Kuro-goma purin: Black sesame pudding May 29, 2008

Pudding, or purin as it’s called here, is a popular dessert in Japan. It is usually more firm than an American-style pudding, more like a custard’s consistency. The most common flavor is vanilla with caramel sauce. Another popular flavor is black sugar, which is a dark, slightly salty, molasses flavored sugar. One of my favorite flavors is black sesame. The pudding is flavored with sesame paste, which gives the pudding a strong sesame flavor, almost reminiscent of peanut butter.

This recipe is super-easy to make if you use Japanese sesame paste. Of course, you can grind your own sesame seeds too, but it will be a bit of work. If you are grinding your own sesame seeds, I recommend that you use a suribachi, a Japanese mortar and pestle. The texture of Japanese sesame paste is thinner than tahini, so it’s a good idea to look for the real thing at an Asian market, but if you can’t find it, it might be fun to experiment with tahini or another nut butter like peanut or almond. The black sesame paste gives the pudding a gray color, flecked with black bits of sesame. It may look a little strange at first, but once you taste it, you too will become a fan or gray desserts.

This recipe is adapted from a Japanese cookbook called Pudding Book by Junko Fukuda. While the vanilla pudding in this book is an egg-yolk custard, the black sesame pudding is set with gelatin, a bit like a panna cotta except that the milk and cream are not cooked. I actually found it almost a little bit too creamy, so I think I will experiment with using more milk or a lighter cream (I used nama cream 47, which I think has more butterfat than nama cream 35).

Kuro-goma purin – Black Sesame Pudding

2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
2 tablespoons lukewarm water
45 grams (about 3 tablespoons) kuro neri goma, Japanese black sesame paste
70 grams (1/3 cup) sugar
250 mL (1 cup) milk
150 mL (about 2/3 cup) cream

Put the water in a small dish and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Set aside.

Stir the sesame paste well to incorporate the oil and sesame solids. Put the sesame paste in a large bowl. Add the sugar and mix well. Next, stir in the milk a little at a time. Stir well to ensure that the sugar is fully dissolved.

Microwave the softened gelatin for 20 seconds on high to melt it. Stir in a few tablespoons of the sesame-milk mixture. Then add the gelatin to the rest of the sesame-milk mixture and stir well.

Stir the cream into the mixture. Place the bowl over another bowl filled with ice water and stir well until the mix begins to thicken. Finally, strain the mix and pour into custard cups or a gelatin mold.

* if your neri goma has separated and is difficult to stir back together, try putting the lid on the jar tightly and leaving it upside-down for a few hours. It should be much easier to stir together afterwards.

Kindai farmed bluefin tuna May 28, 2008

I usually try to steer clear of bluefin tuna (hon-maguro) at the store and sushi bar since it’s listed as unsustainably fished at Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch. However, for hon-maguro and toro fans out there, Kinki Daigaku (Kinki University, Kindai) has developed a method of farming bluefin tuna from its eggs to adulthood. It may be possible to enjoy sustainably harvested bluefin tuna in the future. Of course, it remains to be seen whether these carnivorous fish can be fed in captivity in a sustainable way.

The Kindai tuna became available in Japan in 2004, and an article in last week’s San Francisco Chronicle food section tells which San Francisco area restaurants are selling the fish. The demand for sustainable bluefin outpaces the supply in America still, so it is currently a hot commodity.

I’ll keep an eye open to see if I can find it here in Maebashi.

Maebashi cycling club ride to Shibukawa May 27, 2008

yae-zakura, double-flowered cherry blossoms

I almost forgot to post some pictures that I took on our ride with the Maebashi cycling club. We went for our first ride with the Maebashi cycling club on the last weekend in April. We rode along the Tone River cycling road from Maebashi to Shibukawa. I really enjoyed riding along the cycling road. Aside from the cycling club, there weren’t too many other people and the road takes a gradual ascent to Shibukawa along the river. It was a really pleasant ride, and I was surprised to learn how close Shibukawa really is (perhaps it takes only slightly longer to ride there than it would to take the train). There are sakura planted along the path and river, and although they had already finished blooming, I could imagine how beautiful riding along there would be in early April.

The yae-zakura (double flowered cherry blossoms) were in full bloom in Shibukawa. We also found that there was a local festival and parade that day. There were lots of booths with festival foods, along with people selling crafts, sake, and local fresh vegetables such as takenoko, imo, fuki, and negi.

koi-nobori, carp streamers for Children’s Day (May 5th) | children marching in the parade, the theme was the warrior Benkei

Somen bento May 27, 2008

I’ve been craving somen since the late-spring weather has really been warming up lately. Here’s a somen bento lunch that I had recently. I used my trusty two-tier Totoro bento box. The left side contains a shredded cucumber, a crunchy-style umeboshi plum, and one bundle of somen noodles, cooked and drained. In the middle you can see a shredded carrot, chicken breast, simmered shiitake mushrooms, and shredded usuyaki tamago (thin omelet). On the right is the cute lid to my bento box, and at the top is a separate container with the somen tsuyu, or cold dipping broth. The sauce is made using the dipping sauce recipe for “Thin Noodles on Ice” in Washoku.

I liked the sauce and noodles, but I haven’t yet mastered usuyaki tamago. I also made a half batch of simmered mushrooms, but forgot to reduce the sugar and soy in the simmering liquid, so they were much too strong. Luckily, I’ll have plenty more chances to perfect my hiyashi somen toppings because summer has not even begun yet.

Eats shoots and leaves May 25, 2008

seven fresh takenoko | layers of leaves at the tip of the takenoko, the innermost leaves are tender and delicious

Springtime is the season for takenoko, or fresh bamboo shoots. I began to see takenoko appearing in the markets around town in mid-April. I had never prepared one before and I had directions and recipes from the Kansha Club, so one weekend I bought one. I wasn’t sure at the time why they were only in the store on weekends, but now I know: they’re a lot of work to prepare!

I cooked my bamboo shoot on the last day of April, while Alex was at a school enkai. I got to work by carefully peeling away the tough, fuzzy outer leaves. When I had peeled to the point where the leaves would split part-way up instead of at the base of the bamboo shoot, I stopped peeling them off. Next, I cut off the tip of the shoot. I found that the tip is fairly tough, so next time I will cut it a bit lower, since the tough layers are hard to cut even with a sharp knife. Finally I slit the leaves halfway through from the base of the shoot to the tip. Be careful here, you don’t want to cut into the base at this point, or it will fill up with nuka while you are boiling it, giving you more work to clean it out later.

After that I tucked the shoot into my biggest pot and added the bag of nuka (rice bran) that came with the shoot. The nuka absorbs toxins from the shoot while it boils. I don’t have an otoshi buta, so I used a smaller lid to keep the bamboo shoot submerged (they tend to float). Finally I added water to cover and simmered the shoot until the base was tender, about 45 minutes.

Once the shoot was cooked and cooled a bit, it was easy to remove the remaining tough leaves. The innermost leaves, called hime-kawa, or princess skin, are tender and delicious so don’t peel them all away!

While Alex was at the enkai, his Kyoto-sensei asked him if he had ever tried takenoko, and offered to bring him some shoots freshly dug from his garden. The next day, I was surprised to find seven more takenoko waiting for me when I got home! Luckily, Golden Week would be starting that weekend, so I would have plenty of time to prepare and cook my shoots. Although the store-bought shoot kept fine for a few days, the cut edge of the garden-fresh shoots began to spoil surprisingly quickly, and the spoiled bits smell terrible. So if you are planning to get some freshly dig bamboo shoots from your friends or neighbors, make sure to cook them within a day. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I thought that the freshly dug shoots had nicer color and flavor than the shoot that I bought at the market too.

takenoko gohan (bamboo shoot with rice) | takenoko arima-ni (simmered bamboo shoot with fried tofu

I used the base of the bamboo shoot for takenoko arima-ni (simmered bamboo shoots with fried tofu), and the top went into takenoko gohan (bamboo shoot rice). For the arima-ni, I substituted fresh kinome (leaves of the sansho plant) for fresh sansho berries, since I couldn’t find the berries at my market. Both recipes were delicious and I made them each at least twice (I think I may have made takenoko gohan 3 or 4 times).

After my big weekend of takenoko boiling, I avoided the box of bamboo shoots that someone had brought to my school to share the following week. Considering how many we received from friends, it may be foolish to pay for takenoko at the market, unless, of course, you are buying the already prepared ones, which will save you from quite a bit of preparation time and a messy kitchen. The season is short, though. It seems like all the shoots popped up over golden week, and that was the last we saw of them. The fresh shoots are gone from the markets, though the prepared ones remain. Maybe I’ll get one to make the season last just a little bit longer…

I heard that they have takenoko on our friends the Kobayashis’ farm, so I hope that we can go digging for them ourselves next year. I’ve been told that the shoots are at their best if you can find them before they even come up from the ground. I’ve already marked my calendar.

I also just found a great video of harvesting and preparing takenoko at joi.ito.com. Check it out!