Taste of the Old Country

Some notes on my Japanese biscotti making experience...

Family loved them. Biscotti appealed more to the family than the chocolate chip cookies or pumpkin pie that was made in the past. Explanation was that they were not sweet, or very sweet. Still don't understand the way Japanese people measure sweetness. There is plenty of cake out their that they pay crazy prices for and the japanese sweets are the sweetest things on earth. As far as cookies go, sweet is bad.

Tasting notes. I did a few things differently because I was not in my kitchen. First, I used almond extract because there is no anise in Japan and I thought almond would go better with Japanese people. Not the original taste, definitely more suited for tea or milk than coffee or red wine.

Second, the walnuts in the house were store-bought chopped. Not hand-chopped. Size of the walnuts were smaller overall than my typical preparation. I think they tasted better this way. The oils from the walnuts were better able to get into the cookie. But I also like enormous pieces of nuts in my biscotti. Solution: Use whole or halved nuts plus some pulverized dust in a food processor. Note the size of the pieces as well as texture of the crumb. Light, uniform (see item 4 below after reading item 3)

Third, I had no access to a broiler and instead of using the Grandpa method of 1 minute toasting under the broiler, both sides I did 20 mins in a 300 degree oven after cutting and standing the biscotti up. Much easier, less burns on hands and cookies. Don't know how much this affected the 4th and most important tasting note...

Fluffy? Light? Flaky? Where did this come from? Biscotti are typically pretty tough customers. They are hard, and supposed to be hard. Not rock solid, but a heavy hitting cookie. These were the lightest biscotti I ever ate. Light on the tounge and in the hand. As they were baking, they puffed up more than I have ever seen. Wish I had taken a picture because I was thinking there was no way I was cutting these buggers without them breaking at this height. They looked like bread loaves in the oven. I have to say, these have to be the best I've made. And I'm in Japan. When I go back to the states, I'll have try again. Using a combination of Grandpa toasting style and the conventional. Possible causes of the delightful lightness

FRESH BAKING POWDER. This is obvious but maybe not the entire explaination. I bought baking powder and used it. Was not sitting around and not past expiration.

Usage of shortening rather than butter. Grandpa's recpie has both ways but have only used butter up till today. I don't know enough about baking science to make a call on this one but according to Ochef.com, shortening's higher melting point allows flour and eggs to set and you get less spread and more fluff to your cookie. But this is in the context of chocolate chip cookies, not biscotti, which are formed into loaves, not dropped on a pan, hence spread should not be much of an issue. There is only expansion. Another difference is shortening does not impart a creamy texture, but biscotti are not creamy so on that account, butter is the loser, I should continue with shortening for any non-spreading effect it has.

Final bake at 20 mins in 300 degree oven. This is a wild guess, but maybe the remaining water was able to evaporate in a more orderly fashion this way instead of the Grandpa broil method, leaving a more uniformly dried cookie.

Recipe:
3.5 cups flour plus more for dusting
1/2 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 (depending on taste) TBSP extract
3 tsp baking powder FRESH
1 cup stuff you want in the biscotti (nuts/fruit)

Whip shortening and sugar until creamy. Add eggs 1 by 1 and continue mixing. Add extract. In separate bowl sift flour, baking powder, salt. Form well and add wet into dry. Add nuts and/or fruit Mix to a workable dough. May need to add more flour.
Flour a cutting board and hands, preheat oven to 350. Grease pan or use parchment paper (my new love) Form dough into 3 or 4 loaves of uniform thickness. Bake 25 mins until outside is golden brown.
Remove from oven and cut into desired length, slightly on diagonal is nice. Stand biscotti on baking tray at least 1cm apart. (using metric now in Japan). Bake for 20 more minutes at 300 degrees. Remove, let cool, store outside of fridge in metal tin.

五色納豆そば (Five flavored Natto Soba)

Natto and Soba are pretty common together. I've seen recipes online written for a neba-neba creation with natto, okra, and an egg yolk. Mostly written by people longing for a taste of Japan. Until now, never saw such a creation in a soba restaurant but there was one under my feet everyday at Sangenjaya station...my first and last subway stop everyday. It was an excellent soba-ya at that, offering handcut noodles and fresh wasabi. Not the powdered or artificial stuff. They had various soba dishes both hot and cold, including some of my winter favorites...soba served along side a hot broth of tempura a shrimp, chicken, or duck. Soba is too good immerse completely in hot soup and this strikes a good balance between delicious cold soba and a warm soup for winter. But enough of that...I'll be back at this restaurant since I pass it so often. So on to my neba-neba.


So here it is. 5 flavor (but really was 6) natto soba. It was all about cool, slippery, slimy foods that are often eaten in the summer to stay cool. Starting from 11 o clock: mushrooms. Probably honshimeshi. Most disappointing part of the dish. Seems like they were either boiled and steamed beyond flavor retention. It was cool having mushrooms because they are delicious, but they really weren't needed. Peeking out at around 12:15 is okra, sliced. Japanese use it in a lot of things here and it is one of the well known neba-neba foods. There was just enough to be noticable, but not overwealming. Usually its not one of my favorite vegetables but it was there for the theme.On to the good parts. Located at center and 6 is a soft-boiled egg and grated nagaimo (tororo). Yolk was not raw, slightly thickened. Japanese sure can do eggs well. They know how to change the time and temperature to get the yolk and white proteins to react in the correct way for different textures and flavors. Nagaimo is a potato that when grated, produces a cool, white, slime. This may be tough to get in the states...both the potato and proper grater. Flavor pretty neutral, slightly earthy. Close ups of both below.

Ah..natto, and a beautiful little okra in the corner. Well, natto is natto, king of neba-neba. I tasted each bit seperately than mixed together. Easier said than done because every ingredient was sticky and the soba was pretty long. The mixture was not homogenous by any means. So I got many different ratios of flavors as I was eating. The tororo sort of globbed with the shredded nori which wasn't cool but I think unavoidable. This is not a pretty dish at all. Natto was hardest to eat because it didnt stick to the soba too well as I picked it up and dipped it in the tsuyu that was provided in the style of cold soba. What set the restaurant apart in my mind was the quality of hte tsuyu and the wasabi provided with the soba. Tsuyu was complex, not to sweet or salty. What came out was smoky. Lots of dashi and katsuobushi were used. Fresh wasabi does not kill you like the powdered stuff does and is not a very bright green. The color was what first led me to think it was fresh instead of powedered. It's spicy and tastes like wasabi, but doesnt leave you dying. After the lunch, I got a pot of soba yu or hot soba water to mix with the remainder of the tsuyu and any neba neba items that dropped in the pot. Didn't need all that much because the tsuyu itself was not overpowering.
All mixed together
When you put some of my favorite Japanese things together, soba, egg, natto, tororo together in one dish it has to be good. This is a must do at home and I can't wait to see my friends and parents squrim. Soba is such a fun and delicious food...healthy too. Probably hte best carb you can get easily in Japan. It's sweet and early and as long as you dont have it sit warm in soup the texture is amazing. Udon is so so, but I have found some good spots. Ramen...well, everyone likes ramen. But soba is king. Simple, delicious, versatile.

Mar-De Napoli

It took me more than 3 months to get to one, but I finally hit one of the 3 Vera Pizza Napolitana pizzarias in my area. This one was Mar-De Napoli in the Yoga section of Setagaya-ku. It is the 239th certified Vera Pizza Napolitana Pizzaria in the world and the first one that I've gone to...period. Never looked for one in the States and the ones in Italy are all wonderful so don't count.

Website its got a few branches, but this Yoga branch is the cerified one.

Went the the family and two family friends so that made us 8 people which called for a lot of food. By car, took about 10 mins. By train I would guess 15-20. There was more than pizza, but I'm just going to focus on that. Most of the pizza menu consisted of Italian-style pizzas but a few Japanese-style toppings snuck in. Host mother was all over one of them and ordered two unfortunetately. There were some salads and pastas ordered as well. The spaghetti carbonara was excellent, but a little lacking in eggs. They used a different type of bacon that was not pancetta that gave the dish a very smoky, but not a bad flavor.


So now the pizza. This sign was in front of the pizzaria. Rough translation "The main branch of Pizzaria Mar-de Napoli in Setagaya has been chosen as the 239th Vera Pizza Napolitana in the World." Let's see how many more of these seals I can take pictures of before returning to America. Needless to say, I am very excited at this point.
Here's the front of the store. Looks legit to me.....

This is a lunch deal if I've ever seen one. 5 courses in including a pizza course for 1600 yen. Next time I would go for one but I was after pizza and host mother gladly ordered 5 on a bunch of pasta and salad. It really tasted like being back in America as far as the pizza, pasta, and salad went. There were also two gratins that were rice based and japanese influenced. Kind of a cheesy seafood mess baked on rice. Tasted good, but not what I was after.

The oven. Wood buring, lots of capacity. Most pizza I saw in it were two pies (individual size) but could handle more. Love the tile on the outside. I really doubt this beauty was Made in Japan.
While we were waiting for about 20 mins to get a table (Good sign) there was one little Japanese guy occasionally assisted by a woman making pizzas. At bit strange to see a Japanese guy doing this. They had a nice set up. Everything laid out, organized on a marble table. Flour bucket on the side and rack after rack of resting dough. Menu



The technique was incredible. THey had the marble counter to shape the pizzas properly on the table top, but also did a crazy mid-air sideways roll at the end. Incredibly fast, making the roundest pizzas I've ever seen. Now there is no rule against slightly oblong pizzas in Vera Pizza like there is as far as oven temperature and ingredients, but seeing perfect circle after perfect circle was amazing. Take a look at the videos. The crust was very very thin. Also, they left about an inch and a half of uncovered crust on the edges.
It's dark, but you can see the wood and saw dust occasionally added. Yes, sawdust. Little smoky flavor in there.
Fire was a bit low I think. It got the pizzas cooked quick enough, but if you see the firing video, the pizza had to be moved and rotated by hand very close to the fire. You must turn it, but the manhandling was a bit odd and took time away from making new ones. Had the fire been big enough, only one pizziaolo would have been necessary.
Results...odd firing technique aside this is Vera Pizza. Sauce was naturally sweet and definitely san marzano. Flavored simply. Bit of garlic, oregano. Just a bright red sauce. Mozzarella and basil were fresh. Pizza was incredibly light. Second only to Bafetto in Rome as far as lightness. Definitely need a fork to eat this one. Because the crust was so light an floppy. Texture and flavor were excellent. Tasted like yeast, wheat, smoke, a little heavy on salt in the crust. One thing that was out of balance.
Bubbly goodness.
Thin
This one had gorgonzola, smoked mozzarella, spinach, prosciutto sausage. Everything light. Best part of all the pizzas, as it should be, was the crust.

Wa-fuu (japanese style.) Seafood, mozzarella, green onions touch of cream, some odd mayo/fish egg mix on the bottom. My least favorite, host mother ordered two. She loves the mayo stuff. The toppings arent pretty but check out those bubbles. Now thats pretty. Apparentlt VPN does not certify based on what else the pizzaria makes outside of hte 4 standard VPN pizzas.