A Fish Out of Water

Pineapple frappe

After a recent Jamaican dinner I made this pineapple frappe- a sweet and refreshing non-alcoholic drink. Or is it a dessert? Hard to tell, it could pass as either. I'll definitely be making this again, but will probably wait until the summer when it will be really appreciated.

Pineapple frappe

1 whole pineapple
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons sweetened condensed milk, or cream
2 cups crushed ice
Freshly grated nutmeg, or fresh mint leaves
1 large lime, optional

Peel and core the pineapple, cut it into chunks. Slice lime into wedges, reserve for garnishing. Add pineapple to blender with sugar and condensed milk. Blend well, add ice and blend until smooth. Garnish with a sprinklling of nutmeg or mint leaves, and a slice of lime.

Makes 6 servings

Adapted from Jerk: Barbecue from Jamaica

Notes: Canned pineapple can be used, but if it's in sweetened syrup reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. A lower calorie version can be made by reducing the sugar and using milk in place of the condensed milk or cream. Or for a special treat, replace the condensed milk with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream, reducing the ice by half.

Tags: fruit drinks recipe

Grape schnapps

I bought these beautiful grapes today, and with the vodka leftover from last month's campanelle alla vodka started an vodka infusion, which will result in grape schnapps. This was inspired by Obachan's recent post. In recent years I've made umeshu (plum liqueur), limoncello and strawberry liqueur, all of which were fun projects and turned out nicely. But I find them too sweet to drink very often, and not exactly compatible with my diet. It never occurred to me to try it without the sugar.

I had intended to try peach first, but the greengrocer's grapes looked better than the peaches (and were cheaper), so grape it is. Eventually (assuming this first one turns out), I'd like to try peach, plum and lychee.

It was simple to make- wash and dry the fruit, wash and dry a glass jar. Pierce the each grape with a bamboo skewer (to let out the juice and speed up the infusion) and drop it into the jar, when jar is almost full pour in the vodka and cover. Very easy, and cheap too- with a jar from the 100 yen shop and grapes on sale, the whole thing cost under 2000 Yen. Hope it tastes good!

Here's how it looked after several hours:

I estimate it will take about 2 weeks, but I'll test it in a few days.

Strawberry liqueur update

So my strawberry liqueur is finally done. The yucky alcohol smell that bothered me so much before is gone, but in getting rid of it I made the liqueur a bit sweeter than I would have liked. It is still delicious, and has great strawberry flavour, with the lemons adding a slight tartness (wish there was just a tad more to balance out the sweetness though). And it smells wonderful. I'm guessing this stuff would be better in cocktails or with club soda than served straight. On the rocks would be good too, as long as there were lots of rocks, that would slowly melt and make the the liqueur milder and milder. Actually that sounds really nice, I think I'll go have that right now.

I'm also really happy with the colour. Who would have thought those deep red berries would give the liqueur this wonderful warm orange?

Anyway, this liqueur was a success and I think next time I'll stick with a small amount of sugar, and just try to be paitent enough to let time work its magic.

Here are some more pics of the lovely stuff.

Strawberry liqueur update

I almost forgot about the strawberry liqueur I started a couple months ago. It's been hiding away in a cupboard and has been ready for tasting for about a week, but today I remembered and I dragged it out and had a taste.

Ugh. I was right when I worried about using the sharp and foul-smelling "white liquor". It still stinks. But then again, the sugar hasn't completely dissolved, and the berries still have a bit of colour, which indicates that not all of their essence has seeped out. It's already a lovely colour though, and I because I could detect a delicate strawberry fragrance and flavour I think everything is going fine. Just needs a bit more time, and maybe a bit of fiddling.

As a test I mixed a tiny bit of sugar syrup into the glass and gave it another try. Amazing! The extra sweetness completely canceled out the alcohol stink and enhanced the fruit flavour. I think all I have to do is let it steep a bit more, and if that doesn't work I'll try adding more sugar and strawberries.

Can't wait for early July!

Update: it turned out beautifully.

Cold-process coffee

Last year I learned how to make the perfect cup of coffee. The method is not widely known, but that's changing. I'd like to do my part in increasing the popularity of cold-process coffee- I'm going to teach you how to do it. It's not nearly as difficult as you might think, but the twelve hour brewing time can be a bit of a drag if you're in a hurry. That's right- twelve hours. But it's worth every minute.

Let me explain. No wait, let The Washington Post explain. Or MSNBC.

So your read all about it? Good. Now you know that cold-process coffee is a wonderfully low-tech method of making a strong coffee concentrate with almost miraculous properties: it has a smooth, mellow flavour with the convenience of instant coffee, it's far lower in acid and caffeine than traditionally brewed coffee, can be kept refrigerated for up to two weeks without loosing its flavour or aroma, and is delicious hot, cold or for cooking. Interested? Good. Let's get started.

Equipment and ingredients:

You'll need a cold brew coffee maker. Mine is a Toddy, and it's the most popular one out there, but there are others. You can even make your own if you're handy that way. Try running a search for "cold brewed coffee" or "cold process coffee" for more info. The Toddy comes with a plastic bucket for brewing, a re-usable filter, a plug, a glass "decanter" and lid. Other optional equipment: a coffee grinder and a scale.

You'll also need coffee- 1 pound of it. Regular grind. In these pictures I'm grinding it myself, but that's not necessary- since the coffee is all used at once you don't have to worry about pre-ground coffee losing flavour (but if possible, buy your coffee on the same day you make it, at a shop that stores beans whole and grinds them fresh for each customer). You need 9 cups of cold water, and you'll get better results with good bottled or home-filtered water.

Instructions:

Place the plug in the bottom of the bucket. Wet the filter and place it inside the bucket, above the plug. Add 1 pound of regular grind coffee. If you've ground your own coffee, use a scale to make sure you have exactly one pound.

Pour 4 cups of cold water slowly over the coffee. Wait 5 minutes, then add the remaining 5 cups. Do not stir. Cover with plastic wrap and let it steep for 10 to 12 hours in the refrigerator or other cool dark place.

When "brewing" is complete, lift the bucket by the handle (watch out, it's heavy) and hold over the clean, dry glass decanter. Carefully remove the plug and place the bucket on the decanter.

Let the coffee concentrate drain through the filter completely. Filtration takes about 30 minutes. When finished, you will have six cups of coffee concentrate. If you always sweeten your coffee, you can do so now (with artificial sweetner or sugar syrup- sugar won't dissolve in the cold concentrate).

You will also have a whole bunch of wet coffee grounds for your compost. Or to fertilize the acid-loving plants in your garden. If you don't have a garden, try some of these hints. The last one, about drying the grounds to use as a deodorizer, is especially good here in Japan during the humid months.

Keep the coffee concentrate in the fridge. To make coffee, the Toddy instructions recommend using 1 part concentrate to 3 parts boiling water, then flavouring with cream and sugar if desired.

I like to use 1 part concentrate with 2 parts milk. For ice coffee I just add ice, for hot I'll heat it in the microwave for 2 minutes. I can even use skim milk and I end up with a milky cup of coffee that is rich and not watery at all. Microwaving the coffee for too long will render your coffee undrinkable, so be careful. Another treat is a latte-- microwave a small amount of coffee concentrate for 40 seconds or so, and top with hot steamed milk. And when the weather warms up a bit, I'm going to have fun making frozen coffee drinks with my new Magic Bullet mixer.

A big bonus is that this coffee is acceptable on my eating plan. The South Beach diet discourages the (excessive) use of saturated fat, so being able to use skim milk instead of whole milk or cream is great. Also, coffee, while not strictly banned, is better avoided because caffeine can increases cravings. But a cup or two a day of this low-caffeine brew doesn't make much of a difference at all.

Has cold-process coffee completely replaced hot-brewed coffee in my kitchen? No way. As much as I love the mild mellow flavour of cold brewed coffee, sometimes I like an acidic and highly caffeinated cup of coffee. Sometimes I need coffee with a little more character. And there are few smells better than the aroma that fills the house when a fresh pot of coffee is brewed. That doesn't happen with my Toddy. So I'm keeping my coffee maker and espresso maker. But for my everyday coffee, cold-process coffee can't be beat.

Strawberry liqueur

These are the makings of strawberry liqueur. Kind of a luxury product here in Japan where strawberries are ridiculously expensive-- the amount shown here, about 1 kg, was 1000 yen (about US $10), and that was a bargain. We'd normally expect to pay twice that, at the very least.

It was pure torture hulling the berries, since I'm not allowed to eat fruit yet, but I managed to finish the job without eating a single berry. We'll check on the liqueur in two months, and if it's ready we'll take out the fruit- the drunken berries should be great over ice cream. I hope to god I'll be allowed to actually eat that.

This follows the basic recipe for strawberry liqueur as made in Japan, where liqueur making--especially ume-shu (Japanese apricot liqueur)--is very popular. A clear 35% alcohol called "white liquor" is usually used here, but I think I'm going to use vodka from now on. I've just realized something: white liquor stinks. It doesn't seem to be a problem when making ume-shu, but that's probably just because ume-shu uses so much sugar. But with lower-sugar recipes the nastiness of the white liquor sems to come through. The first liqueur I made in Japan was limoncello (lemon liqueur) a few years back, but it didn't turn out well--I ended up dumping it because it seemed like the lemons had rotted or something. But now I'm thinking it was just the nasty white liquor, and I probably could have fixed it by adding more sugar and letting everything steep a bit longer. What a waste of lemons (another pricey fruit in Japan).

I went with the lesser amount of sugar but am now wondering if it's enough to tame the white liquor. I can always add more sugar later though, so I won't worry too much.

Strawberry liqueur

1 kilogram strawberries

4 to 5 lemons

200 to 300 grams kouri-zatou (rock sugar)

1800 ml white liquor (or vodka)

Wash the strawberries, drain well and set them to dry on paper towel-lined trays. Cut the peels from the lemons, removing as much of the white as possible. Cut lemons into 2 to 3 pieces.

Pour the liquor into a large clean and dry glass jar or bottle. When strawberries are completely dry, remove the leaves, dropping the hulled berries into the jar. Add the lemons and rock sugar.

Seal the jar and leave it in a cool, dark place for two months, or until the liqueur turns a nice red and the strawberries have lost their colour. Strain in a colander to remove the fruit and, if you like, strain again in a fine sieve or coffee filter to remove any tiny hairs or seeds from the berries. Transfer to a clean bottle. Liqueur can be drunk immediately but will improve with further aging.

Update: here is the liqueur after about two months (still stinky), and here it is after four (perfect). And two years later I tried a version with vanilla instead of lemons, which I liked much less.

Finally Legal!

A legal alien, that is (but really, how many girls get to say they're 'finally legal' twice?).

After seven weeks of being an illegal alien I reported back to immigration today as requested, not knowing what was going to happen. I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to be deported or thrown in jail, but I was thinking there might be a fine or that I'd have to apply for my spouse visa from the beginning, necessitating a few months of running around getting paperwork. But no. After a mere five hours of waiting and few mini-interviews and paper-signing sessions, I was handed back my passport with a new visa. I didn't have to apply for it- it was already done. And get this-- it's a three year visa (I thought for sure I'd be demoted back to a one year visa). And get this-- it was free! The regular folks, who extend their visas on time, have to pay. Not me though!

To celebrate, Hideaki used his fancy new bartender gear to fix me a cocktail. A non-frozen strawberry daiquiri. He improvised, using freshly squeezed lemon juice instead of limes (which are a luxury item here), and a couple of slightly crushed strawberries. He just kind of invented it, and it turned out delicious. That's it above, in the ridiculously oversized martini glass with the sugared rim and silly garnish. Beautiful, isn't it?

New Coffee Mill

I used to grind my coffee with a regular Braun grinder, but I was never happy with it- there was always a nasty sludge made from over-ground coffee at the bottom of my mug. Turns out there are two types of coffee grinders- those that use a blade, and those that use a burr grinder. Blade grinders are cheaper but grind unevenly, producing a mix of large grounds and a finely ground powder; burrs grind evenly and are used by the pros. Unfortunately electric burr grinders are pricey, so I bought a manual grinder. Cute idea, but not very practical. It's been sitting unused on a shelf for a few months.

But I finally found an affordable electric burr grinder. Arrived a few days ago. I have high hopes for this one, and can't wait to use it.

Nice timing though. I'm battling a cold, and don't like to drink a lot of coffee when I'm sick. Hopefully I'll be back to my healthy, coffee-guzzling self soon.