helenjp

Fernwood, probably other people have some great ideas for you, because I am not the queen of cookies...when I have a soft, fragile cookie, I sometimes press a few sugar crystals (or the "coffee sugar" type) into it before baking. As you might guess, this is a minimum-effort option! Another option to consider for a shortbread/butter cookie baked at LOW temperature is shreds of candied orange peel for coffee/chocolate, or even a petal or tiny flower (heartsease pansy petals and flowers are handy, also geranium petals) or a sprig of herb (something like a single leaf of chervil) pressed into the center. Brush lightly with eggwhite and water if you want, to stop it drying out or falling off. Claire797, I find that subbing browned butter for regular butter in shortbread recipes makes the cookies quite hard. You may need more sugar than usual to make them crisp rather than just hard! Alternatively, try some almond powder (ground almonds, whatever you call them) in place of part of the flour for a more tender texture.

I don't remember what I first cooked for my husband, because we worked together and had many common friends, his plate was just another plate at the table. I do remember the green, stringy, weeks-old pot of Japanese curry that I discovered in his kitchen one day though... And I remember deliberately mishearing him and buying him a Fish Burger instead of Fresh Burger just to annoy him. He must be one patient guy... As for my cooking...one day he came very late from work to a party, and rolled into the living room to find everybody else had helped themselves from the buffet on the coffee table and were chatting and drinking. Nothing abashed, he SAT DOWN on the floor, bellied up to the laden coffee table, and started pulling all the serving dishes towards him. He grabbed some chopsticks, and ate his way steadily through EVERYTHING on the table, pausing from time to time to sigh and lick his lips. By the time he finished, everybody was watching in reverent silence... Can't remember what was served, though there was probably a salsa and a ceviche...it was the '80s, after all.

Flossie, you took the words from my mouth! When I moved to Japan, I discovered that not only did people assume that I was American, they assumed that I baked cookies like an American . So I complied....it's hard work baking lots of cakes in a Japanese size oven, anyway. I bought a book of Christmas baking by Rose Levy Berenbaum, and discovered that under the special finishing touches were a lot of good year-round cookies, too. Now what do you know, after nearly 15 years, the rarely used cookie recipes of my childhood, plus all my new discoveries, are part of our family tradition. These days, Christmas cookie baking usually includes some *only SOME* of the following: * NZ style "brownies", a chocolate drop cookie with peanuts in it (slightly salted Japanese ones go wonderfully with the sweet choc cookie). Thinking of making them in ovals and dipping half in chocolate this year... * Triple-layer freeze n' bake butter cookie, with choc/coffee/cardamom layers or alternatively lemon/green tea/purple sweet potato layers - makes a pretty marble cake combo too) * Gingerbread cookies, dough matured for 2 weeks before baking * Mexican wedding cakes * Fortune cookies with ridiculous fortunes folded inside a date in the middle. * Almond shortbreads with a cherry in the middle (for my kids...a recipe from my great aunt), otherwise shortbread made with ground rice and real vanilla seeds, few coffee crystals pressed into the top to dress them up. * Burnt butter biscuits with rum *Zimtsterne - cinnamon star cookies with lemon glaze * Reverse chocolate chip cookies with white chocolate chips in a cocoa dough, sometimes chips of peppermint candy as well. * Twist cookies with your favorite citrus rind grated in the dough, and a citrus glaze. Try a passionfruit glaze if you get the chance...or nutmeg in the glaze... * Snickerdoodles...With the development of this recipe, the US proved its right to nationhood!! * Dutch pfefernoten or speculaas from my sister's recipes * Port wine cookies - wine dough manages to be both crisp and smooth, quiet amazing. Roll out or twist to bake. I like soft sour-cream and lemon cookies, but my family prefer crisp cookies. Home use only, too fragile to post...thin molasses (moravian) cookies, prune-filled rugelach, Chinese egg-custard tarts. Things I'd make if I could buy the ingredients here...currant and mint-stuffed flaky pastry circles, malt biscuits with big sticky raisins, passionfruit petticoat tails. Sigh.

I have an antique Chinese straw-padded tea basket too (was my grandfather's, I think), and use it during the day sometimes, to keep myself chained to the computer instead of excusing myself from work to make another cup of tea. The Chinese grocery I used to work at always had one for staff - a pleasure to use, and works so well

Tea on top of coffee...hmmm...maybe one of the smoky fermented Chinese teas? Could be interesting... But could I forego my usual topper...a shot of espresso poured into the top of my drip coffee, because it's never strong enough for me? As for hazelnut flavors, it's a great sadness to me that hazelnuts have never caught on in Japan. I somehow can't see peanuts in the same light... However, you have me thinking. It's possible that espresso, hot milk, and kinako (toasted soybean powder) could go somewhere...other than down the sink, that is.

Large Bredemeijer teapot sort of like this Without this double-walled teapot, I wouldn't want to get up in the morning. Husband and I drink black tea in the morning, several cups each, and this keeps the tea hot enough to enjoy every cup I talked my sister into sending me one from the Netherlands. During the working day, we both drink coffee, and in the evenings, it's usually green tea in a straight-sided pottery teapot with a nylon mesh insert.

I feel there should be a thread on this already, but can't find one... I like to grind the contents of one cardamom pod in with my coffee beans for a warming spiced coffee that isn't too much fuss to prepare. The extra flavor without any sweetness is a bonus, too! Next?

Shanghai is the answer...I think she went to university there! She tells me she spent all her time knitting in class, but obviously she must have taken some time from her busy academic schedule to cook!

What about soup buns? My Hokkien friend certainly specializes in them, but then she would make anything complicated just to prove that she is a better cook than her Japanese mother in law

Working late, bit rushed at the moment, the quick answer is... Chijimi....Scallion chijimi is the best known. Bang a few things on a hotplate and when softened, pour over a batter (made from flour and water, maybe buckwheat flour or mochi flour, sometimes seasoned with garlic or miso or kochujan). Fry flat, serve with chili miso dip or soy/vinegar Jon...very lightly dredge some veges or fish with flour, dip in egg, bang on hotplate. Usually seved with soy/vinegar. Hope somebody can give a more appetizing description...

I'll be very interested to try an experiment with an eggwhite added to half of the batter next time!

Just flying in to recommend this book called Okonomi Chijimi It has several different chijimi batters, plus lots of ideas for jon, and even some hints on ways to use up left-over jon. Nice dipping sauces too. This is the book that broke through my "no more cookbooks" policy this year, and I'm totally unrepentant!

Well, in the interests of experiment, I went ahead and used an egg. I also thought that egg might make for a thick, leathery batter...so I borrowed some ideas from tempura, and used the beer cold from the fridge, rather than room temperature, and also dredged the fish with cornstarch before dipping it in the batter. The batter was fairly thin - roughly equal parts of beer and flour by volume, a little heavy on the flour side. Could go to nearly 1 part beer: 2 parts flour if you wanted a thicker batter. That did make a thin, crisp coating, with more flavor than a tempura batter, but nothing like the normal "fish in a spacesuit" battered fish! I did fry the fish at a higher temperature than normal though, which made for a crisper batter. Thought the beer batter might burn, but had no trouble...possibly because it was that Japanese fake beer! The salmon in beer batter was great, especially as the salmon had sat in ginger/garlic and thyme for a while before battering and frying!

Just when everybody in the US is fast asleep...quick, quick, wake up everybody, and tell me whether I should add an egg to my beer batter for fish. I used to make it with just flour and beer and seasonings, but I see some recipes out there with an egg or two added. Whaddaya say? (We've gone way too Japanese at our house, the fish is salmon and shark, because they're cheapest, and the chips are a mixture of potato and sweet potato...)

Torakris, my experience is the opposite...arriving from the land of the midsummer fruitcake, I discovered that Japanese people expected me to be baking mounds of cookies at Christmas, American-style. Ever willing to please, I indulged in a few nice books of cookie recipes... Fruit cake. I don't think I've ever eaten a bought one. Richness and sweetness are infinitely adaptable, and of course, you don't want a chiffon-cake sized chunk of the stuff anyway! Necessity being the mother of invention, in Japan I use finely shredded citrus peels and fresh ginger, and don't bother trying to find fruits such as currants that I hate anyway...result...I end up shipping out several small Christmas cakes in addition to the one I make for the family! I don't use icing or marzipan, just press fruits into the top, and spend 2-3 weeks dousing them religiously with alcohol before sending them off. Don't tell, but dousing with ginger ale or CC Lemon works pretty well too!

Forcing a dog to drink! The very idea of it!

Sakata seeds apparently crossed these two Chinese vegetables to create Autumn Poem. (In Japanese, sai shin), in Chinese Cai xin (cai sin, cai shin). Brassica rapa L. var. parachinensis (In Japanese, Kou-sai-tai) in Chinese, Hong cai tai (Hon tsai tai, Hong tsoi sum), Brassica rapa L. var. purpuraria I remember seeing it a few years ago, but not recently. I guess they called it Autumn Poem to differentiate it from the spring harvested Japanese flowering rape, "Na no hana".

Slander!!! There certainly was "tanuki udon" etc. in Osaka when I was a student there...er....25 years ago! How could I forget something so cheap and tasty!

As far as I recall it, it was tough getting my mother to let me cook for Christmas as young adult, because she was having a hard time getting anything delegated to her from HER mother . The bird was always the job of the person whose home the meal was served at. My mother made the Christmas cake and pudding. Vegetables and special sauces (other than gravy) were my job. Eventually I got to do the stuffing for the bird as well.

Persimmon cookies are nice...I bet they do well in banana cake recipes too.

That "In Mama's Kitchen" site is wonderful! I've often thought that the best memorial I could make to my mother is to organize her recipes and pass the old favorites on to those who would like them. There's a good 100 years of recipes to go through, just gotta get them out of storage when I go back to NZ next. I'd appreciate it if you would post the pork mincemeat cake on the cakes thread - here in Japan, beef suet is hard to find, and beef is either dubious or ruinously expensive. I will most certainly be trying this recipe out!

Yeah, the 100 yen eggs seem to have vanished. Big supermarkets like Daiei and Saty don't even have them under 200 yen some weeks... One reason is that there are not a whole lot of hi-rise apartments around here. Time for me to get my knapsack out and go out for a raid on the cheaper markets along the Sobu Line! Edsel, nothing against onsen tamago except time required...and I wouldn't want to make them with cheap eggs. Egg cookery wasn't common during the Edo period, when fish was the only animal protein officially recognized. I'm not sure when onsen tamago dates from. I looked up the method -- 30-40 minutes in water 65 deg. Celsius (150 deg. F). Either eat hot with salt or shoyu, or chill and pour shoyu over.

I just suddenly realized that we've eaten so many nabe-type dishes over the weekend that we're all nabe'd out, and not one single photo! Last night...oden. Daikon preboiled in rice-washing water before cooking in the oden soup. Ganmodoki tofu, konnyaku, gobo-satsuma-age, chikuwa, chicken wings, potatoes. Mild flavored soup. Breakfast...zosui. Last few bits of oden daikon chopped up and simmered with hakusai, negi, then last night's rice rinsed and added with some mitsuba. Lunch...nikomi udon. Hakusai and negi again, thin-sliced pork, shiitake and mitsuba, simmered in udon soup with fresh udon (bought the type for nikomi-udon, which are made extra firm to absorb soup). These are not "pure" nabe dishes, because the family purse and local vege prices are currently experiencing a period of incompatibility. Now the nabe has been well and thoroughly baptized (bought it new at a fleamarket recently, made a rough okayu in it before officially using it for the first time), it will have to go away for a day or two while we enjoy rice and miso-pickled fish for dinner tonight, and omu-raisu tomorrow!

Oh no, my entire post just disappeared into thin air... Just about to order fruit for cakes (should do it earlier, but I have to wait for the first paycheck of the fall semester every year ) Which fruits/combinations do you like? I sometimes use my mother's and grandmother's recipes, sometimes more modern recipes, but I rarely use currants, and never many of them (they taste bitter to me), and always add quite a lot of shredded fresh ginger. One of the simplest and most successful recipes I've found on the net is this British ginger ale fruit cake

An interesting idea, Ore! I guess one issue is how to get rid of the more pungent phenol-type components, while preserving the milder fragrances, yet not locking them in so much that we cannot taste them on the tongue... Look forward to comments.