“Cotton Candy Grape Muffin” “わたあめブドウ” のマフィン

This is a muffin my wife came up with using our favorite “Cotton Candy Grapes”. These are seedless (mostly) green table grapes which are sweet and really taste like “cotton candy”. We really like them and as a result, this time, we over did it and bought too many. A small remainder of the batch we bought was getting to the point we had to use/eat them fairly soon before they went bad. My wife decided to make a muffin using the grapes cut-up as well as pureed. She thought she could modify her “ apple pie muffin” recipe. This turned out to be quite a good muffin. The grape flavor was a bit muted but the cut-up grapes did add real grape flavors (the cut grapes shown as light green shapes in the first picture). This is unqualified success using a bit unusual ingredients for muffins.

Ingredients:
For the muffins: 
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour,
1 tsp. ground cinnamon, 
1 tsp. cardamon
2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened,
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt; for table salt use half as much by volume
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1/3 cup grape puree, at room temperature.
1 to 2 cups cut up grapes

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Using an emersion blender puree the grapes to make 1/3 cup puree (#1).  Cut 1 to 2 cups of grapes into pieces and set aside (#2). In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat granulated sugar and butter on medium speed until fluffy, about 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as needed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition, about 30 seconds. Add the sour cream and grape puree stirring to combine completely.

In a medium bowl, whisk together salt, baking powder, baking soda, flour, cinnamon and cardamon. Add cut up grapes and stir until coated with flour. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture until flour mixture is moistened. 

Spoon batter into bottom of each paper liner (#3). Bake for 5 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 12 to 18 minutes, rotating pan halfway. Let cool in pan 10 minutes. (#4)

These muffins had a dense but tender texture. The grape flavor came through mostly as a mild sweetness. The cut up grapes for the most part disappeared. Maybe they were absorbed into the dough (or maybe not well distributed). Although the use of grapes was a bit unusual it worked. 

We have a quite few amaryllis which my wife keeps alive and thriving for many years. Many of them keep blossoming every year, either for Christmas or  Easter. Although she marked the amaryllis which bloomed the previous year Christmas (2023) and started tending them at Thanksgiving so they would bloom at Christmas (2024).  They remained completely dormant. Finally about a week ago they decided to bloom. Here is a pic of the flower that gave actual meaning to the phrase “late bloomer” Meanwhile the Easter ones are quickly catching up. But better late than never. We really enjoy these flowers.

White “Pineberry” and Red “Koyo” Strawberries 白いイチゴと昂揚イチゴ

We have noticed that some of the gourmet food sites are now carrying Japanese white strawberries which are extremely expensive. (For example, at one site, a tray of 8 strawberries was $135. At another, 400 gm were on sale for $98.99). This was certainly not the strawberry scene when I was growing up in Japan. For one thing edible white strawberries did not exist; if they were white they were not ready to eat because they were not ripe. Also peak strawberry season was in the summer. Now, the best strawberry season is in the winter.  (This is because all the strawberries are grown in high tech labor intensive green houses). Nonetheless even the red strawberries (ichigo イチゴ) we ate in Japan on our various trips, there were not the same “animal” they are here. They were extremely flavorful and very sweet. Not even the most sweet strawberries we’ve ever eaten here hold a candle to the ones we got on recent trips to Japan.* We are not as familiar with the white Japanese strawberries as we are with the red and therefore considered ordering the Japanese white strawberry but the price is astronomical and we decided even as good as we knew they would be it was not worth it.

*digression alert. The most sweet strawberries we ever ate here came from a field in California near the condominium we were renting at the time. During harvest time they were being sold right out of field at a small fruit stand. They were ripe to perfection and warm having been kissed by the sun in the field. Nonetheless they were very acidic compared to the ones we have had in Japan.

The other day, however, when we went to Whole Foods, my wife found “white” strawberries called “Berry de blanc” and small red strawberries called “Oiishii” meaning “delicious” in Japanese which appears to suggest its Japanese connection (picture #1). The label also listed the red strawberry as “Koyo berry”. Although we were not sure what they were, they sure looked like the Japanese varieties we had just been looking at on the web so we bought them since they were not too expensive.

We first opened the white strawberries (picture #2). They were a good size, pale white with red seeds and looked exactly like the Japanese white strawberries.

The “Oishii” strawberries (picture #3)  were small but bright red and carefully packaged in a plastic case with an individual recess for each berry.

We also bought some green grapes called “Cotton candy” grapes (these were from Peru). We bought these one time before and liked them. So we had the two kinds of strawberries and the grapes (picture #4) as a desert for our lunch.

The white strawberry was sweet but not as sweet as the “Oishii” strawberry and it had a different (not-strawberry) flavor. Later we learned this variety of white strawberry is called “pineberry” because it has a slight pineapple flavor. We were not sure that we could recognize the different flavor as pineapple but it was definitely different. The “oishii” strawberry was very sweet and tasted like a strawberry. Both are much better than regular strawberries available in the supermarket. The cut surfaces (picture #5) are interesting; the white strawberry is white all the way through and the “Oiishii” strawberry is completely red. Many American strawberries are red on the surface but the center is pale/white (not fully ripe?).

The white strawberry (pineberry) we got is grown in Florida and “Oishii” strawberry is grown in New Jersey using Japanese vertical cultivation techniques. Do we buy these strawberries again? The answer is “probably”. It is a bit more expensive but not outrageous (like the ones from Japan) and taste better than regular strawberries.

Digression alert: We were curious about how these white strawberries were developed, how they could be ripe but still white. We also wanted to know what was the difference between Western and Japanese white strawberries? The strawberry genetics appear complicated and beyond me but the mechanisms for the strawberry that is ripe but still white is due to the genetics, i.e., the lack of a protein called “Fragaria allergen A1” which prevents the berries from producing “anthocyanin” which gives it the red color. There appear to be many white strawberry varieties including wild ones. The version of white strawberry we got is called “pineberry” which is a cross between North and South American strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa and Fragaria chiloensis) which was reportedly introduced to the U.K. market in 2020.

The Japanese white strawberries are apparently different (genetically and flavor-wise??). The first Japanese white strawberry varietal was reportedly registered in 2009. Since we have not had a chance to taste many different varieties of Japanese white strawberries (it appears they come up with new varieties often), we do not know how the flavors differ.

Grilled feta, olive and grapes

My wife found this recipe in the food section of the Washington Post. It's a rather simple dish but we really like it.  It makes a good appetizer and goes well with wine. We served it with mini-baguette.

The original recipe suggested cooking this in a cast iron skillet. We thought that might be too big for the quantity we wanted to make so we cooked this is a small anodized cast aluminum pan (this was a Japanese style pot (mini version) with a wooded lid for an individual "nabe" dish) which worked perfectly.

The cubes of feta cheese get brown and crispy on the outside but soft inside. My wife thought it is also good just to enjoy without bread. The combination of spices (fennel seeds, red pepper flakes and ground black pepper), salty olives and sweet grapes all worked well.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
1/2 cup (2 3/4 ounces) seedless red grapes, (we cut the amount in half).
1/3 cup (1 1/2 ounces) pitted and halved Kalamata olives. (We used a combination of the different olives we had on hand. We cut some of the large ones in half.)
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Freshly ground black pepper
8 to 10 ounces feta cheese (in a block)
Good, crusty bread slices, for serving

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees with the rack in the middle (we used our toaster oven on convection mode on the bottom rack). Oil a small, oven-proof casserole dish or cast-iron pan. Add the grapes, olives, 1 tablespoon olive oil, fennel seeds, red pepper flakes and a few grinds of black pepper, and stir to combine.
Break the block of feta up into irregular pieces, then nestle them among the grapes and olives. Drizzle with more olive oil, then bake, 20 to 25 minutes, until the grapes are softened and the feta is browned in spots.

This is a really good dish. We had only a small portion the night we made it and reheated it later in the microwave which worked well. My wife kept reminding me as I made the dish, "a little bit of fennel goes a long way". Don't over do it' the fennel actually made the dish. The combination of fennel, olives and grapes were made for each other and the total went remarkably well with red wine. Definitely this will join to our line up of "regular" dishes.