Day of Confession

Strawberry mousse cake

I love St.Valentine’s Day in the US. As always, my old fashioned husband had a dozen red roses delivered to me. We usually go out for fancy dinner. We have odd number household this year and I felt leaving my still wounded (from divorce) son home alone is pitiful so off to plan B. I make dinner and we just have a nice quiet time watching shows we DVRed, particularly  the ‘Once upon the time’ which is destroying my beautiful fairy-tale images for sadly ever after!

My husband informed me the night before Valentine’s Day that my son is going to Portland Trailblazer game with friends. Really? That’s kind of important information isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I just got the memo too, he said. Shoot! It’s too late for dinner reservation thus Plan B still move forward.

I spent entire Valentine’s Day afternoon preparing special feast (not really). I was thinking while making the dinner “how come Japanese celebrate this day so differently than the US?”  On Valentine’s Day in Japan, girls/women are allowed to confess their love with a gift usually chocolate. When I was in middle and high school I gave chocolate to popular, out of my league guys too. These chocolates are barometer of how desirable they are. For popular guys, it’s a day for celebration and for others, just painful reminder that life is not fair.

I confess that I’m so glad that March 14th was not invented back then (this is the day which boys confess their love back with cookies and is called White Day). If no boys gave me any cookies then it would be a huge disappointment and an empty stomach. I probably wouldn’t do Valentine’s giggly thing for fear that I won’t receive return of love on White Day. Last year, I blogged about the same subject and my husband gave me Godiva cookies. You really, really love me! I had no idea!

Ingredients for Strawberry mousse cake

15-1/2 X 11 rimmed pan lined with parchment paper that reaches above the pan about 2 inches

Acetate film-purchased at The Decorette shop or other cooking supply store

Scotch tape-I did not have but invisible tape look prettier.

Candy thermometer

Cocoa sponge cake

• Egg 420g about 8 large eggs
• Sugar 210g
• Cake flour or weak power flour 160g sifted with cocoa powder below.
• Unsweetened cocoa  powder 25g
• Milk 40g- heat in small sauce pan and add butter below to melt. Do not boil.
• Unsalted butter 40g

1. Mix egg and sugar in a double boiler and warm the egg mixture to 100F.
2. Put egg mixture into the bowl of stand mixer and mix on high until doubled in volume and light in color; 3-4 minutes.
3. Lower the speed  to low and mix about 2 minutes.
4. Add flour and cocoa mixture and fold it in with rubber spatula.  Make sure to combine well.
5. Pour in melted butter and milk mixture. Combine well.
6. Pour in batter into prepared pan.
7. Bake in oven for 12 minutes at 410 F. Check for doneness.
8. Lift up by paper and place on top of cooling rack and peel off paper.

Make syrup by combining 3 Tablespoons of water and 3 Tablespoons of fine sugar in small microwave proof cup and microwave to melt (about 20 seconds ). Add 2-3 Tablespoons of rum after cooled (optional). Set it aside.

Ingredients for custard cream. Enough for 6 cake.

• Milk 125g
• Heavy cream 125g
• Vanilla beans half
• 3 egg yolks
• Fine sugar 30g
• Unflavored gelatin 3g

1. In a small sauce pan, combine milk and cream. Add vanilla bean and scrape in the seed. Put shell in the it too. Warm up to just before boil. Set aside
2. In a bowl, mix egg yolks and sugar until light yellow color then add milk mixture a little at a time. Discard vanilla bean shell.
3. Strain the mixture and put back in the small sauce pan. Cook over low heat stirring constantly with a rubber spatula until mixture starts to thicken. Remove from heat.
4. Sprinkle in gelatin and mix well with whisk.
5. Put ice in a large bowl, then put the saucepan on the ice and stir to thicken and cool.

Assembly

1. Cut out circle from cocoa sponge cake ( I used 2-1/2 inch biscuit cutter).
2. Brush sponge cake with syrup. You do not use all the syrup.
3. Wrap the sponge with acetate film and over wrap by an inch and tape the end.
4. Pour custard over and place another sponge on top.
5. Chill in refrigerator.

Ingredients for Strawberry mousse

• Heavy cream 110g
• Strawberry puree 150g and 100g for jell- make your own by using blender or food processer.
• Gelatin 5g
• Sugar 25g

1. Whip cream until soft peak.
2. In a small sauce pan, combine strawberry puree 150g and sugar then cook just until boiling point. Remove from heat.
3. Sprinkle gelatin and mix well to dissolve.
4. Cool by putting ice and water in a large bowl, then placing the saucepan in. Stir while cooling until it thickens a little bit. Remove from ice water- the puree should still be runny.
5. Add to whipped cream and fold to combine.
6. Scoop onto the assembled cake.

Strawberry Jell

• In a small sauce pan, cook 100g of strawberry puree and sugar 15g –do not boil.
• Add a few drops of food coloring (optional).
• Add gelatin and mix well. Let it cool in pan. 
• Pour on the assembled cake and chill for a couple of hours.
• Decorate with fruits and sweetened whipped cream.

Salad with parmesan cheese crisps

Shrimp and vegetable baked in parchment paper

Main course – garlic pepper and thyme rubbed roast beef with roasted vegetables

I made fresh chocolate (生チョコレート) for friends.

Pink roses are my favorite. Just so lovely!

Curry Pan/カレーパン

Japanese fried curry roll

Pan means bread in Japanese. Curry dish is immensely popular in Japan. It came from India in 1853 when Yokohama port was open for import business. Since then the recipe was cultivated and improvements made to suit Japanese taste. In the end, Japanese curry has different spin than India or Thai curry. The fried curry roll was debuted by Catlea bakery in Tokyo 74 years later in 1927 (昭和２年). This bakery still exists and is very proud as the original curry pan maker. One source said that it’s Japanese version of  the ‘piroshky’ of Russia. Genius!

I mentioned in a past blog about how I’m in love with curry pan and will never fall out of it. It’s a handsome pick me up or a nice mid day date, I mean snack. There are a few non-fried curry pan recipes popping up in the last few years for those who are concerned about calories but that’s nonsense! To me, frying takes curry pan to awesomeness!

I used left over curry and left over super mochi mochi bread dough so it was not a big deal to make it (“yeah right” sounds were heard from whoever washed the dishes), otherwise this is a time consuming recipe. I have an great idea! Why not have curry rice one night and make this curry pan for snack at a later date? Left over curry in Tupperware keeps fresh for few days. Oh oh  I know!  Make cooked rice bread with left over rice too! How clever of me! I baked curry pan first in oven and deep fried them for kari kari (sound of crispiness) texture, or should I say, curry, curry?

Ingredients Make about 8 curry pans or 4 big rolls

• Super mochi mochi dough- or your favorite roll dough. Frozen rolls may be used.
• Curry stew 300g Recipe follow.
• Potatoes- prepare about 120g –skinned, cooked and mashed
• 1 egg, beaten
• Panko-Japanese bread crumbs
• Oil for frying
• Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper

1. In a medium size pan, heat curry and add mashed potatoes a little at a time to achieve the right thickness. Thick enough for easy filling but still a little loose! You do not need to use all the potatoes, its all depends on your curry. Set it aside.
2. When the dough is done and out of bread maker, divide in 8 equal parts or 4 for larger rolls. Make balls and let rest for 10 minutes under a moistened towel.
3. Stretch the ball of dough with rolling pin (you may need some flour for dusting) and fill with curry filling (about 2 Tablespoons but do not overfill). Make a tight seal.* Lay the roll seam side down in the prepared pan.
4. Leave them in warm place to rise again. Heat oven to 300 F. Bake for 20 minutes.
5. Start heating up oil to 355 F. After rolls cool down a bit then dip in egg, dredge in panko then fry until golden brown. Place on the paper towel to remove extra oil.
6. Optional: Heat the oil to 375 F and re-fry them for ultimate crispness. You need to watch carefully though, as they will burn very quickly.

* Try to keep the edge clean from curry filling. It’ll be hard to seal if not.

Recipe for curry stew

Ingredients

• Butter 20g
• 2 clove of garlic sliced
• 1 medium size onion chopped
• Ground pork 150g or other meat
• 1 carrot chopped
• Water 600ml.
• Curry rue- I used half box of solid cube curry rue about 125g
• Ketchup about 3 Tablespoon (optional)

1. In large pan, melt butter at medium high heat and add garlic. Sauté until garlic is fragrant but not brown.
2. Add onion and sauté until transparent.
3. Add pork and carrot. Keep sautéing until meat is brown.
4. Pour in the water and cook over low heat till carrots are soft but not mushy.
5. Add curry rue and stir to thicken. Add more curry if it’s too runny.
6. Add ketchup if you like. The color gets brighter and a little sweeter with this.

For people really really don’t want to fry curry pan- After you filled with curry filling, dip in egg and dredge with bread crumbs then leave in warm place to rise for 2nd time. Place cooking sheet in a oven and preheat oven to 380F.  Lay the curry pans in heated cooking sheet seam side down and mist with water mister. Bake for 15- 20 minutes. Heating the cooking sheet makes the bottom of bread crispy.

I made cream pan and chocolate cream pan also for my sweet tooth guys. It’s not my best but this custard cream recipe is super easy. I don’t deep-fry this, just bake in a 302F oven for about 20 minutes.

Ingredients for Vanilla custard cream

• Cake flour or weak power flour 15g
• Sugar 50g
• 1 egg
• Milk 200cc
• Vanilla 2-3 drops

1. Mix sugar and flour well in a microwave proof bowl.
2. Pour milk in and mix well.
3. Add egg and mix well
4. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap then microwave for 2 and half minutes at 50% power.
5. Mix well and re-cover loosely and microwave for another 2 minutes at 50% power.
6. Mix till smooth and add a few drops of vanilla. Cover with plastic directly over the custard and chill in refrigerator until needed.

Chocolate custard version;. Melt 40g of chocolate in a microwave or double boiler . Add to vanilla custard cream (before chilling) and mix well.

Next Tuesday is Valentine’s Day so my next blog post will be Wednesday I hope you have a wonderful day!

Aromatic

Baked clam escargot style

Clam is our family’s favorite shellfish, except for my daughter. She does not like foods that come from the sea that much. Funny, she lives by the ocean though. Clam sauce spaghetti is our go to dish when we’re in a time crunch. Clams steamed with rice wine (アサリの酒蒸し) at Maki (槙) restaurant in Tigard, Oregon is our staple order. Drinking the garlicky and oceanic flavored juice left after eating all the clams is a delightful treat. You should try it sometime.

My earliest memory associated with clam is fragmented because I was so young but I remember going on the boat to some nameless… wait, it has a name but I just couldn't recall,,,anyway a small island in Nagasaki with my cousins, aunts and uncles for clam hunting. Clams were not found under the sand but stuck to the side of rocks in the shoulder high water. You could lay on your stomach on the rock and stretch out your hands to reach them ( I couldn’t ) or go underwater to get them. I hit the jackpot of clams accidently. I got in the water to see what seemed like millions of clams clustered along the side of a huge rock!  My imagination went wild all of a sudden and I was over whelmed with monstrous fear. I was out numbered for sure. I did a retraction as fast as my little feet were able then stumbled down and drunk sea water, so much for the jackpot. It was otherwise a fun outing. We had rice ball, kara age chicken, baked egg and some pickles we brought for lunch. We stopped at a tiny tobacco shop to get some ice candy (popsicle) on the way over to the boat dock. I got sea sick on the return trip, that was no fun. I wish I remembered only the good parts.

Come to think of it now, it may not really have been clams but some kind of shell fish but that does not matter, they were really tasty. I don’t have to go hunting to get shellfish anymore. They are sold fresh at Asian market. Whopping 50 cent per pound off from regular price last week. I bought a couple pounds.This recipe I adapted from Chez Shea restaurant in Seattle that has a perfect flavoring of parsley garlic butter. I didn’t have fresh parsley but I had left over carrot leaves and that was just fine. As it baked in the oven, the aroma filled the kitchen and traveled upstairs to our bedrooms like life’s little bliss,,,now where is the room deodorizer? It’s getting a little stinky in here.

Ingredients

Rimmed baking sheet lined with scrunched foil

• Fresh clams-I bought 2 pounds or 20-26 clams. Choose the larger size if possible.
• Water for boiling about 3 cups
• Garlic 3 cloves finely minced
• Shallots finely minced 2 Tablespoon
• Parsley or carrot leaves finely mince 2 Tablespoon
• Unsalted butter 1 cup at room temperature
• Salt 2 teaspoons
• Bread crumbs about 1/4 cup

1. Fill a large bowl with clean water. Put in all the clams and leave in the water for a couple hours so clams will spit sand out. I do this mainly for my peace of mind. Scrub hard to clean the shell under running water.
2. Mean while make the parsley garlic butter by combining garlic, shallots, parsley, salt,  butter and salt in a bowl. Set it aside.
3. Boil the pot of water and put clams in and cover. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
4. Take out only the ones that opened and discard the water and unopened clams.
5. Wait a few minutes for the clams to cool down and remove the meat from the shell.
6. Separate shells in half and put 20 to 26 of clams shell on the prepared pan.
7. Heat oven to 450F
8. Put clam meat in the selected shells then top with butter mixture (you don’t have to use all the butter).
9. Sprinkle with bread crumbs on top then bake for 6-8 minutes till they turn a golden color.

They are great with fresh squeezed lemon juice.

I’m still working on the macro lens.

Verdict: Its hard. I need more practice.

 

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Vege-t-able

Three vegetable sweets

Really? is the word I uttered for Aya Kakisawa (柿沢安耶)’s vegetable sweets. She is owner/ chef of Patisserie Potager (パティスリーポタジェ) in Meguro, Tokyo and uses vegetables in all her creations. She opened this shop in 2006, when she was still in her 20’s. She seems to have everything  - beautiful, brainy and talented. She graduated from prestigious Gakushuuin (学習院) University in French literature. I thought her degree does not exactly translate to being a pastry chef but actually she was studying French home cooking under a food researcher too while in the university and after graduating ,she studied abroad in France for more training in cooking. I believe finding your passion or dream at a young age is a real head start. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Only about 10 years ago I just realized that I love to paint and accidently found the teacher with lots of patience. Lots! 

In any major city in Japan, it seems there are pastry shops on almost every block. Therefore competition is fierce. Pastry chefs are always thinking, experimenting for new creations called shinsaku (新作). At the beginning of each season, many stores come up with shinsaku cake to lure more customers. I know from experience that if there is  ‘new ‘ word on front of the name of cake, I’m sure I will have it. One thing my husband and I must do in Japan is try popular cake shop cakes. We sometimes walked a good distance in our quest for the best cake in town. One time we got lost and it started raining. It was very important to us (me) to find the shop so we bought one cheap umbrella at convenient store and pressed on. We had to ask 4 people (including a police man) to reach the destination. It was bit embarrassing for my husband. I’m somehow high maintenance when it comes to foods,,,,and bags.

The Patisserie Potager stands tall for its originality. Although some of the recipes are not love at first try for me but it grows on you. On the other hand some are so peculiar that I may never repeat though I applaud her efforts and her out of the box thinking. She also is a great business woman who made good connections with celebrities. For instance she made a birthday cake for the popular singer/actor Masaharu Fukuyama (福山雅治) and other famous people and she does catering to big social events and occasions. I’m a huge fan of gorgeous Masaharu Fukuyama so I am jealous of her success too. Ah, do you need extra help at his February 6th birthday party?

Burdock Florentine I tweaked her recipe for this.

Base-Tart

• Cake flour 200g
• Almond flour 40g
• Cocoa powder 5g
• Unsalted butter 70g
• Sugar 25g
• 1 egg- scramble

1. In a bowl,combine cake flour, almond flour and cocoa powder . Set it aside.
2. Put butter and sugar in an another bowl and mix until pale yellow in color with hand mixer.
3. Add egg  a little at a time. mix well each time.
4. Add flour mixture and combine with rubber spatula.
5. Put in the middle of a large sheet of plastic wrap and twist up at the top to make a tight ball. Leave in refrigerator for 1 hour.
6. Heat oven to 355 F. Flatten the ball of dough into the 9x9 inch square pan as evenly as possible. Prick top several times with folk.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.

Burdock sauté

• Burdock 100g –Peel the skin, slice thin and soak in water for about 20 minutes.
• Unsalted butter 1 teaspoon or 4g
• Sugar 1 teaspoon or 4g
• Water 70g

1. Heat frying pan at medium high. Add butter and burdock and sauté for a couple minutes.
2. Add sugar and continue to sauté until sugar dissolves.
3. Pour water in and cook until water evaporates and burdock is tender yet has firm texture.

Caramel and Finish

• Honey 40g
• Sugar 40g
• Unsalted butter 40g
• Heavy cream 60g
• Almond slice 20g lightly toasted
• Pumpkin seed 20g

1. Heat oven to 355 F.
2. Put honey, sugar, butter and heavy cream in a frying pan. Heat at medium high.
3. Cook stirring continuously with rubber spatula until it turns dark brown and gets thick.
4. Add burdock sauté, almonds and pumpkin seeds.
5. Pour caramel mixture over the baked tart then as quickly as possible spread across the entire top. It hardens very quickly so be speedy.
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Daikon radish Fra mange’s vivid mint color sauce from daikon leaves is stunning and has light fresh taste. This could be a vegan dish that screams “healthy”. I like the crunchy texture from the bits of daikon but my family critic/my son says ‘Interesting’ which means I don’t care for it.

Carrot rice tart has sesame oil aroma and savory side of sweet. My son says ‘ different’; that means no way. Thank you for your constructive criticism.

It was hard to find daikon or carrot with leaves still intact at the market. It was good to know that leaves are edible.