Kasu-keiki, the new cheese cake

These nice one-bite cakes were too good to be saved for next day and daylight photos.
I consider sake kasu as a new type of cheese. It’s creamy, it’s fermented so why not ? And that’s natural that it gives great results in cheese cake type preparations.

So here it is, fresh sake kasu (sake lees).

I had some sweet bread crumbles, similar to cookie crumbles from my baker.

With other ingredients : silky tofu, kurozato black sugar.
I creamed 1/2 cup of sake kasu with a little water, added melted sugar, 1 cup of tofu, vanilla powder, 2 tbs of potato starched. Made it very smooth.

I mixed the crumbs with a little coconut, butter, garnished bottoms of paper cups. I poured the cream on top. Cooked 5 minutes, slowly in steaming program of microwave. Let cool totally. Then paper cases can be removed, if you want.

Warm mushroom soba soup

The weather is getting a little chilly. The time of warm soup is back. The official season of sake kasu is open, even if I didn’t wait.

Asian cuisines are very careful about seasons of dishes. You’ll say that’s everywhere that wise people try to eat season produce. True, but they have kept a concern that was important in European Medieval cuisines and has since been neglected, which is the effect of food, whether they are cooling or warming. So these are two food said to be “warming” :

Sake kasu (sake lees). The soup made with it, kasujiru, is present all along the cold season in Kansai.

Buckwheat, here in soba noodles. It’s also seen in sobagaki.

I soaked a good handful of mixed dry mushrooms, then added onion, frozen and thawed tofu, garlic, soy sauce. Simmered.

For the sides, I’ve steamed kabocha and reheated hana mame (flower beans) with soy sauce and a little sugar.

I’ve added the soba and sake kasu in the soup, more soy sauce to make it saltier.

And to spice it up a tonic mix : diced ginger, garlic, negi leeks, and chili pepper. Just mixed in, reheated and served.

Kimchi in the kabocha.

A flower on the beans. Lunch is ready.

Creamy quiche, sautéed taro, fiery miso

It’s a leftover recycling meal. I don’t know why but often when you try to finish up ingredients not meant to be served together, you obtain a better meal than if you had got the produce on purpose.

I used a lot of orange flesh of kabocha in other recipes, I had kept the skins. I’ve cut them, added a cut onion, a few leaves of laurel, covered with water. Cooked till onion is done. Add miso.

A good kabocha miso soup.

I am still eating this beast of oyaimo (satoimo/taro). I’ve peeled a bit, cut in cubes and cooked till tender in a pan with a little olive oil.

Added a few green peas to reheat.

Served with a spicy tomato sauce and parsley. Let’s find a name :
Jardinière folle au taro.

You don’t make simpler : mix 1/2 cup of oatmeal, 1 tbs of potato starch, salt, pepper. Add water. Put in a mold.

The crust is pre-baked 10 minutes, then garnished.
The topping : diced onion, diced romanesco stalk, cooked in a little oil. Then I’ve added 2 tbs of sakekasu (sake lees) diluted in a cup of water with 1 ts of potato starch. Simmer till it thickens. Add salt, a little nutmeg, a drizzle of olive oil.

Creamy quiche. It’s plant-based and gluten-free.

A filling lunch, very tasty.

A moon filled of greens

It’s shaped like a pupusa, but I think normally they are made of corn masa and filled with cheese. So this is a free style re-interpretation, I’ve just taken the shape. It’s very tasty, crispy and filling.

The filling : miso + sakekasu (sake lees) and a little water to get a cream texture. Then minced onion, garlic and ginger. The greens are stalks of romanesco (diced) and cut kikuna (chrysanthemum greens)
The crust is likely to break a little, so the filling shouldn’t be too liquid.

The dough is like for tortilla. Today : a mix of white and whole flour, chili flakes, black pepper, a little olive oil, hot water. I didn’t add salt as the filling is very salty already due to the miso. I cooked it in a frying pan without fat.