Tag Archives: Recipes

Fruits & Chocolate Cream Mousse

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-1

I’ve always loved chocolate mousse and cream as far as I can remember and am always on the lookout for a simple recipe!
Here is one that even chidren could make:
Fruits & Chocolate Cream Mousse!

INGREDIENTS: For 5 people
-Chocolat Cream Mousse:
Milk Chocolate (use you favorite brand!): 65 g
Fresh cream: 200 cc (1 cup)

Fruit marinade:
Seasonal fruit (I cho0se mango this time as they are available most of the year): 1
Liqueur (Your favourite!): I chose rum this time: 2 large tablespoons

RECIPE:
FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-2

Any fruit is fine. Think of volume and cuts: pears, strawberries, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, …

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-3

Marinate your fruit with your favourite liqueur.

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-4

Melt the chocolate over a bain-marie at about 50 degrees celsius.

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-5

Whisk the fresh cream up to your own liking.

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-6

Add one third of the whisked fresh cream and mix gently.

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-7

Add rest of fresh cream and mix gently. If you whisk it too hard, ingredients will separate.

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-8

Place marinated fruit into recipients.

FRUIT-CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE-9

Pour chocolate cream on top and leave in refrigeartor for 2 hours.

Before serving decorate each cup using your imagination!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Easy Vegetable and Fruit Yoghurt Mousse

VEG-FRUIT-YOGHURT-MOUSSE-1

Is your whole family vegetarian?
Here is a dessert for all, adults and chidren alike:
Vegetables and Fruit Yoghurt Mousse!

INGREDIENTS: for 8 people
-Mousse:
Vegetable Juice: 200 cc (1 cup)
Fresh cream: 200 cc (1 cup)
Yoghurt: 250 cc (1 and a quarter cups)
Sugar: 100 g
lemon juice (to taste)
Gelatin or agar agar powder: 10 g

-Jelly:
Vegetable juice: 350 cc (1 and three quarters cups)
Sugar: 200 cc (1 cup)
Sugar: 30 g
Gelatin or agar agar powder: 10 g

-Topping:
Blueberry jam (to taste)/You may use other fruit jams naturally!

-Others:
Lukewarm water to dissolve gelatin: 6 large tablespoons each

RECIPE:
-Preparing jelly:
Add water to vegetable juice and warm up inside microwave oven for 30 seconds. Take out, add sugar and mix.

Add gelatin dissolved in lukearm water and stir well.
Pour in individual recipients. Let cool.
Leave inside refrigerator for 40~60 minutes until it has properly solidified.

-Preparing mousse:
Mix fresh cream with sugar in blender or whisk until half solid (should still see bubbles)

In a separate bowl pour vegetable juice, yoghurt and lemon juice. Add gelatin dissolved in lukewarm water and mix well.

-Let cool and pour over jely in individual recipients. Leave in refrigerator until properly solidified.

-Once the mousse ad solidified, top with jam thinned with a little water. If the dessert is for adults only, thinning the jam with liqueur is a good idea!

Open to imagination and variations!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Cherries Red Wine Compote

SAKURA-COMPOTE-1

While cherries are still to found aplenty and at cheap prices, it is always a good idea to make preserves.
I remember my father back home preserving dark cherries in kirsch (cherry brandy), putting the jars away inside a small pantry, locking it and keeping the key with him as they would quickly disappear as I, my two brothers and one sister got drunk on them as kids!

Here is a simple recipe making use of light coloured cherries and red wine:
Cherries Red Wine Compote:

INGREDIENTS:
-Cherries: 150 g
-Sugar: 3 large tablespoons
-Red wine: 2 larg tablespoons

RECIPE:
Wash cherries in clear cold water. Stab 5 of them with thin needle.
In a small bowl, drop in sugar with a little water. Warm up in a microwave oven until sugar has dissolved. Add a little more water and let cool down completely.

SAKURA-COMPOTE-2

Place cherries inside the pan with their stems taking care that the cherries don’t overlap.

Pour in red wine. Add sugared water. Add water to just reach the top of the cherries. Cook on a small fire for 10~15 minutes.

SAKURA-COMPOTE-3

Pour the lot inside a preserve glass jar and close. Let cool completely and leave inside the refrigerator for a whole week.

SAKURA-COMPOTE-4

Here they are!
Savour them with a coffee, dark tea or a dram of kirsch!
Note that they should be cooked over a low fire, otherwise the skins would break.
These cherries can be used on ckaes in clafoutis!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Easy Summer Salad: Zucchini, Grapefruit & Dill Salad

ZUCCHINI-GRAPEFRUIT-DILL-SALAD

As I said before, Summer comes with all kinds of fruit and vegetables that can be combined into simple and refreshing salads. They are welcome at home and summer parties.
To be enjoyed with all kinds of ades (for the kids?) or white wines (including the bubbly ones). In Japan, sake of course!

Easy Zucchini, Grapefruit & Dill Salad

Ingredients: For 2 people
-Zucchini: 1 preferably green, but yellow would be intereesting (or even a combination of the two!)
-Grapefruit: hal a fruit
-Dill: 5=6 sprigs
-Olive oil (EV): half a large tablespoon
-Fresh cream: 1 nad hal large tablespoons
-Salt and white pepper (to taste). One may add (up to a point) other spices including chili pepper! One may use ground black pepper instead of white pepper for better effect!

Recipe:
-Cut extremities of zucchini and discard. Cut into very thin slices. Warap inside cellophane paper and leave in microwave oven for 2 minutes. Cool and then chill. Discard water.

-Extract flesh out of grafruit and cut wedges into small bits.
Separate “leaves” from dill sprigs as finely as possible.

-In a bowl, pour oil, salt, fresh cream and mix. Add dill and mix. Add zucchini and grapefruit.
Arrange into individual dishes as delicately (lovingly?) as possible. The visual effect is most important!

I leave to you as to which variation you might tempted to try!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Easy Summer Salad: Grapefruit & Avocado Salad

GRAPEFRUIT-AVOCADO-SALAD

Summer comes with all kinds of fruit and vegetables that can be combined into simple and refreshing salads. Moreover, they make for healthy snacks for the family and summer parties.
To be enjoyed with all kinds of ades or white wines (including the bubbly ones). In Japan, sake of course!

Simple Grapefruit & Avocado Salad

Ingredients: For 2 people
-Grapefruit: 1 large, sanguine type preferable
-Avocado: 1 large. Choose it soft, but firm enough to be cut
-Salt: a pinch (to taste)
-Ground pepper (to taste)
-Lemon juice
-Olive oil (EV): 1 large tablespoon

Recipe:
-Peel grapefruit and extract the “meat” carefully the wedges over a bowl. Cut the wedges into bite size pieces and drop them in the bowl where they will be kept with any juice that has flowed from them.

-Cut Avocado in two, discard the large seed, peel and cut into bite-size pieces. Add some lemon juice to them to preserve colour in a separate bowl.

-Add Avocado to grapefruit. Add salt, ground pepper and olive oile. Mix well but as delicately as possible.

-Serve in individual plates with all the “juice”. Add basil of other herb leaves for decoration and taste.

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

French Cuisine: Saucisson Brioche/Sausage in Brioche

SAUCISSN-BRIOCHE

Even to these days I cherish the memory of this French specialty originating from the City of Lyon that we were served either as an appetizer or main dish: Saucisson Brioche, namely a sausage baked inside a salty (as opposed to the sweet pastry) brioche.

The recipe is not that difficult and open to many variations!

INGREDIENTS:: For up to 6 people
-One sausage. In France, it would be a Lyon sausage, of the soft type including pistacchio. Some soft sausages found in Italy, Germany and the US should well! If you eat kosher or halall, choose a sausage of mutton or beef.
-All purpose flour: 250 g
-Dry baking yeast: 4~5 g
-Eggs: 3
-Fresh Cream: 150 ml (thick type or sour cream)
-salt: to taste

RECIPE:

-Prepare the pastry:
In a large bowl break the eggs and beat them with a fork. In a separate bowl sift the flour and yeast first. Add the eggs to flour little by little mixing them in with a spatula. Then add cream and mix until you get a smooth batter.

-Poach the sausage for 15 minutes in boiling water. Take out and peel “skin” off.

-In a pound cake mold, non-stick if possible, put a large piece of cooking paper buttered on both sides. Pour in half of the batter. delicately put the sausage in the meiddle and cover with the rest of the batter. Cover with a piece of cloth and let rest for 15 minutes at room temperature.
During that time preheat oven to 6/7 (200 degrees Cesius).

Bake in oven for 40 minutes.
Take out of the mold still hot and serve just above lukewarm with a lettuce salad.
Red Bourgogne wine is best with it!

Note: You can cook the day before and reheat it before serving!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

French Cake: Gironde Tot-Fait

tot-fait.jpg

The Gironde Estuary between Bordeaux and the Atlantic Ocean is famous for the following cake, a kind of French rum-flavoured short cake. This cake is best accompanied with wine jam or fresh grapes. Enjoy an old rum with it.
I dedicate this recipe to Kamran Siddiqui who is complaining I’m teasing his sweet tooth! (LOL). One person who will not complain is his sister!!

INGREDIENTS: (4 people or more)
Powdered sugar: 200g
Flour: 200g
Rum: 150cc
Vanilla extract ( or essence): 1 teaspoon
Milk: 3 tablespoons
Butter: 30g
Salt

RECIPE:

-Separate egg yolks from whites. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a big all-purpose bowl until it whitens. Add flour, vanilla and rum swiftly beating at same time. Add milk and mix well.

-Preheat oven to 6 (180 degrees Celsius).

-Beat the whites with a pinch of salt until very firm and gently mix with above mixture.

-Butter the inside of an oven dish (square if possible) and pour in mixture. Cook for 30 minutes.

-Serve lukewarm or cold.

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Japanese Mango and Rare Cheese Cake

MANGO-CHEESE-1

The Japanese make a distinction between two kinds of cheese cakes:
-Just “cheese cake” means it has been baked
-“Rare Cheese cake” means that the cake is not cooked.

This particular recipe is dedicated to Elin and her love for mangoes!

INGREDIENTS: For 4 servings (18×9 cm pound cake mold)
-Cream cheese (Philadelphia): 150 g
-Lemon juice: 1 large Tablespoon
-Sugar: 45 g
-Plain yoghurt: 150 g
-White wine: 3 large tablespoons
-Gelatin powder or agar agar powder: 5 g
-Fresh cream: 100 ml (half a cup)
-Rum: 1 large tablespoon
-Cake margarine: 30 g
-Coconuts sable biscuits: 60 g
-Allspice: half a teaspoon
-Dried mango: 3~4 slices
-Fresh or canned mango: 4 cubes
-Green pistachio: 4

RECIPE:

MANGO-RARE-CHEESE-2

Place cooking paper inside a pound cake mold.
Mix crushed coconuts sable biscuits, margarine and allspice.
Spread equally on bottom of the mold.
Leave inside refrigerator.

MANGO-CHEESE-3

Cut dried mango into small pieces and season with rum.

MANGO-RARE-CHEESE-4

In a separate small bowl/deep plate pour in wine. Then (the other round will result in failure!) sprinkle with gelatin powder and mix until smooth.

MANGO-RARE-CHEESE-5

Soften cream cheese in a microwave oven for about 30 seconds. Add lemon juice, sugar and yoghurt. Mix well until smooth.

MANGO-CHEESE-6

Add wine and gelatin to cheese cake mixture and mix well, taking care not to make bubbles!

MANGO-RARE-CHEESE-7

In a separate bowl, whisk fresh cream up to 7/10 solidity (too solid is not welcome!) . It should still be bubbly. Add a small part to cheese cake mixture and mix well. Add rest of fresh cream and mix carefully, taking care not tobreak bubbles.

MANGO-CHEESE-8

Add rum-soaked dried mango to cheese cake mixture. Mix just enough for uniformity.
Pour the lot into mold and leave insid eefrigerator until it has completely solidified.

MANGO-CHEESE-9

Decorate with whipped cream, pistachio and mango cube before cutting and serving!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

French/Japanese Dessert: Pear Madeleine

PEAR-MADELEINE-1

Just discovered this intriguing little cake called Pear Madeleine by a Japanese friend. American friends would definitely find another name including the word “cupcake”!
Incidentally my own mother’s name was Madeleine! Coincidence?

INGREDIENTS: for about 12~13 cakes
-Butter: 125 g
-Egg: 1 large
-Sugar: 70 g
-All-purpose flour: 100 g
-Baking powder: 1 small teaspoon
-Almond powder: 20 g
-Walnuts: 20 g
-Pears: 4 cuts from halved pear can
For the nappage/topping:
-Water: 100 ml (half a cup)
-Sugar: 40 g
-Agar agar: 1 g

RECIPE:

-Cut half of the pear slices into small bits for the cake pastry. Cut the rest of the pears into thin slices for topping. Crush walnuts into bits, roast them lightly and put aside.

-Beat butter until it becomes whitish. Add sugar and mix well. In a separate bowl break egg and beat into light omelette. Add and mix with butter mixture little by little.

-Add in the following order: almond powder, flour and baking powder, mixing them in with spatula.

-Add and mix in crushed walnuts and pears bits. Leave in refrigerator overnight.

-Transfer cake mixture into cup of your choice with a spoon. The paste will be a bit hard, but try to put the same amount in each cup. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

-Bake inside oven for 5 minutes and take out. Place a pear cut on each cake and put back into oven for 20~30 minutes.

-Nappage: Pour all ingredients in a bowl and heat over a light fire. When completely dissolved, brush syrup on the cakes.
When completely cooled down, preserve them so as they do not dry up.

NOTE:
The cake mixture will somewhat feel too hard/solid but it will melt in quickly inside oven.

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Easy Vegan Tomato Appetizer

TOMATO-KANTEN

Just found the idea in a Japanese cookbook for an easy vegan/vegetarian appetizer based on tomato:
Agar agar Tomato Jelly!

INGREDIENTS:
-Tomato Juice: 300 ml (make your own juice form tomatoes freshly bought or picked!9
-Orange Juice: 250 ml (same a for tomato juice. Choose biologically grown ones!)
-Sugar: 3 large tablespoons
-Agar agar powder: 4 g

RECIPE:
-Pour all ingredients into pan. Het until suagr and agar and agra are completely dissolved.
-Pour into recipients o your choice and let cool.
-Put inside the fridge and serve when the jelly has completely solidified.

NOTES:
This is a very basic recipe, which calls for variations and ideas:
-If on a diet, discard sugar, and add a lttle celery salt, white pepper and spices of your choice. ecorate with basil leaves.
-Can be used as solid base under fruit or vegetable salads!
-Mixing alcohol with it, vodka for example, and you have jelly cocktail.

Have some good fun!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Japanese Cheese Cake: The Basic Recipe

CHEESE-CAKE-1

I have been recently asked a lot of questions about Japanese-style cheese cakes. Incidentally I had never heard of cheese cakes before I came to Japan 33 years ago. After investigation, cheese cakes have been around the world for quite a long time and developped into many varieties. Among them, the Japanese style seems to have acquired a lot of popularity, to the point that many customers expect them to be on offer in Japanese Izakayas abroad!

Here is the basic recipe as far as it goes in this very country.
It should provide a base from which one can create more sophisticated desserts!

INGREDIENTS: For an 18cm-diameter cake
-Cream cheese (philadelphia style): 250 g
-Fresh cream: 1 cup/200 ml
-Eggs: 2
-Sugar: 80 g
-All purpose flour: 3 large tablespoons
-Lemon juice: 2 large tablespoons
For the base:
-Biscuites (or crackers of your choice): 90 g
-Unsalted butter: 40 g

RECIPE:
CHEESE-CAKE-2

-Put biscuits/crackers inside a tight seal vynil pouch. Close. Crush until fine.
Take crumbs out and mix with melted unsalted sugar.
Lay cooking paper inside a cake mold.
Spread crumbs on the bottom . Press with masher for uniformity and solidity.

-Soften cream cheese inside microwve oven for 30 seconds~1 minute.
Divide into 3 or 4 parts.

-In a mixer/blender drop eggs, sugar, lemon juice and flour. Mix well.

CHEESE-CAKE-3

Pour in fresh cream and then cream cheese little by little. Mix well. Stir with a spatula from time to time to help.

CHEESE-CAKE-4

-Pour the cheese cake mixture over the crumbs.
Preheat oven at 170 degrees and bake for 40~45 minutes.

CHEESE-CAKE-5

The colour should be a nice brown-orange. In Japan they say “kitsune iro/fox colour”!
Leave inside the mold.
Let it cool completely.
Leave inside the fridge at leat 12 hours. before unmolding and serving.

For better cutting, wipe the knife clean after every cut!

If the cake attains its colour before the cooking time has elapsed, cover with foil paper and put back into the oven.
In the case colour does come quickly enough raise the oven temperature.

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

French Dessert: Lemon and Cointreau Souffle

lemomsouffle.jpg

I thought all day about having a go at Jenn, Kamran and other friends’ sweet tooth and I came with that old sweet souffle recipe of mine:
Lemon and Cointreau Souffle!
It is easier than it sounds! You might have to keep the kids off it, though (LOL)

INGREDIENTS: For 4 people
-Almond powder: 50g
-Sugar: 100g (+ 30g for coating inside of molds)
-Flour: 50g
-Milk: 250cc
-Butter: 50g (+ 20g for coating inside of molds)
-Cointreau (or orange liqueur): a quarter of a cup/50 ml (more is no problem!)
-Eggs: 4
-Lemon (clean!): 1
-Glazing sugar
-Salt

RECIPE:

-Coat insides of molds of 4 small souffle molds with butter and then sugar.

-Preheat the oven at 6 (180 degrees Celsius).

-Grate the lemon skin and press out the juice. Put aside.

-Separate egg yolks from whites.

-In a saucepan, on a small fire, melt butter, mix on flour and cook, stirring gently all the time for 2 minutes, making sure the colour does not change.
Add milk and mix on a stronger fire until thick.
Take off fire. Add sugar, almond powder, grated lemon skin, lemon juice and Cointreau, and last the the egg yolks one by one and mix well.
Beat the whites with a pinch of salt until very firm. Fold the whites in the mixture delicately with a soft spatula.
Pour mixture inside molds up to their rims.
Cook for 20 minutes.

-Take out of the oven, sprinkle with glazing sugar and serve at once.

The next dessert will be the recipe for the basic Cheese Cake, Japanese-style!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

French Dessert: Hot Apple Souffle

APPLE-SOUFFLE

Apples are everywhere on the markets these days. This is a good time to try something different. It might hot and humid now, but one can appreciate a hot dessert, especially when you are confined within an air-conditioned space all day and night!
Souffle has a repution of a difficult dish to realize. Actually it is dead simple. Once you matsered it, you cannot make a mistake!

INGREDIENTS: For 4 people
Apples: 1kg (green probably best)
Eggs: 6
Butter: 50g
Powder Sugar: 100g
5 Sponge Biscuits or the equivalent in Sponge (Short) Cake
Calvados (French Apple Brandy): 100cc

RECIPE:
-Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
-Wash the apples and wipe them dry.
-Take off stems, cut in four and cook as they are in a covered saucepan inside the oven for one hour.
-Take out and sieve flesh of apples. Pour this compote into a fry-pan and cook on a small fire for 5 minutes to take out excess water.
-Stop the fire and mix in the 6 egg yolks.
-Beat the whites with 50g of powder sugar. Fold in the beaten whites delicately inside the cooled down compote with a spatula trying to achieve the lightest possible mixture.
-Cut the sponge biscuits and imbibe them with the Calvados.
-Butter and sugar the inside of a souffle dish.
-Pour in half of the souffle mixture.
-Then spread the calvados-imbibed biscuits and top with the rest of the souffle mixture.
-Cook for 15 minutes at 200 degrees celsius.

-Take out and eat at once!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

French Dessert: Nectarine Tart

NECTARINE-TART

Peaches are already on the market, and nectarines will appear soon!
These peaches being smaller and a lot firmer, they make for a great fruit in tarts.
Here is a simple enough recipe you could apply for other fruit such as apricots, apples and even mangoes!

INGREDIENTS: (for 6 people):
Pastry:
flour: 200g
butter: 75g
egg: 1
powdered sugar: 50g
water
salt
Filling:
nectarines: 750g
butter: 100g
powdered sugar
almond powder: 125g
eggs: 2
rum: 1 tablespoon
minced pistachio: 1 tablespoon
glazing sugar: 2 tablespoons

RECIPE:

A) Pastry:
In an all-purpose bowl mix eggs with sugar until smooth. Then mix in butter (softened) until smooth. Add a pinch of salt. Then mix in flour little
by little to obtain a homogeneous paste. Mix in water little by little until pastry is “as soft as your earlobe”. Wrap in cellophane and leave in refrigerator for an hour.

B) Take pastry out of refrigerator and knead a little until soft enough to spread.
Spread inside tart dish and punch a few holes with a fork.

C) Preheat oven to 6 (180 degrees Ceslius). Melt the butter and pour it in an electric blender (if you do not have one, use some elbow power and mix in all-purpose bowl), add almond powder, sugar, whole eggs and rum. Blend util smooth and pour on pastry.

D) Clean nectarines in cold water. Wipe and cut them in thin slices. Put them onto almond paste pushing them each a little onto the paste so as to make a nice regular pattern for better impression and easier cutting. Sprinkle with glazing sugar. Cook for 50 minutes.
Take out of the oven and out of its mold onto a dish or cake grill. Let it cool. Sprinkle with minced pistachio before serving.

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-

Japanese Vegan Snack: Ume-Shiso Kyuuri/Cucumber, Pickled Plums & Perilla Salad

CUCUMBER-SHISO-UME

Here is one simple recipe I consider as a Japanese “National” snack that will have all vegans and vegetarians rushing for:
Ume-Shiso Kyuuri/Cucumber, Pickled Plums & Perilla Salad!
Ingredients might not be easy to find, although they are probably available on the Internet under various forms.

INGREDIENTS:
-Cucumbers. If possible, Japanese style, long, thin and crunchy
-Shiso/perilla leaves: 4
-Umeboshi/Japanese pickled plums (there are salty and slightly sweet varieties. Either is fine!)
-Salt: 2 small pimches
-Sesame oil: a little

RECIPE:
-Wash cucmbers under running clear water and wipe them thoroughly with kitchen paper.

-Cut both ends of cucumbers and discard. Tight-seal cucumbers inside a vynil pouch and break (instead of cutting) them roughly into bite-sized pieces by hitting them with pestle over a kitchen wooden board.

-Discard pip/stone inside umeboshi and cut into small pieces.
Cut the shiso into very thin strips.

-In a bowl, mix thoroughly by hand cucumber, umeboshi and shiso.
Add salt an sesame oil. Stir and serve.

Note: Will be very tasty after being chilled inside the fridge.
The best umeboshi for this recipe are the sweet ones pickled into honey.
Make sure that the cucumber are dry after first washing them or the dish will be running with water.
I personally add some sesame seeds for effect and taste!

Please check the new postings at:
sake, shochu and sushi

—————————————-
日本語のブログ
—————————————-