Inari

Everybody loves Inari Sushi

It’s true! I have never, ever met people who don’t like this Japanese ultimate comfort food – vinegar rice stuffed in seasoned fried bean curd. With few ingredients – no fish is involved here - the recipe is also a simple affair and seems like there is no room for improvement, it’s perfect!

NHK’s Tameshite Gatten (試してガッテン) Tested and Assent (roughly translated) science team thought otherwise however… a nation wide taste test show they got 90% inari approval rating..What is their secret? Lose the sugar in the sushi rice. Adding sugar in both pouches and rice muddle the flavor. Really? I have to try their method. I have a inari expert who lives right under my roof and he is very honest.

Ingredients and Instruction for 12 inari sushi (Print recipe here)

• 6 thin deep fried bean curd (油揚げ) 
• 5 Tablespoons sugar
• 3 Tablespoons soy sauce (I used gluten free soy sauce)
• 300ml (1 and 1/2 cup) water
• Just cooked warm rice (cook 2 rice cooker cups with 360ml of water in rice cooker). See step #3
• 75 ml rice vinegar Note: not sushi vinegar
• 4g of salt
• 2 Tablespoons toasted white sesame seeds (optional)

1. Remove some of the oil from fried bean curd by immersing in hot water for 3 minutes. Drain water and gently squeeze the water out. Cut in half then open the pouch. Watch Japanese YouTube on how to open easily here. Lay the un-cut bean curd in a single layer on the plate and microwave for 1 minute on 60% power, cut in half and voila!
   
2. Boil sugar, soy sauce and water in a medium sauce pan. Put fried bean curd in and cook until almost all the liquid is evaporated at medium high heat. About 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely in the pan. Set aside.
3. While the bean curds are cooking and cooling, cook rice if you have not done so already. You want a slightly firmer rice for this recipe.
4. Mix vinegar and salt well in a small glass measuring cup. Set it aside.
5. When the rice is done. divide rice into 6ths or 8ths in the rice cooker. Sprinkle the vinegar mixture from perimeter of rice cooker, then turn out to a large bowl. Fold over the rice with rice paddle while cooling down with a fan or magazine. Mix in the toasted sesame seeds at this point if using. Cover with moist towel until needed.
   
6. Stuff rice into the pouch –do not over stuff, you will probably have some left over rice. Have a small bowl of water nearby to moisten your hands to prevent rice from sticking to your hand. I turned the pouch inside out on some for fun looks. Serve with pickled ginger.
   We tested and we assent! This is a winner!

There are many wild chickens roaming around my daughter’s house in Hawaii. They are early risers and I can hear them through the open window…good for you but please let me sleep in…wait… that’s my grandchildren, “Go back to bed!”!

I heard my 3 years old grandson screaming one afternoon as he was being chased by one of the mean chickens.  I wish he could eat this chicken inari up as revenge.

Oink! A pig inari for my lunch.Fellow food blogger Cooking Gallery published a cook book ‘Bento Delight’ recently. I planned on purchasing it but life got in the way….you know. I have two problematic issues - that my fingers are too fat to make delicate character bento and the second, I don’t have patience. It’s going to be a fine read nonetheless.

Abundant! While I was in Hawaii, beside the strawberries, our gumi plant and raspberry shortcake are also waiting for me to devour them!Which I made trifle for Father’s Day. I spread the gumi jam my husband made on the pound cake I baked…team effort.

Father’s Day Sunday was hectic. Came home from church service, I hustled to fixed cream cheese center kimkatsu roll for dinner. Delish!

My children have a terrific dad. He scores high with the grandchildren also. This was taken in 1977 in Nagasaki, Japan. Nice hair!

Cinnamon Ears

Finnish Cinnamon Rolls

In Japan, I was introduced to “mimi pan” (the ears of the bread). They cut the heels (now that I think of it, ears makes more sense than heels) of the loaf off before selling it and, at least at the time I was a missionary there, in many cases they threw it away. So as money-strapped missionaries we could get a whole bag of it either for free or for very little dough. When I read about these “little ear buns” on Rosa’s site I decided I had to give them a try.

Bread has always been a comfort food for me. When I was growing up my mom always made bread. I remember the smell of fresh-baked bread and spreading fresh-churned butter and home-made jam on it. Then washing it down with a tall glass of milk. And dough boys where you cut a nice willow branch, stripped the bark up 8 or so inches then wrapped bread dough around the stick and cooked them over the coals of a fire. My mom always made whole-wheat dough for these and hers were always the most popular in the neighborhood. Once they were done you’d pop them off the stick and fill the hole left in the middle with butter and chokecherry jam. Hmmm. I’ll be right back, I think one of the last of these ears is calling my name…

Ingredients and Recipe for 8 ears (Print recipe here)

Dough

1 Package (7g) Active dry yeast
1/2 Cup (120ml) Lukewarm water
1/4 Cup (60g) Unsalted butter, melted
1/4 Cup (50g) Bakers sugar
1 Egg, slightly beaten
1 Egg yolk
1/2 Tsp Fine sea salt
3/4 Tsp ground cardamom
2 1/4 -2 1/2 Cups (~ 300g) All-purpose flour

Filling

1/4 Cup (60g) Unsalted butter, softened
1/4 Cup (50g) Bakers sugar
1 Tbs Ground cinnamon

Glaze

1 Egg, slightly beaten
1 Tbs Milk

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let stand 5 minutes.
2. Stir in the butter, sugar, egg, yolk, salt, cardamom and flour, then knead until dough is smooth.

3. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours.
4. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to a 12 inches by 24 inches rectangle.
5. Spread with the butter, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

6. Roll up tightly, starting from one of the 24-inch sides.

7. Cut the roll diagonally into 8-12 pieces (each piece will be about ½ inch on one side and 3 inches wide on the other side).

8. With two thumbs or the handle of a big wooden spoon, press down the middle of the side of each roll (by doing that the two cut edges will be forced upward so that the rolls will look like two “ears”).

9. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease it.
10. Place the cinnamon ears on prepared baking sheets. Cover them with plastic wrap and a damp towel.
11. Let rise for about 40 minutes, until the rolls are puffy and have doubled in size.
12. Preheat the oven to 400° F after 20 minutes of rising.
13. Once the rolls have risen, mix the egg and milk together.
14. Brush each roll with the egg-milk mixture.

15. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly golden.

These turned out to be delicious. The hint of cardamom gave it a different taste and I really liked it. Next time I will roll them more tightly as mine flattened out more and did not turn out nearly as nice looking as Rosa’s. Be sure to check out her blog if you want to see what they should look like.
 

I am looking forward to having Nipponnin back home and really want to see what great things she has planned for her next blog. Thanks for reading. 

Kimchi and Blue Cheese Croissants

Savory Treat courtesy of Momofuku

As you know if you have been following along with Nipponnin’s blog, this week you are stuck with the guest blogger. She is doing a great job helping with the grandkids in Hawaii and should be back next week. Since she left me with specific instructions as to what to make and blog about, I couldn’t just ignore it.

These come from the Momufuku Milk Bar recipe book – a wonderful recipe book that has many great recipes in it. I questioned this one a bit however as I am not a huge spicy kimchi fan. They turned out to be great. As I spent Saturday morning making these though, I think that they should have given some warning to guys like me about the recipe. First, it takes a long time. You need to give it 30 minutes between bookings and there are several of those. Next learning was that this recipe is not meant to make enough to feed a hungry family. It only makes 5 of them. If I had realized that I would have used the whole mother dough and doubled the rest of the ingredients to make 10 of them (at least). I only used 1/2 cup of blue cheese, that was all that would fit on the dough. Lastly the pictures in the cookbook are meant to show you how to do it – not to be true to the size that you actually make. Unless the model’s hands are only 1-1/2 inch wide… 

Recipe and instructions for 5 croissants (Print Recipe here)

 

For the Mother Dough

• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 packet (1-1/8 teaspoons) active dry yeast
• 1 3/4 cups water, at room temperature
• oil for the bowl

For the croissants

• 1/2 recipe of Mother Dough, proofed at room temperature for 45 minutes
• Flour for dusting
• 1 recipe Kimchi Butter
• 1 cup crumbled blue cheese (I only used 1/2 cup)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon water

For the Kimchi Butter

• 1/2 cup red kimchi
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons butter) at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Mother Dough

1. Stir together the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer — do it by hand, using the dough hook like a spoon. Continue stirring by hand as you add the water, mixing for 1 minute, until the mixture has come together into a shaggy mess.
   
2. Engage the bowl and hook and have the machine mix the dough on the lowest speed for 3 minutes, or until the ball of dough is smoother and more cohesive. Then knead for 4 more minutes on the lowest speed. The dough should look like a wet ball and should bounce back softly when prodded.
3. Brush a large bowl with oil and dump the dough into it. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough proof at room temperature for 45 minutes.
   

Kimchi Butter

1. Put the kimchi in a food processor and puree it.
   
2. Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and paddle on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
   
   Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the pureed kimchi, salt, and pepper
   
   and paddle for another 2 minutes; the liquid from the kimchi will try and separate the butter during this time, but the paddling will keep it in line. When the mixture is light, fluffy, and red,
   
   stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3. Turn the butter out onto a piece of parchment.
   
   Lay a second piece of parchment on top of it and press down on the butter with your hands to flatten it into a 4 x 6 inch rectangle.
   
   Transfer the butter-filled parchment to the fridge to firm up..

Croissants

1. Punch down and flatten the dough on a smooth, dry countertop. Dust the counter, the dough, and a rolling pin with flour, and roll out the dough to a rectangle about 8 x 12 inches and even in thickness.
   
   Grab the butter pad from the fridge and place it on one half of the dough rectangle.
   
   Fold the other half of the dough rectangle over the butter pad and pinch the edges shut around it.
   
   I put a sheet of paper under the silpat so that I could tell when I was close to the 8X12 size
   Drape with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes at room temperature.
2. To make the croissants, you will need to put 3 “double book” turns into the dough to create enough alternating layers of flour and butter to make the croissants rise and puff in the oven. To make your first double book turn, dust your counter surface, your rolling pin, and the dough with flour, remembering to dust under the dough as well. Roll the dough out again to a rectangle 8 x 12 inches and even in thickness.
   
   Be gentle with the rolling pin, making sure not to break into any part of the butter bundle or roll so hard that the butter rolls right out of the dough. (If this happens, push it back in and pull a little dough over the escape hole to patch it up.) Make sure there is not an excessive amount of flour left on or underneath your dough — dust off any excess with your hands.
3. Visually divide your dough lengthwise into quarters. Fold the two outer quarters over to the center axis, or spine, of the rectangle of dough, so they meet in the center.
   
   Then close the book, bringing one edge to meet the other with the spine now to one side.
   
   Wrap it loosely in plastic and transfer it to the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 twice more to make a total of 3 turns. Each time you start a turn, make sure to have the open edges, or seam, of your dough facing away from you. If you put in one too many turns, it will not hurt your dough; if you skip one, you will end up very disappointed in your soft body croissants.
5. For your last and final roll-out, dust your counter surface, your rolling pin, and your dough with flour, remembering to dust under the dough as well. Roll the dough out to a rectangle that’s 8 x 12 inches and even in thickness.
   
6. With a paring knife or a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 5 triangles, each 8 inches long from the pointiest tip to the center of the side across it and 4 inches wide at the bottom. You should have 5 triangles (2 upside down and 3 right side up) plus some scrap on the right and left.
   
   Divide the blue cheese among the croissants, putting it into the center of the wide bottom end of each triangle.
   
   Starting at the blue cheese end, use one hand to begin rolling the dough up toward the tip of the triangle while your other hand holds the tip and gently stretches it away.
   
   Continue until the triangle is completely rolled up into a crescent shape. Make sure the tip of the triangle is tucked underneath the body of the crescent, or it will unravel in the oven. I also used the scraps – see the not-very-pretty rolls in this picture?
7. Transfer the croissants to a parchment-lined sheet pan, arranging them 6 inches apart.
   
   Cover lightly with plastic and leave at room temperature to double in size, about 45 minutes.
8. Heat the oven to 375F.
9. Whisk the egg and water together in a small bowl. Generously coat the top of your croissants with the egg wash, using a brush.
10. Bake the croissants for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they double in size, caramelize on the edges, and have a crusty outer layer that sounds hollow when you tap them.

I shared these with our neighbors and they gave it a thumbs up as well. I think they are better when shared with someone else. Looking forward to getting my wife  back home with me to share things like with.