Kuri Manjū 栗饅頭 (Chestnut buns)

Today's coffee: Spring-colored blend (春色ブレンド)

I have lots of things on my bucket list of stuff I want to do before home assignment. A few of these are cooking projects—making sure I can make from scratch certain foods that I can easily get here but not so easily in the US. (If you come over to my house while we are on home assignment, you will likely benefit from this.) Although it is possible to get wagashi (Japanese sweets) in Seattle, they are expensive and would require a special trip into the city… so I definitely want to be able to make a few simple sweets myself—wagashi are an important part of tea ceremony!

I’ve long admired Mrs. Haga, a church member, for her delicious kuri manjū, so I asked her to teach me to make them. Last Saturday, Noriko and I spent the afternoon at Mrs. Haga’s house, learning to make kuri manjū… and of course, taste testing! I have translated the recipe below.

Kuri Manjū 栗饅頭 (Chestnut buns)

Ingredients, for 15 manjū:

• 50g sugar
• ½ large egg, beaten
• 10g butter, chilled
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 100g flour, sifted
• 240g shiro an (白あん, sweet white bean paste), chilled (I'll try to post a recipe for this soon...)
• 15 sweet stewed chestnuts (栗の甘露煮, kuri no kanroni)
• For the glaze:
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon mirin
• White poppy seeds (けしの実, keshi no mi) (If you can’t find these, normal poppy seeds should work fine; they’ll just look a bit different.)

Instructions:

Remove the chestnuts from the syrup, and remove excess syrup with a paper towel.

These are the store-bought stewed chestnuts.

These are the ones I made.

Divide the shiro an into 15 equal portions, and roll into little balls.

Measuring the shiro an

"Make sure it's chilled. Otherwise it's too sticky."

We actually made 16, so we split the shiro an into four equal balls, which we checked with the kitchen scale. After that, we did our best to divide each ball into 4 equal portions (didn't bother to weigh those.)

Spread out each ball to form a little pancake shape, and set a chestnut in the center. Wrap the shiro an around the chestnut; roll around in your hands until the outside is smooth. Cover in plastic wrap and set aside.

Put the butter and sugar in a bowl; break up the butter with a wooden spoon and work it into the sugar. Add the egg and mix.

Put the bowl over a pot of simmering water (you can use a double-boiler if you have one). Stir continually until the sugar has melted somewhat.

Set the bowl in a larger bowl of cold water and chill it a bit.

Dissolve the baking soda in a bit of water; add to the butter-sugar-egg mix. Add the flour and blend. (It’s probably best not to over-work this dough.) When it’s just blended, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Now it’s tea time! Go take a break.

We were joined by enthusiastic taste-testers, Mrs. Suzuki and Mrs. Aizawa (Mrs. Haga's younger sister and daughter)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

On a lightly-floured work surface, divide the dough into 15 equal portions. Roll each one into a ball; using your flour-covered fingertips, spread them out to little pancakes. You want the center to be thicker than the edges.

Put one of the chestnut-shiro an balls into the center, and wrap with the dough and pinch shut. Round the bun in the palms of your hands; the shape will somewhat depend on the shape of the chestnut, but generally you want to aim for an oval shape. Make sure the shiro an is completely covered.

Arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. Brush with just a tiny bit of the glaze; really, just a little, since you want it only on the top, not the sides. Sprinkle with some white poppy seeds.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Now it’s tea time, again! Kuri manjū are delicious hot, or you can keep them for a couple weeks.

Sweet Stewed Chestnuts (栗の甘露煮)

If you want to make kuri manjū but can’t get stewed chestnuts, make them yourself! (Not at this time of year… they’re in season in fall.) I made them for kuri kinton which is a special New Year’s dish, but had lots left over. They are also an important part of chawan mushi (a savory steamed egg pudding).

Sweet Stewed Chestnuts (栗の甘露煮, kuri no kanroni)

Ingredients

• 500g raw chestnuts in the shell
• 300mL water
• 300g light brown sugar
• 40mL mirin
• 1 tablespoon rum (or more, if you like rum flavor)
• (I’ve seen some recipes call for くちなしの実 kuchinashi no mi, which colors the chestnuts bright yellow, but no worries if you can’t get it. I believe these are gardenia seed pods.)

Instructions

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, pierce the shell of each chestnut on the flat side with the tip of a knife. Add the chestnuts to the boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes.

Drain the chestnuts and let them cool a bit, until you can handle them. The outer shell is pretty easy to remove at this point; the problem is the inner skin, which you also have to peel off. I used the tip and edge of a (dull) knife to scrape it off. Rinse to remove any remaining peel and bits of shell. (The store-bought variety of stewed chestnuts are a lot more evenly shaped and bright yellow color; however, I imagine that a lot of chestnut gets lost when cutting them to that shape.)

Put the water and sugar into a pot over medium heat. Stir until the sugar is melted, then add the mirin, rum, and peeled chestnuts. (If you can get kuchinashi no mi, put one in a bit of cheesecloth or teabag and add that too.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Remove from heat and cool. (Remove the kuchinashi no mi.) Store the chestnuts in the stewing liquid in a glass jar in the refrigerator. They should keep for several months.

In case you were wondering, this is what the kuchinashi no mi looks like.

Date Pudding recipe

Happy Mother's Day! Cooking is one of my favorite ways to honor the legacy that my grandmothers and my mom have given me, so let's celebrate with a recipe.

Last night we had friends over for dinner. We had feijoada and the works and my grandmother's date pudding for dessert. Recently I discovered that I had forgotten about the Costco-sized carton of dates I bought a while ago, and a bag of black beans I had been saving for a special occasion. With 7 weeks left in this house, now is the time to use up all those hoarded "special occasion" foods.

When I discovered the dates in the pantry cupboard, I emailed my mom for recipes, and she sent me a scan of my grandmother's carefully handwritten recipe card. I ended up typing it out to make note of a few changes and clarifications, so why not post it here?


Date Pudding

(This 9x13 pan was too big. I would definitely suggest a smaller size.)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C)

Put in baking pan (around 8 or 9 inches square):

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 ½ cups hot water
• Butter (about 3 tablespoons) cut into small chunks

Stir to melt sugar and butter.

In a bowl, mix:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Make a well in the center and add:

• ½ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix until smooth. Spoon batter into sugar-water-butter mix.

Bake 45 minutes-1 hour, until the pudding is set (shake it a bit, and make sure it doesn’t jiggle).

Here's the original recipe. Note that the amount of sugar has been reduced (by my mom). I reduced it again. It's still very sweet.

In case you are interested, here's pictures of last night's dinner:

With Kyoko and Tsubasa

Feijoada, farofa, Brazilian rice, vinaigrette, greens with garlic

Documenting the daily grind

Today’s coffee: Kenya

Tired. Thank God for coffee.

The pre-home-assignment photography frenzy has started. As we went through 4 years of photos, picking the best ones to turn into photo books and slideshows, we found that there were some important aspects of our lives that had gone un-photographed, simply because they were such ordinary things that we never bothered to take pictures—prayer meetings, language study, time spent informally with friends, places visited on a regular basis.

We hear that this is a normal occurrence: missionaries running around like crazy right before home assignment snapping pictures left and right. I suppose usually I just think of these everyday routines as “not worth taking pictures of”—so I don’t. But these things are also an important part of our work. Not to mention, somehow these routines are comforting in the midst of looming change.

So this week I’m going to give you a glimpse at the usually-not-photographed daily grind sorts of things that we do. There are still lots more photos I need to take…

As I sit here at Tokumitsu and write, Keith is working on a sermon with his Japanese teacher at home. They usually talk for hours about things which may or may not be related to Japanese study.

This is Keith’s study spot—it has been since back when we were in language school. When I got to Shino’s house for rehearsals on Thursday afternoons, Keith sits in the student lounge at JLC (the OMF language school), hangs out with people and studies Japanese. And sometimes he looks out the window when he needs a break.

Then later on Thursday afternoon, we have tea time and prayer meeting for the Sapporo area missionaries. I have been preparing drinks and snacks for tea time each week for the past couple of years.

And the prayer meeting. I think we’ve said this a lot of times, but praying is probably the most important thing we do as missionaries. If I am not praying, I end up trying to do things on my own strength and failing. Prayer acknowledges that this is God’s work, not mine.

"Now get into groups and pray for..."

After prayer meeting is supper. Once every couple of months there is a potluck. I usually bring casseroles.

 

We sit around a bunch of big tables. These days there are lots of people!

On other weeks, we sometimes go out with friends. “We need to take photos” became our excuse last night to go to our favorite soup curry restaurant.

Everyone loves the mushroom soup curry!

We got the owner to take a couple group pictures, and I switched with him for the last picture--he's next to Keith.

Well, most of that is what takes place on Thursdays. I still need to photograph church prayer meetings, small groups, the worship service… lots to do! The photography frenzy continues.

Tea and Sakura

Today’s coffee: 春色ブレンド (Spring-colored blend)

Hooray, we made it in time to Hakodate for cherry blossoms! And we got to spend our day off last Monday enjoying Sapporo cherry blossoms! All this with perfect picnic weather and friends to enjoy the flowers with us. I think this makes up for missing hanami (flower viewing) season two years in a row.

Picnic with Takahashi's at Moerenuma park

There has also been lots of tea this week—Wednesday was a holiday, so our tea ceremony teacher’s students gathered and held an お茶会 (ochakai—tea gathering). Keith, Noriko and I each had a chance to do the host’s role and the assistant’s role. I’m now fairly comfortable with the basics of the host’s role and the guest’s role, but I’m still a little fuzzy on the assistant role. I’ll need to practice some more. We also had hanami picnic tea with friends both Monday and Thursday. Yay, picnic!

The ochakai last week was the first of many goodbye gatherings for us. (And so it begins…) Hakodate hanami was on the bucket list of things to do before we go “home” to Seattle. Also while we were in Hakodate, I had the first of the “waking up in the middle of the night because I forgot to do something” moments. I’m sure there will be plenty of those in the next two months… yes, there are only 2 months left of our first term. Yikes. So much to do—both the “have to do” things and the “things I will regret if I don’t get to them.” Do we really have to repeat this once every five years?

I’m thankful that the cherry trees are blooming now at the beginning of this busy time—and I’m especially thankful for the two days we got to spend with friends. And “Golden Week” public holidays next week mean a lighter schedule at church and more time to putter around the house and get things done. I’m thankful that we’re going to start these last two months from a place of rest, having spent some time enjoying the beauty of God’s creation. I think the effects will last a while.

I promised pictures last week, so here are a few favorites. I’ve posted more here, and I’ll probably add others over the next several days.

Historical church in Hakodate

At Matsumae Castle park... with different Takahashi's.

 

Matsumae Castle--the only castle in Hokkaido

We found these fox cubs on a hike up Mt. Hakodate. So cute. Mom, can I keep them?

Cherry trees by the Goryokaku fortress moat

I didn't have any pics of our ochakai, but these flowers were among the decorations.

These flowers too.

The city of Hakodate, from the mountaintop. That's the Pacific ocean on both sides.

Why I Do Tea Ceremony

Today’s coffee: Affogato (espresso poured over vanilla ice cream)

The cherry blossoms came very early this year (pictures forthcoming). I find this rather frustrating: they will probably be gone by next Thursday, when we are scheduled to go on a “hanami” flower-viewing picnic with some friends. So Keith and I will also be doing hanami on Monday. Last year I was flattened with a cold during the entire hanami season, so I’m determined to see some cherry blossoms this year.

This week I had one of those moments that reminded me why I’ve been working so hard at tea ceremony for the last two years… not to mention, why I’m in Japan.

On Tuesday night, I was super tired, but I really didn’t want to give up a rare chance to meet with A, a busy high school student, for Bible study. I had received some advice from a friend: why don’t you share something with her that’s been important to you lately? So I chose Psalm 125, which had been an encouragement in the days following my grandfather’s death. “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.” And for the sake of brevity, as well as introducing a useful spiritual discipline, I decided to do Lectio Divina.

As I gathered resources, I started thinking about ways to calm our hearts to listen to what God is saying through the text. Of course I thought of tea ceremony, which has a calming effect on me, and A seems to like it too. So I gathered up the necessary tools and headed for church.

I explained that I was going to do tea ceremony; A’s eyes sparkled. I invited her to use the time in which I prepared the tea to quiet her heart and give her worries to God. Then I explained briefly the guest’s role: “お点前ちょうだい致します” (otemae choudai itashimasu—thanks for the tea), raise the chawan in a gesture of thanks, turn the chawan clockwise twice, and drink. “Let’s thank God for the tea and ask him to fill us with thankfulness,” I explained.

After we finished our tea, we moved on to Lectio Divina. I can’t say I was really able to explain it well—I was tired—but I think the quietness and peace of the tea ceremony lingered on as we listened together for God’s voice. I don’t know what was going on in A’s heart, but she seemed to gradually relax after her long day at school. I hope that she was able to remember and enjoy the benefits of this precious quiet time free from distractions as she returned to her studies.

This is why I’m studying tea ceremony. This is why I’m in Japan—well, one reason. Please pray with me that the busy, overworked, overtired people around me can find true rest in God.

How to Make Miso

We eat a lot of fermented and pickled foods in Japan. Various pickles, umeboshi, miso, natto, and so on. Of course, with most such foods, you prepare them and then wait a long time until they're ready to eat. Good things come to those who wait. A lot of what we do in our line of work is waiting and praying, so pickles are a good (and tasty, not to mention healthy) reminder to be patient.

I posted a year and a half ago about making lasagna--both my recipe and pictures of a lasagna class I did. I mentioned to some of the ladies at that church that I am interested in pickles of all sorts, which resulted in an invitation to join them in their annual miso-making event. Awesome!

Mrs. Minamie, grinding the soybeans

The following is the result of the notes and pictures I took at the miso-making event. I had to wait a year to see if it turned out to post anything... but I'll just say I will be doing this again. Once you have tasted homemade miso, it's hard to go back to the store-bought kind.

However, big disclaimer: If you are squeamish about mold, don't bother.


How to make miso

Ingredients

• 1 kg (2.2 lb) soy beans
• 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) kome-koji (rice mixed with a fungus that ferments the beans)
• 400 g (14 oz) salt (天塩--amajio if you can get it; it has some minerals which improve the taste, I'm told.)

Instructions

Soak soy beans overnight. Transfer the beans to a large cooking pot with plenty of water; bring to a boil. (Watch out, they get very frothy.) Skim off the foam about 2 times, then cook at a gentle simmer for about an hour. (Cooking time depends on how old your beans are, so test them periodically.) Let stand for another 15 minutes if necessary--you want the beans fully cooked but not falling apart. Drain, reserving some of the cooking liquid in case the miso is too dry.

In a large bowl, break up clumps in the kome-koji between the palms of your hands. Mix in the salt.

This is kome-koji.

Crush the beans with a food processor or meat grinder. Allow the beans to cool until you can handle them. This is important; you don't want to kill the bacteria in the kome-koji! You may find, however, that the beans cool off plenty during grinding.

Combine koji mixture and crushed beans together with your hands. After things are pretty well blended, press and squeeze the mixture, forming fist size balls. Press these firmly into a clean pickling crock or bucket one at a time; make sure no air can get in below the surface.

Wipe around the edge of the crock with a liquor-soaked paper towel. (We use White Liquor, which is 35%. Basically, it's to kill the germs while still being safe if it gets into the miso.)

Press a layer of plastic wrap onto the surface of the miso and sprinkle with salt.

Store in a cool place… for a long time. About a year. You need at least one summer to mature the miso. (We made our miso in February 2014, and it was ready to eat at Christmas time.)

I can't wait... but I'll be waiting a long time!

When you get your miso out of storage, there will probably be mold on top. Do not be (too) alarmed, as long as the mold is only growing on the surface.

Looks pretty freaky, but it's only on the surface.

Carefully scrape off the top layer, wipe any mold off the sides of the crock with a liquor-soaked paper towel, and remove the nice miso below to a clean container; store in the refrigerator. Or, you can leave some of the miso in the crock, topped with plastic wrap and salt, and store it in a cool place to age for another year or so.

See? It looks pretty good... and tastes even better!

Now go try it! Easy! If you live in Seattle, I'm pretty sure you can get all the ingredients at Uwajimaya.

Happy birthday?

Today’s coffee: Mother’s Day Blend (a bit early, but…)

I’m in a bit of a daze. Up until a few months ago, my grandfather was doing pretty well. I thought for sure he would make it until we go “home” to Seattle in July. I thought wrong. 16 years ago today, on the day after my 18th birthday, I lost my paternal grandfather. How ironic that I would lose my maternal grandfather on my 34th birthday.

I’m so disconnected from things on the other side of the pond that I’m not even sure what to think or feel. My family is going through a painful time, and I’m not there. Reverse culture shock aside, I’m kind of scared of the shock of how much has changed in the lives of friends and family when we go on home assignment.

But let me tell you about Granddad. Here’s my favorite picture of him, with my family’s cat, Indiana. Indiana did not want to sit on Grandmother’s lap, even though she desperately wanted him to. Instead, Indiana went to Granddad, who scratched him behind the ears with a smug look on his face. The cat looks pretty smug too. Heh heh heh. I printed out this picture and gave it to Grandmother.

Here’s a scene that could never have happened in Japan. Here you have to have a license to drive a boat. I’m pretty sure I was under-qualified at this age, but Granddad let me try anyway. I also have many happy memories of playing hide and seek on tiny islands and hand-feeding grapes and carrot sticks to deer together. When we came back to the boat, Grandmother, in the midst of dinner preparations, would complain how noisy we had been. “I could hear you halfway across the island!”

They were there for my high school graduation, my college graduation party (not pictured, since my face was mangled from a bike accident), my wedding… and they came all the way to Colorado for one of my recitals in college, although I can’t find a picture of that either. My parents, my brother, my cousins, and I were blessed to have them nearby, eager to help out and support us whenever we needed it.

And of course, we had lots of Christmas and birthday celebrations, too.

I'm not sure how old this picture is. I didn't change much in high school or college, but judging from my brother, I was probably 18 or 19?

Speaking of birthday celebrations, as I was trying to figure out what sort of frosting to put on my birthday cake (I was out of powdered sugar), I found this recipe—handwritten by Grandmother—in the file of recipes I scanned before we came to Japan. This frosting adorned the top of every birthday cake for at least 20 years. I didn’t make it this time (I didn't have corn syrup, and I'm not sure what “soft ball” really means), but my mom promises that we’ll make it together during our home assignment.

Feeling the time crunch

Today's coffee: Rwanda and "spring-colored blend" (春色ブレンド)

My computer is still in the shop, so here I am at Tokumitsu typing with my thumb on my iPod. I was on my way home from an appointment, so I uncharacteristically came by car. On days like this I'm very glad to have a car; it is pouring rain and windy. I saw lots of inside-out umbrellas this morning. (Actually, it's kind of fun to watch as the wind blows across the puddles in the parking lot.)

I'm also glad to be inside drinking coffee!

This week I've been cooking for our friends' two teenage sons. They eat a lot. 2-3 times as much as I eat, in fact. It's a challenge to make enough food for all of us. Thankfully there hasn't been too much else on the schedule, so we've been catching up on lots of projects around the house.

With a bit more time to think about things, it really hit home this week that we only have 3 more months left of our first four-year term in Japan, and really only two months left of ministry. Once we hit June, we will have some vacation time and then packing up and saying our goodbyes. We can't start anything new now. Whatever we haven't been able to do will have to wait until next term.

But I was reminded yesterday, thanks to Keith's message at our weekly OMF prayer meeting, that while we are called to be obedient and diligent in doing the work God has given us, most of what we do is watching, waiting, listening, and praying as God works miracles all around us. This is God's work, not mine. (All the same, we have become quite attached to our church family at Wakaba, so I don't want to say goodbye.)

I guess that's it for this week. I'm clinging to God and trusting him for our next steps.