Regular readers of KyotoFoodie may recall that I was given some delightful fruit vinegar bonbons last Valentine’s Day from Takashimaya. I don’t have a valentine this year so I bought my own. I was encouraged to skip Takashimaya’s Valentine’s Day chocolate exhibition and instead visit the other major Kyoto department store, just down the street: Daimaru.

Daimaru’s Chocolat Promenade certainly has a nice ring to it but I was a little underwhelmed by the exhibition overall, but there were a number interesting chocolates from abroad and from Japan. There were lots of green tea chocolates from Kyoto tea companies. (Kyoto is one of the two main tea producing regions in Japan.)

Nama Choco, literally ‘raw chocolate’, has been all the rage for some years in Japan now. Nama choco is ganache. If you are at all into sweets and chocolate, I highly recommend that you try some while in Japan. The maccha (powdered green tea) is probably the most novel, and the most popular with Japanese. I can’t think of a Western chocolate that can top nama choco. I decided to go for something a little un-Kyoto and exotic.

Isami Imo Jochu Nama Choco Ganache - Package

Isami Imo Jochu Nama Choco Ganache - Explanation

Have you heard of imo-jochu?
This is shochu 焼酎, the traditional distilled alcoholic beverage of Japan. It is most popular in southern Japan where it is too warm to make proper sake. Shochu is usually made from barley, rice or sweet potato. It can also be made from buckwheat soba, brown sugar and even chestnuts!

Sweet potato shochu is called imo-jochu in Japanese (imo means potato). It has a very distinctive fragrance and taste. People either love it or hate it. Most Japanese women can’t stand imo-jochu. I must admit, I didn’t like it for a long time. I like it now, especially on winter nights mixed with hot water.

I found an imo-jochu nama choco (ganache) from a distillery in Kyushu that intrigued me. While I had a nibble of the samples offered, I noticed they had one perfectly sliced in half. It was a soft ball of ganache filled with a fruity, transparent imo-jochu jelly. Imo-jochu is very fragrant and it suspected that it would set off the nama choco very nicely. So, that was my valentine’s day present this year!

Isami Imo Jochu Nama Choco Ganache

Isami Imo Jochu Nama Choco Ganache

How Did Imo-jochu Nama Choco Taste?
Overall it tasted quite good but I don’t think that it was quite ‘on concept’. Imo-jochu is by nature, not delicate, it packs an aromatic punch, in addition to the alcohol punch of 25% alcohol. However, this lacked any punch.

The nama choco was wonderful, it had all that fragrant chocolaty, creamy goodness of ganache but the filling was a little disappointing. Its not that it didn’t taste good, it did. It was quite sweet and fruity but it just didn’t taste much of imo-jochu. If I am going to eat a imo-jochu flavored chocolate, I insist that is not just taste good but also taste like imo-jochu! It should have some alcohol zing to it too. I want to taste what I am eating.

It occurs to me that while in development it was decided to tone down the distinctive imo-jochu taste which many people, especially women take offense to. I think there is no danger in making a high-powered imo-jochu taste as this nama choco will most likely be purchased for men, and for men that really like imo-jochu. I highly doubt that someone who doesn’t care for imo-jochu is going to get this as a gift. So, imo it up!

Isami Imo Jochu Nama Choco Ganache - Shochu Jelly Filling

Kyoto Daimaru’s Valentine Chocolat Promenade 2010
Here are a few snapshots of ‘Chocolat Promenade’ which was held from January 27th to February 14, 2010. One hundred and twelve vendors from both Japan and overseas participated. Most of the major European chocolatiers were represented.

Kyoto Daimaru Department Store Valentine Chocolat Promenade

Kyoto Daimaru Department Store Valentine Chocolat Promenade: Maccha Green Tea and Ganache

Kyoto Daimaru Department Store Valentine Chocolat Promenade: Kyoto's New Love - Yuzu and Ganache

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Donabe Takenoko Gohan (Bamboo Shoot Rice Cooked in Donabe) 土鍋竹の子ご飯
The variations of takenoko-gohan are many, I made this with chicken thigh. Shiitake mushroom is another popular ingredient. Using just takenoko is also very common and perhaps the most ‘Kyoto’ way to make this dish as it is simple, straight forward and focuses just on the taste of the natural, seasonal ingredients.

See ‘How To’ below and this KyotoFoodie article on How to Cook Fresh Bamboo Shoots.
・How to Cook Rice in a Donabe
・Takenoko Gohan Recipe (Bamboo Shoot Rice)

Precooked Takenoko

Simmering in Dashi Broth
Note the dashi pack on the upper right.

Simmering with Chicken
The amount of dashi has cooked down to about half. Ideally this will be the amount of liquid needed to cook the rice in.

Before: In Donabe with Atsuage Tofu and Kombu Added

After: Done Cooking, Ready to Enjoy

Donabe and Takenoko Gohan Served

Takenoko Gohan – detail

How to Cook Rice in a Donabe

Water to Rice Ratio
For donabe, the main point is the ratio of liquid to rice. More water is needed than for a modern, electric rice cooker. The ratio is very simple though; use the same volume of water as rice. (If you add dashi, cooking sake etc to the rice, count that as part of the water.) Some say that you should calculate this after you have thoroughly washed the rice as it will absorb some water and swell a little bit.

Heat and Cooking Time
Cook for 7-8 minutes and allow to sit for 10 minutes after removing heat.

A donabe is very thick and heavy and can take 5 minutes or so to bring to a boil. After it begins to boil, reduce heat. Every donabe is different so you need to learn the unique characteristics of yours. If you cover the donabe immediately after turning down the heat it might boil over immediately. Not all do though, it depends of the shape, thickness of the walls and whether or not it contains a small hole in the cover to release steam.

So, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for another 7 or 8 minutes.

Then, remove heat and allow to sit for another 10 minutes. As the donabe is very thick, even once you remove the heat, it will just keep on cooking for several minutes as though the gas were still on.

DO NOT remove the lid during these 18 or so minutes.

One of the delightful things about cooking in a donabe is that the rice at the bottom of the pot will burn, or caramelize slightly. This is considered good, and is called koge in Japanese. However, if it smells burned, remove heat immediately. If it does burn, don’t worry, you will likely just have lost the bottom few millimeters of your dinner.

If the donabe has a steam release hole, this will make it much easier to understand what is happening inside the donabe. Once there is no more steam escaping, dinner is done. At this point if you remove the heat, dinner ought to be perfect. Just a slight koge at the bottom, but not burned.

In Japan, newer gas ranges have a sensor that magically senses when the rice is done and automatically turns off. That is really totally awesome. My current gas range doesn’t have the sensor and my dobabe doesn’t have the steam release hole.

＊Again, each donabe design is different, so cooking times cannot be standardized. You will have to find the ‘Zen of Rice Cooking’ for the particular donabe that you have. Even the season and the freshness of the rice influences how much water will be required. Shinmai, or ‘new rice’ has more water content.

Takenoko Gohan Recipe (Bamboo Shoot Rice)

• 3 cups or rice (I use a combination of lightly milled brown rice, white rice and oshi-mugi, or pressed oats)
• 5-6 cups of dashi
• 2-3 cups of sliced (precooked) bamboo shoot
• 1-2 cups of chicken thigh, with skin
• atsuage toru (deep fried tofu)
• cooking sake
• mirin
• shoyu
• kombu
• ki-no-me (sansho pepper plant leaves)

This is my recipe. I start with 5 or 6 cups of water and bring to boil and add ‘dashi pack’. See photo, it’s the tea bag looking thing. Of course dashi powder or concentrate is available, but if you use a dashi pack with natural ingredients, the taste will be completely superior.

Add the sliced bamboo shoot and bring to boil. If you are using canned or packaged bamboo shoot you can probably add the chicken right away, but I did my takenoko fresh today and it was still somewhat bitter after I ‘precooked’ it, so I boiled it alone in the dashi for about 20 minutes then added the chicken.

I simmered the takenoko and chicken in the dashi for about an hour total, until the amount of liquid had been reduced to about half.

I put about half cup of cooking sake (OK, probably a whole cup) in the donabe, added the rice after washing it and then measured out the required amount of dashi, which came to be all I had left. On top of this, I add the bamboo, chicken, sliced atsuage tofu and a few pieces of kombu. Finally one tablespoon each of mirin and shoyu. (If you can’t obtain mirin, you can skip it completely or add a tiny bit of sugar.)

Cover and cook as shown above.

After cooking (and sitting 10 minutes) turn over gently with a rice paddle or similar utensil, mixing the ingredients in the donabe. Re-cover for several minutes and then serve in a large bowl and garnish with ki-no-me (sansho pepper leaf) if you can obtain it.

Of course, this dish can be cooked in a conventional rice cooker or metal pot.

I spotted these beautiful slices of maguro tuna throats in the store the other day and knew I had to try them. I packed them in sake kasu to make kasuzuke and then grilled them. They were heavenly!

Nodo, literally ‘throat’, denotes innards, but maybe chin or neck might be more like it. The cut would appear to be back from the mouth and between the gills.

I wasn’t sure what this would be like. Would it be sinewy and gross, or over the top rich and creamy? We were not disappointed!!

Maguro Tuna Throat

This is yakizakana (grilled fish) that has been marinated in sake kasu for several days.

Steps

• Wipe fish clean
• Rub with salt
• Pack in sake kasu (sake kasu may need sake or cooking sake added to increase liquidity)
• Wrap and place in refrigerator for at least 24 hours (we waited 4 days, quite long)
• Wipe sake kasu from fish with fingers and/or paper towel
• Grill slowly (the fish has a lot of sugar in it now from the kasu, so be careful not to let it burn)

1. Marinate in Sake Kasu

Maguro Tuna Throat: Packing in Sake Kasu

Maguro Tuna Throat: Packing in Sake Kasu

Maguro Tuna Throat: Packing in Sake Kasu

2. Wipe and Prepare for Grilling
Japanese say that the fish should be wiped clean, but not washed with water. A very small amount of sake kasu will remain.

Maguro Tuna Throat: Ready for Grilling

Maguro Tuna Throat: Ready for Grilling

3. Grilling
The key is to not let it burn which easily happens with kasuzuke and misozuke, teriyaki for that matter too, as there is a good deal of sugar content in and on the fish.

Maguro Tuna Throat: Grilled and Ready to Eat

Maguro Tuna Throat: Grilled and Ready to Eat

Maguro Tuna Throat: Grilled and Ready to Eat

How did it taste?
As mentioned above, this is very rich, fatty and creamy — like toro. The kasu fragrance is very ‘fruity’ and that remained even after grilling. This kasu is hand pressed so the amount of alcohol left in the kasu is fairly high. I marinated this tuna for several days so the alcohol also permeated the fish. Kasu has quite a bit of sugar as well.

After grilling, the sake (alcohol) taste and the fruitiness of the kasu is not cooked out, it is obvious. The sugar content reacts nicely with the richness of the fish as it grills.

It is quite an amalgamation of flavors: alcohol, fruity, sweet and fatty grilled fish. It is rich and luxurious and not something to make an entire meal of. This should be one part of a larger meal accompanied by rice, maybe some tsukemono or veggies and some alcohol or strong tea to wash it down.

Meet Kasu Jiru: Kasu-jiru is soup made with sake lees. The sake taste is pronounced and the sweet, fruiting bouquet of fermented sake mash is obvious as well. We made this with late winter veggies and chicken.

Winter Sake Soup
Kokabura turnips are in season through out the winter in Kyoto and nanohana (rape blossoms) signal the coming of spring. Winter is of course the time that sake is being made, so sake kasu is only available this time of year.

Late Winter Kasu Jiru: The Ingredients

From the left, kokakura (small turnip), nanohana (rape blossoms), sake kasu (sake lees) and chicken.

Kokabura is translated as ‘turnip’ in my dictionary, my experience with turnips are that they are rather dry and tough. These Japanese ‘kokabura‘ turnips are quite soft and juicy though and so much so that the first time we made this dish the inner part of the kokabura just melted with only the surface retaining its shape. This time we cooked them just 7 or 8 minutes. They were tender and intact, with some fresh veggie taste still in them.

The nanohana rape blossoms still had no yellow flowers on them, just buds. They just appeared in stores this week. They are tender and rather hefty and ‘meaty’ for greens and pleasantly bitter. These we cooked for just 3 minutes or so.

Kasu Jiru: Adding Kasu to Soup Broth

Our kasu jiru is very thick with plenty of kasu. We make a base dashi with three kinds of shaved fish (comes in a tea bag), some salt and mirin. We simmer the chicken well and then add the kokabura and kasu. With the kasu we sometimes add a little bit of miso paste, to deepen the flavor, but not enough to taste directly.

The key here is good, fresh ingredients and not too much cooking.

Kasu Jiru Served – detail

Kasu Jiru Served with Black Shichimi

Usually shichimi (seven spice) is red, but the best, in our opinion, is the more rare black shimichi.

Kasu Jiru Served with Black Shichimi – detail

My favorite thing about this wonderful dish is the taste and fragrance of the fermented sake mash. It is pronounced and unlike any soup or stew that I have ever had anywhere in the world. Maybe in the Western countries we can use beer or spirits mash in a similar way?

Yuzu is one of Japan’s great tastes. Yuzu is lemony but more delicate and mild, even the peel can be eaten! Try that with a lemon. Yuzu is used to flavor many things from sashimi and grilled fish to mochi and wagashi. Yuzushu, yuzu liqueur is fairly uncommon in Japan so we tried making our own at home this year.

We continue with our winter season Japanese fruit liqueur series and tell you about making yuzushu, or yuzu liqueur. The yuzu fruit is not normally eaten like other Japanese citrus, the mikan tangerine for example. Instead the juice and peel is used for an exquisite and subtle flavoring.

Yuzushu is very easy to make and preparation just takes 30 minutes or so. It should be aged about 1 year before drinking.

Yuzu

Yuzu Detail

Yuzu is in season throughout the winter in Japan, but traditionally it would be harvested at the beginning of winter, in late November and December. We were a bit late but were still able to find some fresh yuzu but ended up paying about double what we’d have paid earlier in the winter.

While yuzushu can be found in liquor stores and on restaurant menus, I have only had yuzushu that I liked a few times. The common yuzushu tastes like it was just ethanol mixed with yuzu juice, the kind of thing that gives you a big headache in a big hurry! That is not what I want to drink!

Properly, Japanese fruit liqueur is made by steeping fresh fruit in 35% alcohol and usually plenty of sugar. Usually the fruit is steeped for 6 months to one year and then the liqueur can be aged. Here we use rice shochu because it doesn’t have its own distinct flavor like mugi (wheat) or imo (yam). It tastes somewhat like vodka. Umeshu is surely Japan’s most popular fruit liqueur.

Yuzu Peeled

Yuzu Flesh and Peel – detail

After peeling the yuzu the pith is pulled away from the fruit and scraped away from the peel.

Scraping Pith from Yuzu Skin

Scraping Pith from Yuzu Skin

Yuzu Peel, Flesh and Sugar

Notice sugar at the bottom of the glass container.

Yuzu Peel, Flesh and Sugar: Pouring on Shochu

Yuzu Steeping in Shochu: Wait One Year

Yuzushu (Yuzu Japanese Citrus Liqueur) Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kg yuzu (about 5 fruit)
• 1.8ℓ  35% shochu
  
• 200-300 grams of sugar (add more or less to suit your taste)

We of course didn’t follow any recipe. We used 7 yuzu, 1.8 liters of 35% rice (kome) shochu and a not much sugar. My theory is that the less dissolved sugar there is in the shochu, the more flavor will come out of the fruit. Miwa as usual is sure I am ruining it. I may add sugar after we remove the fruit. I will taste it first and add as needed. The sugar that we used is natural, raw sugar from Hokkaido, made from sugar beets.

Preparation

• Wash the yuzu well.
• Peel and separate fruit and peel.
• Pull white stringy pith from fruit and with knife or spoon lightly scrape pith from inner side of peel.

Steep and Age

• Add yuzu peel and flesh and sugar and 35% shochu to non-reactive container, preferably glass.
• Remove Peel: Remove yuzu peel after a week to 10 days (taste). Squeeze lightly with cheese cloth and return liqueur to steeping container.
• Remove Fruit: Remove fruit after one month. Squeeze fruit well in cheese cloth to retain juice and absorbed shochu.
• Age: Age one year in cool, dark place.

Update – Removing the Peel (7 Days Later)
After 7 days we removed the peel. The recipes that we have seen said to remove the peel after 7 to 10 days. I think that we used a bit more yuzu than usual, 7 rather than 5. After 7 days, we tasted the yuzushu and thought that it was rather bitter. It does have to age for one year and as this is the first time we have made it, we don’t know how it will mellow over the aging period.

＊Recommendation: Sample the yuzushu every day and remove the peel when it reaches the right flavor for you. That point may be less than 7 days for you. I am guessing that the citrus peel ‘bite’ will mellow with aging, but that is just a guess.

I am also guessing that ‘bite’ will go very well with hot water — many Japanese like to drinking rather stinky yam shochu with hot water, called ‘oyu-wari’ in Japanese.

Removing Yuzu Peel

Removing Yuzu Peel

Of course you want to return this liquid to the container, I didn’t squeeze our too hard. We are going to make marmalade and candied peel with the leftover yuzu peel.

A Really Interesting Yuzu Confection
Yubeshi-mochi is an incredible mochi dish! The top of the fruit is cut off and the flesh inside is scraped out and steamed with mochi, the hot yuzu flavored mochi is poured into the yuzu shell, it is capped and then steamed. How it is eaten is very interesting, the yuzu is sliced vertically, peel and all and eaten. It is one of Japan’s best confections, rather rare though.

How Yubeshi-mochi is Made

Sake Lees: This is what is left after the sake has been pressed out of the mash. It is called ‘sake kasu’ in Japanese and it is used in home cooking in many ways to create wonderfully complex flavored dishes during the winter sake brewing season. Many traditional Japanese confection, cracker, snack companies and so on use a lot of kasu to flavor some of their products. Non-traditional things like ice cream, chocolate, bread and so on are flavored with kasu these days.

Sake kasu is a common sight in the fresh vegetable section of any grocery store in winter in Japan. The fragrance is quite fruity. Mechanically pressed sake kasu comes in ‘boards’, hard sheets of kasu, hand-pressed (teshibori) is looser and cumbly. The pictures below are of hand-pressed sake kasu. This was kasu made premium daiginjo sake and is made with Yamada Nishiki variety rice from Hyogo prefecture.

Teshibori Sake Kasu

Again, teshibori means ‘hand-pressed’.

Sake kasu can be eaten as is, the texture is quite like cheese but the taste is fruity and obviously tastes of sake. This hand-pressed kasu still has quite a bit of alcohol content in it.

Opening 2 kilos of Teshibori Sake Kasu

Kasu-jiru (kasu soup): Base for soups and stews
Kasu-zuke (kasu marinade): Marinade fish and meat before grilling
Amazake (sweet sake): Melted in hot water, served with shredded ginger

Kasu can be lightly toasted and served with honey. Narazuke is pickled dark brown neri-kasu, kasu that has been allowed to age for several months.

In the next few days we will do some recipe articles based on sake kasu. We are calling the series, Sake Kasu Zanmai. Zanmai means to be luxuriously absorbed in something. Last year we did buri zanmai, a number of ways to enjoy yellowtail.

Karin, a variety of quince, is fairly common to see in the fruit section of grocery stores in the winter in Japan. I knew that people steeped it in shochu alcohol to make karinshu, like umeshu (plum liqueur) but had never made it or even tasted it. We made some today and I am now a fan of the karin quince!

In the winter season in Japan it is quite popular to make fruit liqueur with seasonal fruit such as yuzu, kumquats (kinkan), karin and a few others, even strawberries.

This year I wanted to make karinshu, but was waiting until we could find some good 35% shochu to make it with, not the run of the mill ‘white liquor’ sold in discount liquor shops and some grocery stores. When I finally found some but we couldn’t find any karin. We checked around on the internet, called some farmers and learned that the season ends in early winter so I thought that we missed our chance this year.

Karin Fruit

Big and waxy, oily to the touch.

Karin Fruit

Note beagle for scale.

Today when Miwa got back from grocery shopping, in a very excited voice she told me that she had a surprise for me and to close my eyes. She put a mango smelling fruit under my nose and asked me what I thought it was. I was stumped. When I opened my eyes I saw a big, waxy karin.

I had never seen or touched a karin. The fruit is quite hard and dry, so I was surprised that it would smell so fruity. It was REALLY fruity. Also the skin was almost oily. A first I thought that it was some kind of industrial wax covering, but I don’t think it was. It washed off rather easily.

Karin Fruit: Sliced and Ready to Steep in Shochu

Sliced Karin Fruit – detail

Notice the color of the flesh. The one on the left is rather brown, I think that means old. The one on the right looks more like photos I usually see of karin.

Karin Steeping in Shochu

We quickly washed, dried and sliced up the karin and added them to a large glass umeshu container with sugar and high quality 35% shochu. As we worked, I was quite astonished at how this woody fruit could smell so good. I kept thinking that it reminded of a mango, but without that over the top, tropical power. Upland, temperate climate mango is how I think of the Japanese karin.

Karin Steeping in Shochu – detail

Karin Steeping in Shochu: Wait One Year

I am REALLY looking forward to sipping this one. I will let you know how it tastes — in a year!

Karinshu (Japanese Quince Liqueur) Recipe

• karin (Japanese quince): 1kg
• 35% shochu ‘white liquor’: 1.8 liter
• sugar: 300g to 1kg

Rice shochu (komejochu) is recommended, mugi (wheat) or imo (sweet potato) have too strong a taste. Vodka is an acceptable substitute. Normal shochu for drinking is 25% alcohol, 35% is required for making Japanese style liqueur because after steeping the alcohol content must be around 15% to prevent spoilage.

• Wash karin with hot water and wipe well on dry towel.
• Cut fruit into slices 1cm in thickness. Do not discard seeds, they are nutritious.
• Layer karin slices and sugar in non-reactive container (preferably glass)
• Pour in shochu into container and seal.
• After 6 months, remove karin fruit.
• Allow to age for another 6 months.

Of course we didn’t follow any recipe. We added little sugar, maybe 300 or 400 g,  but will probably add more when we remove the fruit.

Karin in English
We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the proper English name for karin but are still not quite sure which variety of quince it properly is. I will call the botanical garden next week and try to get the definitive answer.

Sake Blossoms: On a late winter morning in Kyoto you can find delicate flakes on a stone pavement and pause to investigate whether they are snow or plum petals. Of course the presence of a penetrating fragrance tips you off. Several years ago, while walking my dog on a snowy night, at the gate of a neighborhood temple, with sake waiting at home, I plucked a few blossoms from a plum tree. I discovered that the delicate fragrance goes extremely well with fine sake. Floating a blossom in some chilled sake has become a late winter ritual for me.

I couldn’t help commemorating this year’s sake and ume with a major photoshoot in my garden. Unfortunately there was no snow. I used two bottles of my favorite sake from Uehara Sake Brewery; Furosen Muroka Nama Genshu Yamahai Junmai Daiginjo Kidaru Jikomi and Soma-no-tengu Tenbin Shibori Nama Genshu. (I recently visited the brewery and will tell you more about their sake soon.)

I really hope that you like the photos! Lots of comments please!

Ume Blossom Floating in Furosen Sake

My Favorite Sake in the Whole Wide World: Furosen

The bottle on the left is Furosen (不老泉) Muroka Nama Genshu Yamahai Junmai Daiginjo Kidaru Jikomi, I think that this must be the sake served in heaven. So far, it is the best sake that I have discovered. Soma-no-tengu (杣の天狗), on the right, is very good too, also from the same brewery.
The sticker on the bottle neck that says, 要冷蔵 which means ‘requires refrigeration’, that is how you know it is real sake: nama genshu.

Ume Blossom Floating in Furosen Sake

Furosen and Soma-no-tengu Nama Genshu and Ume Blossoms

Furosen and Soma-no-tengu Nama Genshu and Ume Blossoms

Furosen and Soma-no-tengu Nama Genshu and Ume Blossoms

Ume Blossoms – Detail

Here in Kyoto it is late winter and the ‘ume’ plums are in bloom now. The blossoms come in white, pink and dark reddish purple. Japan and Kyoto are better known for ‘sakura’ cherry blossoms, which are very nice, but I prefer the ume plums. Ume blooms when it is still winter, if you are lucky you can see ume blossoms in the snow, I have only seen that a few times. It is among the most beautiful things that I have experienced. The smell of fresh snow and ume blossoms, the unlikely contrast of snow and flowers, and sometimes even a few hardy and enterprising bees buzzing around it is all more than one can easily dream up. But, alas, fact is often stranger than fiction – and tastier!

The Sake
・Furosen Muroka Nama Genshu Yamahai Junmai Daiginjo Kidaru Jikomi
・Soma-no-tengu Tenbin Shibori Nama Genshu
Both are produced by Uehara Shuzo Sake Brewery in neighboring Shiga prefecture. Furosen is the brand name and means ‘fountain of youth’ because the water that they use to make their sake naturally bubbles up out of the ground.

What is Ryorishu? Japanese Cooking Sake かくし味 料理酒

Ryorishu: Literally, ‘Cuisine Alcohol’
The brand name, Kakushi-aji has a double meaning, I think. Kakusu means to be hidden or secret. This cooking sake is generally only sold to exclusive restaurants which are sometimes called kakure-ga (hidden, or secret house). In Kyoto, some exclusive restaurants don’t even have a sign. The other meaning could be that as this is very high quality cooking sake, it is a secret ingredient in the dishes that it is used in.

When I visited Uehara Brewery, they treated me to kikizake, or sake tasting and I was also given a taste of their ryorishu. Normally you cannot enjoy drinking ryorishu straight. This was good though, it tasted like a light sake. The color is light golden in color and it tastes better than a lot of drinking sake that I have had. I am especially looking forward to using this sake for nizakana (fish simmered in sweetened soy sauce) because of the delicate taste and absence of salt.

Ryorishu has a low milling ratio, only about 80-90%, so while it wouldn’t have the refined taste for drinking, you get a much bigger and complex taste that can stand up to cooking and other tastes like sugar, soy sauce and so on. I hadn’t realized that before.

Cooking Sake: Kakushi-aji Ryorishu from Uehara Sake Brewery

The label reads, from right to left; 本格 authentic, かくし味 ‘hidden’ taste, 料理酒 cooking sake.

I just tasted this again and compared it to the cooking sake we usually use, which I think is not bad stuff. We buy it at a liquor store and it isn’t cheap. The Uehara Brewery’s is fairly fruity and drinkable. The other has a sake smell to it, but the taste is all salt. I guess on fish, chicken, etc that isn’t real fresh and you need lots of salt anyway, the regular ryorishu is probably ok. You’re going to have to cook the heck out of it anyway! For fresh fish and vegetables, especially cooking ‘Kyoto’ style, the Uehara Brewery ryorishu would leave you much more room to build the flavors of the dish the way you like. For example, emphasize taste and freshness of the ingredients, not salt!

Cheap cooking sake usually has enough salt in it that you don’t need to add any additional salt to the dish that you are cooking. That is quite a bit!

Ryorishu is quite similar to Western white cooking wine, it is of course made with rice, rather than grapes though. It is used to marinades and sauces. In order to sell ryorishu in grocery stores, salt is added, several percent by volume. This is required by law. This is fine for cooking if you want or need a good deal of salt in the dish. We use quite a bit of ryorishu in our home cooking, probably 2 or 3 liters per month. We end up not using very little additional salt. Generally, that is fine, but the quality of the salt that goes into cheap ryorishu is surely not very good, it is likely not natural sea salt. For subtly flavored dishes, you might not want to use salt, so high quality cooking sake like this is desirable.

Miwa on Cooking Sake and Mirin
Both ryorishu and mirin ‘kill’ any bad odors in fish and meat. They also help the flavors of the ingredients uses in the dish to ‘sink in’ to the fish, meat, etc. Of course, it gives a nice smell too.

Mirin is sweet cooking sake. It gives dishes a nice sheen, especially sauteed dishes, because it has glucose sugar in it. (Fructose sugar and cooking sake will not produce the same effect.)

Cooking sake softens meat, brings out the depth of flavor of the ingredients and adds a pleasant fragrance to the dish.

Things in my homeland grew so bad over the last 8 years that we had to reject a real patriot who we could have chosen for president 8 years ago and bet on this newcomer with precious little experience and no resumé to be president. Well, Barack Obama delivered on his soaring rhetoric, won big and took the reigns of government with confidence and distinction. Here in Kyoto we tuned-in late night to the inaugural live stream and toasted him in and his post-partisan, post-cultural war vision with the equivalent of Japanese moonshine – doburoku!

KyotoFoodie Toasts President Obama
I was not a believer during most of the campaign, but Barack Obama really grew through out the campaign and by the time of the economic crash and first presidential debate, he looked and acted presidential. Watching him take the oath, I felt grateful to him, for at the very least, inspiring hope in people when the situation looks pretty grim.

The little foodie party that we had planned got even littler when everyone realized that the inauguration was going to be in the middle of the night in Japan. We watched the swearing in and inaugural address and toasted with bubbly ‘home-brewed’ doburoku sake. After the speech we retired to the parlor for more doburoku and some awesome roll cake that Miwa scored. And finally, incense and prayers before bed.

Omaba Inaugural Address Live Stream

Toasting Hope and Post-partisanship

(While humming, ‘Then I’ll get on my knees and pray, We don’t get fooled again.’)

Toasting Hope and Post-partisanship

Toasting Hope and Post-partisanship

The Beagle Drinks to President Obama

KyotoFoodie ‘Mini’ Inaugural Gala

Doburoku Sake and Sake Kasu Roll Cake

Doburoku ‘Home Brewed’ Sake

About the Sake: Doburoku
I had wanted to get champagne but decided on a bubbly and rather chunky doburoku that we first introduced on KyotoFoodie in this Mackerel Yuzu Pepper Nabe article last winter. This sake comes from Nagano Prefecture in north-central Japan and is called Domuroku (Domuroku is the product name).

Traditionally doburoku is home-brewed sake, in centuries past this is the sake that people drank at home, they made it themselves, the same as their tsukemono, miso and so on. Now home-brewing of sake is illegal, but in the last few years doburoku style sake is being made and sold by quality sake producers and consumers are literally drinking it up!

Doburoku ‘Home Brewed’ Sake – Bubbles

Sake Kasu Roll Cake

In the very center the sake kasu can be seen. It is flavored delicately with honey.

About the Cake: Sake Kasu Roll Cake
Roll cake is big in Japan, there are countless variations. My favs in Kyoto are maccha roll cake and Tamba black bean roll cake. This was a new one though. One of Kyoto’s big sake breweries, Kizakura got together with a pâtisserie in Kobe. Kobe is known for it’s good and very Western oriented style. This roll cake is flavored with sake kasu, or the lees that are left after pressing sake. Sake kasu is used in many popular winter dishes in Japan, this was my first experience with it in Western sweets. It was flavored with honey and the combination was just perfect. The pungent, fermented kasu contrasts so nicely with the mellow sweetness of the honey, all wrapped up in cream and sponge cake.

Sake Kasu Roll Cake – detail

The outside of the roll cake reminded me of frost or fresh-fallen snow, on cake!

The Gourmet Beagle Samples Sake Kasu Roll Cake

(and approves!)

Links

Doburoku Sake (Japanese language)
Endo Sake Brewery 遠藤酒造場
‘Domuroku’ Sake どむろく

Sake Kasu Roll Cake
Kizakura Sake Brewery (English website)
Limited Edition Sake Kasu Roll Cake 酒かすろーる

In Japan winter is the season for crab and the best, fresh sake. We were given two beautiful crabs from the Sea of Japan and after doing kani nabe I wanted to cook the kani miso in the shell with sake over an open flame, so I bought some fresh, unfiltered ginjoshu sake from the north of Japan. With the leftover broth and bits of crab meat and vegetables we made kani zosui, a rice soup. This all makes for a wonderful dinner on a mid-winter night!

Mottainai: No Waste in Japanese Culture

One thing I would like to show in Japanese culture, through the lens of food, is ‘mottainai‘, or not wasting anything. You might have heard a bit about mottainai recently in relation to environmental conservation. With device and invention even the kani miso, or crab guts, which don’t amount to much are enjoyed. (The ‘miso‘ in kani miso is actually a reference to the brain of the crab, rather than miso paste/soup. In reality, the brain only makes up a fraction of the kani miso.) The raw kani miso, difficult to remove from the shell with an eating utensil, is just cooked with sake right in the shell over an open flame. In the end, it all comes out. It is fun, efficient and tasty!

There are at least two dishes in Japanese cuisine that employ this strategy; one is sake warmed in the crab shell and drunk and the second is the miso well cooked in the shell often with some broth and sake. Our rendition here is sort of a combination of both; too much sake to be proper kani miso korayaki and cooked too long to be proper kani miso korazake.

These crabs were another itadakimono, or gift humbly received which are very common in Japanese culture, especially gifts of food.

Kani Miso Korayaki

Crab ‘miso‘ cooked in the shell with plenty of sake over an open flame. We cooked it for about 2 minutes. In a nice restaurant this would be done over a mini charcoal hibachi right at your table.

Crab Dinner, Japanese Style

Kani Nabe かに鍋: Crab hotpot. (Sorry, no pictures.) We slowly simmered kombu and an assortment of winter veggies to make a nice, light broth then added the crab. Cooking the crab takes about 3 minutes. We squeezed fresh yuzu juice on the crab meat, however just plain crab meat was very sweet. I much prefer yuzu on crab to lemon I realized, because the taste is more complex and mellow. (However I did long for butter!)

Kani Miso かにみそ: We used the body and miso of one crab for korayaki 甲羅焼き- korazake 甲羅酒, cooked over an open flame as shown below. We scooped it out with a spoon and ate it like ice cream, one scoop plain and the second with just a squeeze of yuzu. The flavor of kani miso, … we are trying to describe. It tastes like crab, the texture is often creamy, and it has a taste that is distinctly ’kani miso’, which I am at a loss to describe. Part of the kani miso is eggs, so it has a bit of the Shanghai crab taste, if you have had that. That is feeble, I know. I guess I can only say that it is indeed a treat, and if you like crab, you will probably like kani miso. By the way, many sushi restaurants offer kani miso sushi, which is usually quite good. It is just the crab internals in a miso-like paste, usually not cooked like this though.

Kani Zosui かに雑炊: Zosui is a wonderful dish in Japan, the taste and texture is a bit like risotto. After a nabe, after the fish, chicken, veggies, etc have been finished, what remains is the very best broth as it has the taste of everything that went into the nabe in it. Japanese wouldn’t just let this go to waste. Rice — or udon can be added to the nabe and cooked in the broth as the final course of the meal. Egg is often added too, which we did. This mixture is cooked in the nabe for a few minutes until most of the broth has been absorbed. Then eggs can be added and just stirred a bit and removed to a bowl while the egg is still a bit runny.

We used the kani miso from one of the crabs to add additional flavor to the zosui. Though the preparation method is quite different, as is the texture of the rice, zosui is really is quite similar to risotto. Just imagine crab and egg with vegetable broth.

Nabe: A Tasty and Easy to Eat Meal for Travelers in Japan
Even if you are not really into Japanese food, and not an extreme eater, you would probably have no trouble with these dishes. Nabe is always a good bet for anyone that doesn’t want to get too adventurous with their meals when they visit Japan. In nabe cuisine, everything is well cooked and the ingredients are all things that we often eat in Western food (vegetables, fish, chicken, etc).

Kani Miso Korayaki Cooking: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

Kani Miso Korayaki Cooking: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

Kani Miso Korayaki Cooking: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

Kani Miso Korayaki Served: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

IKani Zosui, Kani Miso Korayaki, Tsukemono and Yuzu

Kani Zosui: Crab Rice Soup

Kani Zosui: Crab Rice Soup – detail

The Sake: Muroka Ginjoshu from Kamonishiki Brewery in Niigata

This sake is muroka (unfiltered) ginjoshu (high quality) okedashi (from a wooden vat) and shiboritate (just pressed) from a brewery in Niigata, a region that produces Japan’s best rice and some fine sake. This sake was pretty dreadful. It lacked the fresh, fruitiness of muroka shiboritate, I could taste no wood though the label says that it comes from a wooden vat. What I could taste was the sickening and lingering taste of jozo alcohol (distilled alcohol) that is added to cheap sake. If you have had sake that you didn’t like, jozo alcohol is likely the culprit.

The milling rate of this ginjoshu is 60%. At 980 yen for a 720ml bottle, it is not particularly expensive, but is rather price for ryorishu, or cooking sake, which I ended up using it for. This sake was nicely packaged and in the refrigerated section at the liquor store. It ought to be a whole lot better, I thought.

Muroka Ginjoshu Sake – package

Funky package, crappy sake!

Muroka Ginjoshu Sake

Even serving this sake in a nice glass couldn’t improve it!

Links

The Sake: Kamonishiki website (Japanese language)

加茂錦酒造
新潟県加茂市仲町2-6
tel/fax 0256-52-0070

Shiokara is a favorite of Miwa and she made some recently and it is ready for eating. Shiokawa is made of salted squid semi-fermented in its own guts and is a kind of chinmi, literally ‘rare taste’. Japanese like shiokara on rice or with sake.

Shiokara

Miwa, with some help from Kichisen, made her first shiokara. It came out very well, she reports. Here are a few photos of it served. (I took some photos of her happy face eating the shiokawa on rice, but she absolutely would not allow me to put them up on this article.

Miwa says the following about shiokara:
Shiokara on shinmai, new rice, like in the photos on this article, is a simple meal but the most luxurious meal to Japanese. Yum, yum, yum!

Even though we thought that it would be too salty, the taste definitely got more and more mild over the passing days and it is very nice now. The progression of the taste with time is something I like very much. I think Mr Tanigawa’s tip of adding high quality kelp helps a lot.

Shiokara lasts just a few weeks but you can freeze it too.

I have not tried this, but heard that you can eat on pasta too, as sauce. I am going to try this soon.

Paku says:
Please pass the karasumi.

Be sure to check out our shiokara series:
How to Clean Squid
How to Make Shiokara
How to Eat Shiokara (this article)

Squid Shiokara Served

The dark strip on the top is kombu, of kelp. Kombu is naturally salty and softens and adds complexity to the flavor.

Squid Shiokara Served – detail