Have a wonderful Weekend!
japanese food
Japanese Anemone
Japanese Anemone
Apart from Grape Mochi the sweet I have created for my September Japanese sweet. I used a perennial flower called Japanese Anemone as the inspiration for this time. Japanese Anemone get lots of flowers around this time of a year which has either pink or white petals with a greenish yellow round centre. When the flower’s gone this round part stays and it looks like small a pom-pom on a stick sticking out from the plant.
Japanese Anemone
I chose Japanese Anemone as the design for this month’s sweet not just because it is a very seasonal flower in gardens right at the moment but also it has the word ‘Japanese’ in its name. What else is more suitable for this occasion than that.
Grape Mochi for September
September has just started. It means it’s the time that my sweet for this brand new month should be introduced. During the spring – summer season we get various fruits and vegetables harvested or found in a shop and I have used some as inspiration for the flavour or the image of my sweets such as mango, strawberry or Raspberry. So what kind of plant or fruit I can use for my sweet this month?
The variety of fruits are becoming less in this season. Luckily I found a very good one. Actually it was in my garden. I noticed that there were some branches stretching out from the next door. That was a grape vine and the fruit was just getting ripen. Yes, it is not my plant but some branches are coming into my side and reachable, AND nobody-else seems to care, And I think it is a sin to waste food so I took some grapes and tasted. It was a little sour and tangy comparing to the shop bought ones but not too bad to eat.
The Grapes from my garden
So, it is the Grape season now and I used this inspiration for creating my September Japanese Sweet.
Grape Mochi
This is a Mochi type sweet. I decorated the plain Mochi with Grape pattern as a reminder of what is inside.
Weekend Photo – 🌻Sunflower Field🌻
Have a lovely weekend! 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻
The Memory of Summer Holiday – Goldfish
When schools break up for summer holiday, it is the signal that lots of local festivals are ready to start all around in Japan. Many stalls appear in a square that sell food or goods to the people visiting. There are some stalls for offering games too and ‘Kingyo-sukui’ is the one of them. ‘Kingyo’ means Goldfish and ‘Sukui’ is a noun form of a verb to-scoop in Japanese. So what does ‘Scooping-Goldfish’ mean?
Children enjoying ‘Kingyo-sukui’
On the Kingyo-sukui stall they bring a pond with many small Goldfish. The customers pay to get a small ladle which is made of paper and can keep scooping goldfish until the paper tears up and it is no longer possible to scoop up any fish. That is the time that game is over! At the end of the game you can take the goldfish home you scooped. I have to say I was very good at Kingyo-sukui when I was a child. I could get about 20 goldfish easily with just a one paper ladle.
So when I see Goldfish it reminds me of the Summer holiday. It is very nostalgic and that is why I chose Goldfish as the design for the sweet for August.
Goldfish
Although the fish is called Goldfish, the main colour of them is Red, bright red so the Goldfish on my sweet is also Red.
Mango Mochi
I want to know whether we are still in the summer in London. It’s neither hot or warm any more. It is actually quite cool. It is the first day in August today but I already feel like that summer has gone. Autumn must be coming soon or we are already in Autumn. I know usually Indian summer comes around September but still it is too cold for mid summer.
In order to get rid of this cold rainy feeling I had to make something very summery sweet. In my mind ‘Summer = tropical = fruit = … Mango!’ That is why I chose Mango as the flavour for my Mochi for August.
Mango Mochi
Sunflower
It is the middle of Summer in the UK. The weather is so far so good. Many sunny days and also a few rainy days. It is great for plants and nature. In the summer time one plant you cannot avoid talking about is ‘Sunflower’. The most significant things about this flamboyant flower are its huge flowerhead with array of magnificent yellow petals and big leaves. It’s called ‘Himawari’ in Japanese and it means the ‘thing moves with the sun’. It came from the plant’s nature that the flowerhead moves its direction by always trying to face toward the sun.
Sunflower
During this summer time I wanted to make this most summer-like flower as a Japanese sweet.
Purple Sweet Potato Mochi
It was the time I had to develop sweets for Wasoukan Café (Notting Hill, London) for July. It is a ‘Kimono’ shop with a café counter that the staff serves ‘Matcha’ Green Tea in a Tea Ceremony style and also two types of monthly Japanese sweets. Yes, their sweets are made by me and I have been developing two new Japanese sweets every month for them. The staff told me that they were amazed at the popularity of ‘Mochi’. So I had to decide what kind of Mochi sweet I should deliver to them for this month… I wanted a colour and the flavour which go well with the Mochi texture and considered several possibilities and then an idea came to my mind.
It is a Mochi type of sweet with Purple Sweet Potato Paste. Western people are rather sceptical about the idea of using Sweet Potato as a sweet but in Japan we love to use several root vegetables as sweet and Sweet Potato is one of the most popular ones. It has the natural sweetness and more importantly the flavour goes so well as the Japanese sweet. I saw some BBC program which introduced the reason that many people live a very long healthily life in one area of Japan was due to Purple Sweet Potato. They did not show any scientific evidence to this theory so I am not sure if it is true or not but one thing I can say is we like Purple Sweet Potatoes.
Purple Sweet Potato Mochi
So, here is my Sweet Potato Mochi. It is not just a normal Sweet Potato Mochi but it is a “Purple Sweet Potato Mochi” for this month. 😀
What a ‘Sake Experience’!
I told you that I love Sake before and I am even certified as a Sake Sommelier too. I’m a bit concerned that if I say so it might sound like I drink a lot of Sake everyday😆. On the contrary I have it only on a very special occasion. In that way I think I can appreciate the special taste more. Anyway, Sake is the Japanese Rice Wine and becoming very popular in the world. It has started being brewed outside of Japan lately and I have recently met British people who have their own ‘Sakagura’ (Sake brewery) in London. It was so unthinkable until very recent that I see Sake made in the UK with my own eyes.
So, this week was one of those special occasions that I had Sake. I went to one of Sakaguras in London, however, this one is not a Sake brewery. It was a Japanese restaurant which has a huge selection of Sake to serve. The occasion was for attending ‘Sake Experience’ event which was organised by Japan Centre. It was designed for Sake lovers to discover new great Sake or for people who don’t know much about Sake but want to try something new. It is also the occasion to suggest people how to match what kind of Food with different kind of Sake.
🍶’Sake Experience’🍶
At each table, people were greeted with a glass of Sake cocktail. It was a Sake & Gin cocktail with Pineapple Juice with a hint of Yuzu (Japanese citrus). It was very smooth and tasty. It was a great start.
Soon after the first Sake was introduced to our glasses and the event commenced. The person explaining all about that evening’s Sake was Atsuhide Kato, the CEO of Kato Kichibee Shoten Brewery in Japan. He brought the best selections from their brand “Born” series.
‘Strawberries and Cream’ Cup
Oh, it’s nice to have a little rain today. I know it is not as hot or humid as how Japan is at the moment, but it has been very hot here in London. It is also in the height of Wimbledon Season here and the British People’s minds are also heating up in cheering British male No.1 player Andy Murray and the female player Johanna Konta. Both of them just got through to the quarter-final yesterday. Hooray!
Anyway, where there is an event, there is also a famous food or drink, isn’t there? For instance if the event is RHS Flower show, it is a Pimms and if the event is Wimbledon, it is certainly ‘Strawberries and Cream’. It sounds so stylish but it is actually just some fresh strawberries serving with cream on top, but people love to have it in the court side or ‘Henman’s Hill’ whilst cheering for their favourite players.
So, as an homage to this Wimbledon season I wanted to arrange this traditional British dessert into some Japanese sweet, but how …. ?
Strawberries and Cream Cup
This is the outcome of all my thinking about ‘Strawberries and Cream’. It is made of a traditional Japanese Sweet called ‘Nerikiri’ and I shaped it into a very western looking sweet. I placed three small strawberries and some cream in a cup which is also made of Nerikiri pastry and of course you can eat the whole thing including this cup.
Sakura Junction 