Pumpkin Rolls

From Tedo’s Kitchen

Tutorial YouTube videos are fascinating especially in the food genre…a black hole of video after video, you could spend hours until your brain is overflowing with information like how to make tiger sushi roll (which I will probably never attempt)…nonetheless mesmerizing, entertaining with catchy music.

My favorites are Chef Devaux, a sushi guy, his technique is amazing! With an English speaking dog (really?) host Cooking with dog is kind of silly but she has I mean they have many followers. I recently discovered Tedo’s Kitchen by accident. I really like his low key closed-caption presentations.

I was busy getting ready to leave for Hawaii, so my husband stepped up to this task of making the rolls. He revised Mr. Tedo’s recipe just slightly. See above link for original YouTube recipe version. There is no English subtitle but it’s not difficult to follow instruction and his dog is darling!

Ingredients and Instruction for 6 rolls (Print Recipe Here)

For dough -

• 300g Bread flour
  
• 5g salt
• 25g dark brown sugar
• 20g white sesame oil
• 150g soy milk
• 20g live natural yeast or dry yeast
• Vegetable oil or butter for greasing muffin tin

For Pumpkin paste -

• 150g pumpkin (kabocha variety) Note: buy smallest kabocha you could find.
• 20g butter
• 20g Kibi sugar (きび砂糖) or other sugar of your choice

For syrup - 

• About 4 Tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon water

Black sesame seeds for topping

1. Mix bread flour, salt and brown sugar in a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat soy milk to 86F(lukewarm) in a small sauce pan, add yeast and stir, add to the flour mixture then add sesame oil. Mix well and knead until it comes together by hand. Cover with plastic or large lid. Raise to double in size. 1-2 hours.
   
3. While the dough is rising, make the pumpkin paste – put whole pumpkin in a microwave. Microwave for 5-6 minutes on 60% power or until soft. Insert skewer to check doneness. Quarter the pumpkin and remove seeds, skin and reserve about 150g. Mush the pumpkin while it’s hot, add butter, kibi sugar, mix until creamy. If you like smoother paste, strain through fine mesh. Set aside. Note: Mr. Tedo steams the kabocha pumpkin (see the video for more detail).
   
4. When the dough has doubled, roll out to approximately 13x9. Spread the kabocha pumpkin on top leaving about 1/2 inch space on one long end. Roll the dough from opposite long end. Now you have a log.
5. Grease the muffin tin, cut the log in 6ths. Insert each piece in a muffin tin and let raise again.
   
6. Heat oven to 356F. Put in the oven to bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
7. On the center of about a 10x10 sheet of plastic wrap, mix powdered sugar and water. Gather the edges together and twist the top to secure. Poke a hole with toothpick and glaze the just baked rolls.  Sprinkle the sesame seeds on top while the syrup is still wet.

 

Heee! the pic is awful! but I wanted show you my version of pumpkin (left over from above recipe) ‘œuf pudding’ of Quatre. #todayssweets, instagram post.

Killer Kalbi recipe from Jalna’s blog. Her blog is full of charm, laughter and sincerity. My husband and I loved this recipe…tender, juicy and flavor packed (#todaystapas).

The 20 foot tall golden chain tree in our back yard fell taking the roots with it. Our kind neighbor and his son came to help clear the tree limbs. We appreciated their help.

Surprised to find strawberries in the chilly rainy weather…not expecting it to get ripe though, I can’t help cheering them.

The reason that I’m going to Hawaii is to meet this fellow. My daughter delivered him two weeks ago.

 

I’m deeply saddened by an another terrorist attack in Paris. Sorry for your pain and my prayers are with you. Dieu soit avec vous.

Wafu (和風)

Pumpkin Soup With White Miso Paste

Something about warm soup on a chilly night, so comforting, loving…it’s like someone put a blanket over someone who dozed off on the couch…oh, thanks honey…no, I’m not sleeping…just closed my eyes for a second…that show is so fascinating to watch…what? it’s over?

Wafu means Japanese style. And this very successful remake of western pumpkin soup done by NHK’s Today’s Cooking. OK, basically it’s pumpkin miso soup but it’s more done than that. It has surreal deep umami flavor, pairs well with naan or rice. My husband adds a dollop of sour cream into the soup to westernize it…a little … So tell me whodunit? Really? … wow that’s wicked.

Ingredients and Instructions for 4-6 servings (Print Recipe here)

• 600g of Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin, recommended)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3-1/2  to 5 cups dashi stock -  I used 2 No-MSG dashi packs to extract strong dashi soup. See picture below. Option: Of  course you could make your own dash stock. I like Alton Brown’s version  I found it uncomplicated.
  .
• 130-160 g of white miso paste (Saikyo 西京 miso is preferred)
• 1-2 teaspoons of Tamari light soy sauce
• Mitsuba 三つ葉 (Japanese honewort or Japanese parsley) for garnish if you have it
• Seven spices 七味唐辛子 (optional)

1. How to cut pumpkin - Remove top and bottom stems by notching with knife heel around stems first then inserting deeper with the knife tip. Wrap in plastic wrap and microwave 4-5 minutes on 60% power. The pumpkin is still hard but much easier to cut than raw. Cut in half and remove seeds and the stringy part with large spoon. Cut in sections, cube and peel off skin with vegetable peeler. See video on other method.
2. Place 600g of pumpkin  in a pan and pour plenty of water and
3. salt to cook for 15 to 20 minutes until soft. Option: cook and puree all pumpkin and use 600g for this recipe and keep rest in refrigerator for later use.
   .
4. Drain the water. Put cooked pumpkin back in the same pan, puree with hand held mixer while it’s still hot.
   
5. Gradually add dashi stock stirring constantly until the desired thickness is achieved. I used 4 cups of dashi stock 
6. Cook for 5-7 minutes. Whisk in half of miso paste and do a taste test. Add 1 Tablespoon miso paste at a time to adjust flavor. I used about 150 g of miso paste.
7. Add soy sauce, top with mitsuba, sprinkle 7 spices if you like. Serve warm. I used only 1 teaspoon of soy sauce

Variation – Make it hearty – add pork, burdock roots and matsutakeWith connections, we got cheaper (almost $20 per pound less than in store) Matsutake mushrooms. Lucky!

Pumpkin JOY! Since we were left with plenty of pumpkin puree, I made a pumpkin pudding…FABULOUSE! And my husband tackled Salted Caramel Pumpkin buns…Touchdown!

Hi Punkin….

My daughter just had a birthday. Here she was a year old, observing my husband at a church basketball game.

That was many years ago…time flew by way too fast. 

ABUNDANCE

Pumpkin Tart

In only two days,Thanksgiving is here. Our family plan of having Thanksgiving Day meal at Higgins did not materialize due to slow acting on my part - every table was booked by the time I called. I spent a hectic last three weeks, I didn’t have much of time to think about plan B –cooking at home menus. No matter what, I have to secure the bird first. I went to Whole Foods today to check out if my criteria of turkey are left – fresh, free range, organic, no chemical added and light weight, 9 pounds or less.

I was back and forth between the butcher and refrigerator section searching for the turkey. Most were too big for our family, too pricey, or so fresh that I could see blood. The Heritage turkey met most of the things on my check list. The bird is a little over 9 pounds but probably it is just water weight.

Now that I’m good with the bird, the next agenda is dessert-something fabulous. I made this for a test run. I had all the ingredients except can of orange. I substituted with canned peaches but it was a bad move. The peach overwhelmed the pumpkin flavor and didn’t set hard. I made a few mistakes on the crust but tasted good so I can use that for pumpkin pie. I guess I’m going to make fabulously humble pumpkin tartish pie! Then with all the left over egg white, I should make French macarons next!It’s hard to see but it says gratitude.

Making tart shell

Necessary equipment – food scale, 8 inch tart pan

• Weak power flour 292g Chilled in refrigerator
• Granulated sugar 80g Chilled in refrigerator
• Salt 4g
• Butter 187g Cut in small cubes and put in refrigerator.
  
• Egg yolk 53g (about 3 eggs) plus 1 egg yolk for brushing the tart shell.
• Water 7g

1. Sift flour, sugar and salt together in advance. Put flour mixture in large bowl, add butter.
2. With pastry cutter, incorporate the butter to make a resemblance of corn meal. Do this as quickly as possible so that butter won’t melt and the end result will be a flaky, cookie like crust.
   
3. Mix egg and water in a small bowl. Add this to flour/butter mixture.
   
4. With spatula quickly incorporate flour and egg mixture while rotating bowl.
5. Gather the flour to make ball with your hand – your warm hands will melt the butter so do this fast.
   
6. Place the ball on some plastic wrap and push down to form a disk. Wrap tightly and chill for 3 hours or more in refrigerator-overnight is desirable.

Shaping and baking of tart

Necessary equipment – rolling pin, pie weight, heavy aluminum foil

1. Sprinkle small amount of flour on a clean, flat surface. Put well chilled dough on and pound with flat side of mallet or wooden rolling pin to half inch thick.
2. Roll out dough with rolling pin until the it reaches 1/4 inch thick. To keep the dough from sticking, run a thin spatula underneath it every so often.
   
3. Put tart pan in the center of rolled out dough. Cut all round including the height of tart pan.
4. Lay the round dough over the tart pan. Press into edges and side of pan.
   
5. Flatten the top with flat side of knife.
   
6. Put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
7. Preheat oven to 320 F
8. Put foil over the tart shell then put in the pie weights (I used black beans).
    
9. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove pie weight along with foil 30 minutes in.
10. When the tart shell turns golden brown, remove from oven and cool on the cooling rack.
11. Preheat oven to 284F.
12. When the shell is cooled, brush inside shell with beaten egg yolk – this prevents a soggy bottom.
       
13. Bake shell for 5 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Pumpkin flan filling

• Heavy cream 80g

• Milk 40g
• Egg yolk 45g (about 3 eggs)
• Sugar 45g
• Cinnamon 1 teaspoon
• Ginger 1/2 teaspoon (optional)
• 1 Tablespoon flour
• A pinch of sea salt
• Pumpkin puree 120g

1. In a microwave proof bowl (a 2 cup glass measuring cup is good for this), mix heavy cream and milk. Microwave for 30 second to warm it up (do not boil). Stir and set it aside.
2. Mix egg yolk, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt and flour in a medium bowl without whipping.
3. Pour cream mixture a little at a time into the egg mixture and combine well each time.
   
4. Add 1/2 of pumpkin puree into the cream/egg mixture and stir well. Do the same for rest of pumpkin puree. Strain the mixture through sieve.
5. Preheat oven to 280 F. Pour the pumpkin mixture in the prepared tart shell. Place it on top of the rimmed cookie sheet, this will prevent spillage in the oven.
6. Bake for 40-50 minutes. Check for doneness after 40 minutes- the center will still jiggle a little when you shake the cooking sheet. Cool on a wire rack.

I made Pumpkin No Bake Energy Bites from the leftover pumpkin puree.

  Cucumber roll

1. Slice cucumber with peeler to make long strips.
   
2. Shape sushi rice with round biscuit cutter.
   
3. Roll lower sushi cylinder with one strip of cucumber slice. Make slits with knife so that you can interlock the strip. Put another on top if needed to form the cup to hold the topping. Now the cucumber cups are ready for your favorite foods - tuna, poke mahi-mahi, salmon eggs. I used tuna mixed with soy sauce and wasabi then topped with green onions.
   

Salmon roe with avocado and lemon

I attended a free demo holiday cooking classes at Decorette shop in Tigard. The photo below is from the cupcake decoration class-cute, right?Chocolate truffle demonstration.

My husband and I were invited for friend’s surprise party organized by her boyfriend. Lucky girl!

Our cul-de-sac was flooded Monday, turned into a small pond. We appreciated City’s maintenance crew for long hours pumping water in the darkness.  

I see an abundance of foods prepared at this particular time. I feel blessed and grateful. I also feel guilty for having so much and plenty was wasted in the end. I can’t bring myself to volunteer at a shelter or wherever needed, I wrote a check for local food bank and am praying that my small donation will help even just one person today. 

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
The word is charity.

P.S. to KG and others may want to know the conclusion of Smap concert story – It was a spectacular show! I survived (and participated) in the deafeningly loud screaming sound entire time. Although the way back to friend’s home I was staying took awfully long time, I was in such a good mood. The kind friend and her husband stayed awake for my return. Even we’re all same age, for a moment, I felt like they were my parents and waiting for their teenage daughter to come home. I felt so warm.