I heard that they are to die for. Is this true?

Soft white chocolate sandwich in between two langue de chat cookies, melts in your mouth like clouds. Has anyone ever tried this?

Well, for those of you who are interested in trying this confectionery, you’re in luck as they sell it online now. And for you who reads this blog but have never been to Japan, order one for yourselves. I already did :P

Their online shop can be accessed here: https://www.shiroikoibito.ishiya.co.jp/

Gari or pickled ginger usually served as a palate cleanser with sushis are delicious and packs a punch. I made my own gari the other day but I forgot to take pictures. I followed a recipe online about it but I don’t remember where i procured the recipe anymore. But i am still very determined to share it with you because gari is so easy to make.

As we all know, gari has a pinkish color to it. It’s a natural coloring that fresh young ginger imparts when it is soaked in vinegar. But it would have to be with young ginger if you want that color. Otherwise, older ginger would taste just fine but without the color. Oh and the older the ginger, the spicier too. :)

So here’s a recipe for gari that I hope you will find useful in your kitchen:
2 fresh ginger roots, peeled and cut into manageable knobs
3 cups vinegar
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon salt

Method:
1. In a 2L sterilized jar, put your ginger knobs in. Make sure the ginger are pat dry first if they’re a little too wet.
2. Mix vinegar, sugar and salt in a pan and cook until it comes to a boil and all the sugar and salt crystals are dissolved.
3. Pour it into the jar containing the gingers. Let it cool, cover and store in the refrigerator. Pink hues will be visible after a while. If not, that’s fine too, the ginger pickle is still as good :)

Tokoroten is made from strips of agar-agar, a gelatin like substance made from algae from the sea. To prepare the agar, all you need to do is dissolve it in warm water and then pour them into containers until they set before you cut them into noodles and serve cold with a vinegar base like dressing.

Unlike gelatin, agar contains no animal protein, so this completely vegetarian snack is refreshing as it is cooling for the summer, fit for ALL.

Check out a very simple recipe of Tokoroten from Obachan’s Kitchen and Balcony Garden blog :)

It’s a very detailed recipe on how to cut up your agar and using what devise :)

I remember when I was reading Doraemon, one of Nobita’s favorite snack is pudding. lol! Well i have a pudding recipe to share and it’s the silkiest, melt in your mouth pudding you have ever had. It’s called Panna Cotta. You can eat it with fresh fruits, caramel, chocolate sauce, etc. This is the perfect pudding. You can serve it during a dinner party as well and i can assure that you will wow your dinner guests.

This recipe is easy to make and the outcome always look professional ;)

Here goes:

Panna Cotta:

* 1/3 cup milk (skim or normal)
* 1 ounce envelope unflavored powdered gelatin
* 2 1/2 cups heavy cream (35% Cooking Cream)
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 1/2 teaspoon rose water

Method:
1. Pour milk into a small bowl, and stir in the gelatin powder. Set aside.
2. In a saucepan, stir together the heavy cream and sugar, and set over medium heat. Bring to a full boil, watching carefully, as the cream will quickly rise to the top of the pan. Pour the gelatin and milk into the cream, stirring until completely dissolved. Cook for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in the rose water and pour into six individual ramekin dishes OR six wine glass.
3. Cool the mixture uncovered at room temperature. When cool, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight before serving.

When it’s cool you can serve it with your favorite fruits like I did, or you can just eat it on its own :)

From A Series of Kitchen Experiments

When you say ice cream, you think of flavors like chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, mint…things that are relatively “normal” for a dessert. In Japan, the whole ice cream scene is taken to a whole next level with flavors like Chicken Wing Ice Cream, Octopus Ice cream, Eel ice cream…and even Crab ice cream. How about that for dessert? :P

Check out this page of Japanese Ice Creams for the list of different ice creams you have never thought of before :P

I got wind about cucumber flavored pepsi out in Japan recently. I am quite curious about it. Will someone be nice enough to send me a sample of the Cucumber flavored Pepsi all the way to the northern hemisphere?? :P

I like cucumbers and I can imagine the flavors going quite well with other savory food. Oh and thanks Billy for pointing it out the cucumber pepsi and octupus ice cream :D He said the cucumber flavored pepsi goes very well with the Umeboshi pickles. What an interesting thing. You guys need to try it out and let me know how it goes.

When I first saw this, i thought “I didn’t know the cereals came in drink form too”. Cheerio was a household favorite for a while in my home but the only form i know of is Cheerio the cereal, not Cheerio the drink.

Anyway, the similarities that these two share is uncanny in a way. Cheerios comes in a variety of color and this Japanese drink, Cheerio comes in a multitude of colors as well. The drink comes in multiple flavors, and was introduced in 1963. The drinks used to be sold in glass bottles, similar to those used for Ramune. In recent years, with the proliferation of steel and aluminum cans and PET bottles, Cheerio (grape and orange only) in glass bottles is only available in the Chūbu region south of Tokyo, as well as three vending units in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Has any of you tried Cheerio, the drink before?

Source: Wikipedia

Japanese LOOOOVE their cakes. And cheesecake is without an exception one of their favorite. The Japanese even have a day where they dedicate it to eating cakes called Kurisumasu. Cakes are pretty much the same in Japan and in Western countries, with exception to weird flavors like cherry blossom, wasabi, green tea just to name a few. I tried green tea cake with pistachios once and MAN IT WAS AWESOME - perfect blend of the bitter macha powder and sweet. It’s da bomb.

Anyway, I have a cheesecake recipe to share with you - I wish i made that green tea cake but I bought it from a specialty shop back home. The cheesecake is very simple lemony one with a chocolate base that you can just top with whatever you want. I topped mine with a strawberry reduction sauce, made from fresh strawberries and some sugar. It’s delicious.

Here’s the recipe.

Base:
1 cup chocolate cookies crumbs
2 tablespoon brown sugar
4 tablespoon butter

Cheese filling:
250g cream cheese of any kind (i.e. philadephia cheese), room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 whole egg
1 yolk
1 egg white, beaten still stiff
rind of 1/2 lemon
1.5 tablespoon of lemon juice

Strawberry Reduction topping:
1 cup of fresh strawberries, halved and cored
1/4 cup of sugar
5 tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon lemon rind

Making the base:
1. Preheat oven to 375F. Coat your 8 inch cake pan with butter and dust with flour - shaking of the excess.
2. Make the base first by combining the cookie crumbs, butter and sugar. Mix with your fingers until the crumbs can hold together when you take some in your hands and squeeze it. It’s still crumbly but you can shape it.
3. Press the crumbs into the base of your cake pan and on the sides. Bake in the oven for 8 minutes.
4. After 8 minutes, take out your base to let it cool and reduce the oven temperature to 350F for later.

Making the cheese filling:
1. Beat the cheese until it’s light and fluffy. It takes about 7 mins.
2. Add sugar in gradually and keep beating until it is well combine.
3. Add 1 egg and egg yolk in, and beat until all is mixed in well. Beat for one minute on medium speed.
4. Now take out your spatula/wooden spoon and FOLD in your egg whites gently until well combined. Do not over mix, it’s alright if you can see lumps in your batter.
5. Pour cheese mixture into the base in the cake pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350F and then another 30 mins in 300F.
6. After it’s done, take it out and let it cool. The cheese cake will sink a little bit, but that’s okay. It creates a proper crater for the strawberry reduction sauce ontop after :)

Making strawberry reduction:
1. Put strawberries, sugar and water in the pan and bring to boil. Stirring until strawberries mushed up and melt into a sauce.
2. Add in your lemon rind and let the mixture cook for about 10 more minutes under medium heat until it’s thick and reduced to about 3/4 of its original portion.
3. Plunge the pot in cold water to let the strawberry reduction cool, while stirring at the same time. Make sure no water gets in.
4. Pour the strawberry mixture ontop of the cheesecake and spread evenly.

Let you cheesecake cook completely before cutting :) Remember you can stop it with whatever fresh fruits you want. Sliced canned peaches and fresh strawberries would be awesome here too and then u can just top it off with a glaze. Cool. Serve. Pat your tummy :)

I never thought I’d see the day where soy sauce is made into ice cream. I have one question- WHY? I’ve seen many weird stuff being made into ice cream, even stuff like asparagus but soy sauce is just weird. I can understand the salty factor which a little of it do enhances flavors but to make a whole tub of soy sauce ice cream is just weird and beyond me.

Has anyone tried it yet? I would give it a go, seeing that I’d eat practically anything but I don’t think it’s a very popular flavor here.

Source: MSN Mainichi Daily News

Okay, this is weird…tell me if Shucream isn’t exactly like eclairs or cream puffs? :P To me, it’s exactly the same. And what a coincidence that I should bump into this recipe because I just made some cream puffs last night.

Eclairs or Cream puffs or Shucream they’re all the same, made from the very same choux pastry. The only difference is in shape. While eclairs are deemed to be more elite and is often served in gourmet meals as part of dessert, the cream puff (or sometimes they’re called profiteroles) is just like the eclair’s slightly unrefined cousin from the country side. Pfft…they all taste the same!

Eclairs comes in puffy fingers or I would dearly call them fingerlings, while cream puffs comes in shapes of cutesy round and is puffy. Many places have made them in different shapes, and sizes. I don’t know if they have this in Japan but a chain called Beard Papa sells large sized cream puffs for a few dollars each. Let me just say that if you buy, say, 5 Cream puffs from them, you’ll probably have enough money to make your own choux pastry dough(with all the frills like custard and chocolate chips) that will yield you about 30 cream puffs or 40 eclairs. Yep…they’re cheap to make and easy to do. So really, I don’t care much for paying for them or eating them outside unless they’re free or REALLY cheap.

[EDIT: I just checked, they do have Beard Papa in Japan ..the creator is a Japanese dude too]

So today, I am going to teach you how to make shucream (the japanese version of cream puffs, which is actually cream puffs to begin with), to which if you just manipulate the choux pastry dough’s shape into a fingerlings, you’ll have eclairs! :) All this, in your very own home! I’m going to make this fancier and have a chocolate topping to go along with the custard filling.

You’ll need a medium size pot and a wooden spoon to start off with.

And now for the ingredients of the choux pastry flour:
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
4 eggs

Method:
1. Boil water, salt and butter together until butter melts and the butter+water mixture it is rolling.
2. Dump your flour in carefully as to not scald yourself with hot water. Turn the heat off and start stirring vigoriously!
3. You will get a collected and sorta like a cookie dough at the end.
4. While the dough’s still hot, mix in one egg at a time until it is well incorporated.
5. You will have a soft textured dough which can be easily piped. This is your choux pastry dough.
6. Fill your piping bag with the choux dough and pipe it into circular mounts (for shucream/cream puff) or in 2 inch length strips (for eclairs).
7. Bake in a 425 degree (Fahrenheit) or 220 Degree Celcius oven for 20-25 mins. Once the choux pastry is brown on the top and tripled its size, you have your shucream shells.

p.s: if you don’t have a piping, use a ziplock bag and cut a rather large bit of its corner tip off and you have a homemade disposable piping bag! :)

Filling:
You can buy custard from a store and just put it in OR you’re baking this late at night and all the store’s closed, u can make your own custard like me! :P

3 Egg yolks
3 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup old fashion cream (35% fat cream ++/double cream)
1 and 3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:
1. Mix your sugar, milk and cornstarch until they are well incorporated in a saucepan.
2. Heat the saucepan under medium heat. In the mean time, add in your yolk and whisk till well mixed.
3. Stir constantly (use a whisk) until it starts to boil and thicken. Let it boil for 1 minute and then take it off the heat and let it cool before use.
4. Fill it into a bag with corners, like a ziplock bag and cut a small tip out or use a piping bag if you have one.

Chocolate Topping:
1 cup semisweet chocolate

Method:
Melt the chocolate chip on a double boiler or have a pan over hot water.

Assembly:
Take the shells and pipe in the custard. Once you’re done with that, take each of the eclairs/shucream/cream puffs and dip its top into the melted chocolate and let it cool. Do the same on ALL of them and once you’re done, you can pop them in your mouth right away OR you can chill them abit in the refridgerator for later.

MMmH!

Source: A Series of Kitchen Experiments