seriously the best ever triple chocolate chip cookies

with just a tiny little healthy twist... naturally... i ve got to be able to give myself an excuse for indulging in these babies

as autumn was suddenly right on our doorstep, there was no way i could deny my urge to bake these cookies, and chocolate definitely had to be the main ingredient.

i do have a little recipe i always turn to, but this time i wanted a double whammy, chocolate cookie dough AND chocolate chips... ofcourse there s dozens of recipes out there, but this one jumped out at me screaming (not quite Halloween yet, but still, it was screaming) to be tested. whose better then to try out than Ms Nigella Lawson s big cookies.

so that s exactly what i did:

and they came out as she promised, but there was something a little overpowering about them, pure chocolate in the dough, pure chocolate chips (and loads of them) mixed in, you really need a huge glass of cold milk or a good mug of something hot and sweet to counterbalance that.

then i thought i might just want to add a little bit more sweetness, not by adding sugar, but using the bittersweet chocolate only in the dough, and exchanging white and milk chocolate chips for the pure ones, then adding pine-nuts and dried cranberries for the 'health' kick... plus an extra soon-to-be-not-so-secret ingredient...

wow, if i may say so myself, these turned out to be the best ever chocolate chips cookies i d ever made (i probably need to have a go at a few other recipes before i should be saying this, but hey, when a cookie is good, a cookie is good)

here s my recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

125 grams dark chocolate
150 grams plain flour
30 grams cocoa powder, sieved (not the drinking chocolate kind thingy)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
125 grams unsalted butter, softened
125 grams light brown sugar
1 medium sized egg
1 heaped tablespoon full-fat cream cheese (yes, the secret ingredient)
45 grams milk chocolate chips, or a bar cut into little chunks
125 grams white chocolate chips, or a bar cut into little chunks
100 grams dried cranberries
80 grams pine-nuts

METHOD:

1. preheat the oven to 170°C
2. melt the 125 grams of dark chocolate au-bain-Marie
3. mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl
4. cream the butter and sugar in another bowl
5. add the slightly cooled melted chocolate to the creamed butter and sugar, and mix well
6. beat in the egg and the cream cheese
7. mix in the dry ingredients and lastly add the chocolate chips, cranberries and pine-nuts, and mix to distribute all ingredients evenly
8. using an icecream scoop, place equal mounds of the dough on a lined baking sheet. do not flatten the mounds and leave enough space in-between because they will spread a little. i scooped 6 per tray and got 21 cookies out of the one recipe, although Nigella says she gets only 12 cookies; she must have a huge icecream scoop! bake for 17 minutes.
9. once baked, leave to cool slightly and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely before storing in airtight container, or gobble up one or two immediately

ok... yumm....

sweet things to start with... 2013

Happy New Year of the Snake everybody!

this year should be a good one, at least, if my horoscope is to be believed, this year of the snake, my Chinese (or should i say Japanese) sign is supposed to bring me luck.

well, i hope so, i could use some. after all the little mishaps we ve had thrown at us at the end of last year... and it has not stopped raining, but there are openings in the clouds and there is some blue sky visible now! a-HA!

to kick off this 'lucky' year, i ve been asked to post two recipes of sweet things my mom-in-law made for Christmas 2012. one s a doddle to make, the other requires a little bit more work, but both were delish! i m telling you, at 77, my mom-in-law is still going strong and loves to bake up a storm! she s an inspiration.

so here they are, a quick lemon cheesecake and a chocolate bûche de Noël:

QUICK LEMON CHEESECAKE
(inspired by Mary Berry in the BBC GOOD FOOD MAGAZINE February 2004)

INGREDIENTS:

for the biscuit base:
75 gr digestive biscuits
40 gr butter
25 gr demerara sugar

for the cheesecake filling:
200 gr low-fat cream cheese (Philadelphia light is a good one)
397 gr condensed milk
150 ml double cream
the grated zest and juice of 3 lemons

METHOD:

1. crush the biscuits; using a freezer bag and a rolling pin is a good idea
2. melt the butter, add the sugar and biscuits crumbs and mix well
3. using the back of a spoon, push the biscuit mixture evenly into a 20cm loose-bottomed non-stick cake tin and put in the fridge to set
4. soften the cream cheese in a bowl and beat in the condensed milk until smooth
5. stir in the cream
6. mix in the zest and the juice of the lemons
7. pour on top of the biscuit base and smooth out
8. chill in the fridge, preferably overnight
9. to serve, slide a palette knife along the side to loosen the cake, lift up the bottom and slide the cake out of the tin onto a flat dish. decorate with sugared lemon slices or any fruit in season.

you d think the condensed milk might be too sweet, but the lemon juice counteracts this and there s a very good balance between sweet and tart... scrumptious!

now for the bûche...

BÛCHE DE NOËL

INGREDIENTS:

for the Swiss roll:
5 eggs
140 gr light muscovado sugar
100 gr self-raising flour
25 gr pure cocoa-powder

for the chocolate ganache:
80 gr evaporated milk
120 gr pure (bittersweet) chocolate pieces

METHOD:

1. pre-heat the oven to 190°C
2. butter the base and side of a 30x35 cm Swiss roll tin and line the base with baking parchment
3. separate the eggs
4. whisk the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of water and the sugar for about five minutes until light and creamy 5. sift in the flour and the cocoa powder and gently fold in until just blended (so as to keep it light and airy) and no lumps remain
6. beat the egg-whites until stiff and add to the cake mixture in three batches, folding in gently every time, again so as not to lose any airiness)
7. pour the mixture into the prepared tin, bake for 10-12 minutes until just firm to the touch
8. leave to cool before turning out onto a tea-towel which has been dusted with icing sugar... then follow Mary Berry s technique for rolling it up: (the recipe she uses here is a bit different because it uses no flour, but the rolling up is the same)

Great British Bake Off - masterclass

9. for the ganache, simply melt the chocolate pieces into warmed evaporated milk until thickened... it may turn out quite thick when cool, but can always be re-heated until malleable for spreading out onto the cake and for decorating the roulade later.
10. to make the Yule log, cut off a piece of the roulade at an angle and place against the main roll, then spread over the ganache and use a fork to shape the 'bark'... decorate with icing sugar 'snow' and eventually some Christmassy ornaments.

for the filling you could use whipped cream instead, or add crushed nuts and dried red fruit, but surprisingly, the chocolate ganache is not too heavy and does work.

and you don t need to make it into a log (because that s pretty typical for Christmas). whipped cream and strawberries, for example, make it a pretty good dessert for early summer too...

so, here you go, two sweet recipes to start off this 2013. hope the year brings all you may wish for.

flapjacks etcetera

what s it been? thirty years or perhaps a little more when i first made these?

flapjacks.

always thought it a funny name, because these cookies (if they are cookies) don t flap, and i can t imagine where the jack came from, but that s what they re called...

oats are not easy to find here, well, actually, if you look, ofcourse you ll find them, but most are prepared so as to make an easy and quick porridge and that s not what i needed. on a visit to Ghent though, in a very quirky store called Vits-Staelens, i found some good oats and immediately thought of making flapjacks.

sweet, buttery, chewy yet crunchy... hmmm. and i did have golden syrup in my pantry, and butter, so i got started:

FLAPJACKS

INGREDIENTS:

125 gr softened unsalted butter
25 gr fine caster sugar
150 gr golden syrup
225 gr rolled oats pinch of salt

METHOD:

1. butter and line a 24x24 cm baking tin with baking parchment (please do line the tin, i didn t and had a little disaster getting the flapjacks out! but more on that later)
2. preheat the oven to 180°C
3. cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy, light and pale.
4. mix in the syrup, oats and salt
5. spread evenly into prepared tin
6. bake until deep golden (my recipe said 40 minutes, but that s far too long, just keep an eye on the color, don t let it get burnt)
7. while still warm, cut into 16 squares and leave to cool completely in the tin before lifting the baking paper up and out
8. these keep quite well in an airtight cookie jar

i mentioned that about lining the baking tin with parchment, didn t i? it s because just buttering the tin is definitely not enough! after cooling i could not get some flapjacks out in one piece, no matter how carefully i tried... so i had a flapjack crumble!

no way i was going to waste that... and this morning i baked us some apple muffins using my earlier recipe and sprinkling some flapjack crumble on the top before baking...

they came out pretty good, don t you think?

still have a little left over, maybe i can incorparate that into some cookies... with extra nuts and chocolate chips?

masala chai cake my way

yesterday there was that little disaster with the oven temperature while baking that buttermilk apple cake with cardamom...

today i was determined to make good that dumb mistake.

and here it is, my masala chai cake (also with a hint of cardamom ofcourse)

already looks so much better, doesn t it?

and even though that apple cake tasted quite alright, it was a bit on the stodgy side to be honest.

so i adapted and tweaked and here s my own recipe:

MASALA CHAI CAKE WITH CARDAMOM

INGREDIENTS:

180 gr unsalted butter
200 gr fine white caster sugar
3 whole eggs
220 gr plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom seeds
3 teabags masala chai
60 ml boiling water
100 ml buttermilk
drop of vanilla extract

METHOD:

1. preheat the oven to 175°C and prepare a cake tin
2. pour the boiling water on the teabags and leave to infuse for 30 minutes or until cold
3. heat the butter in the microwave for about 20 seconds until slightly melted and then beat in the sugar (to my surprise this actually makes it so much easier to get that light pale fluffy creaminess they always talk about in recipe books)
4. add the eggs one by one and beat in well
5. sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and ground cardamom in stages into the butter/sugar/egg mixture and mix in well
6. add the buttermilk, masala chai concentrate (the infused tea), and a drop of vanilla extract, beat in well
7. pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 50 minutes until golden and springy to the touch or until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean
8. leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before taking it out to cool completely

now that s what i call a perfect cake; light, not too sweet, and just moist enough. good on it s own, but probably even better with a little bit of whipped cream, and definitely best with a cup of steaming hot masala chai on a winter afternoon.

well... at least i got it right this time... phew!

little cheesecake pots

the run-up to Christmas is hectic. even without kids, well, one kid who s now more out of the house than in... it s hectic.

making Christmas cards, buying gifts, decorating the house, deciding on a menu (although the past years it s been a yummy collaboration with my mom-in-law), well, you know how it is.

which is why this easy little sweet pot is such a joy to make, and to eat.

if you re a fan of cheesecakes, but don t want to make a whole cake and wait for it to cool until set, here s a solution:

LEMONY CHEESECAKE POTS WITH RASPBERRIES

INGREDIENTS:

100 gr digestive biscuits, crushed
30 gr butter, melted
300 gr Philadelphia cream cheese
3 tablespoons lemon curd
handful of fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tablespoon of sugar

METHOD:

1. mix the crushed bisuits with the melted butter and divide between little pots or ramekins (just to make a crust, as thin or as thick as you like) and leave to chill in the fridge until set
2. mix the cream cheese with the lemon curd and taste. adjust by either adding a little more lemon curd or sweeten with a little icing sugar
3. divide between the pots or ramekins and chill
4. heat the fresh or frozen raspberries with a little splash of water and the sugar until the fruit just collapses, leave to cool
5. when ready to serve, divide the raspberries between the pots and dive in ;-)

sweet and simple, but just that little bit indulgent, just enough to get one thru these crazy days.

in case i don t get to post before the end of this year, let me wish you a Merry Christmas and may 2012 bring you all you ever wanted, and above all, happy cooking days!

contemplation

last weekend we probably had the last heatwave of this year...

today, we have rain...

and in the meantime, i saw a rainbow. twice!

the dahlias in Vordenstein were in full bloom when we visited. i think they might be my favorite flower.

Kobe

Hot Lips

Night Butterfly

Beertje (Little Bear)

Eveline

Julio

beautiful, don t you agree?

i wonder if they re edible too?

like the crystallized violets i used to make these sea-salt chocolate snaps, inspired by Mr. Nigel Slater.

SEA-SALT CHOCOLATE SNAPS

INGREDIENTS:

200 gr dark chocolate
small handful of almond slivers
a tablespoon of very fine caster sugar
small handful of pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
a few crystallized violets (or crystallized rose petals), lightly crushed
sea-salt flakes

METHOD:

1. melt the chocolate au-bain-marie (don t rush or it will go grainy)
2. while the chocolate is melting, toast the almonds slivers in the oven at about 200°C for about 5 minutes (keep an eye on them, they can burn very quickly), then sprinkle with the sugar and toast for another 3 minutes
3. line a cookie sheet with baking parchment and spoon on circles of the melted chocolate
4. quickly sprinkle with the toasted almonds, the pistachios, and the crystallized flower petals
5. give the snaps a very light sprinkling of sea-salt flakes
6. leave to cool completely before storing in an airtight container

according to Mr. Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, salt (and vinegar too) lifts and enhances already existing flavors, whereas pepper and other spices or herbs actually add another flavor-dimension...

and that is exactly what the sea-salt in these chocolate snaps does, every ingredient seems more outspoken...

lovely.

black cherry and marrons glacés ice-cream

it had to happen.

for the whole duration of my short holiday, it kept raining on and off. not much else to do but go on a cooking spree ofcourse.

we did go to Maastricht in The Netherlands for a day-trip, and there we found a beautiful little ice-cream parlor serving the most incredible flavored ice-creams we had ever tasted.

here s Sam who couldn t wipe the smile off his face with his gelato di fragole e limone.

the next day, i just couldn t help myself. i had to make some of my own ice-cream again. a few years ago, i had received an ice-cream maker for my birthday from Sam s mom. and every summer i had made different flavored ice-creams, pretty classical ones like vanilla and chocolate and mocha, as well as green tea and black sesame flavored ones.

but this time i wanted to make something just a little bit different. i had bought a packet of marrons glacés (candied chestnuts) in Cassel, France, and i also had a few black cherries left in the fridge.

so i chopped up a few marrons. and lightly simmered a few pitted cherries. made a vanilla flavored ice-cream base. mixed and churned. and it turned out beautifully.

BLACK CHERRY AND MARRONS GLACÉS ICE-CREAM:

INGREDIENTS:
(for about 500ml)

FOR THE VANILLA BASE:

125 ml milk, preferably full-fat
tiny pinch of salt
75 gr fine white caster sugar
1 vanilla bean
3 egg-yolks
250 ml cream

TO ADD:
3 or 4 marrons glacés, chopped
10 black cherries, halved and pitted

METHOD:
1. heat the milk, the sugar, the vanilla bean (halved lengthways), the pinch of salt, until the sugar has dissolved.
2. cover and leave to infuse for about an hour.
3. beat the egg-yolks, re-heat the milk slightly and add slowly to the yolks.
4. return to the saucepan, and over a low heat, keep stirring until you get a slightly thick custard.
5. cool and add to the cream.
6. leave to cool completely, preferably overnight in the fridge.
7. meanwhile, heat the cherry halves in a little bit of water and sugar until softened. leave to cool.
8. strain the custard through a fine-mesh sieve and pour into your ice-cream maker and churn according to machine instructions.
9. halfway through churning, add the chopped marrons and the cherries.
10. churn until ready, put into a plastic container, cover and freeze completely.
11. to serve, take the ice-cream out of the freezer and let it soften slightly so it can be easily scooped.

should you not have an ice-cream maker, pour the mixture into a plastic container and freeze. every two hours, beat the mixture and also add the marrons and cherries halfway through. then mix again until completely frozen.

again, a little bit different, but nice anyway.

ladies nite

every few months or so, three of my friends and i get together to share news, gossip, laughter, pain... and food. we ve known each other since our children were in kindergarten. but i hadn t seen them for a while until about two years ago, and we decided to meet up again more often.

usually we d go to a restaurant, but last night i cooked us a dinner, since one of us had had another baby, and it was just easier and more relaxed this way.

it would have been easy to opt for a pasta, but i just felt i needed a lot of veggies, prepared different ways. recently i d seen a few recipes that just clicked for me: James Martin s grilled scampi with a coriander marinade, Jamie Oliver s courgette salad with bocconcini (mini-mozarella to you & me), Gordon Ramsay s chocolate fondants (or moelleux, as they often say here).

as a starter, i went easy and just flamed a few different colored paprikas until blackened, then rubbed the skin away and was left with softly smoked strips of pepper. these i dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and some chopped chili and basil leaves.

another starter was a charentais and a honeydew melon, just cut into chunks and served with prosciutto, sprinkled with lime zest and some lime juice.

had to adjust the recipe for the scampi, one of us is not really into coriander, but hey, tastes differ and that s the fun part. so i opted for a marinade of lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, grated garlic, grated onion and parsley. just combined these and tasted for extra seasoning, then marinated the little creatures with their heads still on for about 4 hours. the scampi were then griddled and brushed with some chili jam that my mother-in-law had made (which reminds me, i still have to get that recipe from her).

to go with the scampi i thought the green of Jamie s courgette salad (from his book 30-minute meals) with the little soft balls of mozarella would work perfectly.

and for dessert, i just had to try and make this, a chocolate fondant or moelleux! never made it before, and i d seen it fail so many times on different cookery programs, so i was very apprehensive. but my girlfriends, bless them, they would have gone for anything as long as it was something with chocolate ;-)

phew, they came out perfectly... and i really have to thank Gordon Ramsay for his recipe.
i just halved the ingredients and that was just right for four ramekins. all i needed to do was to add some warmed raspberries and a little whipped cream.

once in a while, it s good to get together... and share...

a new name

just as spring has been showing us more and more signs of new life, so i have decided that i might re-name this blog. it came to me quite suddenly that i needed a change, and what better two words to use in this cookery blog than the two ingredients that have influenced my tastebuds and evoke so many memories of my childhood: chervil and miso.

chervil; because my Belgian grandmother would cook the most delicate yet flavorsome soup with it, and so, incidentally, does my mom-in-law. yet only now do i realize that not so many people are that familiar with it, so i ll be posting that recipe very soon.

miso; because my Japanese grandmother would make us this miso-soup on special occasions, especially at New Year, with roasted o-mochi (rice-cakes) and this was called o-zoni (i believe in the Kansai area where we grew up, the New Year o-zoni was often made with miso, but in the Kanto area more to the north, it would be made with suimono, which is more of a clear dashi-broth... must look that one up). i can t remember quite why, but my grandparents always enjoyed a western-style breakfast: thick toast with butter, jam, a boiled egg and black tea, so having a Japanese style breakfast like the o-zoni was certainly a treat.

so, chervil & miso, two taste sensations among many, but very important to me.

this weekend, i tried my hand at making some mousses and jellies. must admit, it didn t quite work as i expected, so will be tweaking.

here s my attempt at making a milk matcha (green tea) jelly:

INGREDIENTS:

300 ml milk
300 ml water
100 ml cream
5 tbsps sweetened matcha powder, or the same amount of normal matcha powder
and sugar to taste, but don t make it too sweet (i would suggest max 3 tbsps)
2 gelatin leaves (total 6gr)

METHOD:

1. soak the gelatin leaves in cold water until softened
2. heat the milk, water and cream to boiling point
3. add the matcha powder (and sugar, if using) and mix well
4. squeeze the water out of the softened gelatin, and add to the warm milk matcha mixture, stir until completely dissolved
5. leave to cool a little before pouring into ramekins or any kind of pretty little cups
6. cover with clingfilm (which i forgot to do, result: wrinkly skin) and refrigerate until set

i served this with a little rose-syrup which i thought went pretty well with the slight bitterness of the green tea.

not quite perfect, but getting there... next up, as promised, chervil soup to celebrate spring and the re-naming of this blog.

post 11/03/11

what a nightmarish, difficult weekend this has been.

woke up on friday and opened my fb account as i usually do, and saw that there had just been an earthquake (then not quite certain how big it had been) and a huge tsunami (actually quite a few) in the north-east of Japan. i was devastated, and have been quasi stuck to my pc and the radio, watching live news streaming from Japan, as well as updates on fb, twitter and the bbc.

immediately, i wanted to get through to my brother and my sis-in-law, who live in Nagoya, about 480 km from Sendai, and my family in Kobe, but landlines as well as mobile lines were down. fortunately the internet was still alive, and i received e-mails that they were ok. they had felt it in Nagoya, but Kobe was spared. which was fortunate, because i was thrown back 16 years to when i heard the news about the Great Hanshin earthquake, and how impotent and useless i felt at the time. then, my grandfather lost his house, where both my brother and i grew up, and so many people lost their lives.

just this morning i spoke to my aunt, and she also said that the memories of that time were coming back. the scenes being sent out on tv and especially of the tsunami and its aftermath are so horrible.

ofcourse, this is a terrible disaster, but there have so many these past few years, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean, where 230000 people lost their lives, the Haiti earthquake, the Chili earthquake, and closer to home, in Italy as well, then Christchurch in New Zealand, in China, all over the world there is constant movement of the earth.

why, then, is this one so special to me... naturally, Japan is my motherland, and is close to my heart. whenever i hear of some disaster in the rest of the world, i try to make a donation, usually via Médecins sans Frontières.

it is frightening that we as humans constantly fighting amongst ourselves, still have not learned from our mistakes, and we probably never will... history just tells us so.

but at this time, seeing how people are rallying to help when there is a natural disaster, there is also this wonderment at our sense for survival and instinct for helping each other out.

i realize i cannot do much from the other side of the world, but i must do something, i don t want to feel useless. so i am baking minicupcakes to sell, and the money will be donated to MSF.

for the rest, i am trying to send out positive thoughts, and meanwhile i also thank all my friends and family here in Belgium and around the world for their kind words of support.

here s the recipe:

MINI CHOCOLATE BEETROOT CUPCAKES (about 114 pieces)

INGREDIENTS:

250 gr cooked and peeled beetroot (i use a vacu-pack)
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons buttermilk
200 gr dark muscovado sugar
200 ml rapeseed or sunflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200 gr selfraising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 gr pure cocoa powder
1 pinch of salt
100 gr pure chocolate chips

METHOD:

1. preheat the oven to 175°C
2. prepare a few mini-muffin tins by lining them with cupcake papers
3. in a blender, puree the beetroot
4. add the eggs, one by one, and blend
5. add the oil, vanilla extract and the sugar, blend well
6. sift the flour with the baking powder, salt and cocoa powder into a large bowl
7. add the blended beetroot mixture and mix well
8. add the chocolate chips
9. spoon the mixture (i used 1 heaped teaspoon per cupcake) into the paper cups, and bake for about 15 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean

がんばれ 日本

fudgie pecan brownies

OMG! has it been since mid-october that i wrote a post? i am constantly amazed at how quickly time flies, i must have said this so many times already but it s the truth. and the older i get...

anyway, i have finally been able to purchase an SLR camera, the CANON EOS 1000D, a basic one, i m not a real photographer, so this model was ideal to start with. my little compact PENTAX E60 worked a treat, but i just like looking thru the lens instead of at an LCD screen.

so, i ve been practicing and will be posting some new pics soon, as well as recipes, of course, but i had a friend on FB who asked me to post the recipe for my favorite brownies, so here goes:

FUDGIE PECAN BROWNIES:

INGREDIENTS:

125 gr dark chocolate (i use Callebaut dessert chocolate), roughly chopped
125 gr unsalted butter, in cubes
160 gr dark brown sugar (it s just more treacly)
2 whole eggs
the seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (please don t use vanilla essence - it s just a vanilla-flavored alcohol)
75 gr plain flour
pinch of salt
150 gr pecan-nuts, roughly chopped
50 gr dark chocolate, roughly chopped

square baking tin: approx 20x20 cm

METHOD:

1. preheat the oven to 175-180°C
2. grease the baking tin with some butter
3. melt the chocolate and the butter au-bain-marie, until everything has melted evenly and leave to cool a little
4. beat the egss and the vanilla seeds
5. sift the flour and the salt
6. beat the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture, then mix in the flour, the nuts and the chocolate pieces
7. pour into the baking tin and bake for about 20 minutes, the sides will release a little from the tin, but the middle should just be cooked and still a little wobbly
8. leave to cool completely in the tin before cutting into squares

ofcourse, you can leave out the nuts, up the chocolate pieces, or use different kinds of nuts... i like macadamias too

beware, these are very rich brownies, but i think a lot better than those made with cocoa powder, one goes a long long way.

OH, and it s still not too late to wish everybody a HAPPY NEW YEAR, is it? good health and good cooking!

macha dango

sometimes i get homesick and then i want something so authentically Japanese, but it s not sushi, or sashimi or sukiyaki or teppanyaki...

but a tiny little sweet savory dumpling named o-dango...

well, i found the best ever recipe on YouTube - Cooking with Dog
and i thought i might add some sweetened macha powder to make my dango

INGREDIENTS:

for the macha dumplings

equal quantities of glutinous rice flour and silken tofu (i used 125 grams of each)
a good tablespoon of sweetened macha powder
water

for the soy dumplings

equal quantities of glutinous rice flour and silken tofu
water
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)
1 tablespoon of sugar

METHOD:

mix the rice flour and the tofu (and the macha powder if you re making them too) and knead until you get a nice reasonably firm dough
if the dough is still too dry add a little water, but not too much, you ll know what i mean
divide the dough into little dumplings and boil for about 3 to 4 minutes
cool in icecold water
skewer between 3 and 5 dumplings on a bamboo stick
i brushed the macha dango some more sweetened macha powder mixed with a tiny bit of water
for the sweet soy sauce to put on the white dumplings, simply boil the soy sauce, mirin and sugar together until it thickens a bit and turn the dango in this syrupy mixture

hmmm! おいしい (oishii)! delicious... this always takes me back to my childhood... savory sweet and sticky