Matcha Chocolate in an Origami Box

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Matcha Chocolate 2

On New Year’s Eve I was invited to friends’ house for the New Year’s Eve Dinner with some other good friends of mine. Many of us are foodies so we each brought some different dishes.

The main dish and dessert were already made by somebody else so I made some nibbles for drink before the dinner started. It was Mushroom Vol au Vents and Cheese Twists. It took a while until the main dish was ready to serve so my nibbles went down a treet whilst we were waiting.

starter1     starter2

The main food was a roasted chicken brought in by Miss D. She also cooked all the side dishes such as Braised Red Cabbage, Lentil with Italian Sausage and roasted potatoes & Tomato with garlic (famous? Gwyneth Paltrow recipe). It was delicious! Thank you Miss D for your hard work.

Our course followed by a selection of Cheeses & Biscuits, Grapefruit Posset and Melting Snow Man made by the friend’s daughter and then Herbal Tea.

As our little tradition of exchanging gifts on the New Year’s Day I took some ‘Matcha Chocolate’ in a handmade Origami Box with me.

Matcha Chocolate

Matcha Chocolate 1

It’s easy to make and taste so good. It can be a very good gift for a Matcha lover. I presented it in a handmade Origami Box.

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Happy New Year 2016!

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2016 New Year card

🎍 Happy New Year! 🎍

In Japan we celebrate three days for the New Year. Yes, the New Year Days are very big deal for Japanese. It is the biggest National Holiday and everybody should be resting including the person who cooks for the family too. In order to have less cooking time home chef prepares celebratory meal ‘Osechi (お節)’ until New Year’s Eve. It is like a bigger version of Bento box filled with lots of delicious & luxurious food all of which last for 2-3 days so that you just need to add some extra thing such as ‘Sushi’🍣, ‘Sashimi (さしみ)’ or something warm.

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My Products for the Market

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So what were my range of products for the markets? I did not have much time to take photos and by the time I finished making and before packing, there wasn’t enough natural light to take good photos of all my products. However, I managed some.

The first product I introduce to you here is the most colourful one ‘Nerikiri‘. Nerikiri is the very delicate Sweet which basic ingredients are just rice flour, sugar and beans so that it is Gluten/Dairy/Oil/Egg free. It is one of the most classy Japanese Sweet ‘Wagashi (和菓子)’ that are often used for Tea Ceremony.

These are the three types I made.

Nerikiri 3 types

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Mission Accomplished!

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nerikiri ready to go

‘Nerikiri’ ready to go to Market

It’s over! My mission to running a stall in the Chritmas market in two weekends in a row finished! Pheeeeeeeew.

Although I was planning and practicing some sweets as products, not everything went according to plan. What I have learnt from this experience was that “Food is a living thing”. Even when I thought I was following the recipe I had a great result before, something went wrong when I really seriously wanted to make everything neat and delicious. It was so unpredictable.

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Yaki Manju (焼きまんじゅう) – Baked Manju

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There is a recipe of ‘Yaki-Mnju (焼きまんじゅう) / Baked Manju’ I normally use. That is a Japanese Sweet wrapped with biscuit. It is good. I like it. It is also something that Western people are quite familiar with.

We have a Japanese sweet called ‘Kuri-Manju (栗まんじゅう)’. That is a ‘Yaki-Manju’ with Chestnut ‘Kuri‘ pieces inside and made into a Chestnut shape. The skin of this sweet is slightly different from Western biscuit. It is much smoother and you can make it into some shapes.

This time I made ‘Yaki-Manju’ in the traditional way. I tried making some shapes with different filling.

‘Kuri-Manju (栗まんじゅう)’

This one is ‘Kuri-Manju‘ with Chestnuts ‘Kuri’.

Yaki kuri manju

Does it look like Chestnut to you?

Yaki kuri manju cut

Instead of using small pieces, I mixed Chestnut in syrup mixing with ‘Shiro-An (白あん)’ and that made the filling looks like a paste.

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Ukishima (浮島)- Floating Island (G/D free)

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The next Japanese sweet in my search of the right product for the Christmas market was a sweet called ‘Ukishima (浮島)’ in Japanese. It means literally ‘Floating Island’. I think the name came from the pattern the sweet has. It is often made in two layers in different colours and the wave of the lower layer looks like an island appearing above the sea.

I had had the sweet when I was in Japan in October and I even posted the photo on this blog as ‘Manju in Autumn Theme’. It is the square one in orange and green colour with a piece of Chestnut. I was so amazed that a sweet can be light and moist at the same time. It was so delicious that I bought it again.

Ukishima – Floating Island (浮島)

‘Ukishima‘ is a steamed sponge like Japanese sweet. The texture is very light but also very moist. The Good news for many people is that it is Gluten / Dairy free. Perfect!

‘Matcha Ukishima with Apple’

Ukishima piece with L

I tried two versions. This one was with ‘Matcha (Green Tea)’ with Apple. It was a little rough but it looked OK, don’t you think? My voluntary tasters liked this and gave “10 out of 10”! So I am certainly adding this one in my products list.

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Gluten Free Shortbread

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So I am going to have a stall in two markets, one is on the 6th (Sun) and the other on the 13th (Sun) of December. Both are in North London. I will be very happy if anybody who lives nearby wants to try out my Japanese/Japanese-Western fusion Sweets and come to see me there. 🙂

xmassmall           Xmas flyer 2015 pshoped

The market venue and the date are fixed but the thing which is not fixed yet is what I should bring to those markets – my products.

There is so much demand for Gluten free food these days and I have been developing some. Luckily many of Japanese sweets are originally Gluten free and Dairy free.

Gluten Free Kinako Shortbread with Sesame Seeds

I have this signature biscuit “Kinako Shortbread‘ which is the Shortbread with Japanese ingredient ‘Kinako‘ and white sesame seeds. I know it tastes good and I have sold it before. So I want to try changing it into Gluten Free biscuit this time.

Kinako gf shortbread

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Winter ‘Market’ is Coming!

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

It’s very fast! Too fast that Time passes! It’s nearly December. I though 2015 has just started. I cannot believe it. It means Christmas is coming soon too. Oh, Noooo! And then the thing comes before Christmas is?

Winter ‘Market’ is Coming!

Jon-Snow-In-Game-Of-Thrones

… sorry my mind is still in Winterfell.

Anyway, I have to tell you that I decided to have a stall in local markets in December. Not one but two. Am I crazy?

One of them is organised by a Japanese person and I have been joining them for the last three years. It is a Craft Market which is more like a market that people bring to gather their hobbies in one place. Some of the stuff is very Japanese and must be new and interesting to local people.

Xmas flyer 2015 pshoped     2015 Xmas J pshopped

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Growing Peanuts

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I am a bit annoyed that although it is the middle of November, I am still writing some posts about my stay in Japan in October. I really should hurry up! I try to post something I encountered in Japan that does not occur to me in England. And this was one of those things.

I like gardening and I particularly like growing something edible. I have tried planting various things and some become successful and some are completely failure. As I mentioned before I learnt that Okra/Ladys’ Finger is the biggest No-no plant in London and another I gave up even before trying is this plant.

Peanuts plant

This plant was in my mother’s garden. I was looking forward to being there when they harvest it. Do you know what this plant is?

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