Japanese Fluffy “Soufflé” Pancake (version 2) 日本風フカフカパンケーキ

When we made Japanese fluffy pancakes for the first time they turned out pretty well. But when we tried to make them again, we learned that the success of the first batch was just beginner’s luck. Subsequent attempts were not particularly successful. (They were not very fluffy. They were basically just your run-of-the-mill usual pancakes). So we went on a fact finding; YouTube search for fluffy pancake recipes and came up with this version. The major changes include how the egg white is whipped and how the pancake batter is cooked. Vinegar and corn starch are added to the whipped egg whites to make them more stable. The batter is essentially cooked in two layers with the second layer added after the first layer has cooked a bit and firmed up.  In addition several drops of water are added to the pan so the pancake is steamed a bit while it cooks. 

Ingredients
3 eggs separated. (2 yolks, are used in the batter. 3 egg whites are used in the meringue)
1 tbs. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbs. (30 g) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

for the meringue
The 3 egg whites from the 3 separated eggs listed above
1 tsp. vinegar or (1 tsp lemon juice or 1/4 +1/8 tsp creme de tartare)
1/4 cup (50g) sugar
2 tsp. corn starch

Directions:

Mix the egg yolks, milk, vanilla, flour and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside. Make the meringue by whipping the egg whites in a stand mixer. When they start to expand add the vinegar and continue whipping. Then add the sugar in 3 batches. When fully whipped fold in the corn starch. The meringue should look like #1. Quickly mix some of the meringue into the milk mixture (#2). Once all blended slowly fold in the remaining meringue (#3). 

Preheat a non-stick frying pan with a high rim on low flame. Add the neutral oil and spread thin using a paper towel. Using a medium ice-cream scoop, add the first layer of batter (#4). Add several drops of water between the each pancakes and put on the lid. After 3 minutes, add more batter on the top (#5). Again add drops of water, put on the lid and cook for 6-8 minutes then carefully flip over (#6). Add several more drops of water, put the lid back on and cook another 5 minutes.

 

These pancakes were certainly better than the previous less-than-successful batches we made. The addition of the vinegar and cornstarch made the meringue much thicker. The cooking method using two layers and several drops of water increased the thickness of the pancake. 

Sweet potato gnocchi さつまいものニョキ

Recently, we cooked a large pork roast and some Japanese sweet potatoes on the Weber grill. My wife made her version of mashed sweet potatoes with butter, soy sauce and any juice accumulated on the plate in which the roast was resting. We enjoyed the slices of roasted pork and mashed sweet potatoes for dinner. Then my wife made gnocchi from the leftover mashed sweet potatoes.

Ingredients:
16 oz. of mashed potatoes (3 cups)
4 oz. of AP flour (3/4 cup)
1 egg
1 tsp. salt

Directions:
Press the mashed potatoes through a sieve to remove any residual lumps (#1). Add the flour and gently mix with a fork. Add the egg and salt and again gently mix with a fork until everything comes together into a dough (#2). Gently roll into 1/2 inch diameter logs (#3). Cut the rolled logs into individual pieces of the desired size (#4). The pieces can be rolled on the back of a fork to make ridges to better hold the sauce but that doesn’t work out so well for us so our gnocchi pieces generally don't have any ridges.

Fill the dutch oven with water. Add 1 Tbs. Salt and several bay leaves. Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat and add the gnocchi to the water. Gently heat them just below the boil for a few minutes until the gnocchi float to the surface (#5). Remove them from the water and put into whatever sauce you are using. Or for later use put them in a bowl and coat with olive oil to prevent them from sticking together (#6).

This was a good gnocchi. You can really taste the sweet potato. My wife fried up all of them and we froze what was left over from the dinner we ate the day she made them. In this state they are very easy to toaster oven as a side dish for dinner. Toaster-ovened they were as good as when they were just fried.

Shrimp and Grits with Poached Egg 温玉のせ海老とグリィツ

Dishes made with grits used to be a breakfast staple for us. These included such things as shrimp and grits and grits with poached egg. One day recently, my wife mentioned, “we have not had grits for a long time.” So, we got a package of “instant” grits. We used them for a sort-of-combination lunch dish of shrimp and grits with home pasteurized poached eggs. When I got ready to take a “serving” picture, however, I noticed everything was sort of white (except maybe for some light pink from the shrimp). To brighten things up I snarfed some baby arugula and tomato from the salad I had made as a side dish. This was a really gentle but satisfying lunch.

Ingredients: (2 servings)
1/2 cups grits
2 cups liquid (either milk or water, we used the liquid the shrimp were poached in.)
2-3 pats of unsalted butter
6 large shrimp (we used shell-on frozen shrimp)
2 pasteurized eggs

Directions:
Thaw the shrimp in cold 2% salted water for 30 minutes. Drain out the shrimp but keep the salted water. Add the salted water to a pan. When it boils, turn down the heat and add the shrimp. Let them gently poach for 2-3 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan and peel off the shell. Add the shell back into the poaching liquid and gently boil for a few minutes. Strain out the shells and set aside the poaching liquid. Slice the shrimp in half length wise.

Cook the grits for 5 minutes using the poaching liquid, stirring occasionally. When the grits have thickened turn off the flame and add the butter. Taste and if needed add more salt.

Top the cooked grits with the shrimp and the poached egg in the center.

Honey Oatmeal Roll 蜂蜜とオートミールのロールパン

Once we rediscovered the English muffin bread my wife used to make she remembered there was another favorite recipe in the same Kitchenaid cookbook. So “for old times sake” she decided to make that too. According to the original recipe the bread was made into loaves but instead my wife made it into rolls. It’s a seemingly small variation but we think the rolls were much better than the loaves. Other changes included toasting the oatmeal and walnuts which increased the nutty flavor of the buns. She also substituted buttermilk for the plain water called for in the recipe and used buckwheat honey which has a very strong but pleasant honey flavor which really came through in the final baked rolls. In any case, we are posting this so that we have an easy access to the recipe.

Ingredients:
5-6½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup quick cooking oats, (toasted)
2 teaspoons salt
2 packages active dry yeast
1½ cups water (or buttermilk) 
½ cup honey (buckwheat)
⅓ cup butter or margarine (cubed)
2 eggs

for the topping (which we didn’t use)
1 tablespoon water
1 egg white
Oatmeal

Directions:
Place 5 cups of the flour, the 1 cup oats, salt and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Attach dough hook and on speed 2  mix for 30 seconds to combine. Continuing on speed 2, slowly add the buttermilk and eggs. Then add the butter cubes. Add remaining flour, ½ cup at a time, until dough clings to hook and cleans the sides of the bowl. Knead on Speed 2 for 7 to 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic.

Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover, let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. To make a loaf divide dough in half. Place each loaf in a greased 8½ × 4½ x 2½-inch bread pan. To make buns weigh the dough and divide into individual pieces based on desired size of the buns. (I usually make them about 85 grams each). Cover; let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

If making the topping, combine water and egg white. Brush tops of loaves or rolls with the mixture. Sprinkle with oatmeal. Bake at 375°F for 40 minutes. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.

These are indeed an “all time” favorite. The texture is very soft and it has a distinctive pleasant honey taste. The walnuts add an additional bit of texture. We can see the oatmeal on the cut surface (picture #1) and it adds an additional nutty flavor. Glad we found these old recipes. They deserve to be blogged.

English Muffin Loaves イングリシュマフィンローフパン

Recently my wife mentioned that she was thinking of making homemade English muffins. I remembered that we used to make English muffins which we posted as several versions of English muffin. We initially started making them using muffin rings in a frying pan  (which apparently we did not post). The dough was very sticky and putting it in the English muffin rings was very cumbersome. We also cooked them without the rings in the cast iron skillet.  Looking at these past posts, I remembered how sticky the dough was, and how hard it was to form into the round muffins and how long it took to cook those muffins. I also remembered that my wife used to make something called English muffin bread. It had the flavor and texture of an English muffin but was much easier to make. We really liked it. When I mentioned this to my wife she said, “Great! Let’s look up the recipe in the Blog”. After some searching and although we saw it mentioned in this and other posts several times, (we even posted “Eggs Benedict” using slices of English muffin bread) we never posted how the actual bread was made.  Apparently, my wife baked this bread so many times in the past and it was such a ubiquitous part of our everyday meals we didn’t think it was anything special and it never occurred to us to post it. 

Since the recipe was not posted in the blog, the next question was “Where did it come from?” Then, my wife remembered it was from a spiral bound instruction and recipe book that came with the very first Kitchenaid stand mixer we bought years ago. Bingo! Between the two of us we found the recipe and here is the bread! (Picture #1).

Like the other English muffin recipes we previously mentioned, this dough is also extremely sticky and hard to work with. But the good news is that it goes into only two loaf pans instead of multiple individual rings which is extremely difficult to do. But it is basically impossible to divide the dough even into just two loaf pans by hand. Having made this bread so many times my wife developed a “work-around” method of tipping the dough directly from the mixer bowl into the loaf pans, dividing it up by cutting it into two pieces using scissors as shown in picture #2. (No clumps of sticky dough stuck to hands.)

Ingredients: (yield two loaves) 
5-6 cups all-purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
¼ (generous) teaspoon baking soda 
2 1/2 cups milk (my wife used buttermilk)
Cornmeal

Directions:
Place 4 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt and baking soda in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a dough hook turn the mixer to speed 2 and mix for 1 minute.

On speed 2 gradually add milk/buttermilk to flour mixture. Continuing on Speed 2, add remaining flour, ½ cup at a time. Knead on Speed 2 for 7 to 10 minutes. Dough will be very sticky.

Spread dough into two bread loaf pans that have been greased and sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover; let rise in warm place, free from draft, for 45 minutes. Bake at 400°F for 25 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and cool.

This is definitely THE WAY to make English Muffin-like bread! It toasts up beautifully and is great for breakfast slathered with butter.  

Pan-fried Oyster Mushroom 平茸の洋風ソテー

We like mushrooms. Since we start using Weee, we regularly get several varieties of fresh mushrooms. Shiitake is our favorite followed by “hen of the woods”. Others that we like are oyster, woodear, shimeji, and enoki mushrooms. This time I decided to cook the oyster mushrooms Western style based on a recipe I saw on-line. Spices and flour coating make it crispy with lots of flavor (#1). This is very different from the more traditional Japanese ways of preparation I have been using and we really like it.

Ingredients
10 oz oyster mushrooms, (300 grams whole or torn into pieces).
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon light soy sauce or tamari for gluten-free, (you can also use low-sodium soy sauce if the light kind isn’t available).
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon black pepper
⅔ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour for gluten-free flour
Olive oil for cooking

For Balsamic Parmesan Oyster Mushrooms:1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions
If mushrooms are large, tear them into 2-3 pieces. Toss mushrooms in a bowl with olive oil, soy sauce, spices, and flour until evenly coated. Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms in a single layer, leaving space between them. Cook for 2-3 minutes per side until crispy and golden brown. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Serve with lemon wedges and flaky salt, or drizzle with balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce V2 赤パプリカのソース

Whenever we have red peppers, we roast them in the toaster oven. We do this on broil mode until the skin blackens and blisters about 15 minutes turning occasionally.  Then I place the peppers in a metal bowl and tightly cover it with aluminum foil to let the peppers steam for about 10-15 minutes. After removing the seeds and skin, the red peppers can be used for salad or other dishes but our main way of using them is to make roasted red pepper sauce. This time I made a different version of red pepper sauce. Since I used tomato paste in this recipe my wife was concerned that this version of the sauce would taste like more tomato sauce but the pepper flavor predominated. While the sauce had a distinctive roasted red pepper flavor unlike the previous version it was creamy (#2). We liked the new version better than the old one. One day I used it to make a pasta dish with poached  shrimp for lunch. (I gently poached the shrimp with the shell on for a short time then removed the shell and halved the shrimp length wise. I use this method because it cooks the shrimp but the shrimp comes out very tender with its sweetness preserved.) The pasta was Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles (my wife’s favorite). I also added steamed green beans (#1). This was a good lunch.

The recipe is based on one I saw on-line. I changed the proportions of the ingredients using my CCK (Common Culinary Knowledge).

Ingredients:
3 roasted red peppers, skin removed and seeded, cut into small squares
1 shallot, finely diced
1 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 tbs tomato paste
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 cup cream
3 tbs parmigiano reggiano, grated
2 tbs olive oil
Pepper and salt to taste

Directions:
Sauté the shallots in the olive oil for 1 minute and add the garlic for another minute. Add the tomato paste and keep cooking until the color of the tomato paste slightly darkens. Add the roasted red pepper, basil, and cream. Cook for a few minutes. Transfer to the cylinder container that came with the immersion blender and blend until smooth. If needed add more cream. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add the Parmesan cheese and mix (#2).

This is very versatile sauce. It was very creamy and had the rich savory flavor of the roasted peppers. We can use it for many purposes such as chicken or white fish.

Cream Cheese Biscuits クリームチーズビスケット

This is one of my wife’s baking projects. She saw a recipe for biscuits made with cream cheese and decided to try it. She used to make biscuits quite often but not recently. As usual, I ask my wife to take over.

The original recipe my wife saw on-line.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into 1/2” cubes, and placed in a freezer for 30 minutes.
4 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2” cubes, and placed in a freezer for 30 minutes.
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Position oven rack in the middle position. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Combine the cake flour, all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Using a cuisine art with the sharp blade, add some of the flour mixture, the butter and cream cheese. Process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the rest of the flour and process it again until everything is mixed and resembles coarse crumbs. (This is done in two steps to make sure all the frozen cheese and butter gets broken up by the blade.) Add the buttermilk and mix just until the mixture comes together and transfer to a floured working surface. Mixture will be slightly dry. Knead dough for about one minute until it comes together. Using a rolling pin, roll dough into a 6″ x 8″ rectangle, about 3/4″ in thickness. Use a bench scraper and cut the dough into 12 equal 2″ squares. Place on prepared pan and bake for 12 to 15 minutes until biscuits are light brown.

These turned out to be very good biscuits. I am not sure I could taste the cream cheese, however, but it had a nice crunchy exterior and buttery flaky interior. Perfect for breakfast and dinner.

Cold Jade Eggplant in broth 茄子の翡翠煮

When we get “Asian” eggplant from Weee, I try to make as many dishes as I can so they don’t go to waste. Although the eggplant I got from Weee is not the genuine Japanese variety, I still made it as “Hisui-ni 翡翠煮” . “Hisui” in Japanese means “jade”. The name comes from the subtle green hue of Japanese eggplant cooked this way, although my rendition did not have this color because of the type of eggplant I used. The jist of this dish is to precook the eggplant; either microwave, deep fry or simmer. Then however, it is cooked it is further simmered and soaked in light broth then served cold topped with bonito flakes.   I took the easiest route and microwaved the eggplant first and then simmered and soaked it in the broth. This is a very light and refreshing dish. 

This is not based on one particular recipe. This is how I made it and is note so that I can reproduce it.

Ingredients:
1 Japanese (Asian) eggplant (long light purple one) or more authentic Japanese eggplant, peeled and cut into segments (about 2 inches in length)
Bonito flakes for topping

For broth
1 cup Japanese kelp and bonito broth (I used my usual dashi pack
1-2 tbs shiro-dashi 白出し*
1 tbs mirin

*shiro-dashi is a type of seasoning liquid made of Japanese broth,  white and light colored soy sauce,  and mirin. Although one can make this from scratch, commercial bottled ones are available which I use.

Directions:
Place the eggplant in a silicon microwave safe container and microwave it for a few minutes or until the eggplant is soft. Cut into half inch buttons.
Put the broth in a pan on low heat, add the eggplant and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Let it cool to room temperature in the broth and then refrigerate (at least several hours or overnight).
Top it with “katsuo-bushi 鰹節”  bonito flakes and serve cold.

This is a very gentle and refreshing dish and perfect for the very first appetizer.

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.