Making wagashi - 和菓子

Fishy, fishy!

Hello, and sorry for my absence... Life and work has taken too much time lately....

But, look what we did - we made wagashi - Japanese sweets! More precisely we made fish out of apple juice and agar-agar (kanten).

It´s super easy and we will do it again! These fish are perfect for matcha (green tea).

You need:
Good quality apple juice
Sugar
Agar-agar (powder or flakes, we used powder)
Sugar paste (optional)
Plastic or silicone mold

 I mixed 2 dl of apple juice, 60 grams of sugar and 3-4 grams of agar-agar in a kettle, and boiled it for 2-3 minutes. Adjust the sugar according to taste. Ours got a bit sour, but we like that! In the fish mold I made little balls of sugar paste as eyes. You don´t have to! 2 g agar-agar pr. 100 ml liquid gives a quite hard jello. You can use less and still get a good result.

After the mixture cools down a little bit (but not below 40 degrees C), pour into molds. The sugar paste might bleed, but I think it looks nice. The mixture will set when it gets colder, so fill it to the brim!

The fish sets quickly, you can leave the mold on your kitchen top counter or in the fridge. Serve with matcha and a fork/spoon (I´m going to get a real Japanese wooden fork soon).

Fun facts about kanten: Agar is derived from the polysaccharide agarose, which forms the supporting structure in the cell walls of certain species of algae, and which is released on boiling. These algae are known asagarophytes and belong to the Rhodophyta (red algae) phylum. Agar is actually the resulting mixture of two components: the linear polysaccharide agarose, and a heterogeneous mixture of smaller molecules called agaropectin. 

Happy New Year!

I´m sorry for not posting in a while... I´ve had a very buzy autumn. But I still braid, and I was lucky to both have several custom orders for christmas and I also went to a very nice christmas market here in Nesodden.

We celebrated New Year in our usual style... 7 courses + coffee and belgian chocolate. My in-laws took the trip from Holland to celebrate with us. My girl is happy with her child champagne and ketchup!

We made a lot of seafood this year, including these little babies:

You don´t need to go fancy with lobster. I just cut them in half and toast them in the oven with parmesan and herbs.

Serve with salad, bread and spicy mayo. Champagne off-course!

S novim godom - Godt nytt år - Happy New Year! I hope 2014 will be a really good year for all of you.

Preparing for the new year dinner, part 1

New Years Eve is Mr. Linuz´ favorite day of the year. It´s like Christmas to other people, he loves it soo much.
To make him (and me) happy, I always cook a nice dinner. This year it won´t be anything Japanese,
but classic gourmet food.
Look at all the nice stuff we got today! I feel almost embarrassed...
The clams and veal are Norwegian, but we "moderated" ourselves and got Canadian lobster.
We have such great seafood in this country, and I try to eat it as often as I can.

I will show you the results of our efforts tomorrow, but this is the menu:
(Champagne with all courses)

Passion fruit sorbe & champagne
-
Grilled lobster with parmesan & herbes
Pan seared scallops with chorizo and granat seed apple cores
Veal wrapped in pancetta with sweet potato cream, gnocci, chestnuts, salvia sauce and carrots
Comté cheese with cherry jam and crackers
Citrus salad with mint sugar and whipped cream
-
Macarons

My little girl will get the "child menu":

Passion fruit sorbe with strawberry "child champagne"
-
Cod with parmesan crackers
Veal with gnocci and carrots
Comté cheese with crackers
-
Macarons

Welcome 2012!

A new toy....

Today, I was so lucky, lucky, lucky...... because my new kitchen machine arrived.

Yes, my dear dad got me a Kitchen Aid! I can´t wait to put it to use... today I just cleaned it and looked at it. :)

My first test will be to make matcha ice cream I think, so stay tuned!

I went for a black one to match the coffee machine!

I also got some lovely flowers from Mr. Linuz: Isn´t he the best?

Yes, it was my birthday - I don´t get these things every day....