Summer Salad: Home-made Wafu dressing (improvisation)

It's been a hot summer and the hot weather won't leave for the next few weeks! Food is hardly delicious under such condition, which is why one should turn to something nutty and easy to make. No cooking required -- unless you consider boiling water "cooking".

Alright, less talk. 

Timeline:
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Ready time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
2 tbsp white sesame seeds
1 tbsp Konbu water
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp cup soysauce
1 tbsp freshly grinded onion
1 tbsp sugar

1. Wash the piece of Konbu and soak it in hot water for about 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, grind about 1 tbsp of onion, be sure to keep the juice -- it will help create a sweet after taste.
3. Grind the sesame seeds. You can do it with a coffee grinder, which will take you less than 10 seconds, or you can do it manually in a mortar with a pestle, which will result a more interesting taste.
4. After 20 minutes, when the Konbu water is ready, remove the kelp and add in rice vinegar, soysauce, onion and sugar. Mix well and finally add in the grinded sesame.
5. It can be served right away, however, in order to get a more sophisticated onion sweet taste, it is suggested to let it sit for at least 20 minutes. Serve it with a cabbage salad or boiled spinach.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Lemon flavour Japanese cheesecake

Timeline:
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Cooking time: 50-60 minutes
- Ready time: at least 4 hours

Ingredients:
1 lemon
4 eggs
1 tbsp maize flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/8 tsp tartar cream
2/3 cup whipping cream

1. Preheat the oven at 375°F.
2. Separate the egg white from the egg yolk and make a meringue with the egg white. To make the meringue, put the egg white in a mixer and beat it to maximum speed for 5-7 minutes. Add in the sugar in 3 separate steps and add the tartar cream when it reaches soft peak. Stop when it reaches hard peak.
3. While preparing the meringue, sift the maize flour with the all purpose flour, and grate the the lemon's skin and squeeze its juice.
4. Melt the cream cheese and the butter in a bain-marie. Use a spoon to stir and mix the two products together. Before removing the mix away from heat, add the lemon zest and juice, and mix well.
5. Beat the cream cheese mix. Beat until it becomes fluffy and add the egg yolk first and the the dry ingredients, beat at medium speed until everything looks creamy.
6. Mix the meringue with the batter. Add it in several steps, gently folding it in the batter. Make sure to gently fold in the same direction, otherwise the cake might not rise.
7. Pour the batter in a 10 inches cake pan, and bake it in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean when poking the cake. Be sure to lower the temperature to 350°F as soon as the cake enters the oven. 
8. Remove the cake from the pan and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours and leave it in the fridge for at least 2 hours, if possible, preferably overnight.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Wake-You-Up Coffee Rum Balls - No Added Sugar

There was chocolate chip and a LOT of broken cookies at home. I didn't want to make chocolate cookies or anything that looked too... "Normal." So I took the initiative to integrate ingredients with stronger tastes and interesting flavours. So this is how I came up with a rum ball recipe that is adaptable to many people's palate.

There is no sugar added to the ingredients. The sweetness comes from the semi-sweet chocolate, the cookies and the rum. So this is how I would describe the taste: chocolatey, not too sweet, not too rum-y, very coffee-y and most of all... coconut-y!

FYI, I recently got a new camera, and somehow, suddenly, pictures don't look the same as in the past. It just saves me from Photoshop editing time!

Alright, less talk.

Ingredients:

350g semi-sweet chocolate chips
75g (5 tbsp) heavy cream
25g (2 1/2 tbsp) rum
10g (2 tbsp) coffee beans
25 g (2 1/2 tbsp) coconut powder
8 to 10 graham, social tea or any kind of cookies you have at home
1 tbsp cocoa powder

1. In a bain-marie, melt the chocolate with milk
2. Mash the coffee beans with the cookies. If you don't like it rustic, you can always grind the coffee.

3. Add in some coconut powder. If you don't have powder, you can add shredded dry coconut as a replacement, but not that the taste and texture will be more coconut-y at the end.
4. When the chocolate is well melted and mixed to the heavy cream, add in the rum and mix well.
5. When the rum is well incorporated in the chocolate, add in the dry ingredient mix. Stir well.

6. Remove the ingredients from the bain-marie and start shaping into balls.
7. When the balls are shaped, place them in the fridge for 1 hour so that they solidify and preserve its form.
8. In a bowl, place 1 tbsp of cocoa powder. Place the cooled rum balls in the bowl and shake to distribute the cocoa powder evenly.

9. Let it sit overnight for the rum to settle. And at last, it is ready to serve.

Good luck and enjoy!

Lemon Curd Squares (Improvisation) – fillings only

These lemon curd squares are a result of looking in a cooking book, searching for something not too rich and easy to modify. These squares are a sign of appreciation for the person who borrowed me that book! (And don't expect this to happen again! Ahha! I'm kidding... Well, half.) However, despite all efforts, only the filling was successful. The crust was good but not awesome, which is why it is left out from this recipe. To make it easier, you may use pre-made pie crust.

After preparing the squares, the song “Lemon Tree” by Fool’s Garden came to my mind. It translates the sourness of loneliness, the desire to escape a bland life. The “Lemon Tree” is the picture of nothingness. Yet, the fruit itself represents so much. Its peel makes zest, bringing tastes to life. It’s juice, so sour that it makes our smiles twist. Although one may be alone, I subjectively believe that the lemon makes you feel that you are not so alone, because of its flashy yellow colour, its strange oval shape, its fragrant smell and its torturing yet pleasant taste. Is it wrong to think of this fruit this way?

Alright, less talk! 

Ingredients:

160g sugar

3 tbsp flour

Pinch of salt

2 tsp lemon zest

1 cup lemon juice

5 tbsp heavy cream

5 eggs

Mix everything together, pour the filling on top of the cooked pie crust and bake it for 20 minutes at 325°F. The cooked filling should gently jiggle when pulling out from the oven.

Good luck and enjoy!