Spring has sprung in the woods! Passover is this week and to kick it off, we hosted a first-night Seder. We spent two days cooking all the traditional Jewish dishes: matzah ball soup, haroset (a paste of dried fruit and nuts), farfel (quiche-like squares), tzimmes (a...
In Japan, everything is made easy for busy housewives who have to raise kids, clean the house, yet also have to cook and make dessert. You throw things in a microwave and five minutes later, you can a serve main course to your hungry kids and...
Dish by Elements. Photo by Erin Gleeson.
After reading Moto's post about making anko (sweet bean paste), I began to reminisce about my visit to a wagashi (traditional Japanese confectionary) shop in Koishikawa, Tokyo called Ikko-an. All of the wagashi are made by hand by the owner Chikara Mizukami, while his wife works...
So this weekend I was having a few people over for a potluck birthday party and I took it upon myself to make the dessert. A long time ago I remembered making a super delicious rye bread layer cake -- crunchy, fresh and sweet with raspberry cream--but...
My most recent obsession is making anko (sweet bean paste) from scratch. As I wrote in my strawberry daifuku post a couple of weeks ago, using bean paste as dessert doesn't really exist in the west. But I am trying to find ways to...
Not that I've ever beaten anyone up, but I think macaron-making is somewhat similar to the mentality of a wifebeater's wife. You get so fed up with the multiple failures, from all the physical and mental abuse, and you want to leave him, but when you are...
Japan is filled with weird desserts. A lot of influence comes from the west, but we somehow incorporate Japan-ness into western desserts. For example, castella came from Portugal and somehow the recipe changed a bit and one of the ingredients now is mirin (sweet sake)....
Chestnuts signify the presence of winter in many cultures. Although I've never actually tried chestnuts roasted by an open fire, I have tried the Japanese version of chestnuts simmered in simple syrup, or kuri no kanroni. However, I had never taken the initiative to prepare a...
In honor of this last day of Hanukkah, I made sufganiyot (jelly donuts). Believe it or not, this is a Hanukkah tradition, right along with latkes (potato pancakes). This was the first time I’d made them so I used Martha Stewart’s recipe....
By Kenji Miura I celebrated Christmas in Japan by making wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets. Santa is shaped out of shiro-an (white bean paste). The holly is made out of ogura tsubu-an (red beans boiled with sugar, skin-on). The tree is comprised of shiro-an and...
There's a big financial crisis pillaging through the poor, run down viking villages of Denmark. It's the revisiting ghost from 2008. Even though we're still doing better than many of the South European countries, a lot of people are being laid off work and therefore no...
Brownies come many a kind -- I like these particular ones because they're very light and discrete in flavour which means you can eat the whole cake and not feel overstuffed (even though you most certainly will be). To me, brownies should be heavy, soggy, small...
As I've written in a post some years ago, Iceland is a nation of candy addicts. Especially if the candy is chocolate mixed with liquorice. It's crazy how much candy the Icelandic people eat - but since there's no fresh ice cream tradition like in Italy...
Before I start this week's post, let's congratulate Kayoko and the crew for revamping the Umamimart site to a whole new level. Orange is my favorite color, so this is cool, and soon enough, we will be FAMOUS bloggers!! Hooray. As you've seen from my past...
Last week, NYC pastry chef extraordinaire Pichet Ong was a guest judge on Top Chef Just Desserts (aired September 22). As he was introduced, some of my photos of his desserts were shown on the episode: Foie Gras Taco and Warm Date Cake (see...
A recipe for a Japanese dessert: It takes a mizu-yokan recipe and a matcha-kuzu kanten (agar) and plates them next to one another.
Japanese snacks are wacky. From matcha-flavored Kit Kats, to dried squid covered in chocolate, to using beans for desserts, the country is filled with surprises in the sweet tooth department. I've seen a DIY sushi-making video, and it was very intriguing. I think the idea...
Let's start this post by trying to pronounce its title. Easy, no? The Danish language is in a league of its own. Imagine a gurgling sound, the deep noise of a drunk blond viking with too much mead in his mouth. While...
Corn season has arrived. Every Greenmarket vendor is selling them for 50 cents an ear. [Speaking of, why do we count corn in such a way? Don't you think it's a bit odd to think of ears growing on trees? Imagine that.] Anyhow, I like...
