Honey Curry Bread 蜂蜜カレーパン

This another one of my wife’s baking projects. Recently, she re-discovered an old cookbook called “Silver Palate Good times Cookbook” which she has had for some time. (It was published in 1984).* (Back in the day, as a joke, I used to call it the “Lead Palate Cookbook”).” As she was going through the pages she came across a recipe for “Honey Curry Bread”. The combination of honey and curry powder in bread piqued her interest. This is a nice bread with honey and curry flavors coming through. The original recipe called for the dough to be braided and then made into a boule-shape. This was a bit complicated and simply done for presentation so just making it into loaves will work just fine in the future.

*She recently started revisiting the old cook books that have been resting on the shelf untouched for some time in response to an expression her friend used to say that recently came back to mind. Her friend used to say, “If you want a different outfit but don’t have the time to go to the store shop your closet”. My wife converted this to the saying, “If you want to cook something new, shop your old cookbooks.” This is because your cooking style may have changed over time and recipes that didn’t interest you in the past may be of interest in the present. This cookbook was a case-in-point.

Ingredients
1/2 cup warm water (105-115°F)
3 packs active dry yeast
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp curry powder
2 cups buttermilk
2 tsp salt
6–7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions:
Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the curry powder, and cook for 1 minute. (This essentially blooms the curry powder flavors). Remove from heat and stir in the honey. Let it cool a bit then add the honey/curry mixture to the buttermilk. Meanwhile bloom the yeast. Put  3 cups of the flour and the salt in the bowl of the stand mixer. Add the yeast and the cooled buttermilk mixture to the flour. Stir while adding additional flour until a soft dough forms. Knead the dough for 7 to 10 minutes until smooth. Place in a buttered bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size. Punch dough down, divide, into 3 ropes of 1 inch diameter (#1). Braid the ropes (#2). Wrap the braids around themselves to form a bole (#3). (Or skip the braiding and just form into a loaf). Let rise again. The recipe calls for it to be baked at 375°F for about 30–40 minutes until golden brown, but as you can see in the picture it came out a bit high done (#4) so 350 may be better in the future.

This bread was very different from the bread we usually make but was extremely satisfying. The combination of curry spices with the honey gave it a complex savory but slightly sweet flavor that made a very interesting contrast. It tasted great toasted and slathered with butter.

Pork Vindaloo served in Soup Curry-style スープカレー風豚肉のビンダルーカレー

This is a serving variation of  pork “vindaloo” curry my wife made. The pork vindaloo she makes has evolved over the years mostly by how the pork is handled. The most recent iteration involves chunks of pork derived from a large skin-on, bone-in “picnic-cut” pork that I separate it into its various components . I cook the pork chunks in chicken broth (Swanson low-salt kind) using an Instant Pot pressure cooker. This cooking method produces by-far the best pork for curry. The meat becomes very tender and the broth is flavorful and contains lots of collagen from the meat. When refrigerated, the broth congeals. Using both the meat and broth in the curry makes this version of vindaloo the best my wife has made. The curry looks thick when it is cold but when it is heated up it becomes rather soupy (not like roux-based curry). This gave me an idea of how this curry could be served. In Japan, there is the type of curry called “soup curry*” which originated in Sapporo, Hokkaido 札幌, 北海道, my hometown. It became popular as a variation of Japanese curry in 2000s.

I served this curry as a light lunch and did not want to have rice with it. So, instead, I sauteed some vegetables in the manner similar to the one used to make Sapporo soup curry.  I had green beans and asparagus, both briefly steamed and skinned Campari tomatoes.Since I made “dashi-maki だし巻き” Japanese omelet, I also added a piece.  Even without rice, this was a quite filling lunch. We like this presentation. Especially, the sauteed tomato added a nice fresh taste with some acidity.

*”Soup curry” was reportedly invented in Sapporo (in a small coffee shop) in the 1970s and then spread throughout Japan in 2000s. The curry flavored soup was not thickened and vegetables are in relatively large pieces and separately deep fried without batter. The meat is usually bone-in, skin-on  chicken legs but can be any kind of meat. Rice is served separately unlike other Japanese curry in which the curry is served on the top of the rice (hence, the name; rice curry or curry rice) We had soup curry when we were in Sapporo sometime ago. It was good but that particular dish was not outstanding. The one we made here was much better.

Grape-puree Muffin ブドウのピューレのマフィン

We like grapes and often have them for dessert. Our favorites are “Holiday grapes” and “Cotton Candy grapes”. But they are not always available. For example, “Holiday grapes” are only available October to mid-December (hence the name, “holiday” grape). Cotton Candy grapes grown in California are available mid July through September. Cotton Candy grapes grown in Mexico are available April and May. In general we are not fans of generic red and green grapes so whenever we see “special” grapes with the word “sweetness” in the varietal name we try them out. That is what happened recently.

Our usual favorites were not available but we found some green grapes with a fancy name alluding to “sweetness” at Whole Foods and went for them. We were hoping they would be a potential replacements for our aforementioned two favorite grapes. Unfortunately, they turned out to be just tough skin and seeds. What little interior meat they had, although only a small proportion of the whole grape, was indeed quite sweet. But in general, by our standards, these were not good eating grapes.

Not to be deterred, my wife remembered her recent experience making strawberry muffins using a fresh strawberry syrup reduction. She thought, ‘why not try the same thing with these grapes?’ Making them into a grape syrup reduction would eliminate the tough skin and numerous seeds because they would be strained out when the cooked grapes were sieved. Wouldn’t that highlight and accentuate what sweetness the grapes had in their interior meat?’ So that is what she did. Turned out it worked.

Ingredients:
Grape muffin:
1 1/2 cups (180g) cake flour
1 cup (198g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon tabler / salt
6 tablespoons (85g) butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1 large egg white
3 tablespoons (43g) water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup grape reduction

Grape reduction:
Package of sweet eating grapes, cooked, pureed, strained, then reduced

Directions:
For the grape reduction:
Put the grapes in a saucepan. Gently heat them on simmer until the skins open releasing juice and interior meat. (These grapes took a very long time to open; the skins were really thick and tough). After the grapes open and exude liquid puree and strain them. (We used a motor boat blender). Return the puree to the pan a continue simmering on low heat until the liquid reduces and turns darker and slightly thicker. (This further concentrates the flavor.)

For the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin tin with baking cups. In a cuisine art blender fitted with a blade combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and mix at low speed until the mixture looks sandy. (Similar to making biscuit dough). Beat in the egg, the extra egg white, water, and vanilla, then mix until no dry spots of flour remain. The mixture will be thick. Add 1/2 cup of the grape reduction. Continue to mix on low speed until the batter is smooth. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins.

Bake the cupcakes for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove the cupcakes from the oven, and as soon as you can handle them, remove them from the pan and transfer them to a rack to cool.

This was a great muffin. It had a very refined texture and elegant flavor that was somewhat mysterious. Unlike the strawberry muffins which announced their strawberry-ness very assertively these muffins had a lovely fresh flavor that indicated they were made with fresh fruit but the actual fruit’s identity was not announced flavor-wise although it had a very light natural but rich sweetness. It did not particularly taste grape-like but these were, without a doubt, one of the best muffin we ever made. This distinctive flavor may be unique to the type of grape we used. Unfortunately neither of us payed particular attention to the grapes name so we may not be able to reproduce it again. Nonetheless, we wanted this post for our record.

Norwegian Lefse Flatbread ノルウェイのレフシイ フラットブレッド

Whenever we do barbecue/roast in the Weber grill, we cook potatoes and parsnips with the meat. When we roasted pork last time, we ended up with good amount of mashed potato-parsnip. Although making croquets from the left-over potatoes is the usual way to handle this, we had excess frozen croquets in the freezer.  So, my wife looked for a recipe on the internet  to use up the potatoes. She came up with this “Norwegian Lefse Flatbread”. We had these as “lefse” roll-ups with smoked salmon and cream cheese as a lunch. I happened to make cucumber and onion salad earlier which made a perfect side (picture #1).

We made just three (picture #3). The texture is more potato than bread. Not much flavor from the mashed potato/parsnips came through. This is certainly an interesting dish and the recipe is extremely simple (involving only potatoes and flour) but having tried it once we probably won’t repeat it.

Ingredients:
1 cup Mashed Potatoes (about 8.5 ounces/240 grams fresh potatoes)
1 cup all-purpose flour (Plain Flour + extra for dusting (about ½ cup))

Directions:
Place the flour and potato mash onto the work surface. Start bringing the ingredients together to form a sticky dough. Roll this into a sausage and cut into several pieces about 2 inches long. Form each piece into a round shape. Cook on medium to high heat in a dry frying pan for about 2 minutes (1 minute per side) or until done. Best served right away while still warm.

Walnut Cheddar Loaf くるみとチェダーチーズのローフ

This is another one of my wife’s baking projects. She saw this recipe on the Washington Post web site. She was intrigued by the use of pulverized walnuts in the dough like a type of nut flour combined with the grated cheese. She wanted to see how that would taste. This is definitely a unique bread (in a good way) (#1). It is fairly dense in texture but has a nice rich nutty flavor for the pulverized walnuts with a hint of the cheese flavor. We had this as a part of the breakfast lightly toasted.

Ingredients: (makes one 8-inch loaf)
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, cut into chunks, softened, plus more for the pan
1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (63 grams) whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
4 ounces (113 grams) grated sharp cheddar cheese 
1/2 cup (60 grams) chopped walnuts 
2 large eggs
1 cup (240 milliliters) well-shaken whole or low-fat buttermilk

Directions:
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-by-4-inch loaf pan. In a food processor, combine the flours, sugar, mustard, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and pulse 4 to 5 times to blend. Add the butter and process for 15 seconds to form a crumbly mixture.
Add the cheese and nuts to the food processor. Pulse until incorporated.

In a liquid measuring cup lightly beat together the eggs and buttermilk until combined, then pour into the food processor. Process until a thick batter comes together.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and use an offset spatula or a moistened flexible spatula to smooth out the top. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let rest for 15 minutes.

This is a very satisfying and filling bread. One piece goes a long way. (You are eating a lot of nuts although you might not notice it because they form part of the flour.) It toasts up nicely and makes a very nice bread for breakfast.