shun no mono -- aki

[torakris]

I am already sick of kaki!! I have a couple rotting away in my kitchen as I type because no one wants anything to do with them anymore.....

but I prefer the amagaki ones...

[Hiroyuki]

I am already sick of kaki!! I have a couple rotting away in my kitchen as I type because no one  wants anything to do with them anymore.....

but I prefer the amagaki ones...

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Too bad. You can't make hoshi gaki (dried persimmons) from ama gaki... This site says you can make hoshi gaki from ama gaki, but you can't make good ones.

http://www.naranougi.jp/QA/184hoshigaki.htm

(Japanese only)

[helenjp]

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

[torakris]

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

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I have done everything with them!

This past week I even made an apfelkuchen (German apple cake) using kaki instead of appless...

I guess it should be called a kakikuchen....

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

Kaki... god I'm so jealous.

My grandparents have a huge kaki tree in the backyard, off of which the sweetest kaki I have ever eaten come from. My mom brings home a big shopping bag full every fall, but since I'm 400 miles away, I'm stuck paying anywhere from $1-$2 per pound for ones that aren't quite as good.

In baking, I use fuyu kaki just like apples.

[torakris]

Kaki... god I'm so jealous.

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I wish I could send some your way!!

This is what I stare at every day from the window next to my computer

and it isn't just outside my window, it is everywhere I go right now, they are just rotting on the trees...

[Hiroyuki]

I wish I could send some your way!!

This is what I stare at every day from the window next to my computer

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But, whose trees are they anyway??

[torakris]

I wish I could send some your way!!

This is what I stare at every day from the window next to my computer

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But, whose trees are they anyway??

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I have no idea!

the large field behind our house is owned by our oya-san (owner of our apartment building), but those trees are on a separate plot just behind the field and I have seen a number of different people picking them.

The oya-san also lends the plots in the field to various people to plant stuff in, so maybe the trees are his too and he just let people pick them....

My in-laws have trees on their property and my neighbors do as well, so that is where I am receiving mine from.

[Hiroyuki]

Anyone care to make persimmon jam?

1 persimmon

4 tbsp (60 cc) sugar

5 cc lemon juice

from

http://blogs.dion.ne.jp/samemama/archives/195208.html

or

1 persimmon (fuyu gaki)

200 g sugar

50 cc lemon juice

from

http://www.pref.wakayama.lg.jp/prefg/13030...b/kakou/jam.htm

Me? Well, will you try first?

[torakris]

I will give it a try today!

I think I will try the first one though, 200g of suagr to 1 kaki? that sounds awfully sweet to me....

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

I'm going to try making the jam too. Mom's going to ship some kaki to me on Saturday.

[Hiroyuki]

I felt somewhat guilty for not making persimmon jam myself first, so I decided to make some this afternoon. I used two fuyu gaki, about 30 to 40 grams of sugar, and a yuzu (instead of a lemon). It turned out to be fairly good.

But my problem is what to do with the well over fifty fuyu gaki that my parents sent us. I just don't want to let them rot away. I did a search through eGullet and found, among others, the following three threads:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...t=12466&hl=kaki

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...65&hl=persimmon

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...90&hl=persimmon

I don't like the idea of sweetening persimmons because they are already sweet enough, so I'm thinking of peeling them, cutting them into small cubes, and freezing them. Any suggestions?

[Phish]

Hiroyuki, What is "shouchu"?

[melonpan]

Hiroyuki, What is "shouchu"?

i can answer that! its an alcoholic drink made from rice. it is clear looking, like water, like sake is, but it is not sake. its much cheaper than sake. koreans have their own version called soju... my husband says that its boiled, distilled makkoli (and makkoli is a kind of a rough, unfiltered form of sake). a lot of the ones that koreans mass produce are not even made from rice anymore. just from a pure chemical process. and it is sometimes sweetened slightly with saccahrine. it can be cheap nasty stuff. but it is exceedingly popular because it is cheap and easy to get drunk on (only need half a bottle). i shouldnt really speak for shouchu like this, but i am guessing that the stuff is very similar to soju.

[Hiroyuki]

In Japan, there are two categories of shouchuu, kou-rui and otsu-rui. Kou-rui shouchuu is quite similar to what melonpan described. Otsu-rui shouchuu is much more expensive and is touted as the "authentic" (honkaku) shouchuu.

For more, visit http://www.sake-world.com/html/shochu-awamori.html.

We are in the third shouchuu boom since World War II.

For a description, visit http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getart...n20040720f2.htm

[torakris]

I made the kaki jam yesterday with 3 kaki and 12 tablespoons (instead of the 16) and 3 teaspoons of lemon jiuice.

I ahve only made strawberry jam beofre and this sort of turned out like candied kaki....???

It isn't bad but quite sweet and after cooling it has completely hardened, I am going to thin it with soem water today and use it as a topping in a bar like cookie.

[Hiroyuki]

Mine is like this. My wife said it was very good. The combination of kaki and yuzu turned out to be surprisingly good. I don't have to put it in a sterilized jar because I'm pretty sure my wife can finish it off in a day or two.

(My wife isn't fat.)

[torakris]

mine looks like this

[Hiroyuki]

You can also make kaki su (persimmon vinegar) and kaki no ha cha (persimmon leaf tea), if you have the time... and will.

http://www.pref.wakayama.lg.jp/prefg/13030...akou/kakisu.htm

http://www.pref.ehime.jp/ecc/q&a/howto/ahowto17.htm

(Both in Japanese only)

[Phish]

Thank you Melonpan and Hiroyuki!!

The pictures looks great you guys!

[Hiroyuki]

Mine is like this.  My wife said it was very good.  The combination of kaki and yuzu turned out to be surprisingly good.  I don't have to put it in a sterilized jar because I'm pretty sure my wife can finish it off in a day or two.

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Follow-up post:

Yesterday, my wife made another batch of kaki jam, with five kaki and less sugar than in my recipe. I pared some kaki, cut them into manageable sizes, and put them in the freezer. My children loved the frozen kaki.

Edited November 17, 2004 by Hiroyuki (log)

[Hiroyuki]

My parents, who live in Chiba prefecture, kindly sent a box of chestnuts to my family. I boiled some of them for forty minutes, cut each of them in half, and scooped out the flesh with a small spoon.

Do you have any simple recipes for chestnuts?

By the way, I used a used milk carton to cut the chestnuts on, instead of the cutting board. If you have any good uses of used milk cartons, please post them here.

Edited September 5, 2005 by Hiroyuki (log)

[AzianBrewer]

mine looks like this

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I am wondering how it taste as chutney or salsa.

[torakris]

I wouldn't have used my version for anything more than a jam, it was quite sweet almost candy like. Hiroyuki's version though looks like a good chutney type, especially with the addition of yuzu.

[JasonTrue]

The best time to eat in Japan is the fall... I usually try to make trips to Japan in the fall whenever possible. This year, unfortunately, for various financial reasons and timing problems, I can't do that. But I wanted to start cooking anyway, so I made a couple of dishes highlighting nasu, Japanese eggplant.

I wonder if only Japanese consider eggplant a fall food. When I go to Japan in a typical September, "Aki Nasu" is everywhere, on izakaya menus, in the supermarket, and at ryokan. In Europe eggplant was considered a quintessentially summer food. When I went to China several times in 2002, one of the trips was in the early fall, and I asked some colleagues for an eggplant dish when we went out to dinner, and was advised that the eggplant was not so good that time of year; then I went to Japan and every place was selling good quality eggplant as a seasonal highlight.

One of my dishes last night was dengaku nasu, nasu broiled with sweetened miso. Another was a simple fried eggplant dish (salted, rinsed, and fried with no coating) and dressed with raw grated ginger and a bit of shouyu. I also made a kind of soup with nagaimo dango, shungiku, and shiitake, and hiya-yakko.

Details: Aki-nasu and nagaimo-dango