Goodies

Meatball  Miso soup

We are having warm days lately – last Saturday it reached 80 degrees – and not a good time to find out the air-conditioning in your car is not working properly. I was on a last minute shopping spree before going to Japan. Frantic and rushed, I don’t think I was enjoying the sunshine as much as I should be grateful to feel. 

I must use up all the left over goodies like drying up burdock roots, green onion that was wilting, limp carrots, new-shooting potatoes before the trip and it had to be quick to prepare. Warm soup on a hot day is not ideal but this gives me some breather. Goody! I can cross out something from my travel check list…only 8 more to go.

The recipe I loosely followed was found in a old Japanese magazine and I like the ginger flavor in meatball and no need for dashi stock. The butter is optional yet adds depth and fat of course to it.

Ingredients and instruction Serves 4

• Ground beef 1/2 pound
• Ground pork 1/2 pound
• Grated ginger 1-1/2 Tablespoon
• Green onion 2 stalks finely chopped
• Potato starch or corn starch 2 Tablespoons
• Sake 2 Tablespoons
• Soy sauce or Tamari sauce 1 Tablespoon
• Burdock about 6 inches length peeled and thinly sliced diagonally. Soak in cold water for 5-8 minutes.
  
• 1 small carrot slice into half rounds
• 2 small potato peeled and chopped then soak in cold water for 3-4 minutes.
  
• Miso paste 4-6 Tablespoons
• Broccoli 1 adult-sized fist worth; divide into individual florets 
• Butter 1 teaspoon

1. Put meats, ginger, green onion, starch, sake and soy sauce in large bowl and knead well then make1-1/2 inch balls. Set aside .
2. Boil 5 cups of water in pan. Gently slide the meat balls in and simmer for 1-2 minutes.
   
3. Put burdock, carrots and potatoes into the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes at medium heat. Scoop off white scum that appears on top.
4. Dissolve miso paste in the ladle with little bit of cooking liquid from #3 before adding to the pan. Do the taste test. Add more miso paste if necessary. If it’s too salty, pour some water in.
5. Add broccoli florets and cook for about 1 minute.
6. Add butter (optional) and serve hot.
   

We must consume cucumber also. Made quick pickled cucumber.Cut cucumber in chunks and put in the Ziploc bag. Add vinegar, salt and chili pepper to taste. Push air out, close tight and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. 

We had a wonderful Easter service at our church. What a blessing!The Easter basket/nest plus blue chocolate eggs are from William Sonoma. Very pretty but the chocolate is overly sweet. I hope I could re-use next year, not the eggs.A friend brought me this candle holder filled with Easter candies. So nice of her!Easter dinner made easy by purchasing the honey baked ham.

My son’s friends were here for last games over pizza. My son is concentrating on his own game. Do-over birthday cake- Strawberry short cake for real.I started to make some kind of design yet I couldn’t finish it. I figured that those guys don’t care how the cake looks so I stopped caring like whatever.’Thumbs-up’ taste for sure!And we had some left over for Easter. Spring came in full force.The weeping cherry tree. We didn’t know it’s pink when we planted it.Asian pear tree

Neighbor's cherry blossom. Can you say gorgeous?Hey, you on the right, your days are Round-Up!

Neighbor’s lawn ornament – This is so cute, right?

I’m  hoping to see cherry blossoms in Japan too. My blog will resume sometime in April. Y’all comeback and see me now, ya hear?

(Re)Quest

Gluten Free Dacquoise aux Marron (ダコワースのマロンケーキ)

“Probably Strawberry Short Cake” my son said for his birthday cake selection. “Every cake you make is (very) good” he added. He basically said “Whatever”. I should have recorded that conversation. When I presented him this Chestnut Cake he goes “Whaaa…t?” like that. Happy Birthday to you!

The matter of truth is I didn’t have strawberries. I went to the market yet I spaced out completely. Like he said, whatever I make is SUPER ( he omitted this word but I know he meant to say it) good so let’s try this new recipe, in all honesty, I was really not in the mood for one more trip to the store – request denied.

The origin of dacquoise name perhaps came from the town of Dax, southwest of France and means ‘People of Dax’. However the person who developed this recipe is Japanese.Takao Mishima (三嶋隆夫), a chef who worked at Arthur, Paris’ 16th district restaurant in the 1970’s. I have made many chestnut cakes in the past but I think this is the easiest so far. Because of almost identical ingredients, the flavor is similar to a macaron without footwork. Anyway, my quest for the perfect chestnut cake continues.

Ingredients and direction for dacquoise

Equipment you need: Food scale, 12x9 baking pan lined with parchment paper

• Egg whites 135g about 4 large eggs (the eggs below are gift from my husband’s co-worker, nice aren’t they?)
• Granulated sugar 25g
• Almond Powder 100g. Sift with powdered sugar 70g below. Note: use coarse mesh strainer, it’s tough to get the almond powder through.
• Powdered sugar 70g plus an additional 2-3 Tablespoons for dusting.

1. Preheat oven to 410F.
2. Beat egg white with electric hand held mixer or stand mixer at medium speed till it gets cloudy.
3. Add 1/3rd of granulated sugar and continue whipping till you can see the solid white color and when you lift up the beaters, they leave a trace.
4. Gradually add the rest of the sugar and make meringue with stiff peaks but still shiny and not dry.
   
5. Sprinkle in 1/4 cup of the almond and powdered sugar mixture and gently fold it in with spatula until the almond disappears. Repeat until all the almond flour has been added.
6. Pour batter in the prepared pan and sprinkle powdered sugar through a strainer. When the powdered sugar disappears, dust again with powdered sugar.
   
7. Put in the oven. Close the oven door and immediately turn down the temperature to 392F. Bake for 15 minutes.
8. Cool cake in the pan on the cooling rack. When it’s completely cooled, flip onto a clean flat surface. Cut cake in 3rds. Then carefully remove paper.

Make Filling

• Heavy cream 120g
• Granulated sugar 20g
• Chestnuts about 16 pieces – I used a jar of chestnuts from William Sonoma- chopped small. 4-6 whole chestnuts for decoration later.
  
  

1. Whip heavy cream and sugar till soft peak with electric mixer.
2. Add chopped chestnuts and gently combine with spatula.

Make Chestnut cream

• Unsalted butter 100g softened
• Can of chestnut cream 200g – similar item available in Whole Foods.
• Rum flavoring 1/2 teaspoon (optional). If using real rum 10g

1. Put butter in the bowl and whip with electric hand held mixer till the butter gets pale and fluffy.
2. Add chestnut cream and mix with lower speed till well incorporated.
3. Add rum and mix.

Syrup – although it’s optional, this will keep the cake moist.

• 1/3 cup warm water
• Sugar 2 Tablespoon
• Rum flavoring 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon (optional)

Dissolve sugar in the water and add rum flavoring.

Assembly

1. Lay first of three cakes on the plate.
2. Brush with syrup repeatedly using about 1/3 of syrup.
3. Spread 1/3rd of filling evenly on top.
4. Lay the second piece of cake and repeat step #2 and #3.
5. Lay the third and final piece on top and repeat step #2 and #3.
6. Put chestnut cream in the pastry bag with tip (I used a multiple hole tip but a one pin hole tip will work too).
   
7. Pipe out diagonally and  then again to form a cross-hatch or diamond pattern.
8. Clean sides with a pallet knife.
9. Decorate with chestnuts on top (optional). I used chestnuts in heavy syrup.I proudly announced that this cake is gluten free. ” I’m ok with gluten, you know that right?” said my husband. Yeah but this does not taste like it. Hummm, this looks like soba noodle.

Putting the kids to bed was an exhausting job indeed.

This is one of my first paintings.  

I needed to make amends with him with his favorite dish –  crab cream croquette but he was out with friends. Fine!

My son made us beef stroganoff over egg noodle under the guidance of Betty Crocker. It’s good though, my recipe is betty…better.

We went out for dinner last Saturday then stopped by the Petite Provence for a little treat. From the right – chocolate, vanilla, caramel, orange, half eaten raspberry and missing is pistachio.