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March 30, 2007
kuro-mitsu
Kuro means black and mitsu means honey, so for the longest time I thought kuro-mitsu was just a dark type of honey, perhaps buckwheat, and I wondered why I could never find it in the honey section of the supermarket. In actuality, kuro-mitsu is a syrup made from black sugar (kuro-zato), the famously healthy dark brown sugar produced in Okinawa, and sold next to the other sugars on the shelves. While mass-produced brown sugar in the U.S. is often made by simply coating refined white sugar with molasses, black sugar is unrefined, resulting in chunky, sticky granules with a pronounced molasses flavor.
Kuro-mitsu is thinner and milder than molasses, making it an ideal substitute for honey, whether spread on toast, drizzled over yogurt or stirred into tea. Kuro-zato is known for its throat-soothing qualities, so I use it in my favorite sick-day tea: I boil sliced ginger in water for five minutes, let it sit for ten minutes, reheat, and pour the resulting liquid over the juice of one lemon and one tablespoon of kuro-mitsu. It's spicy, sweet and citrusy and always makes me feel better.
Kuro-mitsu over yogurt.
But there's no need to stay virtuous in your kuro-mitsu use. The dish that inspired me to buy my own bottle of kuro-mitsu, in fact, was a strange and wonderful dessert named, alluringly, Honeycube, the special of the day at a cafe in Nagoya. (Just try saying it: Honeycube. Don't you want to eat it even though you have no idea what it is?) Honeycube turned out to be a plate piled high with the most unlikely ingredients: cubes of just-toasted white bread scattered over a heaping portion of vanilla soft-serve ice cream, then topped with a drizzle of kuro-mitsu and a dusting of cinnamon. Oh, and there was a scoop of fresh whipped cream in there somewhere, too. Surprisingly, Honeycube as a dessert lived up to Honeycube as a name. The cinnamon-scented crunch of the warm toasted bread with the cool softness of the ice cream was something like eating an ice-cream-stuffed churro and led to the realization that kuro-mitsu and ice cream go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Or strawberries and cream. Or kinako and fresh mochi. Whatever -- something synergistically delicious anyway.
This realization is why, while out for post-dinner drinks at an izakaya last week, when I heard the waiter say the only dessert they had was ice cream topped with kuro-mitsu and kinako, my reaction was one of such deep and sudden enthusiasm the man scooted back about a foot in surprise and four of my friends ordered the same, having no idea what they were getting, but unable to resist my breathless excitement. It was like a Japanese hot fudge sundae. I ate every bite.
Posted by anjali at 8:47 PM | Comments (2) | Categories: Ingredients | Sweets
March 7, 2007
bitter greens for the bitter cold
My favorite supermarket discovery this winter was daikon greens, the leafy tops of the giant white Japanese radish, sold with immature daikon still attached. They are sturdy and bitter, with a faintly spicy radish flavor, a welcome change from the usual vegetable suspects like komatsuna, spinach and mizuna, which are quite watery and mild. Usually, after thoroughly washing the daikon greens, I roughly chop them up and briefly blanch them in boiling water, adding the white radish nubs first and waiting about a minute before adding the leafy parts.
As with all vegetables I parboil, after draining I don't cool them by rinsing them or putting them in ice water. Instead, I use the traditional Japanese method of fanning them for a minute or two with an uchiwa (paper fan), which keeps them from becoming water-logged and flavorless. I use one of those promotional uchiwa handed out on the streets of Japan during the summer alongside the promotional tissue packets. (If only all advertisements doubled as kitchen and/or beauty aids....)
To season the greens, I normally just pour on a little soy sauce and sprinkle on some toasted white sesame seeds for a quick and lazy ohitashi. They'd also be delicious tossed with a miso-sesame dressing. But my very favorite way to eat daikon greens is to wilt them, raw, with a little salt, then mix them with freshly-cooked rice, where they cook in the residual heat. It's a method I picked up from Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
Nameshi (Rice with greens)
Adapted from Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji
Makes 2 servings
1 cup Japanese rice, washed
1 cup daikon greens or other bitter leafy vegetable, washed
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cook the rice as usual. (See the directions for cooking Japanese rice here.) While the rice is cooking, chop the greens into 1-inch pieces, including the immature radishes if attached. Put into a bowl and sprinkle with the salt. Rub the chopped leaves with your hands, squeezing them and dispersing the salt until they are slightly wilted. Drain any accumulated liquid.
When the rice is cooked, add the wilted greens and radish pieces, then lightly stir the rice until the greens are evenly incorporated. Replace the lid and let sit for a couple minutes before serving.
Posted by anjali at 5:16 PM | Comments (2) | Categories: Ingredients | Recipes | Rice | Vegetables | Winter