Cheesecake and Cheesesteak May 2010

Say Cheese!

One thing I really miss about being back on the east coast is the size and portion of the artery-hardening foods there! I went to college in Connecticut, but it was only an hour train ride to downtown Manhattan and all the decadence feast havens! In the city when you ordered a cheesecake; it meant you got a cheesecake-no-if -and-or-buts. And a piece of cheesecake meant a portion thick enough to sit comfortably on the plate served with whipped cream and a sweetened fruit sauce. Unfortunately, since Ive moved to Japan I've had to maneuver my way through endless cake shops in Tokyo, only to find ones which serve what they only imagine to be a cheesecake, but is in actuality merely an inexcusably thin, floppy, wannabe new yorker. I longed for a real New York-style cheesecake...you know, the kind that makes a shearing sounds as you man-handle it with a fork and one with a rich cheesiness seductiveness that would make even Lady Gaga blush with decadence.

There were only a few places that served a decent cheesecake in Japan, but again you were paying through the nose for the prices in comparison to the wimpy portion.

I told my cooking students to get ready for a Cheesy Revelation. Also, to add hurt to injury, I decided to include Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches, which everyone knows is a cheesy concoction of thinly sliced meat, peppers, onions, and cheese galore, saddled between an Italian bread roll all of which would make a horses heart stop.

New York-Style Baked Ricotta Cheesecake

Ingredients
2 pounds ricotta cheese
2/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
6 eggs
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons orange zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Set rack in the middle of the oven. Butter and flour a 9 1/2 inch spring form pan, and tap out excess flour.

2. Place the ricotta in a large mixing bowl, and stir it as smooth as possible with a rubber spatula. Stir the sugar and flour together thoroughly into the ricotta. Stir in the eggs 1 at a time. Blend in the vanilla, cinnamon, orange zest, and salt. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the center of the oven for about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, until a light golden color. Make sure the center is fairly firm, and the point of a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. It will sink slightly as it cools. Cover, and chill till serving time.
Ingredients食材
リコッタチーズ　　　　　　　　900g
グラニュー糖　　　　　　　　　150g
小麦粉　　　　　　　　　　　50g
卵　　　　　　　　　　　　　6個
シナモン (粉末)　　　　　　　小さじ ¼
オレンジゼスト(皮のすり卸し)　小さじ2
バニラエッセンス　　　　　　　小さじ2
塩　　　　　　　　　　　　　ひとつまみ
Directions調理方法
1.
オーブンを150度に予熱しておき、中段にセットする。底抜けタイプの23cmのケーキ型にバターを塗り、小麦粉をまぶす。
2.
大きなボウルにリコッタチーズを入れ、パレットナイフで出来るだけ滑らかにする。 3.
グラニュー糖と小麦粉をチーズに混ぜ合わせたら、卵を1つずつ混ぜ込む。バニラ、シナモン、オレンジゼスト、塩を混ぜ入れ、ケーキ型に流し込む。
4.
型をオーブンの中央に置き、薄いきつね色になるまで1時間15分~1時間30分焼く。ケーキの真ん中がしっかり固まり、竹串を刺してきれいに抜くことができるまで焼く。網の上で冷ます。中心部は冷めるに従い、窪んでくる。ラップをして冷蔵庫で冷やす。

Original Philly Cheese Steak Recipe
Ingredients:12 ounces boneless beef rib eye steak2 tablespoons margarine or butter2 medium onions, thinly sliced and separated into rings1 medium red or green sweet pepper, cut into thin strips4 French rolls or hoagie buns, split4 ounces thinly sliced cheddar cheese
Directions:
Partially freeze beef. Thinly slice beef across the grain into bite size strips. In a 10 inch skillet melt margarine or butter; add onions and pepper. Cover and cook over medium low heat about 10 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove onion pepper mixture from skillet with a slotted spoon. If necessary, add additional margarine to skillet. Add beef; cook and stir over medium high heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until done. To serve, spread rolls open face on a baking sheet. Divide beef and onion pepper mixture among rolls. Top with cheese. Broil 4 to 5 inches from the heat for 1 to 2 minutes or until cheese is melted. Serve immediately. We also made some fresh tomatoe Bruschettes with the extra french bread They complimented the heaviness of the sandwiches well.Thanks to everyone for coming. Let's take a picture together, so say...."Velvetta!"

Udon Noodle Cooking and Wild Edible Plant Tempura

Udon Hand-made Noodle Cooking
Udon noodles are to the Japanese what hamburgers are to the fast food nation. A quick and easy meal can be made with the thick, rich noodles mixed in a thin broth of fish stock and some vegetables. In this case, the noodles were the perfect addition to the tempura-fried wild plants that we had picked while hiking.(see April 25th 2010)

Roots that lie on the Chinese Continent
The noodle - the origin of both udon and somen - is believed to have been imported to Japan from China in the 8th century. Tracing its origins brought us to the middle reaches of the Yellow River in a time before the birth of Christ. The noodle culture that developed here was transmitted to Japan as part of the varied continental culture of China. Thereafter, this food was influenced by local culture and was further developed with the addition of soy sauce and sweet sake.

The oldest historical reference to Sanuki udon is a drawing on a 300-year-old folding screen. Konpira Sairei-zu, ("Festival drawings from the shrine of Konpira, the guardian deity of seafarers") a possession of the oldest shrine Konpiragu, is mounted on a folding screen and depicts in detail the temple town of that time. Three udon-ya restaurants are clearly depicted. At that time, udon-ya restaurants existed in large cities such as Tokyo and Osaka. That the temple town of Konpiragu had udon-ya restaurants during this period reveals that Sanuki enjoyed a developed udon culture from an early period.

Making hand-made noodles is fairly easy but requires some time in allowing the noodles to rest, some elbow-grease when kneading and softening the dough, and some skills when cutting the nooodles.We used a strong wheat flour mixed with salted water.

Teuchi-Udon (Handmade noodles)
Ingredients：(2-3 servings)
250g, Medium -strength flour ( or ready-made noodles flour, or mixture of flour for bread and all purpose flour (1:1))Approx. 120cc water, 1Tbsp or less salt (for salt water), flour for bread, or katakuri-ko( potato-starch)
Directions：
Make salt water : Dissolve 1Tbsp. salt in water.　
Mixing flour with salt water : Add salt water to flour little by little , mix and knead it to become like rough powder using both hands.

The first leaving time : Place the dough into the plastic bag, leave it for 30min.
The second mixing and leaving time :Take it out from the plastic bag. Knead and make it into the circle shape by rubbing.This was best done by taking your shoes off and kneading with your bare feet!Everyone got a 'kick' out of this because they had never done it before. You don't have to be "light on your feet" nor the greatest dancer to enjoy kneading the dough by tip^toeing gently across the dough. The purpose is to remove the air pockets from the first Nekase(resting) and to soften the noodles to a more elastic state.(Nekase #2) Leaving the dough to rise for an 1 hour again.　　　 　
(Nobase) Rolling out the dough: Sprinkle some flour on the board, roll out the dough until it is evenly thinned out to about 3mm thickness.　　

Cutting with knife :Sprinkle lots of flour on it, fold it like a folding screen. Cut from the edge in the 3mm thickness.
Boiling noodles : Boil a generous amount of water in the large pot ( 3-4L water for 250g noodles), pat off extra flour of noodles and cook them for 8-10min.with stirring up slowly.　　　　 NOTES : 　　　For Kamaage-Udon : It's better that the boiling time is shorter than usual.　

After boiling the noodles to the desired texture(usually 4-5 minutes in boiling salted water) Rinse off the excess flour by washing the noodles in water.

We served the noodles in two manners: one way was Zaru, which is just noodles served cold with grated ginger, a lime slice and soy sauce. the other way involved serving the udon noodles with seasoned fish stock and the tempura-fried wild edible plants that we hade picked on the hike.

Tempura Batter Makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
· 1 large egg
· 1 cup ice water
· 1 cup all purpose flour
Preparation:
Beat an egg in a bowl. Add ice water in the bowl. Be sure to use very cold water.

Add sifted flour in the bowl and mix lightly. Be careful not to over mix the batter. Clumps are better.
Wash and rinse all sansai you wish to fry. When the frying oil is at the desired temperature

(test by dropping a few drops of batter in. If the batter sinks the temperature is about 160. If the batter should come up to the surface and float, it’s at 180)

Lightly flour the sansai and add quickly to the oil. Be careful of splashing.
When the tempura floats and becomes solid the tempura should be removed and placed on parchment paper to remove excess oil.

Thank you all for coming. I hope you had a nice outing on the hiking course and gained some knowledge about traditional Sansai cooking in Japan

Wild Plant Hiking Tour Guide

WILD EDIBLE PLANT HUNT
and HIKE

in Kurraki Park in Kamiooka
Meeting at Keikyu Kamiooka Station(Exit 2) East

Getting there..

Municipal subway to Kamiooka and exit the East Exit, walk up the steps to the Keikyu Railway station.
You can take the Yokohama 11:00 From EXIT #2 of Kamiooka Station. As a group we walked northbound along the Keikyu Railways. And made a quick stop at the Lawsons convenience store. Turning right at the Lawsons we walked up some side streets which lead to a larger road and followed it up past a CREATE market. The street winded uphill and passed an Elementary school and a Junior High school.

Walking around the corner of the schools baseball field (across the street from a Mini Storage house) we came out onto a wide street which lead to the entrance of the Noh theater Park.

We turned tight at the signpost and entered the gate of the Noh theater park. The entrance is free.

The Noh Theater Park often has stage productions inside the main theater and sometimes outside in the park gardens.

We continued through the Japanese gardens (the garden had a lot of tasty looking sansai-but you can't pick any of the plants-too bad!) and at the end of the park there was a long wooden staircase that lead to the top of the hill.

At the top of the hill is the exit(The exit closes at 4pm) and the start of the hiking trail.

There were several views atop the hiking train worth showing here.

At the top of one of the more "veggitated hillside" we looked for Wild Edible plants.

.

Wild onions(no bi ru) were abundant in one area so I showed everyone how to identify and pick the wild onions, which has a strong smell but tastes great!




At the base of the hiking course there was a park with a pond.




We spent time there to have lunch and to gather some water-based plants, like 'seri' trevoil and watercress







Getting back... from the South entrance of the park it's only a twenty minute walk back to Kamiooka station if you take a short-cut over the hill and past Maito Elementary school.

There was an interesting cemetery at the top of the hill. Because it had a view of the surrounding mountain side the plots themselves are very expensive. Your eternal resting place needs a view, I guess.Going over the mountain if you get lost, just look for the large KEIKYU dept building sign and it will lead you back to the station.

All in all it was a easy and fun hike had by all!