Bouncy

No Egg Mango Marshmallow

As if my week had sprinted to a new record, I woke up Saturday with a little panic. Until Tuesday…two more days yet I hadn’t made anything fa..bulous to post. Rats! I glanced at my calendar, wow, Easter is next Sunday? I suppose I would like to create something Easter…ly?

Intrigued by Koichi Izumi’s no egg guimauves (French for marshmallows) recipe (yeah, this fits my Happy Easterish theme) however, I was missing a few key ingredients. Where could I get passion fruit puree?  I dunno…the mangos I bought at Wholefoods were on sale for 69 cents each, nice! But not so nice was that, at Winco, they were 59 cents. How in the world? The 10 cents less means a huge dime difference, right?… OK back to my subject, I substituted with these precious mangos I paid the premium for.   

I refer to his recipe but a few compromises were made and perhaps the most ‘I don’t get it’ moment is his method of soaking powdered gelatins. After 2 hours of waiting “supposedly” the gelatin would be macerated in water. But it didn’t. Impossible! I cried. Could it be that Japanese gelatin and American are not same? Nice fellowship by my husband.

Ingredients and Instruction (Print Recipe here)

Necessary equipment: 6x6 pan/mold (I used 7x4 and1/2 inch plastic case), line with parchment paper on bottom, blender or hand held immersion blender, hand held mixer, food thermometer and small sieve

• Water 30g or more
• 2 packets (14.4g) of unflavored gelatin
• 4 mangos (I prefer Madame Francique or Shindhri)
• Sugar #1 -3 Tablespoons If the mango is very sweet, add less sugar.
• Lemon juice 1-2 Tablespoons
• Sugar #2 – 90g, more or less
• Corn starch 25g
• Powdered sugar 25g

1. Prepare gelatin – Pour water in small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin in and wait for it to eventually absorb the water, 2-3 hours. Note: sprinkle a little bit more water if the gelatin is not completely macerated after 2 hours.
2. Making mango purée – Cut mango lengthwise into three sections with the middle section containing the pit. Lay the skin side on your palm, make a grid pattern on the flesh with knife (see photo). Push flesh out from skin side. If you like, scrape the fruit off from the pit to use. Put all the flesh into a sauce pan then add sugar #1 and lemon juice. Cook for 30 minutes on low heat. Stir frequently and crush with a wooden spoon to break down flesh. Turn off heat and puree with immersion blender or put into a blender to puree. Need 150g of this puree in the recipe.Store extra mango puree in airtight container and keep in refrigerator. 
3. Put macerated gelatin and sugar #2 in a large bowl set aside.
4. Prepare 1 size smaller pan than the above bowl filled with 1 cup of hot water to use as double boiler. The water should not touch bottom of the bowl.
5. Put 150g of mango puree into another pan and add 1/4 cup of water.  Frequently whisk the puree and cook to reach the temperature of 200F –230F range*. The laser instant thermometer is very helpful. Careful not to burn puree * The original recipe said must keep at 230F.
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6. After reaching the desired temperature, dump the contents from above into the step #3 bowl. Place bowl on the top of the prepared pan in step #4 
7. Double boil the pan on low heat – this keeps the temperature of puree mixture above 108F. Lower than that it will get too hard to pour in the mold. Mix with hand held mixer slowly at first then speed up to max. Mix for 6-8 minutes,scrape off sides mid-way through. The color of the mixture will get lighter and thicken. This photo is misleading, the right texture is when you lift up the mixer, it  drizzles down and makes a spiral pattern at the bottom.
8. Pour mixture into the mold. Cover with paper towel until it has cooled to room temperature then  cover with plastic sheet. Let rest for overnight.
9. Combine powdered sugar and cornstarch then sift once.
10. Dust pallet knife and top of marshmallow with powdered sugar mixture (step #9) through small sieve, insert knife along edges of the mold. Turn onto flat surface then peel off parchment paper, sprinkle with  powdered sugar mixture. Cut in cubes or other fun shapes. Don’t forget to dredge cut sides with sugar mixture too. Peep,peep!

Getting ready for Easter

Left over mango puree is very nice as an ice cream topping.

I shared some marshmallows with my neighbor friends so that we don’t have to consume the entire sugary snack by ourselves.

Happy Easter to you all!

Little Packages

Pan Fried Pork Dim Sum/ポークの小籠包点心

My translation of 小籠包shoronpow is - ‘little package’. Wrapped little something in thin pastry skin. It’s style is similar to hum bow but little..er. Jellied chicken stock oozes out it’s juice when cooked. That is when I regret that I didn’t make more.

Shoronpow usually served as 点心 dim sum in Chinese restaurant. I love to go to dim sum place with two other friends because they always comes in three pieces on a small plate and if I ask the server pushing the cart what’s in a package, the answer sounds like it’s all gibberish but we love adventure and mystery. Yes, we will take the one-whatever it is- on the right. 謝謝.

For this post I used pork, minced shrimp is also fantastic however. I probably pack it a little nicer next time. You see, people like prettier package.

First – make Chinese Chicken Soup Jell-O

• Unflavored powder gelatin 10g
• Cold water 1/4 cup

• Chinese chicken soup granule (鶏がらスープの素) 1 teaspoon
  

• Hot water 1/2 cup　

1. Pour water in a small cup, sprinkle gelatin and soften.
2. Put chicken soup granule in a small container then pour in hot water, stir and dissolve. After you no longer see the steam then add softened gelatin and mix well
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3. Cool the mixture by placing In a larger container filled with ice water (see picture). When it starts to harden transfer to refrigerator for 30 to 40  minutes.
   
4. Mince the chicken Jell-O. Set aside
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Second step- Make Pork filling 

• Pork belly meat 120g minced
  
• Garlic chives (にら) 4 stalks minced -  may substitute with green onion
• Ginger root peeled and minced about 2 Tablespoon
• Sake 1Tablespoon
• Sesame oil 1 teaspoon
• Soy sauce 1 teaspoon
• Sugar 1 teaspoon
• Salt 1/2 teaspoon
• Chicken Jell-O

1. Mix pork, garlic chives and ginger root well
2. Add sake, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar and salt then kneed well with your hand
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3. Add chicken Jell-O and combine. You may need 1 Tablespoon water to get the filling to stick together.
   
4. Divide filling into 10 parts and form balls. Keep chilled in refrigerator until ready to use
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Third step – Make dough

Equipment: bread maker

• Weak power flour 110g
• Bread flour 40g plus more for dusting.
• Dry yeast 1 teaspoon
• Sugar 1 teaspoon
• Salt 1/2 teaspoon
• Cold water 80 ml.

1. Put both flours in a bread maker pan first then bury the yeast in the flour.
2. Put sugar, salt and water around flour.
   
3. Select dough course and push start.
4. After dough is done (raised once) remove form pan and form a ball.
5. First dust the surface if necessary. Cut dough in half and make two 5 inch cylinders.
   
6. Cut each cylinder to 5 equal parts then make balls. Keep the balls under a moist towel or paper towel to prevent the dough from drying out.
7. Stretch the dough to make 4 inch diameter rounds. Make it so that center is little bit thicker than the edge.
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8. Put prepared filling in the center of round. Fold edges up to wrap as neatly as possible. Seal the seam securely.
    

Final step – Cook and Steam

• Vegetable or Peanut oil 2 Tablespoons
• Water 2 Tablespoons
• Sesame oil 2 Tablespoons
• White toasted sesame seeds 1-2 Tablespoons for garnish
• Green onion 2 stalks chopped small for garnish

1. Heat 2 Tablespoon of vegetable oil or peanut oil in large non stick skillet at medium heat. Note; Place lid near so it is ready to use.
2. Gently place the buns seam side down and brown the bottom.
3. Pour 3 Tablespoons of water and immediately put lid and steam  for 5-6 minutes at low heat. Remove lid and cook until water evaporates.
4. Pour Sesame oil into the pan and occasionally scoop the oil onto the buns. Cook for 1-2 minutes
5. Garnish with sesame seed and green onion on top. Serve with vinegar, ponzu or gyoza sauce.
   

My friend brought me a generous amount of premier kale. I brushed lightly with olive oil and sprinkled with salt then roasted it in the oven 10 minutes or so at 375F before I put on the shoronpow.

On the home front….Old lawn was an utter disaster, weeds and moss and crab grass… We put new sod in front and back yard last week.  Harvesting time for raspberry. Although the raspberry shortcake raspberries are short on flavor, they are long on looks!

Edible nasturtium are from seeds…I thought I choose orange color but whatever!The dainty rose has a great fragrance.This is Japanese flower I can’t remember the name. The Gumi plants produced some berries but they are so tiny! I grow up eating neighbor’s. Very nostalgic. My husband received packages from our children for Father’s Day which he kindly shared with me. He had to, those cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar are huge! The puddings from Japan were also delicious! Mmmmm…silky!