Another five "otoshi" appetizers お通し５種類

This is another example of 5 starting appetizers. This time, all five items were made by me--no store bought. Again, I used the long rectangular plates with five depressions.

From left to right; spicy tofu cubes ぴり辛豆腐, chicken square with dried fruit and gorgonzola cheese *ドライフルーツとゴルゴンゾーラチーズ松風焼き topped with figgy cranberry sauce イチジククランベリーソース.

*Instead of the usual dried figs, I used a combination of hydrated dried fruits (peach, pear, apricot and prune)

Sugar snaps blanched and soaked in dashi seasoned with salt スナップ豌豆の塩びたし and Cauliflower Montparnasse モンパルナスのカリフラワー. The next is  blanched  broccoli rabe and dressed with mustard soy sauce and wedge of Campari tomato skinned.

Finally, pork meat ball with ricotta and parmesan cheese  リコッタチーズ入りミートボール with my home made marinara sauce.

I heated up the tofu, chicken squares, and meat balls in the toaster oven. This is a good combination of vegetables and proteins.

Buttermilk muffin バターミルク マフィン

My wife is very fond of buttermilk. Besides using it for baking or other cooking, she sometimes just drinks it. (A vestige of growing up in Pennsylvania Dutch country). Although I do like dishes and breads made with buttermilk, I don't enjoy just drinking it. In addition, she is very particular about the brand of buttermilk. Her favorite is Harrisburg Dairies. Our regular grocery stores do not carry this brand but Whole Foods does, so when we are in near-by Whole Foods, she stocks up by getting multiple containers.  I am not sure if we can get buttermilk in Japan. Several times we looked for it but we could not find it. In any case, she made this buttermilk muffin using the recipe from "Beard on Bread" cookbook. His original recipe was for buttermilk white loaf bread however we find muffins are more convenient to take to work for breakfast. Actually my wife has made this several times but we forgot take pictures and by the time we realized there were no pictures we had finished all the muffins. After making the 1st batch my wife decided to reduce the amount of salt called for in the original recipe. The 1st batch was good but both of us felt the muffins were too salty. She found that the Beard bread recipes in general use a lot more salt than other bread recipes and the end result actually tastes salty to us. Reducing the salt also doesn't seem to make a difference in the bread.  This buttermilk muffin is very similar in appearance and texture to regular white bread but it has a subtle "tanginess" or "sharpness" (in good way) somewhat reminiscent of sour dough bread but not as strong. This muffin can be served as dinner rolls or breakfast bread.

We freeze the muffins and just microwave them for 20 seconds in a silicon container for microwaving and it come back nicely with a soft texture. If you make it to a loaf, toasting it may be better.

The cut surface is that of yeast bread with nice soft texture.

Ingredients:
2 pks. dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar (plus 1/2 tsp additional to proof the yeast)
1/2 cup warm water
4 cups bread flour
2 tsp. salt
3 tbs. melted butter
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Directions:
Proof the yeast in the warm water and 1/2 tsp. sugar. Add the flour, remaining sugar and salt in a stand mixer with a dough hook. Add the proofed yeast, melted butter and buttermilk. Add additional flour as needed to make a smooth dough that sticks to the hook. Knead on speed 2 for 7 to 10 minutes. Place the dough in a bowl with some vegetable oil in it. Turn the dough to coat with oil so it won't dry out while rising. Let rise until doubled in bulk. Punch down and form into rolls weighing 2 1/2 oz. Put the rolls in a heavily buttered large pyrex baking dish. Cover and let rise until double in size (about 1/2 hour). Bake in a 400 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes. (It can also be made into loaves in which case it is baked for 30 to 40 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped.)

My wife commented, "The first time I read the recipe the description said it was made with hard wheat flour. I thought that meant whole wheat flour. So the first few times I made the muffins I used whole wheat flour and the rolls were quite good. Then, sometime later, when I read the recipe I wondered why the title called it white bread when it was made with whole wheat flour which results in a brown colored bread. Then it dawned on me that the hard wheat flour to which they were referring was high protein white wheat flour or in laymen's terms "bread flour". (duh!!) but the recipe  seems to work well with whole wheat flour too."

Squid "somen" イカ素麺

I am rather fond of squid and I posted many dishes. So, when I saw a new squid product in the freezer case at our Japanese store, I naturally bought it. It was called "Squid somen" イカ素麺. "Somen" 素麺 is a type of very thin Japanese noodle indicating this is raw squid cut in very thin strips. I served it dressed in the sauce which was included in the package and also added finely chopped chives.

It came in a bag containing three small cups and sauce. I thawed two cups in the refrigerator.

The amount in a cup was meant to be one serving and it is a small serving.

This was not bad but we prefer our regular squid sashimi package. It appeared that some of the squid strips still had the skin attached which stuck to my teeth. Oh, well. At least we tried it once.

Fennel ricotta muffin フェンネル リコッタチーズ マフィン

This another one of my wife's muffin project.The recipe came from "Pastries from La Brea Bakery". The muffin has fennel flavor and has ricotta cheese stuffing with pecan and walnuts on the top.

This is again quite successful muffin. I will let my wife take over.

Ingredients:

For the batter
1 tsp. fennel seeds toasted and pulverized
3 cups AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup vegetable oil

For the filling

1 cup ricotta cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

For the topping 

walnuts or pecans toasted and chopped

Directions:
Mix the fennel, flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl and combine. In another bowl mix the yogurt and vegetable oil. Combine the dry and liquid ingredients. In a third bowl mix the ingredients for the filling. Place a scoop of the batter in heavily greased muffin tin. Add a scoop of the filling and top with another scoop of the batter. Top with the toasted chopped nuts. Cook in a 400 degree oven for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly then remove from the muffin tin.

These were very good muffins. They had a nice tender texture with a surprise moist layer of ricotta in the center. The fennel gave it a pleasant spicy taste which set these apart from the usual muffin. These were very creative and pleasantly different--characteristic of the muffin recipes presented in the La Brea cookbook. We actually ate them all before we could take all the usual pictures so we couldn't show the nice layer of filling. Also, my wife has made several batches of these muffins all with the same "short-lived" effect so these were the best pictures we could salvage.

Moon gazing and "Tsuki-mi" dango 2019 月見と月見団子

This year's "15th night moon" or "Jugoya" 十五夜, which corresponds to the "Harvest moon" in the U.S., occurred on September 13 which was a Friday--Friday the 13th (!). Since it was a work day there was no time to make ”tsukimi dango" 月見団子  to celebrate the beauty of the moon. In addition it was cloudy, and the moon did not make an appearance so "tsukimi" or "moon gazing" was not happening. The next day,  I made the tsukimi dango in the morning so it was ready. In anticipation, we waited for moon rise. As you can see from the picture below the sky was crystal clear and the moon rose like a large round silver platter, even though it was a 1 day waning moon...Tsukimi was on.

We had our "tsukimi dango" with "mitarashi" みたらし sauce as a desert. I never thought (especially when I was in Japan), I would ever make this dish myself but this is very good and the sauce really makes it.

Speaking of moons, in addition to the real moon, this year we had the pleasure of viewing moon flowers blooming, after a long absence, in our garden--the white flower shown on the right in the picture below. They bloom in the evening and glow softly in the ambient light as it gets dark withering in the morning light. In contrast this year we also had morning glories called "asa-gaoa" 朝顔 (morning faces) in Japanese, (shown on the left in the picture below). The morning glories and moon flowers have a counter cyclical blooming cycle. The morning glories bloom in the morning when the moon flower is fading and fade in the evening when the moon flower is blooming. The result is that there is always a flower in bloom.

Digression alert: Many years ago we used to grow moon flowers and morning glories in our side yard. We planted the seeds in the ground and the plants climbed up strings reaching the trellis which screened one side of the deck from sight of our neighbor's backyard. We had enough sun for these plants to cover the entire side of the deck trellis. As shown in the picture below we had a glorious wall of morning glories providing a beautiful privacy screen.  

Even more impressive were the large moon flowers, some as large as small plates, which mysteriously opened in the evening.  Some survived until morning so we could see both flowers at the same time as shown in the picture below. While enjoying the soft glow of the moon flowers one evening we saw something big flying and sounding like a hummingbird feeding on the nectar of the moonflower. It was way too late for a hummingbird to be about so what in the world was this creature? Turns out it was something call a hummingbird moth. They fly like a hummingbird and drink nectar like a hummingbird. What a treat! We had no idea something like this even existed but we were privileged to have the opportunity of see one.

For various reasons we have not been able to plant these flowers for many years. This year my wife found a space along the fence that she thought might work. So we planted the seeds, strung the string and waited and waited and waited. Finally in late August the first moon flower made its appearance. The picture above is of this year's crops. They were rather pathetic compared to the our old morning glory and moon flower display, but this is quite an improvement especially since we did not have them for many years.

So back to the subject at hand; tsukimi. It may be difficult to celebrate tsukimi on the exact day of "Jugoya", but this was certainly a fine second best. The homemade dango were much better than the ones that we have bought commercially. They are very tender in texture with a pleasant rice flavor. The absolutely crucial ingredient to this dish is the sauce. It adds a burst of salty sweetness that is irresistible.

Mackerel ceviche しめ鯖のサビーチェ

In our household, once an item goes into the freezer, it tends to "fall off the radar screen" and gets lost. When my wife digs deep into the freezer in search of something, she always finds some very old item. On one such occasion, she pointed out a package of pickled mackerel or "shime-saba" しめ鯖. I knew it was old but I had no idea how old. I defrosted it one weekend and it was not edible. So, on a subsequent weekend, I bought some "fresh" frozen pickled mackerel. I did not take any chances this time and, the next day, I made this dish. I got this idea from a recipe on line.

This is a good dish. Perfect with cold sake.

The addition of vegetables added more volume.

Ingredients:
One package frozen "shime saba" pickled mackerel (#2), Thin skin peeled off and cut into a
bite sized pieces (#3).
1/2 sweet  onion (I used Vidalia), cut into thin slices (#1)
2 skinned Campari tomatoes, cut into thin wedges (#1)
1 Jalapeño pepper, seeded, veined and cut into fine dice (#1)
lime juice (from 1 lime) or lemon juice
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1-2 tsp olive oil (I used our favorite Spanish olive oil)
1/2 cucumber (I used American mini cucumber), thinly sliced for garnish

Directions:
Just mix it all up (#4) and dress with the lime juice, and olive oil. Season it with salt and black pepper (#4). Let it stand in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
I garnished with the cucumber

This is better than just eating the mackerel like sashimi with soy sauce, wasabi or ginger. Since the shime-saba had just been bought, it was nice and not overly pickled. This is indeed a very good way to serve shime-saba. This dish is not as challenging to people who are not into sashimi and mackerel in particular.

Avocado prosciutto muffin アボカド プロシュート マフィン

I had an excess of ripe avocados. I asked my wife if she could use some. As she is a devotee of muffins, she found this avocado bacon recipe on-line. Since we also had an excess prosciutto, she modified the recipe to avocado prosciutto muffin. This turned out to be a great and unique muffin, a complete breakfast.

This is the cut surface just cooled down to room temperature after coming out of the oven, You can see the melting cheese, avocado and prosciutto. Unfortunately, this is a rather rich muffin with eggs and cheese as well.

Ingredients (makes 12 muffins):
3 cups flour (#1)
2 tbs baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
4 1/2  tsp sugar
1 pinch cayenne pepper (#1)
1  1/2 cup grated cheese; we used a mixture of smoked gouda, sharp cheddar and pepper jack cheeses (#2).
2 tbs chopped chives
4 slices prosciutto, cut into small pieces and cooked until crispy (#3).
113 grams (whole stick) of unsalted butter melted
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1 avocado, stone and skin removed and cut into small cubes (coated with lemon juice to prevent discoloration) (#4)

Directions:
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cayenne in a bowl. Shred the cheeses. Cook the prosciutto until crispy. Cut up the avocado and coat with lemon juice so it doesn't discolor.
In another bowl combine the egg, butter and milk. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Fold in the prosciutto and avocado #5. Scoop into a heavily greased muffin tin. Cook in a 400 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes #6. Let cool for 5 minutes and remove from the muffin tin.

These muffins are a meal in themselves. They are decadently delicious. We would never have considered adding avocado to a baked good but it maintains it's shape and consistency. It adds a nice moist texture element. The smoked cheese did not melt completely while the other cheeses amalgamated into the bread. This added yet another texture element and burst of flavor. We will be making these again.