Kitsune Udon

Kitsune Udon literary means "Fox Udon". According to old folk-tales, the favourite food of foxes (kitsune) is 'aburaage': fried tofu, which is the topping of this recipe!




Many area's in Japan are famous for their servings of Kitsune Udon. For example, the area around Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto. Fushimi Inari is dedicated to Inari, the shinto god of rice and business. His messengers are foxes (kitsune) of which there are many statues all over the mountain. Most of the foxes are depicted with a granary key in their mouth, a symbolic key to success and prosperity. Though their boss is the god of rice, the foxes are more into tofu. We visited Fushimi Inari Shrine last June, and off course we tried some Kitsune Udon!

Fox next to the torii gates by Fushimi Inari

Because we really liked the kitsune udon, we wanted to make it ourselves too!

Ingredients (2p):

For the udon-soup:

•  2 packs of Udon (are normally sold in packs of 3)
• circa 700 ml water
• dashi powder (out brand required 2,5 tbsp of dashi powder for 700 ml water to make udon soup, but check the box to see the amount needed)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 2 tbsp sugar

 For the topping:

• Aburaage*
• Naruto-maki (fish cake, in long round shape), cut into thin slices

* You can (apparently) make the Aburaage yourselves. However, we have never tried that and just go for the easy way: store-bought Aburaage. You can just buy the same tofu as is used for inari-sushi.

How to make video...

.. or the instructions:

Mix the dashi-powder with 700 ml water. While bringing up the heat, add the soy sauce, mirin and sugar.
When it gets to simmer, add the udon noodles and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes.

In the meanwhile, get the aburaage out of the packing, and cut the naruto-maki into slices.

Slices of Naruto-maki

Divide the noodles and soup in two bowls, and top with the aburaage and naruto. Enjoy!

(Chocolate) cake from the rice cooker

We have found a new way to use our rice cooker: to make cake! We love the easiness and convenience of the rice cooker for cooking many delicious meals, and we love cake, so combining the two is perfect. It makes a delicious, and very easy to make cake!
We now have summer vacation from school, so lots of time to experiment with making different kind of cakes, and just in time so we can eat them for our birthdays :)

Making cake in the rice cooker is truly very easy and fast, and the taste of the cake is great. We will share our favourite recipe to make cake from the rice cooker, plain cake or easily converted to make chocolate cake (our absolute favourite taste)

Piece of chocolate cake, topped with extra chocolate sauce

Ingredients (makes a cake with approximately 19cm diameter, and 3 cm height):

• 125 gr flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 50 ml (coleseed) oil
• 100 ml milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• For chocolate cake: add chocolate powder or syrup to taste

 Mix the flour, eggs, sugar, oil, milk, and baking powder together until the batter is smooth. For the chocolate-cake you can now add the chocolate  powder or chocolate syrup, and mix with the batter.

Mixing the batter

Adding chocolate syrup

Chocolate cake batter in the rice cooker pan

Put the batter in your rice cooker. No need to grease the rice cooker-pan, it already has (should have) a very good anti-stick layer and the cake will come out easily. Put the rice cooker on cake-modus, and turn on for 30 minutes.
Our rice cooker has a cake option in the menu, which will ask for the amount of time you want to cook your cake. All rice cookers are probably different, so check the options in the manual. Apparently, you may even be able to make cake in a rice cooker with only an on-button, but we haven't tried that so we can't say anything about it.

Finished rice cooker cake

After the rice cooker has finished, wait until the pan and the cake has cooled down. Then you can turn over the pan and with a little shake the cake will come out perfectly. (Something we have experienced as much harder when you bake cake to traditional way in the oven!)

Rice cooker cake, ready to eat!

Top it with some whipped cream, chocolate sauce, jelly, or just enjoy plain!

Frozen Matcha Yoghurt

This is a great Japanese dessert, delicious for warm summer evenings. It's easy to prepare, but will need some time in de freezer, so plan ahead and start in the afternoon if you want to make it for dessert.

Ingredients (2p):

• 250 ml yoghurt
• 1,5 tbsp matcha powder
• 5 tbsp sugar

You can adjust the amount of matcha to your liking, and add a little more or less depending on how strong you want the matcha taste to be.

Preparation:

Add the 250 ml yoghurt and 1,5 tbsp of matcha powder in a bowl and mix together. Add the 5 tbsp sugar, and make sure everything is mixed together, using a hand-held whisker or mixer. When it is mixed, cover it with plastic, and put it in the freezer for approximately 3 hours.

The yoghurt mixed with matcha powder and sugar

After those three hours, remove it from the freezer, and whisk it together till it is creamy. Then, cover it up again and put it in the freeze for another hour.

After one hour, remove the frozen yoghurt from the freezer, and serve in two cups. Enjoy!

We filmed the preparation-process to make it even easier to prepare:

 

The frozen matcha yoghurt, ready to be served as dessert