glazed Swiss-grown ham for Christmas dinner. We’ll pass on the cranberry sauce, and maybe pull out the red currants from our garden that we froze this summer.

Happy Labor Day

maki — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:19:04 +0200

Happy Labor Day to everyone in the U.S.! Labor Day is sort of the unofficial end of summer, which makes me a little sad, but it’s also the start of the best season for foodies - fall/autumn. Fall is known as the season of the appetite in Japan - as the hot weather recedes and the fruits of the harvest start to come in, the tummy gets hungrier. In Switzerland we have the hunting season to look forward to, not to mention wild mushrooms in the markets. And the old grape vines in our garden are already yielding dark, small, sweet fruits.

I know things have been a little quiet around Just Hungry lately, but it will get busier as I get out of tomato-salad and cold cucumber soup mode…stay tuned!

For your 4th of July party

maki — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:52:40 +0200

If youre in the U.S. or anywhere in the world celebrating the 4th of July tomorrow, I hope you’re having better weather than we’re having here, where it’s cold and rainy! If you’re having a party, here are some useful recipes from the archives:

Japanese potato salad, which in my opinion is the best kind of potato salad - rich tasting, not too vinegary. With homemade mayonnaise it’s heaven - though be careful to refrigerate it properly before serving, and to eat the leftovers (if there are any) as soon as possible.

For a much lighter, refreshing salad (no fat added!), Scandinavian cucumber salad goes very well with the rich flavors of grilled meats. It’s sort of like a fresh relish. Serve this very well chilled.

By saving calories with the salad you can then splurge on the Red, white and blue mess for dessert, which looks quite spectacular and even feels sort of virtuously healthy because of all the fruit.

Happy 4th!