Peanut butter pancake ピーナッツバターパンケーキ

We made this one Sunday morning when we had a big snow storm and decided to make it a special day with a pancake breakfast. My wife found this recipe on the Washington Post web site. Since we had just gotten a new jar of peanut butter to replace the one in the fridge that had passed its “best-use-by” date several years ago, she decided to use some of the new jar for these pancakes. They were very nice with a prominent  peanut butter flavor. Maybe a bit too sweet and a bit too much peanut butter flavor for us but it was nice to have especially on a snowy Sunday morning.

Ingredients
Servings: makes 4 pancakes
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/3 cup (83 grams) creamy peanut butter
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or melted shortening, plus more for greasing the skillet or griddle
1 1/4 cups (300 milliliters) whole milk

Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt until combined. In a large bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, egg and oil until smooth; whisk in the milk until combined. (We found that we had to use the “motor boat” hand mixer to get the ingredient thoroughly mixed.) Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just combined (a few small lumps are okay). If necessary add more milk to make the batter into pancake consistency. 

Preheat a frying pan on medium heat. (We use 4 pans and make 4 pancakes simultaneously) Coat the pan lightly with oil.

Using a large ladle pour batter into the pans, and cook until you see a few small bubbles rise to the surface of the pancake and the bottom is golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip the pancakes and cook until golden on the other side, 1 to 2 minutes more. Transfer the pancakes to a platter, cover loosely with foil and repeat with the remaining batter, adding more oil to the skillet if it looks dry. Serve warm.

These were nicely fluffy with a soft texture. They were very heavily peanut butter flavor. (My wife thought she should add jelly to mimic the PBJs of her childhood.) We thought a whole pancake of peanut butter flavor would be a bit too much for us adults but the half pancake we ate for breakfast was the perfect size.

P.S. Over time the peanut butter flavor calmed down and became nicely mellow.

Persimmon and “Kabu” turnip salad 柿と蕪のマリネ

This is a quick impromptu dish I made one evening. This dish came about since I had a small fresh Japanese “kabu 蕪” turnip from Suzuki Farm, and “Fuyu” persimmon 富有柿 from Weee. In addition, I had leftover “Kabosu miso カボスみそ”. So I made a quick marinated kabu and persimmon with added  wakame わかめ dressed in “Kabosu miso”. This was a refreshing small dish with interesting texture and flavor. The raw kabu turnip has a nice crunch with distinctive flavor (pungent in a good way) combined with the sweetness of persimmon in a dressing made of mixture of home-made sweet vinegar and olive oil. All worked well together. Although wakame is usually dressed with “Sumiso 酢味噌”, “Kabosu miso” worked as well or even better.

Ingredients (2 servings or 4 small servings like the one in the picture).
One small Japanese “kabu” turnip, top removed, skinned, halved and sliced thinly (depending on your preference; the thicker the crunchier)

One “Fuyu” persimmon, (firm one), peeled, halved and sliced similar to the “kabu”
1/2 tsp salt

Marinade/dressing:
1 tbs “amazu” sweet vinegar*
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

*Amazu 甘酢: there are a few variation (see “daikon namasu” section of Norio’s New year dishes”). The one I had was made some time ago and kept in a jar. It was made of equal parts rice vinegar and water as well as sugar equal to half the amount of vinegar used and a pinch of salt.

Directions
Add the salt to the kabu, knead and let stand for 5 minutes and squeeze out any excess moisture.
In a small bowl, add the kabu and persimmon. Add the dressing and mix.
Refrigerate for 5 minutes before serving.

Because of the acidity in the dish, sake is the libation of choice.

Crispy Cheese Rice Puffs チーズライスパフ

I am not sure how my wife decided to make this. (Note from wifey: I decided to make this particular dish because by mistake we bought a box of rice krispies to make rice krispies treats at Christmas - for nostalgic reasons; they were one of my favorites as a kid - that was humongous. It had much more rice krispies than were needed for the treats. So, I was looking for other recipes to use up some of the excess.) (Note from Hubbie: Oh! I never had a rice Krispies treat before.) In any case, using the rice krispies cereal, she came up with this dish which is more suitable for a snack with a drink of wine than a dessert. The original recipe was called “crispy cheese wafers” came from Southern Living website. She made two versions; one using a muffin tin (left in picture #1) and the other flattened into a cookie or wafer-shape (right in picture #1).  This is a nice cheesy bite. She warmed them up in the toaster oven which made them crispy and warm. I ask my wife to contenue.

Ingredients:
2 cups (8 ounces) freshly grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese (I used a combination of smoked gouda, sharp cheddar and parmesan cheese
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. ground cayenne pepper or to taste
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup crisp rice cereal

Directions
Mix together the cheeses, butter, flour, red pepper, Worcestershire and salt in a large bowl until mixture forms a ball that lightly sticks together and pulls in all the flour. (Hands worked best for this). Gently fold the rice cereal into the dough. Shape mixture into 1-inch balls using medium sized ice cream scoop. The original recipe called for placing the balls about 1 inch apart on a baking sheet and flattening each ball with a fork, making a crisscross pattern. I made several like that (#2) but I was afraid they would fall apart when cooked so I made some in mini cup cake tins lined with paper cups. I gently pushed the dough into the cups with my fingers (#3) Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until firm. Cool on pan on wire rack.

These made very satisfying savory bites. As you can see from the pictures the ones made free standing on the cookie sheet did not fall apart when cooked. They just spread out. The krispies in the dough formed a nice light crunchy crust and the interior texture was very tender and tasted richly cheesy. These got much better with time as the flavors melded together. They also toasted up nicely in the toaster oven.

Valentine’s day cake バレンタインデイケーキ

Although my wife has previously made this cake, Ricotta-filled Valentine's day "Wacky" cake, some years ago for Valentine’s day, this year she wanted to make the same cake in small individual bite-sized heart-shapes. Problem was we didn’t have any heart shaped pans that were small enough. This led to an internet search which resulted in the purchase of two red silicone heart shaped muffin sheets. Although my wife only filled the muffin cups half full the little cakes rose above the edge of the cups and came out looking round like the one in picture #1 with the cherry on top. The bottoms of the cakes appeared heart shaped as shown by the upside down one on the left in the pic. Bummer! If they were going to come out looking round we didn’t need to buy heart shaped “tins”. Our existing mini muffin tins would have done the trick. Nonetheless, regardless of their shape, they tasted very good. 

Ingredients:
For the cake
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tbs. vinegar
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water

For the ricotta filling
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/8 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients for the ricotta filling until smooth and set aside. Mix the dry ingredients from the flour thru the cocoa powder in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until smooth. Fill the heart shaped “tins” with the cake mixture and top them with a scoop of the ricotta filling and half a maraschino cherry (#2). (Nicely heart-shaped). Cook at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes until the ricotta topping firms up and a skewer comes out clean. (My wife noticed that the silicone pan did not conduct heat the same way a metal muffin tins would so it took about 10 minutes longer for the cakes to cook.)

Although the final product was not heart-shaped these little cakes were a perfect bite-sized treat to celebrate the end of the Valentine’s dinner. PA Dutch Wacky cake topped with ricotta cheese icing is a Valentine’s Day classic (at least for us).

Valentine‘s day sashimi dinner バレンタインデイ刺身ディナー

As Valentine’s day approached this year, I asked my wife what we should have to celebrate the day. She suggested a Japanese dinner of sashimi, 刺身 chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し, salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻きwith crispy salmon skin and sake (of course). She thought this was a highly appropriate menu since our first dinner/date many, many years ago was on Valentine’s day. On that occasion we went to a Japanese restaurant called “Azuma” in Cupertino. It appears Azuma is still in business at the same spot. 

Our on-line source of sashimi fish has changed during the years; some places went out of business or we found better places. Our most recent source of sashimi is “Yama Seafood” in New York. We recently got frozen sashimi fish from them. They have a few items which are not available elsewhere. One of them is called “Hagashi maguro*” はがしまぐろ or peeled tuna which we have not tried before. I thought this was the perfect tuna portion to make tuna shaped as a rose; appropriate for Valentine’s day. Other sashimi items from our freezer (from different sources) included “ankimo あん肝” monk fish liver, Hotate ホタテscallops and “uni shuto うに酒盗” preserved sea urchin.

*”hagashi 剥がし” is an adjective from the verb hagashu 剥がす ” which means to remove/strip/peel.  So “Hagashi tuna” means “peeled layers of tuna”.  This process was developed since some portions of fatty tuna or “ootoro 大トロ” can be very sinewy, making it unedibly chewy, which we don’t like. Although the sinew can be made more tolerable by making multiple shallow-cuts across the plane of the sinew the ultimate remedy is to remove the sinew by slicing along the white sinew lines and gently separating out the meat layer by layer. The result is an exceptionally smooth, soft, and melt-in-your-mouth textured tuna meat without any sinew; “Hagashi Maguro” or peeled tuna.

In the picture, the center is the tuna rose. The “hagashi” comes in rather thin layers characteristic of the layers between the sinew which are perfect for making a rose. This is done by cutting the layer lengthwise to the height of the rose, then slicing the layer perpendicularly into pieces about one inch long then laying the pieces with the edges overlapping slightly and rolled up to make a rose. I surrounded the rose with sliced cucumber and drizzled “sumiso 酢味噌” over it all. The upper center is three medallions of ankimo, Ten and 4 o’clock positions are scallops which I sliced horizontally in three layers (we like thin layers of scallops as sashimi) placed on a slice of lemon (Meyer lemon). In the 7 o’clock position, is “uni shuto うに酒盗” on a cucumber boat. I added yuzu kosho and wasabi on the bottom.

I served this sashimi platter with three sauces. One was mango chutney soy sauce specifically for the ankimo. The other two were ponzu and sashimi soy sauce.

The hagashi was not as fatty as I expected but was still quite good; much better than if it still had the sinew. The ankimo went very well with the mango chutney sauce but also went well with the ponzu sauce. The scallops were good with either wasabi or yuzu kosho. This was a very satisfying and filling sashimi plate.  (This sashimi plate was a bit better than the one we had in Azuma if I remember correctly.)