homemade tofu

Homemade tofu, round one.

I received the Japanese cookbook, Kansha, for Christmas and decided to make the firm tofu recipe. So I bought some nigari (which is the coagulant) and some Ota Soy Nectar (the stuff is fresh, local, and of high quality). To make tofu, you basically slowly heat up your soy milk to 150 degrees, stir in some diluted nigari, then let it sit for a bit while the nigari does it's magic. Then you strain your "curds" and eat. All in all, quite an easy process!

While my first attempt at tofu did in fact turn out, it came out slightly bitter so it needs some work. Of course this recipe was for "firm tofu", I wish it came out a bit softer and sweeter than this stuff did. Perhaps with the right garnishes to eat it with, it would be quite delicious.

Pin It

Kabocha Muffins

Kabocha = Japanese pumpkin

It's one of my favorite Japanese dishes: delicious, tender, sweet pumpkin simmered in dashi stock with some sugar and perhaps some soy thrown in. I always had big portions of the stuff at "home" in Japan. And let's not forget the oh so delicious tempura fried variety over a bowl of rice. Kabocha is still my favorite part in ten-don and I will gladly trade it for my shrimp. Yum.

I found some kabocha seeds at a local Japanese grocery store, planted them, and now have several pumpkins to consume. So far I've gone through one (as they are supposed to "ripen" for a few months after harvesting) and tried a few recipes.

You can find kabocha at your local grocery store in the fall. If it's not available, you can substitute any kind of cooked fall squash with equally tasty results.

Kabocha Muffins

Ingredients

• 55g butter, softened
• 55g brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 180g kabocha, cooked and mashed
• 110g buttermilk
• 110g whole wheat pastry flour
• 15g baking powder

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease a muffin tin and set aside.
2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add in the egg and pumpkin and stir until combined. Stir in the buttermilk.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder, then fold into the wet ingredients until just blended.
4. Scoop batter into muffin tin about 2/3 of the way up. Bake for 17 minutes until golden and cooked through.
5. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

Makes 12 muffins.

Pin It

Sparkling Jelly Dessert

Another day, another Japanese recipe. Jelly seems to be popular in Japan, and by jelly, I mean gelatinous liquid. From coffee jelly in espresso drinks and desserts to tomato jelly in pasta, nothing is off limits. I think jelly is cool and refreshing, perfect for summer. This recipe is from 大人のお菓子, which I will try to call "Sophisticated Snacks" or something like that going forward. The original recipe uses sparkling wine, but I tried making it with sparkling juice as well and it was just as tasty. Use whatever sparkling beverage strikes your fancy; for sweetened beverages, like soda, omit the sugar.


Sparkling Jelly

5g gelatin, or about 1 packet
2 tbsp water (to soften gelatin)
50mL water
30g sugar
250mL sparkling wine, or other sparkling beverage

1. In a small bowl, combine the gelatin and 2 tbsp water. Set aside.
2. Using the microwave or stovetop, combine the sugar (if using) and water and boil until the sugar is dissolved. Transfer liquid into a bowl; this bowl will later be used to chill the gelatin until ready to serve.
3. Add the gelatin to the hot water, stirring to combine. Gently pour in the sparkling wine.
4. Set aside 50mL of this mixture at room temperature for later. Cover the surface of the remaining liquid with plastic wrap. Place into an ice water bath and refrigerate.
5. Before serving, whisk the room temperature liquid until foamy. Spoon the chilled jelly into small serving glasses and top with a spoonful of foamed gelatin.

If you run out of foamed jelly, you can take a bit of your chilled gelatin, heat it up to get it back to liquid state, and then froth away.

Pin It

Japanese Style Cheesecake

This recipe comes from a Japanese cookbook, 大人のお菓子. If you've ever had Japanese desserts, they are complete different from anything else--light, perfectly proportioned, not too sweet, and absolutely delicious!

After five failed attempts to make this cheesecake properly, cheesecake #6 turned out perfectly. Tenacity pays off, my friends.

Japanese Style Cheesecake

*This recipe is yields one 6" round cheesecake. If you use a larger pan, you may need to double or even triple the crust recipe to accommodate.

Ingredients

Crust:

• 50g graham cracker, crushed to bits (1/4 C)
• 20g butter, melted (1.5 tbsp)

Filling:

• 200g cream cheese, softened (7 oz)
• 90g creme fraiche or sour cream (1/2 C)
• 80g sugar (1/3 C)
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp cream
• 10g cake flour (2 1/4 tsp)
• 1" vanilla bean, split and seeds removed (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)

Method

To make the crust:

1. Crush the graham crackers into pieces in a plastic bag.
2. Combine and mix with butter until well blended. Press into the bottom of the baking dish to form the crust.
3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes while you prepare the filling.

To make the filling:

1. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white and remaining sugar until stiff peaks form (this may take a few minutes with an electric mixer, be warned).
2. Gently fold 1/3 of the cream cheese mixture into the egg whites until just blended. Fold in remaining cream cheese.

To finish the cheesecake:

1. Carefully pour the cream cheese filling over the prepared crust, smoothing the top.
2. Place cheesecake on the middle rack of a preheated, 340 degree oven. On the lower rack, place a baking dish filled with a few inches of water to provide moisture.
3. Bake for about 40 minutes at 340 degrees, then reduce the heat to 320 and bake for an additional 20 minutes. At this point, the cheesecake should be cracked on top and slightly "jiggly".
4. Remove cheesecake and allow to cool on a rack.

The cake is perfect by itself, but add a spoonful of berry jam or sauce (try blueberry lemon or strawberry black pepper!) for a real treat :)

Pin It

Gyoza!!!

Let's be honest...I am a glutton for gyoza. There's just something amazing about pork, vegetables, and that salty dipping sauce that I can't get enough of. My friend, Tammy, was dead set on making gyoza and we finally got together to make them this afternoon! Its definitely a good idea to have some help on this recipe, as it can be quite time consuming to assemble and cook 60 gyoza, but so worth the effort!

I got my gyoza recipe from Amy Kaneko's book, Let's Cook Japanese Food! which I bought on sale from Powells over the summer. I chose this recipe over others mostly because the ingredients were easy to come by.



Gyoza

1/2 lb napa cabbage, finely chopped and well drained
3/4 lb ground pork
2 green onions, minced
3-5 shiitake mushrooms, minced
1 tsp ginger, minced
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sake
1 tsp soy sauce

1 package round gyoza wrappers (about 60 skins total)
1 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp water for each batch

Soy sauce
Rice vinegar
Chili oil

1. Gently mix the cabbage, pork, onion, mushrooms, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, sake, and soy sauce (the first set of ingredients above).
2. To assemble the gyoza, take one gyoza and fill with about 1 tsp of the pork filling. Wipe a bit of water onto the edge of the skin and press skin over to form a seal. To make them prettier (and perhaps more authentic), pleat this closed edge. Set aside on a waxed paper baking sheet. It is important to not let them touch, as they will end up sticking to each other. Keep assembling until you run out of filling or skins.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium to medium high heat, depending on your stove. Add the canola and sesame oils and coat the pan. When the oil is hot, add the gyoza cooking about 10-12 at a time. Do not atttempt to move them! Cook for 3 minutes or until turning brown on the bottoms. Carefully add 2 tbsp water to the pan and promptly cover. Let cook for an additional 5 minutes, adding a small amount of water if necessary to prevent burning. Remove the lid and cook until remaining liquid evaporates (I turned my gyoza over after removing the lid to avoid any burning).
4. To make the dipping sauce, mix your desired amounts of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and chili oil.

Since this recipe makes so many, I recommend freezing them flat on a baking sheet. To cook later, thaw them and cook as normal.

Pin It

Teriyaki Sauce

If you recall my last adventure with tofu, this idea spun out of it. What to do with half a block of tofu?? I ran across this recipe by a simple google search and I absolutely loved it! I had the tastiest lunches the past couple days and my mouth waters for the next go round.

Teriyaki Sauce

1/4 cup low-sodium tamari
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp finely chopped garlic

1. Mix all ingredients with your meat (or meat substitute) of choice. (I marinated my cubed tofu for a few hours which was just right.)
2. Stir fry meat in a hot pan with a bit of oil until cooked. Try to keep as much teriyaki liquid out of the pan for now, as it will splatter and be messy, and burn pretty easily.
3. Add in reserved sauce and cook until slightly thickened. Note: if this sauce was in contact with raw meat, use at your discretion.

I served mine with short grain brown rice on the side.

Pin It

Japanese Dry Curry with Tempeh

I heard of tempeh from my vegan cookbook a while ago, saw it at the grocery store, decided it looked scary, and didn't buy it. But then I came across this recipe on Just Bento which made tempeh seem a little bit scary. So I went back to the store and picked some up.



All I know about tempeh is it's soybeans, I believe fermented soybeans (same concept as Japanese natto, only not stringy and smelly). If you're interested, check out the wikipedia entry on it or a quick google search. But I do promise, it's not as scary as it seems!

I won't go into too much detail about the recipe, but it was pretty simple. I choppd up some vegetables in a food processor, sauteed them until tender, then added some spices, then the tempeh. Heat through and serve over rice! The recipe made enough for about 4 lunches.

Pin It

Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls

Onigiri is one of my favorite Japanese snacks/meals. I used to grab a couple from the convenience store for a quick lunch--so good! There's something special about the Japanese smoked salmon, perhaps umami??

I got my Onigiri recipe from Let's Cook Japanese Food! It's a really great basic Japanese cookbook with tons of great recipes. I chose to use leftover rice from dinner, along with grilled salmon. Not as good as the authentic variety, but simple to make. The onigiri recipe is on page 142 for reference. I'm not going to cover the recipe here, but just explain what to do.

Onigiri

Ingredients

• Japanese style short grain white rice (Nishiki is a good starter brand, available at most grocery stores), cooked and cooled
• Cooked salmon, flaked

Method

1. Spoon out a small handful of rice into wet hands. Gently compact rice into a rounded triangle shape (see picture for example); this will be the shape of your rice ball.
2. Make an indentation in the rice for your salmon filling--I like a wide and deep indentation which better allows for each bite of rice ball to have some salmon.
3. Place flaked salmon in the indentation, making sure not to overfill, as this will make it difficult to contain.
4. Take a bit more rice and cover the salmon filling, reforming the triangle shape if necessary.
5. You can wrap in a piece of seaweed if you like, but I do not recommend this if you plan to store for any amount of time.

This makes a great portable snack or quick lunch while you're on the go. Pack it with a salad and this makes a great lunch.

Pin It