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Japanese foods--Wagashi

torakris

By torakris
in Japan: Cooking & Baking

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  • 4 weeks later...
Hiroyuki

Hiroyuki

Posted
Posted (edited)

This is another thread I have been neglecting up to this day. First, don't mistake me; I'm no nationalist, but I find some of the remarks here really disappointing and others off-putting, reminding me of the term cultural imperialism. I think that the commercial availability of American, Belgian, Chinese, English, French, Italian, and other sweets in this country is a good example of coexistence.

EDIT:

I think that you can see both instances of assimilation and those of coexistence throughout Japan. I don't want to make any generalization.

This has been part of my answer to the following post in another thread:

QUOTE (jhlurie @ May 31 2004, 04:17 PM)

QUOTE (Jason Perlow @ Dec 3 2003, 10:06 PM)

How is Japanese Chinese different from Korean Chinese?

Well, Japan tends to assimilate more than co-exist, doesn't it? I'm wondering if the ethnically chinese people in Korea hold tighter to their ethnic identity than their counterparts in Japan.

Edited by Hiroyuki (log)
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torakris

torakris

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

some more pictures

i8144.jpg

various dango, with yuzu-miso, black sesame seeds and mitarashi dango with a sweet soy sauce.

these, the young peach daifuku (above) and the shuu cream (from another thread) were all bought at Chateraise, a cake shop/wagashi store chain:

http://www.chateraise.co.jp/

for pictures of their products click on the 4th image down (looks like a cake)

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

Hiroyuki

Hiroyuki

Posted
Posted

Do you know what day it is today (June 16)? Wagashi Day 和菓子の日!

Why not shop around for some good wagashi?

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torakris

torakris

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

in honor of wagashi no hi, I picked up some mizu-manju yesterday. they were made with salted cherry blossoms and shio-an.

i8570.jpg

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

torakris

torakris

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
And how much discount did you get on that day?

there were some things on sale but it wasn't really any different than another other sale...... :angry:

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

torakris

torakris

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
Sorry to hear that. You didn't have to buy any if the wagashi shop didn't honor Wagashi day. :angry:

By the way, the one in the photo is quite different from what I know of--very watery.

Example:

http://www.issendo.jp/html/2_menu/s_mizuman.html

That is actually the type I am more familiar with as well, I normally receive them even still packed with a little water. These were much drier and the shiro-an filling I thought was unusual, that is why I bought them! :biggrin: and because I love anything with sakura.....

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

  • 1 month later...
itch22

itch22

Posted
Posted

I love Mushi-Kasutera, a steamed cake with sweet potatoes. I have a recipe I've been using but when compared to similar cakes my version seems to be lacking some where. Here is my recipe and let me know if any of you seem room for improvement.

I sift scat 300g of cake/pastry flour with 140 cups of caster sugar. To that I add a lightly beaten mixture of 45ml sweetened condensed milk, 4 eggs, and 40g shiro miso. I beat together untill smooth and then leave to rest for 1 hour.

I then add a mixture of 10ml cream of tartar, 2.5ml of bicarbonate of soda, and 15ml water. I then add 30ml of melted unsalted butter and 2/3 of a sweet potato (diced).

After mixing again I pour it into a muslin lined, preheated steamer. I then add the remaining 1/3 diced sweet potato as a garnish to the cake and steam for 30 minutes of until a bamboo skewer placed an the centre of the cake comes out clean.

-- Jason

torakris

torakris

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

I don't know too much about mushi (steamed) kasutera as most of the kasutera I see is the baked kind. It doesn' t sound any different than mushi pan though.

How is the taste different than others you have eaten?

The addition of miso is interesting, don't think I have ever seen that before. You might try to leave that out and try a diffferent kind of sweetner, like brown sugar, honey or even maple sryup.

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

Hiroyuki

Hiroyuki

Posted
Posted
when compared to similar cakes my version seems to be lacking some where.

I guess you are talking about something like these:

http://www.coara.or.jp/~hilo/chuukahuu.htm

http://ww81.tiki.ne.jp/~oyatudo/sonota/musipan2.html

http://gourmet.yahoo.co.jp/seturl?mid=chin...3055&id=U000643

I can't find anything wrong with your recipe, except that I have to agree with torakris about leaving out miso. I'm wondering--is it your special ingredient? And, what exactly do you mean by similar cakes? Store-bought ones? I guess store-bought ones in Japan contain food additives to improve taste.

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torakris

torakris

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

I noticed that 2 of the 3 recipes Hiroyuki linked to have vanilla essence, you might want to try that. Also though I love the seet potato version, my favorites are the brown sugar ones and those made with matcha (green tea)!

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

itch22

itch22

Posted
Posted

I'll try leaving out the miso and adding a bit of maple syrup to see what difference it makes.

Yes, I mean compared to store bought ones. There is a Japanese bakery in Ottawa (I can't remember the name) that I try to visit whenever I'm there.

-- Jason

  • 2 weeks later...
gus_tatory

gus_tatory

Posted
Posted

i have been wanting to recreate a 'cake' i tried at a Japanese restaurant called 'satsuma'.

it is of the jelly-roll type, and the cake part is a sweet-potato cake. the filling is red adzuki beans, cooked, seasoned, and pureed.

it's a great cake--not too sweet. does anyone have any ideas on how to prepare the bean filling?

thanks in advance,

gus :smile:

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the ocean."

--Isak Dinesen

gus_tatory

gus_tatory

Posted
Posted

hi helenjp--

it was a pretty smooth, sweetly mild red bean paste--delicious.

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the ocean."

--Isak Dinesen

Palladion

Palladion

Posted
Posted
i have been wanting to recreate a 'cake' i tried at a Japanese restaurant called 'satsuma'.

it is of the jelly-roll type, and the cake part is a sweet-potato cake. the filling is red adzuki beans, cooked, seasoned, and pureed.

it's a great cake--not too sweet. does anyone have any ideas on how to prepare the bean filling?

thanks in advance,

gus :smile:

Err, hold on. Was the cake called satsuma, or was the restraunt called satsuma? Either could make sense, as satsumaimo is the name of the Japanese sweet potato (imo is defines it as potoato, regular yellow potatoes are called jyagaimo). Or it could just be a Japanese word used for the name of the restraunt.

As it's a smooth filling, you want something called koshi-an. The other major type of red bean filling is tsubu-an, which isn't smooth, and still has chunks of the azuki beans in it.

Never made it myself, but from what I've read you soak the beans, then simmer them until soft, then combine them with sugar. Pretty much what you'd expect. For smooth paste you also need to pass them through a sieve of some kind at some point in the preparation, I think, to remove the shells. I remember a thread a while back where people discussed using about half as much sugar called for in recipes for the red been paste, in order to get a final product that wasn't overly sweet, one that had a more pronounced bean flavor, so the proportion of sugar to bean is something that you're going to want to play with.

-------

Alex Parker

Katherine

Katherine

Posted
Posted

Sweetened Bean Paste

[Koshi An]

12 oz. dried beans (I've used red beans or black beans. The original recipe does call for azuki beans)

water

1/4 cup mirin

1½ cups sugar

1/8 cup light corn syrup or millet jelly

¼ teaspoon salt

Soak the beans overnight. Bring to a boil and drain. Cover with fresh water and cook until soft. Puree until smooth, put into a nonstick pan, and heat gently while stirring, until it simmers (you want the sugar to melt and thin it down here). Put through a sieve to remove skins. Discard skins, then put the bean puree back in the pan and add millet jelly or corn syrup. Over low heat and stirring constantly, cook until enough water has cooked off to make it very thick. Freezes well.

gus_tatory

gus_tatory

Posted
Posted
i have been wanting to recreate a 'cake' i tried at a Japanese restaurant called 'satsuma'...

gus  :smile:

Err, hold on. Was the cake called satsuma, or was the restraunt called satsuma? Either could make sense, as satsumaimo is the name of the Japanese sweet potato...

thanks all for the info/recipes.

and yes Palladion, it was the cake that was called "satsuma"--sorry for lack of clarity. :smile:

Katherine--thanks for the koshi an recipe. and torakris: there's a really small amount of red bean paste, just enough to hold the sweet potato genoise/sponge cake roll together. it's nice!

if i make this, i'll be sure to take photos. :biggrin:

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the ocean."

--Isak Dinesen

Foodie_Penguin

Foodie_Penguin

Posted
Posted
more information is also in the anko thread:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...9&t=39473&st=0#

sweetened red bean paste is probably one of my least favorite foods here, maybe that is why I am always searching out the fruit daifuku..... :blink:

My Mum makes anko from scratch in the UK and I've only ever seen her make it with azuki beans and sugar, nothing else.

She soaks the dried azuki beans overnight and then cooks them in a pressure cooker. (with sugar?) To get the smooth paste, she puts the cooked beans into a food pressure and purees (?) them.

I remember using an uchiwa (fan) to cool the finished anko as my Mum stirred it to thicken it.

The finished anko is used to make daifuku and kuriman. She also made the daifuku "dough" and kurmian "pastry" from scratch.

Note: the anko spoils quickly but it does freeze well.

Foodie Penguin

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