Yes, yes another ‘Soufflé’ type food. Since the Sake Cooking Competition I like making soufflé. Its very soft light & smooth texture has the luxurious quality.
I also like Pancake. So why don’t I mix the two things I like together? I wanted it to have a custardy flavour so I did not add anything to the basic ingredients except for Vanilla extract.
If it’s a Vanilla flavoured soft sweet … it should be with Strawberries, right?
You might know one of the famous very Japanese food ‘Mochi (Rice Cake)‘. We traditionally eat it during New Year’s days (we celebrate for 3 days). ‘Mochi’ is made from sweet glutinous Rice by soaking, steaming & pounding it.
Traditional ‘Mochi-Tsuki’ (Rice cake pounding)
It has become very rare to see the traditional ‘Mochi-tsuki‘ (Rice cake pounding) these days. It’s only seen in some kind of festival. Instead we have an electric Mochi maker for home use and people can make Mochi easily, however, it is still fiddly to go through the process for making small amount of sweets at home.
But there is another type of ‘Mochi’. It’s so much easier to make particularly for a very small amount. It is ‘Shiratama- Dango’.
Very strong wind was blowing around this week. It was a gale caused by the Storm Imogen on East coast of Britain. We started having extremely mild winter and then suddenly it became wintery winter! Cold and miserable.
On a cold day like today I feel like having something warm and comforting. There is only one thing in my mind. It must be definitely …
‘Zenzai’ with Mango & Matcha ‘Shiratama’
It’s ‘Pancake Day’ today! It is not familiar Day for Japanese but I know it comes every year near Springtime.
Pancake Day is also called Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday. It is a day before the start of Lent which is the period of 40 days leading to Easter. As you can guess I am not Christian so this is the maximum I can explain about this day. What I understand is that the Pancake day is the day people try to use up all their eggs, fat and sugar in order to clear up the cupboards at home before another feasting period (Easter).
People make Pancakes! That is the main thing. There are some festivals and people race with a frying pan on one hand flipping pancake whilst running. It’s a fun day. On social media I saw someone who lives locally asking where is a cafe that serves good pancakes. I guess it is great to know where a good cafe is but what I can’t understand is why this person doesn’t make Pancakes herself? Originally that is what this day is for, isn’t it? And it is not difficult to make a pancake either. You just need basic ingredients of eggs, sugar and flour.
So I made my own pancakes. In my kitchen it cannot be a normal pancake. It has to be a Pancake in Japanese style. I made ‘Dorayaki‘ with ‘Matcha‘ Green Tea flavour.
Red ‘Oni’ with two horns
In Japan we have several special days in a year. The 3rd of February is one of them, It is a day called ‘Setsubun‘.
Setsubun is written as ‘節分‘ in Japanese which means ‘divide (分)’ ‘season (節)’. The day actually is one day before the changing of season. It seems like we used to have four Setsubun before each season in the past but since Edo era (a few hundred years ago) we particularly cerebrate only the beginning of Spring. So the 3rd of February became our ‘Setsubun’ and we celebrate the coming of Spring on this day.
Rosy Sake Jelly with Raspberry Sauce
This is the sweet dish I made for the Sake Cooking competition. The theme of my dishes for the competition was ‘Sake for Eating’. This dessert was a food but I wanted to put some reminder that Sake is alcoholic ‘Drink’. That is why I wanted to use a wine glass for serving this dessert.
My thoughts behind this dish were
1. I wanted to keep all the flavour and taste of Sake in my dessert without losing any by heating Sake. That is the reason I decided to make Jelly.
2. I like flavour of Sake, however, I wanted something ‘more than just Sake’. I infused Sake with Rose Petals in order to enhance the delicate Sake flavour. The consequence of that made the Jelly has fragrant Rose smell and also slightly Rosy pink colour. I managed to infuse Sake in both flavour and colour.
3. It has been changing in recent years but Sake still has the image as it is the drink for men more than for women. I wanted to create something which suggests that Sake could be something romantic.
‘Sake Souffle Quiche with Fig & Pine Puts’ and ‘Rosy Sake Jelly with Raspberry Sauce’
As I announced in my previous post I received the second prize in Gekkeikan Masters Cooking Competition. I had to develop two dishes, one in savoury and one in sweet, by using ‘Sake‘ (Japanese Rice Wine) which should not be a Japanese dish. This is the photo of my dishes at the competition venue.
My savoury dish was Sake Soufflé Quiche with Fig & Pine Nuts and the dessert dish was Rosy Sake Jelly with Raspberry Sauce. I was originally developing this Soufflé Quiche for making it in one bigger tin and then cut into smaller size for 2 to 4 people.
My Sake Souffle Quiche in a bigger size
However, during the process in the competition the situation had changed and I had to adjust the recipe for using smaller tins. I had to use a small portable oven on the site so baking it in smaller tins was much quicker and also had less chance of burning the top and bottom so that it was a good move for me in the end.
Here is the recipe of my ‘Sake Soufflé Quiche with Fig & Pine Nuts‘ in a smaller size.
Sakura Junction 