Lou’s Cinnamon Rolls

Lou and I became friends through our respective Japanese blogs. We have never met, but we have been keeping up our friendship for 3 – 4 years and now we are more than just “blog friends”.

Lou is a Japanese housewife with two lovely kids. She is extremely good at baking different breads. Her bread recipes vary from soft loaves to sweet rolls.

Lou often introduces her masterpieces in her blog. One day, she wrote an article about the cinnamon rolls that she baked that day and showed the picture of these yummy rolls to her blog readers. They looked so delicious and I immediately fell in love with them! So, I asked her for the recipe.

The recipe I am going to introduce to you today is a modification of Lou’s Cinnamon Rolls. I changed the flour from 100% bread flour to all-purpose flour, the liquid from only milk to a mixture of milk and eggs, the filling from just cinnamon sugar with raisins, to cinnamon butter cream with rum, raisins and walnuts, and finally coated them with some vanilla icing.

I know you can buy ready-made cinnamon roll dough at any supermarkets, but just once, spare a couple of hours and make it from the dough following Lou’s recipe. You will never buy the ready-made dough again, as these are super delicious cinnamon rolls!


Ingredients for 32 rolls
(Dough)
1 1/3 lb all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/4 tablespoons butter
4 1/4 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 large eggs, beaten
Milk, add to the beaten eggs and make it to 14 oz (1 3/4 cups)
2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

(Fillings)
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, soften
1 1/4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
6 oz raisins
4 tablespoon rum
5 oz walnuts, chopped

(Glaze)
1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon milk for glazing

(Vanilla Icing)
4 oz icing sugar
few drops of vanilla essence or oil
1 1/2 – 2 tablespoonsof milk to make your preferred thickness of icing

Instructions
Put the dough ingredients into the pan following the directions for your bread maker. Select the dough course.

Prepare the filling. In a small mixing bowl, place the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon powder and mix well. In a microwavable cup, place the raisins and pour in the rum, then cook them in the microwave for 1 minute. Leave to cool completely.

When the dough course finishes, remove the pan from the machine and turn the dough out to a lightly floured surface. Push down the dough gently, then divide it into 4 balls. Cover with a damp cloth or with lightly greased cling film and let them rest for 15 minutes.

Push down the ball gently again, then with a rolling pin roll it out to a 8”x 10” rectangular shape. Spread 1/4 of the butter mixture onto the dough and scatter 1/4 of raisins then 1/4 of the walnuts. Starting from the long edge, roll up the dough tightly into a cylinder. You may need to stretch and shape the roll to make it even.

Cut the rolled-up dough into 8 equal slices. Place them, cut sides up, on a lined or greased cookie sheet. Cover with a damp cloth or with lightly greased cling film. Repeat for the rest of balls and let them rise for about 40 minutes.

Brush the dough lightly with the egg mixture and bake for 20 - 25 minutes in a preheated oven at 350F.

When the rolls have been baked, transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make the vanilla icing, mix together the sugar, vanilla oil and 1 tablespoon of milk. Add more milk (1 teaspoon each time) to make it your preferred thickness of icing. Drizzle over the cooled cinnamon rolls.


If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!

Marmalade Chicken

Following my pan-fried YAKITORI recipe, I am introducing another easy way to cook TERIYAKI style chicken.

Cooking chicken in a mixture of marmalade and soy sauce - that might sound disgusting to you, but, trust me!  It works very well and marmalade chicken is just so delicious!


Ingredients
1/2 cup soy sauce
5oz plus 1 tablespoon marmalade
2 tablespoons rice wine (SAKE)
2 lb chicken wings, drumsticks, or a mix

Instructions
In a very big pan, mix well the soy sauce, marmalade and rice wine until combined.

Place the chicken in the pan as single layer.

Bring to boil over medium heat. When it starts to boil, lower the heat. Place a lid on the pan and braise for 40 minutes. Turn the chicken 3 - 4 times during the cooking process.


If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!

Cornish Pasties

The Cornish pasty is a very traditional English pastry dish – coming from Cornwall in Western England.

Historically they were prepared as a lunch for workers in Cornwall’s tin mines.  The edges of pasties in those days were made much thicker to be used as a “handle” so that the mine workers could hold the pasty with their dirty fingers, eating the pasty and throwing away the edge of the crust.

Traditional recipes suggest to wrap uncooked meat and vegetables in the pastry - cooking everything at one time.  I cook the filling first to allow its taste to be more intense.

Serve with a green salad for dinner, or enjoy by themselves as a snack.

Ingredients for 6 pasties

(Pastry)

10oz all-purpose flour + extra for dusting
1 teaspoon mustard powder

pinch of salt

5oz chilled butter, cubed

(Filling)

8 to 10oz steak beef, remove extra fat and finely chopped (do not mince!)

salad or olive oil to cook

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

medium potato, skinned, chopped into small cubes, washed and drained

1 teaspoon English mustard powder

1 teaspoon hot horseradish

1 round tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 beef (stock) cube, combined with 1/4 cup hot water

salt and black pepper to taste

MSG to taste, optional

1 heaped tablespoon chopped parsley

1 egg beaten with a pinch of salt to glaze

Instructions

Sift the flour, mustard powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.  With your fingertips or using a pastry blender, rub the butter into the flour lightly until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the water (1 tbs at a time) into the flour mixture and mix the pastry until it becomes smooth.  Wrap the pastry in aluminium foil and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

In the meantime, heat a non-stick frying pan and cook the chopped steak until any excess water come out of the beef (2 to 3 minutes).  Drain the water and remove the beef from the frying pan. Set the beef aside.

Wipe down the frying pan and re-heat with a little oil.  Fry the onion for 2 to 3 minutes, then add the garlic and cook further 1 minute (this is just to soften the onion, you don’t want to brown it).  Add the potato and cook for 2 to 3 more minutes.

Return the cooked beef into the frying pan.  Add the mustard and horseradish and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more.

Add the flour into the frying pan and stir well to ensure the filling is covered evenly with the flour.  Add the beef stock mixture and the parsley.  Stir until the filling thickens slightly.  Remove from the heat and spread on a wide plate to cool it completely.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to about 1/6” thickness.  Using a round cereal bowl (about 6 inch diameter) cut out the pastry to six round wrappers.

Spoon 1/6 of filling into the centre of each round wrapper.  Moisten the edge of the wrapper with a little egg.  Fold over and pinch the edges to make a frill.  Repeat for the rest.

Glaze the pasties with the beaten egg and cook in the preheated oven (at 350F) for 25 to 30 minutes or until they become golden brown.

 

Mini Cornish Pasties are everyone's favourite at party.

 

British enjoy Cornish Pasties with HP brown sauce.

If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!

Boeuf Bourguignon

Boeuf Bourguignon – what an elegant name for a dish!

I have an inferiority complex when it comes to the French language, because although I learnt French when I was young, now I cannot even count from 1 to 10 in French!  That is a real embarrassment, you know?

Thus, I always adore people who are fluent in French as a foreign language and anything has a French name.  Boeuf Bourguignon, uu…m OSHARE! (OSHARE means elegant in Japanese.)

In this blog, I will introduce 2 different recipes.  One is a traditional French Boeuf Bourguignon and another is a British modification by adding dumplings.  Perhaps, I should call the British version of Boeuf Bourguignon as Beef Burgundy?

Ingredients for 4 people

(Bouquet Garni)

2 - 3 sprigs of parsley

2 - 3 springs of thyme

1 stalk of celery (about 6” length)

1 large bay leaf (use 2 leaves if small)

(Main Ingredients)

2.5 - 3 lb stewing beef

4 oz pancetta, cut into 1/5” cubes

olive oil if necessary

12 - 16 pickling onions (depending on the size)

2 cloves garlic, sliced

2 rounded tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups red wine (to be truly accurate, it should of course be from Burgundy!)

1 1/4 cups beef stock

12 - 16 brown mushrooms (depending on the size)

salt and freshly milled black pepper to taste

AJINOMOTO (MSG) to taste (optional)

(Dumplings for the British version of Burgundy Beef)

5 oz all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 oz chilled butter, cubed

1 egg + 1 tablespoon milk, lightly beaten together
2 tablesspoons chopped parsley

Instructions

To make a bouquet garni, put the parsley and thyme into the celery’s hollow and cover with the bay leaf (or leaves), then tie them together twice with string.

If the beef has lots of fat and tendons, prepare 3 lb, otherwise 2.5 lb.  Carefully remove all excess fat and tendons from the beef and cut into 1” to 2” cubes.  After the trimming, you will have roughly just over 2lb beef.

Heat a non-stick (Teflon) frying pan and brown the beef without oil (or with a little amount of oil if the beef is lean), until the beef is browned all over and any excess water has come out of the beef (4 - 5 minutes).

Remove the beef from the frying pan and place on kitchen paper to drain.  Discard the “mysterious” water!

In a sauté pan, heat a little amount of olive oil and cook the pancetta for 3 - 4 minutes.  (I usually cook the pancetta without oil as it is normally quite fatty.)  With a slotted spoon, remove the pancetta and drain on kitchen paper.

In the same sauté pan, cook the onion for 2 - 3 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.  Return the beef and pancetta into the sauté pan and add the flour.  Mix well to coat the meat and vegetables thoroughly with the flour.

Add the wine and beef stock into the sauté pan, stir well and bring to the boil.

Place the bouquet garni on the top of meat and vegetables, reduce the heat, cover and simmer  for 90 minutes.

Taste and season with salt, black pepper and AJINOMOTO (if using), then add the mushrooms, cover and cook for the last 30 minutes.

For the British version - Beef Burgundy

To make the dumplings, sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.  Add the butter then with your fingertips or using a pastry blender, rub the butter into the flour lightly until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg mixture and parsley into the bowl and mix well until it becomes a smooth dough.

Divide the dough into 8 balls and place them on top of the stew (well apart from each other as they rise) when the mushrooms are cooked.  Cover and cook for a further 30 minutes.

NOTE: Both the French traditional version and British modified versions are delicious, but I highly recommend the British version when a day is very chilly and you want to warm yourself from the inside out!  The dumplings make your body warm.  They are indispensable for British winter casserole dishes!

If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!

Egg Mayo Cornets

I heard that making cream horns with bread dough rather than pastry was a Japanese invention.

We call those sweet rolls “Choco Cornet”, as they are usually filled with chocolate custard cream (occasionally you can see plain custard version, too).

Anyway… I recently found and then bought horn forms from Amazon. When they arrived, I tried to make Japanese style cornet rolls right away!

Choco Cornets are so cute and so sweet, and very popular sweet rolls in Japan. However, neither my husband nor I am a big sweet fan, and so I, instead of filling the horns with chocolate custard cream, filled with one of his favourite sandwich fillings – Egg Mayo.

It worked very well and so so so… delicious that he could not stop eating!

Ingredients for 12 cornets

(Dough)

10 6/10oz all-purpose flour + extra for dusting

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1 egg

5/8 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoon bread machine yeast

(Other)

1 egg york + 1 tablespoon milk for glazing

Some egg mayonnaise filling in your style

Instructions

Put the dough ingredients into the pan following the directions for your bread maker. Select the dough course.

When the dough course finishes, remove the pan from the machine and turn the dough out to a lightly floured surface. Push down the dough gently, then divide it into 12 balls. Cover with a damp cloth or with lightly greased cling film and let them rest for 15 minutes.

Push down the ball gently again, then with your palms roll it into 11” sausage shape which should be a little thicker than a pencil. Wrap the dough around a horn form beginning from the pointed end. Place the horn, seam side down, on a greased or lined baking tray. Repeat for the rest of the balls.

Cover the horns with a damp cloth or greased cling film and let them rise for 30 – 40 minutes until almost double the size.

Brush the dough lightly with the egg mixture and bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven at 350F.

When the cornets have been baked, remove the horn forms immediately and then leave them to cool on a wire rack completely before filling with the egg mayonnaise.

NOTE: To fill 6 cornets, I made the egg mayonnaise using 5 boiled eggs, some mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon English mustard and salt & pepper to taste. Those that are garnished with chopped parsley are filled with the standard egg mayo and others sprinkled with paprika are filled with egg bacon mayonnaise.


If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!

Spaghetti Neapolitan (Japanese Style Ketchup Spaghetti)

My husband has a sort of prejudice against this dish.  He totally and utterly dislikes this dish without having even tried it once.

The reason why he is against this dish is “Ketchup”.  It seems that he cannot believe that sweet sauce turns into a very tasty pasta sauce.

He is British and in Britain there is a sauce called HP sauce which is more vinegary and hotter than the taste of ketchup.  HP sauce is more popular than ketchup over there.  Perhaps, the British classify HP sauce for adults and ketchup for kids and he may feel embarrassed about eating kiddies’ flavoured food!?

Although the taste of this dish is unlike the classic Italian flavour, trust me, it is very tasty and one of the most popular Japanese-Western dishes that we invented after the 2nd World War.

Ingredients for 2 people

7 oz spaghetti

2 rashers of Canadian naturally smoked bacon, cut into small pieces

2 oz thin sliced beef, cut into thin strips

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 medium sized cluster of oyster mushrooms, torn from the cluster

2 tablespoons chopped parsley plus some for garnish

salt and black pepper to taste

AJINOMOTO (MSG) to taste (optional)

2 tablespoons white wine

(Neapolitan Sauce)

2/5 cup Heinz organic ketchup

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon mustard powder (Colmans English Mustard powder is best)

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

(Other)

dash of Tabasco

Instructions
Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of boiling salted water until just tender (al dente). Drain well.

To make the Neapolitan sauce, add all the ingredients in a cup and mix well until the mustard powder and the onion powder are incorporated with the mixture.

Heat a large frying pan and fry the bacon without oil.  When enough fat starts to come out of the bacon, add the beef and fry for further 1 – 2 minutes until the beef is just cooked.  With a slotted spoon, remove the bacon and beef from the frying pan and drain on kitchen papers.

Heat the butter in the same frying pan and cook the onion for 3 – 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for further 1 minute.

Add the mushrooms and the 2 tablespoons of parsley.  Return the bacon and beef and cook for 1 – 2 minutes until the mushrooms soften.  Season with salt, black pepper and MSG (if you are using), then add the wine and cook for a few minutes until the liquid has almost (but not quite) evaporated.

Add the spaghetti and the Neapolitan sauce into the frying pan and cook for a few minutes, mixing well.  When you start smelling a sweet ketchup smell, the dish is ready to serve.  Garnish with the rest of the parsley and add a dash of Tabasco if you prefer a spicy flavour.

NOTE: Normal Heinz ketchup is actually tomato flavored corn syrup!  The organic one is about the same price and far better tasting!


If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!

Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes

A British traditional sponge cake is now miniaturised!  We no longer to fight each other about who got the biggest slice.

Individual Victoria sponge cakes are prettier than scones or biscuits and muffins.  Ideally eaten with a strong milky tea!


Ingredients for 6 cakes
6oz butter, softened

6oz granulated sugar

3 eggs, beaten

few drops of vanilla oil (optional)

6oz self-rising flour

about 12 teaspoons strawberry or raspberry jam

about 6 rounded tablespoons whipped cream

powdered sugar to dust

Instructions

Grease the inside of 6 ramekins and line the insides with baking paper.  Make sure the lining papers a half inch taller than the ramekins.

With electric beater, beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until the mixture becomes light and creamy.  Add the vanilla oil (optional).

                                                                                      

Add the eggs to the bowl gradually, beating well after each addition.

When the eggs are incorporated, sift the flour into the bowl and, using a spatula, gently fold the flour into the mixture.

Divide the mixture equally between the 6 ramekins.  Cook in the preheated oven for 20 - 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted to the centre of the cakes.

When the cakes are cooked, leave them in the ramekins for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and remove the paper.  Allow to cool completely.

Split each cake in half.  Spread the jam evenly over the bottom sponge, top with the whipped cream, and sandwich with the top half of the sponge cake.  Dust the powdered sugar over the top of the cake.


If you would like to read this recipe in Japanese, please click HERE.

Bon appetit!