Tag Archives: agar-agar

Double corn brunch waffle

Not much effort to prepare this complete meal.
Menu : savory waffles, natto-kimchi, drink salad and coffee jelly.

The particularity is these waffles have a corn bread flavor due to cornmeal batter, and some corn kernels inside…

And also some greens…

That’s a standard (eyeballed into the blender) waffle batter, except it’s half-flour and half-grits (coarse corn meal). Flavored with rosemary, garlic and chili. In the waffle maker, I added : frozen corn kernels, fava beans and raw green bell pepper.

Crusty and golden. Bring kimchi and natto.

A romaine salad getting too soft…into the blender with 1/2 grapefruit, a ts of grass wheat powder. Cinnamon on top. It had a refreshing bitterness.

Prepared the coffee agar jelly the day before. That takes one minute.

Served with veg cream and a little kurozato black sugar.

Too hot to cook ? Too hot to eat ? Cooling full course

We’re in the heat of the hot days. I don’t even feel like eating, but that wouldn’t be a good idea. Let’s make something to enjoy till the last bit !
So here is the menu :

3 brown antipasti
tofu Caprese
kurozato kanten with grapes

Lots of hot weather recommended ingredients :
Kanten (agar) and konnyaku are jellies that help digestion.
Everything plant based, lots of raw.
Different colors and vitamins.
Sour vinegar, strong wasabi.

I know that looks… special. You have raw shiitake mushrooms, sliced, marinated in a little lemon juice.

Konnyaku sticks, with negi leeks. That has no calories or nearly. That’s for the fresh texture of the konnyaku and the pungency of the leek.

Today’s natto with black sesame and wasabi.

Now about the main dish…
capr’inspiration

Too lazy to prepare a sauce, I bring the olive oil, balsamico, salt and pepper on the table.

This time, it’s made with silky tofu and negi as the herb. Silkilicious…

The hardest ! The agar agar has to be cooked 2 minutes ! What a hell. But that’s all.

Just add the flavoring : kurozato, Okinawan black cane sugar. It has a taste of ginger bread, so just that is enough.
The hardened block cut in cubes, served chilled with grapes and toothpicks :

A silky Chinese dessert, annin doufu

Soothing shades for a refreshing dessert. There are 100 versions of these almond milk jelly cubes, the Chinese blanc-manger. Annin doufu is literally almond tofu but it’s so often made with soy like today. In Japan, dairy versions are common.

I jellified with agar some soy milk cut with water. It’s flavored with cane sugar and bitter almond extract.

Cut in cubes.

Serve chilled.

Let’s add a typical seasonal Chinese fruit : litchi.

Filipina salada (buko pandan)

Buko pandan, coconut and pandan. It’s a sweet, not a real salad.
This is my “agar du jour”, and that’s a luxury one.

It’s as simple as turning pandan leaves into jelly.

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I’ve taken 3 leaves for 1/2 liter of water. Made a knot to leaves, brought to a boil, take away from fire. Cut the leaves roughly, still in the water (with scissor). Let 15 minutes.
Sieve 1/2 cup of liquid. Transfer the rest in mixer. Juice.
Add one dose of agar (they use a ressembling seaweed in the Philippines, it’s totally equivalent) to the clear liquid, bring to boil. Pour in it the juice (through a mesh filter), add a little sugar, sweetener. Stir well. Transfer in jelly case. It hardened in 15 minutes.

Cubes of green sweetness. The flavor of pandan is encantly sweet and tropical. Not an hint of bitterness. Like a dream of sticky rice and vanilla.
Then add 1 tablespoon of coconut cream (that you dind floating on top of coconut milk).

Some would add condensed milk or even whipped cream. No thanks, I prefer my (3 (back to back simpler… I confess) serving of the simpler version to one of theirs.
The coconut cream is naturally sweet, if you’re an extremely sweet tooth you can add a little syrup. I promise you, it’s rich enough, and flavor is plentyful. I enjoy it this way. Mmmmmm !