In Japan, matcha – powdered green tea – is a ubiquituous ingredient in all sorts of sweets: there is matcha Baumkuchen, matcha chocolate, matcha ice cream, even matcha kitkat. And recently, I came across matcha liqueur.
It is made by Suntory and called Matcha Presso. In fact, the name is well-chosen, since the drink is very strong (14% alcohol) and very sweet. And it’s almost pitch black! When poured out of the bottle, it looks like dark coffee, but when adding ice cubes – Suntory recommends to drink it on the rocks – the distinctive bright green matcha color becomes visible immediately.
Since it is so sweet, it’s not a drink to sip on all evening, but a little glass every now and then is a treat a real matcha fan would not decline…
In Japan, tunafish is the most popular fish for sushi and sashimi. Large tunafish can sell at auctions for thousands of US$, and the carving of a tunafish into bite sized pieces is an attraction that draws lots of people every time. Thanks to Japan being an island, fish is popular and ubiquitous, and most people buy their tuna – fish in general – raw and cook it themselves.
In the West, tunafish is much less attractive. Of course, it is eaten often, but not many people have ever seen anything else than the cooked pieces that are drowned in oil and packed in cans. In fact, this kind of canned tuna also exists in Japan, of course, but here it is called “sea chicken” for some reason.
The best way to cook tuna – according to a Japanese tuna salesman I asked – is to grill it very lightly so that it is still raw in the middle, just like good steak. But the most delicious way to eat tunafish is as sushi or sashimi because only there the delicate taste comes out as it should. What many people don’t realise is that tunafish tastes differently depending on which part of the fish is eaten. After all, a grown tuna can be up to one metre long, that’s a lot of meat!
When eating sushi, there are essentially three types of tuna available: Maguro sushi is the most common, and this is usually what is served abroad as well. It is dark red, comes from the fish’s back near the spine and is the leanest type of tuna. Pieces from the belly are called Otoro, their color is light pink because they contain a lot of fat. Often, otoro pieces are marbled like good beef, and they are so tender that they melt easily on the tongue. The taste is quite oily though, not everybody likes that. A bit more to the inside of the belly of the fish are the pieces called chutoro (written with the Kanji for “middle”). They are pretty much in the middle between maguro and otoro, in taste, fat content, and in color.
Interestingly, otoro is the most expensive part of a tuna fish, at least of the parts that are eaten as sushi. For the average Westerner this must sound strange – just imagine all that fat! – but the Japanese don’t mind fat that much, and otoro is very tasty indeed. If you have a chance somewhere at a sushi bar to try out all three kinds of tuna cuts, do so! You will not be disappointed, promised!
Staying with the theme of last Thursday, let’s introduce more Japanese food: mitarashi dango.
Dango are little Japanese dumplings made from rice flour. They are similar to mochi, but mochi are much softer and sweeter than the dango. Dango are usually boiled in water and then skewered in groups of three to five.
Except for the hanami dango that are sold during cherry blossom season and come in three flavours (cherry, green tea, and plain), the dango themselves are usually plain and don’t have much taste. The flavour comes by adding a sauce to the skewered dango, and you can have anything on top from a layer of anko (red bean paste), to a chestnut paste, kinako (roasted soy flour), or sesame seeds.
If you first boil and then grill the dango over a fire and finally cover them with a sweet sauce made of sugar, water, rice vinegar, and soy sauce, you get mitarashi dango. Their origin goes back to the mitarashi festival of Shimogamo shrine, where a family offered the first skewered dango to the gods. Their round shape is meant to resemble the bubbles that form in the shrine’s Mitarashi pond, and that there are usually five to one skewer is explained by the fact that the top dango counts as the head, and the lower four as the arms and legs of a human.
Nowadays, mitarashi dango are sold all over Japan, and especially in summer they are very popular. However, there is a very old mitarashi dango shop nearby Shimogamo shrine, and it is said that the first mitarashi dango were made there. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly a nice story, and I think I might just go and visit that particular shop to try the original.
I am slowly trying to japanify myself, and a friend of mine helps me to do so by teaching me how to cook. Last Friday, we spontaneously decided to make gyoza – Japanese meat dumplings.
You need gyoza wrappers – thin, round wrappers made of noodle dough. I guess if you can’t find those, it would be possible to make them yourself. Those are filled with a mixture of cabbage and pork and a few other things and are relatively easy to make. The recipe is below. I would recommend making a really large batch and freezing whatever you can’t eat. It is best to freeze the fresh gyoza before frying them.
Also, extra tip: the meat mixture described in the recipe is the same as for meat balls. Japanese tend not to fry those in a pan, but rather, they put them on a stick and grill them. Something I will also try out eventually.
Gyoza à la Junko san (25 pieces)
– 180 g (Chinese) cabbage Wash the cabbage leaves and cut them in smaller pieces. Boil them in hot water until the hard stalks are soft. Wring out thoroughly (use a towel to get all the water out) and chop in very small pieces.
– 30 g thin leek or spring onions Chop into thin rings.
– 150 g finely minced pork – 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped – 1 piece of ginger, finely chopped – salt, pepper, a few drops of soy sauce Mix all of the above together thoroughly with your hands. Make sure the result is a very smooth paste. Let it rest for 10 minutes or so to enhance the flavour.
– 25 round gyoza wrappers Fill each of the gyoza wrappers with about 1 teaspoon of the meat mix. Moisten the edges of the wrappers with a bit of water (special tip: dissolve a little bit of flour in the water for even better results) and close the wrappers, making a half circle. To make sure the gyoza will not open during frying, fold the round edge over itself a few times.
Fry a batch of the gyoza (5-10, depending on the size of the pan) with a little oil in a pan. When one side is nice and crisp, turn them around, add a little water and put a lid on the pan. The gyoza are finished when all the water is gone. To make them extra crispy, turn them around again and fry them a few minutes longer.
For the dipping sauce, mix 1 tablespoon of vinegar with 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil.
Green tea is a wonderful discovery/invention. In Japan, some 90.000 tons of tea leaves are harvested each year. Most of this tea is consumed either as “raw” green tea or fermented or roasted (as black tea or hojicha, respectively). An interesting Japanese invention is matcha, green tea leaves that are finely ground to a powder and which can be used to make the famously bitter tea for tea ceremony, or as an ingredient for cooking.
Additionally, in Japan you can buy matcha flavoured anything: From candy to kitkat and chocolates, to ice-cream (with and without anko) for example. And all sorts of cakes and cookies.
A personal favourite of mine from the latter department are cookies called Kyo Chaffle. Those are thin, round cookies with an intensely green color and an even more intense taste. Their “mouthfeel” if you want so is like that of brownies: On the inside they have a slightly sticky consistency, while they are dry on the outside. They are very delicious indeed and are nice as a snack in between – provided you can manage to stop after a single one…
Sorry for not writing on Sunday. First I was occupied and later incapacitated…
A friend of mine took me out to Otsu, some 30 minutes east of Kyoto. Otsu is the capital of Shiga prefecture and the largest city situated on Lake Biwa which in its turn is the largest freshwater lake of Japan. Both Otsu and Lake Biwa are popular day trip destinations from Kyoto, and there is even a path over the mountains from Kyoto to Lake Biwa, but it is probably not for the weak of limb…
Anyway, we went to Otsu on Sunday evening for a Kisen-de-Oden. Oden is a soup or rather a hot pot that is eaten throughout Japan during winter: in a light broth various types of fish cake are boiling, together with a whole egg, some daikon radish, and konyaku. It’s a bit like shabu-shabu with the difference that the ingredients are already pre-cooked and just heated in the hot pot.
Kisen means boat in Japanese, and Kisen-de-Oden thus means that you eat Oden while riding in a boat somewhere on the lake. Well, it didn’t work out like that exactly, but still: There was a short trip by boat from the main harbour of Otsu to the little landing at the old Biwako Otsukan hotel. This is a lovely building situated directly on the lake with a beautiful garden right next to it. Of course, when we arrived it was dark already and neither the building nor the garden could be seen. However, Otsu lies on the southern tip of Lake Biwa, and surrounds a good part of it, so there was a wonderful view of lit up Otsu from Otsu across the lake.
(photo by 663highland on Wikimedia commons)
The Oden was an interesting mix of French and Japanese cuisine. We had cooked beef in sauce, some hearty egg pudding, and foie gras as appetizers. Then the pot for the oden was heated on our table, and we were supposed to eat it – and top it off with the grated cheese that was provided. When the oden was finished we put a fried, plain onigiri rice ball into the remaining soup to make our own risotto. My overall impression was: interesting combination, but delicious.
With these sort of things I am never sure whether they are meant for the food or for the drinks. Together with the ticket, you got three coupons for free drinks (I chose three glasses of wine) plus an additional glass of hot wine on the trip plus another additional glass of wine upon arrival. That’s 5 glasses of wine – within 90 minutes, not for the weak of stamina… Of course, as usual in Japan, the whole evening was minutely planned, and executed as well, and while the waiters held themselves in the background, you still had the feeling of being rushed a little. 30 minutes more would not have been amiss.
After 75 minutes in the restaurant we had to leave and were taken by boat back to Otsu harbour again. My friend forgot to order dessert (which was a good thing because there wasn’t time enough for another course anyway), so we went to have pancakes in a Hawaiian restaurant (of all places) near the train station.
Altogether I had a nice evening in Otsu. The place looks peaceful in the night and worth examining further. I have been there before for Otsu matsuri (with the same friend) and this time we kinda sorta got invited to return for the Otsu fireworks in summer. But that’s still five months to go, and with a bit of luck I will go there earlier.
One of the great things of Japanese festivals of a certain size is the fast food sold there. From very simple grilled meat – on sticks – and very elaborate pancakes with different toppings – rolled around sticks – to the all time favourites of yakisoba and okonomiyaki. Sweets are either caramelised fruit like apples or strawberries – on sticks – or bananas – on sticks – dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.
And then there are Kasutera. They are hard to describe, little oval balls made from simple pancake batter (I think) and baked in a special mold. They are not very sweet as there is no sugar added (although is there certainly some in the batter), and they are best when eaten fresh and really hot.
Baby Kasutera like this seem to be a speciality of matsuri, I have never seen them sold elsewhere. Also it seems that at least in Kyoto there is a monopoly on Kasutera. No matter what festival, and no matter how large, there is a single Kasutera booth only and it is always the same company. So, if you come visit a Kyoto festival, try to find the Kasutera booth, they are certainly worth it!
By the way, there is also a sponge-like cake called Kasutera, but the taste is a bit different. Don’t mistake those two, although the Kasutera cake is not usually sold at matsuri anyway.
There are many kinds of sushi, most of them with fish, a few with other things like avocado or eggs, and they come in a variety of forms: nigiri sushi (classic rice on bottom, fish on top), maki sushi rolls, temaki sushi wrapped in a piece of seaweed looking like an ice cream cone, chirashi sushi (rice in a bowl with raw fish sprinkled on top)… However, the one thing all sushi has in common is that it must be consumed fresh on the day it is made – it is raw fish, after all.
Well, there are exceptions to everything of course. In this case here, one of them is called kakinoha sushi, persimmon leaf sushi. It looks like a standard nigiri sushi wrapped in a green leaf, but there is a little more to it: To make kakinoha sushi, the cooked rice is placed in a wooden mold, the already cured fish is put on top of it, and the whole thing is pressed firmly. The finished pressed sushi is cut into bite sized pieces and only now individually wrapped in salted persimmon leaves. After that, the pieces are put back into the mold, topped with something heavy, and left to rest for a few days in a cool place.
Eating kakinoha sushi is easy: Simply unwrap and eat with your fingers (like all sushi, by the way). The persimmon leaf (which is not eaten although one probably could) can be used as a sort of natural napkin to touch the sushi, which are a bit more sticky than usual. Their distinct taste originates from the persimmon leaves – which are antibacterial, by the way – but it is not strong enough to overpower the fish. Most often, salmon, mackerel, and trout are used in kakinoha sushi.
This type of sushi is a speciality of Nara, a landlocked little city southeast of Kyoto; this is interesting because one would expect a fish product like this to be made where fresh fish is easy to get… The dish was traditionally prepared for ceremonies like the summer festival, where it is important to have food that does not spoil easily. Today, kakinoha sushi can be bought in many places all over Kansai at least, and it is a popular ekiben – the kind of bento food box you eat when traveling by Shinkansen. But that’s a story for another weekend…
January 7th, also called jinjitsu, traditionally marks the last day of the New Year’s festivities, and of course the Japanese celebrate it with special food. In this case, they eat nanakusa gayu – seven herb soup – which gives an alternative name to this day: nanakusa no sekku, the Festival of Seven Herbs. Eating nanakusa gayu is supposed to promote health during winter, and give one a long life, of course.
Besides that, after all the gluttony of New Year’s feasting, nanakusa gayu is also meant to rest the stomach a bit, and indeed, the soup is based on okayu, a simple, soft, and very bland rice porridge that people usually eat when they are sick. They then add the following seven herbs to the soup: water dropwort (seri), shepherd’s purse (nazuna), cudweed (hahagokusa), chickweed (hakobe), nipplewort (koonitabiraku), turnip (kabu), and radish (daikon).
Of course, it is now in the middle of winter, and these herbs are not easy to be gathered outside; note that in ancient times however, the festival would have been on the seventh day of the first month according to the lunar calendar, that is, about two months later than today. In any case, the modern Japanese do not forage outside, but rather in their nearest supermarket, where nanakusa can be bought in conveniently sized packs – or even, as I found out, as a dried mixture or in reheatable plastic bags complete with the finished rice porridge.
Even though my cooking skills are not exemplary, I did not stoop that low, but indeed bought the smallest pack of fresh nanakusa I could find and made my own rice porridge. The result was rather bland to be honest, but the tastes of the different herbs did come out very well this way.
Below is the recipe I used to make the nanakusa gayu from scratch. I will not post it in my washoku category because the herbs are pretty much impossible to find outside of Japan. However, if you feel like trying it anyway, you can use other herbs that you like or can find.
Recipe for nanakusa gayu, seven herbs rice porridge (for two people)
– 2 cups rice (Japanese or risotto rice) – 8 cups water – 1 piece of kelp (optional) – salt Boil the rice with the water and salt until it has a very soft texture. There should still be some water left at the end. (Optional: you can add a piece of kelp to add some flavour, but remove it when the water starts boiling so the taste will not get bitter.)
– 1 cup of nanakusa or seven other herbs (nanakusa are: Japanese water dropwort, shepherd’s purse, cudweed, chickweed, nipplewort, turnip, and radish) Clean the herbs and blanch them in boiling water, then drain, rinse, and cut in small pieces.
When the rice is finished, gently stir in the herbs and let them heat up for a minute or two. (*) That’s it! Enjoy!
(*) Alternatively, you can forgo the blanching if you add the herbs to the rice a bit earlier. I did it that way, and it tasted fine to me, which does not necessarily mean anything though…
A New Year has begun, and again, I have tried yet a few more of the hundreds of traditions that surround this time of the year in Japan.
Unfortunately, I have been rather sick since Christmas, so instead of going out for the joya-no-kane ringing of the temple bells, I stayed in bed. I could hear the bells from there, however, and even so, it gives a wonderfully spiritual feeling to the quiet night.
I tried two of the food related Japanese New Year traditions though: On New Year’s Eve, I ate what is called toshi-koshi-soba, year crossing soba. Soba are buckwheat noodles, and depending on who you ask, you will get a different version of their significance in the dish: The noodles are long and symbolise a long life; but they are also easy to cut, so they make you let go of the hardships of the past year; and since the buckwheat plant is very hardy, this is a representation of strength and resilience (something I can definitely use right now).
For New Year’s Day, I had bought not a full Osechi menu, but only the sweets that come with it. The rooster is a symbol of this year, and the long flat thing is a paddle that’s used for hanetsuki, a type of old Japanese shuttlecock I have written about before. Interestingly, only half of the pieces had anko in it – I was very happy about that!
Besides that, I bought a rooster for my home. Not a real one of course, but a small ceramic statue that is usually displayed near the entrance. Since I don’t have space there however, I put it in my living room – one of the few things that are decorative there at the moment. It is my first such zodiac animal and according to a friend, you should not reuse an old statue (the zodiac repeats itself every 12 years), but always buy a new one, to attract new good luck to your home, so to speak. Well, this is a nice tradition to start in my home I guess, and it’s neither expensive, nor does it take too much space, so…
In Japan, matcha – powdered green tea – is a ubiquituous ingredient in all sorts of sweets: there is matcha Baumkuchen, matcha chocolate, matcha ice cream, even matcha kitkat. And recently, I came across matcha liqueur.
