Ice cream -- Japanese style

[JSD]

Last night at a Japanese restaurant I had green tea ice cream, which I'd never had before.  I would have sworn it was pistachio.  Is that what it's supposed to taste like?  Or did they substitute pistachio to people they thought wouldn't know any better.

[Steve Klc]

They don't have to be green, though, unless aided. I've made both pistachio and green tea creams, sauces, custards--with wonderful flavor but both can have a natural color that ends up malty or pale because often you're blending or infusing into a cream or creme anglaise. As Steve says--leafy, herbal--I'd add vegetal, grassy, strawlike are more common for green tea. The politically-correct would say the flavor is more nuanced and subtle, the less correct would say it's just not interesting enough. I'm kind of in the middle.

I suspect that shade of green which has been standardized or commercialized for both flavors is something done more for the eye than the palate. Mint has also been abused or enhanced visually, depending on your perspective.

Aside from this there's a technical aspect--infusing, preparing and extracting green teas--or powders like matcha--bring their own set of little complications compared with how black teas might be integrated into food.

[Fat Guy]

That's my recollection too, and it's good.

I've never had good green tea ice cream, which isn't to say I reject the possibility of good green tea ice cream. After all, I like ice cream. I like green tea. They're not intuitively incompatible-seeming flavors like, for example, ice cream and clams. So I'm sure someone could make good green tea ice cream. But the commercial avocado-colored product served in most places is just awful -- totally fake tasting even by the standards of bad tea.

[Sandra Levine]

Kind of late in the conversation to add this, but the green tea ice cream has a slight tannic component that adds a bit of astringency.

[Michael Laiskonis]

Steve, do you have a preference betweeen the use of an infusion vs. matcha? For me, using the powder in a custard base or non-fatty base(I've done both ice cream and foam) allows for a 'cleaner' flavor and predictable/consistent result. Yes, it will provide that characteristic pastel green, but color/presentation for me is usually secondary.

[Lesley C]

I think most green tea ice cream is made with powdered tea and usually whoever makes it puts WAY too much. It tastes like lawn clippings.

I've had tons of green tea ice cream and maybe one that was worth more than two bites. Awful stuff.

I also once tasted a green tea and Sake chocolate ganache and at a very formal Japanese dinner, wasabi ice cream. Don't ask!

[Steve Klc]

Michael--I go matcha.

I just tried to work a green tea component into a dessert for one of my summer menus--thought I'd pair it with a ginger infused chocolate flan/cream and a chocolate coulant cake. So I tried a green tea foam two ways: a matcha foam, with the powder just weighed out and added to warm water with a little sugar and the softened gelatin and a creme anglaise with the powder stirred in at the end. I liked the flavor and consistency of both as foams--the matcha/gelatin was white with the palest green tint.

For one experiment I used a pre-sweetened matcha tea mix from Teaism, a local tea shop in DC, and it worked well as a gelatin foam--but was too sweet to work by itself.

However, I couldn't get either of them to work right in the dessert in the time I had.

So I went to a plain chocolate flan/cream, the coulant cake, a creme anglaise with ginger as a foam (undercharged it has the consistency of a sabayon) and then some fresh orange sections, candied orange rind bits and toasted sesame seeds. It's my best seller.

I do infuse the kind of green tea that comes with the little toasted rice bits--I love that infused in a cream, comes out kind of malty--and I have made that into a nice beige ice cream.

[Michael Laiskonis]

Sounds nice, Steve. I think I'll have to make a trip to the Japanese market tomorrow for the tea/toasted rice combo!

Interestingly, I've found the worst examples of green tea ice cream in Japanese restaurants- grassy, astringent, over-extracted, etc.- usually not all that subtle. Kind of runs counter to the assertion that it fits into the context of a Japanese meal... I remember reading a description of a Kaiseki meal that ended simply with a glass of just-squeezed, room temperature tangerine juice. That, to me, is thoughtful context.

Of course, the best green tea ice cream I've tasted is....MINE!

[JSD]

The ice cream in question TASTED like pistachio. It was green, but the restaurant was pretty dimly lit. It was not astringent or grassy tasting. From the various responses, I'm going to have to assume that I was not given green tea ice cream, but pistachio.

[anil]

Last night at the neighborhood Japanese restaurant I had a scoop of green-tea, a scoop of red-bean and one of ginger ice cream. Having a bit of each seperately, then all three in one spoonful till it was all gone

[rcarter]

I am a fan of alternating between bites of green tea and ginger ice cream.

[torakris]

I have eaten alot of greeen tea ice cream both in the US and Japan, there can be as much variation as there is with chocolate in the US.

So the one that tastee like pistachio, if it wasn't actually pistachio, could have been a very toned down version for the American palate?

[smallworld]

This is an old thread, but I think it's important to note a few things.

First, that green tea (or wasabi, or ginger) ice cream is to Japanese restaurants as fortune cookies are to Chinese restaurants. Not very authentic and not at all a necessary part of the dining experience.

Yes, green tea ice cream is now fairly popular in Japan, but it's a rather recent favourite- vanilla is still the hands-down favourite. If you order ice cream in a restaurant in Japan, there will be no choice of flavours- you will get vanilla (unless it's an ice-cream shop of course!). When Japanese tourists order ice cream at restaurants overseas, offering them a choice of strawberry, chocolate of vanilla is likely to confuse them (or maybe that's just my students!).

And I've yet to meet a Japanese person who has tried (or even heard of) wasabi or ginger ice cream.

Next, there is traditionally no dessert course in Japan, and although recently desserts are common, sweets are still more likely to be eaten as an afternoon snack by themselves rather than to finish off dinner. At most traditional restaurants in Japan dessert is not even on the menu, although at pricier places a piece of seasonal fruit or a small bowl of ice cream (I've had vanilla, black sesame, azuki, and yuzu- never green tea) might be offered at the end of a meal when a course is ordered.

Japanese restaurants overseas are likely to be owned or staffed by people for whom dessert is no more than an afterthought- necessary for American (or whoever) diners, but certainly not something to actually put any thought into.

Finally, ice cream is unlikely to be actually made at a Japanese restaurant. It's ordered from an ice cream company, and the restaurant staff may have no idea what good green tea ice cream is supposed to taste like. So the ice cream served will not reflect the food of the restaurant or Japanese cuisine in general.

My advice- if you like green tea ice cream, find a shop or brand that you like and buy it there. Abd skip dessert when dining at a Japanese restaurant (unless something really special is available).

You won't be missing anything!

[SobaAddict70]

Dinner last night (Friday) was so-so takeout Japanese: gyoza, tonkatsu (with Japanese rice), miso soup and tempura red bean ice cream for dessert.

What I want to know is, if "tempura ice cream" has reached Japan or if this is a purely American invention?

It wasn't bad, mind you. Just different. Think a ball of tempura coated ice cream. Retained its structural integrity at the slight cost of muddling some of the flavor.

Soba

[Jason Perlow]

Deep-Fried Ice Cream has been around for a while, I've seen at least 1 or 2 tex-mex chains do it. Usually the ice cream is vanilla-cinnamon flavored and the deep fried coating is then dusted with confectioners sugar and cinnamon.

[SobaAddict70]

It's the first time I had seen that on any menu and I knew I just had to try it.

Incidentally the other thing was mochi ice cream. Maybe I should've gotten both, come to think of it.

Soba

[Hiroyuki]

if "tempura ice cream" has reached Japan

Forgive me if I have misinterpreted your post, but "tempura ice cream" has been around in Japan, too, for so many years. I just can't recall since when. So, I think the expression "has reached Japan" is rather inappropriate.

On the other subject, "mochi ice cream", do you mean

雪見だいふく　Yukimi Daifuku

of LOTTE?

http://www2.ias.biglobe.ne.jp/patent/SUB-Topi03-8.html

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/newpro/news/20031119e000y66919.html

Sorry again, if I have misinterpreted your description. I'm not familiar with what's happening in the U.S.

[torakris]

gee, I have never seen tempura ice cream in the US or Japan......

But I did find this picture:

http://www.geocities.jp/hima_master/eki/tenten_ice.jpg

says it it is ice cream wrapped in something like sponge cake and coated with tempura batter and deep fired.

Edited April 4, 2004 by torakris (log)

[Hiroyuki]

Talking of mochi ice cream, I don't care much for Yukimi Daifuku　雪見だいふく because it's rather expensive as compared to its volume. What I like the most is Rakuto Ice (Lacto Ice??) type of ice cream because it's less expensive and contains less fat. I don't care for Haagen-dazs ice cream, either, because it's just heavy for me. My life loves it, though. I wonder if there is already a thread on ice cream.

[ankomochi]

Incidentally the other thing was mochi ice cream.  Maybe I should've gotten both, come to think of it. 

Soba

Soba san!

You can buy mochi ice cream at Japanese grocery stores like JAS mart, Sunrise Market, or Katagiri. Even Korean groceries sometime carry mochi ice cream. They have maccha, anko, and vanilla, I think.

As far as I remember, Tempura Ice Cream once became very popular in early 1990's. At least in Matsuyama city and my high school, Tempura ice cream was cool thing to eat one year. One of Cooking Manga "Mr. Ajikko" even had an episode of Tempura ice cream. I don't remember the detail of the episode, but it really looked so delicious. A small Japanese restaurant in Matsuyama started to offer Tempura Ice cream as a result of the boom or maybe he has read the Mr. Ajikko episode. My aunt and I went there and had our first tempura ice cream. The one we had was vanilla ice cream is coated with corn flake and deep fried it. I have heard about the version of Monaka Ice Cream coated with tempura batter and deep fried it.

[Shiewie]

Fried ice-cream is a common and very popular dessert in Chinese restaurants in Australia. There was an earlier thread on fried ice-cream.

Edited April 6, 2004 by Shiewie (log)

[kobykoby]

Tempura Ice Cream is on the menu at many specialty tempura restaurants in Japan. I first had some about thirty years ago in Osaka, recently had some at the Ten-ichi in Shibuya. I'm surprised that Kristen hasn't seen it yet.

[Hiroyuki]

I like Japanese lact ice, a type of ice cream with low milk solid content. I am one of many Japanese who prefer "assari" (simple, bland; I just can't think of the right English equivalent) taste.

Some examples of lact ice (which I like):

http://www.meinyu.co.jp/product/icecream/supercup/index.html

http://www.lotte.co.jp/products/ice/10.html

I like real "ice cream" too, like Liebender of Yuki Jirushi (Snow Brand) and Lady Boden of Lotte. But I don't care for Haagen-dazs; it's too rich for me, and it's really hard!

Are you a fan of Haagen-dazs ice cream? What are some of your favorite ice cream products sold in Japan?

***

Definitions: There are three types of ice cream in Japan, which have different milk solid percentages:

1) Ice cream: 15.0% or greater

2) Ice milk: 10.0% or greater

3) Lact ice: 3.0% or greater

Source of information:

http://www.icecream.or.jp/dl/basic5_2.html

(Japanese only)

[Jason Perlow]

Actually I probably would like lact ice, as I have a fairly strong dairy intolerance.

I'll have to search the Japanese groceries locally. How would I refer to the name or brands in Japanese?

[Sleepy_Dragon]

I have not tried any of those brands, but I love Mikawaya Mochi Ice Cream:

http://www.mochiicecream.com

I think this brand originated in the US, though by a Japanese family. There are eight pieces in a box, and I could easily polish off a box of the red bean flavor in an afternoon.

I love red bean, ginger and black sesame ice creams. Not as fond of green tea ice cream.

Pat