Eggless Japanese Sesame Cookies

Japanese Sesame Cookies, if you are looking for something super crunchy, nutty then you should look at my today's dangerously addictive Sesame Cookies. These cookies are eggless but not vegan, as milk and butter are used for binding the flour and other ingredients. With simple ingredients, you can bake out this ultimate Japanese sesame cookies with less efforts. Loaded with both black and white sesame seeds, this cookies are damn flavourful with super nuttiness. I bookmarked this cookies while we were running Mega marathon from Ruchi's Space, while she got this cookies from Gayathri's space. This cookie dough calls for oil, but i couldnt stop myself to add some butter to oil to bake this cookies somehow buttery.

Homemade Teriyaki Sauce with Teriyaki Cauliflower Bites

Teriyaki is a technique in Japanese cooking in which fish, chicken, or beef are first marinated in a soya sauce reduced with sugar or honey and then grilled over a open flame. However recent way of cooking with this technique involves lot of sauteeing, broiling in open flame or else as grilling. Coming to Teriyaki sauce, this sauce goes of sweetness and tanginess coz of the soya sauce, rice wine or else mirin a sweet rice wine and sweetner like sugar or honey. Usually store bought, this sauce can be prepared easily at home with simple ingredients. My today's version of teriyaki sauce calls just for simple ingredients, yes this easy breezy version of Teriyaki sauce goes for Soya sauce, honey,corn flour, finely chopped ginger and garlic.

Roasted Rice Tea/Japanese Dark Rice Tea & Pimp My Rice - A Cookbook Review

Rice is a staple food of Indians, we cant survive without rice and we need it for our daily menu. Recently Sam collins and Gemma from an English cook book Publisher pinged me in Facebook to review a cookbook. Cookbook to review who will say 'no' obviously i immediately said yes and this book came all the way from England to Paris. When i opened the courrier, the book cover attracted me immediately, there was no attractive food pictures over the cover, a black background with brass letters saying Pimp my rice was seriously interesting and pulled me to check out the content of the book.

Wafu Dressing - A Japanese Condiment

After an aromatic Chimichurri sauce from Argentina, am taking you all to Japan, yes my today's post is Wafu dressing. This wafu dressing going to be a part of this week's blogging marathon theme called Condiments from Countries for this month's megamarathon. Wafu Dressing is a salad dressing which is consists of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and vegetable oil.  In Japan,every house have their own wafu dressing but my today's recipe is quite a different one and this version goes for grated onion to make it extra flavorful. I picked this wafu dressing from here.The author of this site says that if you replace half of the vegetable oil with sesame oil, then the dressing is called as Chuka Dressing, which means Chinese-style dressing in the Japanese culinary world.

Celebrating 6th year Blog Anniversary with Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes

Hokkaida cupcakes are small chiffon cakes which will be very soft and slightly gets collapsed once they gets cool down. Hokkaido cupcakes are simply prepared with eggs with flour,sugar,milk,oil etc. Seriously this cupcakes are very delicious, however if you dont get the meringue prefectly, you cant get this cupcakes prefectly. These cupcakes will be extremely soft, very spongy and very much delicate in texture. This cupcakes are usually sold in square cupcake cases, but still you can make it with round ones.Hokkaido cupcakes are very less in sugar thats why they are topped always with whipped cream along with fruit bites.This Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes goes for this month's challenge of International Food Challenge ,a monthly event started by  wonderful food blogger Sara, the theme for this month's IF Challenge is Anniversary theme, yes its anniversary month for International Food Challenge, we completed a year and we need to cook from the past challenges challenged by the hosts during this month. I missed two challenges coz of my trip to India,one is Hokkaido cuisine and the other one is Austrian cuisine. Obviously this time i picked Hokkaido cuisine challenged by Shazia of Cutchi Kitchen and baked some chiffon cupcakes for the celebration. Yes my blog baby enter into its 6th anniversary, yes since 5years i have been blogging. Nothing is possible without the massive support of my followers and continuous encouragements from my fellow bloggers. I must say a big thanks to each and everyone personally for helping me to make this immense achievement.

Japanese Melon Pan

Melon pan is a type of sweet bun which is quite famous in Japan, also in Taiwan and China. They are made from a yeasted dough covered with a thin layer of cookie dough. Melon pan ressembles like rock melon,eventhongh they are not traditionally prepared with melon, but its seems nowadays to give a variation to this melon pan, few manufacturers of this delicious softy pan add melon bites to this melon bread. There are couple of suggestions says that melon in melon pan comes from the sugar cookie topping which ressembles to the Japanese presentation of melon wedges which is cut into cross hatch pattern while serving. There is also an another suggestion says that the cracked surface of the cookie dough layer resembles a rock melon/cantaloupe hence the name.

Actually this bread may sound very hard to make but trust me its really very easy to make. The bread dough for the bun is mostly left plain, though some people add chocolate chops, while others fill the bun with pastry cream,cream cheese or simply with chopped chocolate, but i prepared mine simply with a simply buttery cookie dough, if you want you can still flavour your cookie dough with chocolate,green tea,pineapple if you like.Melon pan are best to eaten the day they are made, i went for eggs for making both the bread dough and cookie dough. You can skip then either with yogurt or milk.This bread is our this month's challenge of We Knead To Bake, a monthly baking event by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen.Sending to Sangee's Love2Bake and Bake Fest#29 event by Vardhini,hosted by me.

I'll advise you to check this Youtube video to get a better idea of making this melon pan.

Chocolate Marble Asian Bread (Roux Method)~~Home Baker's Challenge#4

Tangzhong or roux method give a soft bread,the texture of the bread coz of the water roux aka tangzhong makes cotton like bread and stays prefect for more than 2 days in room temperature. But am sure that this bread gets vanished very quickly coz of the presence of chocolate in it.To make the “tangzhong” or “water roux,” a mixture of water and bread flour is heated and stirred just until it forms a paste.  Then, this paste is removed from the heat and allowed to cool, and added to the dough ingredients.  When the water and flour first combine, the flour absorbs the liquid.  Once heat is applied, the flour particles swell many times their original size and burst, releasing starch into the liquid.  At that point, the mixture will turn like gel.This gel like flour paste can then be used as a dough enhancer to improve the moisture and texture in the final bread loaf.Breads prepared by this roux method doesn’t get stale and hard like other breads within a day of baking, it will stays soft and fluffy for several days.

Coming to this marble Asian bread, Manjula of Desi Fiesta chosed this chocolate marble bread for this month's Home Baker's Challenge as the challenge of this month are breads.This eggless chocolate marble Asian bread goes for easy preparation and they can be done easily through bread machine or manually. This bread with mild sweetness suits prefect for breakfast or for snacks. Enjoy this softy bread with your cup of tea or coffee for your breakfast and am sure you will have a filling breakfast.Sending to Bake fest hosted by Manjula,event by Vardhini.

Cotton Soft Japanese Cheesecake

Cheesecakes, i usually go for simple fruit based cheesecake either as baked ones or no bake cheesecake. Recently i tried my hands in baking this super softy,fluffy and extremely airy Japanese cheesecake,this cheesecake was amazing. Because of it fluffiness,super light and not that much sweet,this cheesecake tastes simply tremendous just like the soufflé we get in Paris.I have seen plenty of recipes for the cotton soft Japanese cheesecake while googling, but never attempted it at home. I was bit curious to see how soft this cheesecake would be and tried it during a weekend from here.

The most important ingredient for this cheesecake is eggs,without eggs just forget this cheesecake.The number of the eggs in this cheesecake might be bit shocking but this is a must, and the most important things are to beat the egg whites prefectly and baking/cooling the cheesecake. If you have never had or tried a Japanese cheesecake, its time to make some,its definitely worth to try.Beware this cheesecake disappears very fast seriously really fast,yep its too delicious to eat more than a slice. Obviously this cheesecake served along with a fruit coulis will tastes definitely more delicious and my kids enjoyed this cheesecake with strawberry coulis.

6nos Egg whites

6nos Egg yolks

1/4tsp Cream of tartar

1/2cup+3tbsp Super fine sugar

50grms Butter

250grms Cream cheese

100ml Fresh milk

1tbsp Lemon juice

1/3cup+1tbsp All purpose flour

2tbsp+1tsp Cornflour

Melt the cream cheese,butter and milk in double boiler method, cool it completely.

Fold in the flour,cornflour,egg yolks,lemon juice and mix well.

Meanwhile whisk the egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy,slowly add in the sugar and whisk it until soft peaks form.

Add now the cheese mixture to the egg white mixture and slowly mix well.

Grease a 8inch springform pan and line the bottom and sides of the pan with baking paper.

Pour this cheesecake batter into the already prepared springform pan.

Place the springform pan in a baking pan and pour enough boiling water in a baking pan.

Steam will help making the soft and moist cake and hot water around the cake will gradually cook inside.

Arrange it in the middle rack of the oven.

Bake at 320F for 60minutes and reduce the temperature to 300F and bake for 15minutes.

When a skewer inserted comes out clean,turn off the oven. Dont take out the cake immediately from the oven.

Remove the cake from the oven and cool it completely.

Refrigerate for few hours before serving..

Enjoy with your favourite fruits coulis.

Hokkaido Milk Bread~~ We Knead to Bake#3

Hokkaido milk bread, super spongy bread prepared with the famous Asian bread making method called tangzhong method. Tangzhong method goes for a water roux, this roux is the prominent ingredient to get fantastic soft breads. For our this month's We knead to bake, a month baking event started by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen, she challenged us to make this Hokkaido Milk Bread which is well known for their super softy texture. Its quite popular in South Asian bakieries, some people says this is a Japanese bread, because of the milk used in this bread comes from Japan.While others says that its pure white colour and the texture resemble the pristineness of Hakkoido.

Coming to Tangzhong method, this method need a part of bread flour with 5parts of water,when cooked its forms the famous water roux. The gluten in the bread flour and water mixture absorb the moisture and create a leavening action. When Tangzhong is added to other ingredients of the bread dough, its gives a light,tender and fluffy bread.The dough prepared with tangzhong is a versatile dough, we can make palin loaf,dinner rolls or muffin like rolls. You can fill very well them with sweet or savoury filling.I prepared few mini loaves, some muffins rolls and tried my hands in making some animals. I filled my mini loaves and muffin rolls with chocolate chips and my kids just loved them.

For Tangzhong (water roux)
1/3cup all purpose flour
1/2cup Water
1/2cup Milk

For dough:
2+1/2cups All purpose flour
3tbsp Sugar
1tsp Salt
2tbsp Milk powder
2tsp Instant dry yeast
1/2cup Milk
1/8cup Cream
1/3cup Tangzhong (use half of the tangzhong )
25grms Butter (cut as small pieces & softened)
1cup Chocolate chips

Making the water-roux:


Mix the flour in water and milk well without any lumps.

Cook in medium low heat, stirring continously with a whisk to prevent buring.This mixture will becomes thickens, if you are able to see some lines for every stir you make with the spoon,your tangzhong is ready,remove it from the heat.

Transfer it to a clean bowl,cover with a cling wrap sticking on the surface of the tangzhong to prefect from drying. Let cool completely.You can use tangzhong straight away once it cools down to room temperature.

Making Dough:

Put the flour,salt,sugar,milk powder and instant yeast in a stand mixer or in a food processor and mix it for a few minutes,meanwhile in an another bowl,mix the milk,cream and tangzhong until smooth and add to the mixer.

Run in slow speed until the dough comes together, now add the butter and knead it until you get a smooth and elastic dough.

Arrange the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with a towel and keep it aside until the dough double in volume. Mine took almost an hour.

Place the dough in a cleaned working surface, divide the dough to make mini loaves or muffins or else as single loaf.

Roll out each portion of the dough with a rolling pin as a oval shape, sprinkle generously the chocolate chips.

Take one end of the dough from the shorter side of the oval to fold in the middle of the dough, take the other end and fold it slightly to overlaps the other fold.

Arrange this folded dough to tha prepared pans and cover with a towel,let the dough sit again for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 325F, carefully brush the tops of the rolls and the loaf with milk and bake them for 20-25minutes until they are done.

Let them cool completely in the tins and then unmould, transfer to a rack and cool them completely.

Serve the loaves or dinner rolls with your favourite spreads.

Japanese Cabbage Pancake

Japanese cabbage pancake is great for quick brunch or for snack..This version of cabbage pancake is one of the simplified version of okonomiyaki which need lots of more ingredients but this simple japanese cabbage pancake tastes awesome prepared with easy and simple ingredients.. This cabbage pancakes goes awesome with simple salad and its really very quick to make..U can also add more ingredients like mushrooms, green onions, bellpeppers or carrot for making out this easy breezy pancakes,also have many variations for non vegetarian lovers u can add prawns, diced cooked chicken, bacon etc to make out this non vegetarian version of this pancake...Just mix all the ingredients and cook in a frying pan in simmer flame until the both sides get cooked...This delicious cabbage pancake goes to my own Pancakes Event & to Yasmeen's Health Nut Challenge 5 - Crucial Cruciferious..

1cup Cabbage (shredded)
4nos Eggs
3tbsp Cornstarch/cornflour
2tbsp Water
Salt
Pepper
Oil

Whisk the eggs with cornstarch, water with salt and pepper powder..mix the shredded cabbage to the whisked eggs..Heat enough oil in a frying pan, pour this mixture to the frying pan, cook in simmer with lid closed..flip the pancake with a plate and cook the other side of the pancake until golden brown..Cut as per need and serve along with ketchup if needed...

Chocolate Milk Pudding

Easy pudding with milk, condensed milk and chocolate powder with agar agar..U can prepare this pudding just within few minutes and the cooking time goes for 10minutes, yea its damn easy to prepare and a real feast for chocolate loves, if u love jellies i can definitely say that u will relish this pudding.. Agar agar is a gelatinous substance produced from seaweed and its one of main ingredients in Japanese desserts..its a vegetarian gelatin substitute, thickener for soups, for jellies also for ice creams..Agar agar is also know as china grass,kanten etc..Simple, easy and delicious chocolate milk pudding tastes too good when served chilled..Am sending this chocolate milk pudding to Sanghi's FIL-Milk and to CFK-Chocolate guest hosted by Hela of Salt to taste, event started by Sharmi..

1+1/2cups Milk
1/2cup Sweetened condensed milk
2tbsp Chocolate powder
1tbsp Agar agar powder
Few drops of Vanilla essence

Bring boil together the milk and condensed milk..once they starts boiling add the agar agar powder and stir until the agar agar gets dissolved...Divide this milk in two bowls..Mix the vanilla essence in one bowl and mix the chocolate powder in an another bowl..take two or three moulds, pour the vanilla-milk mixture first and finally pour the chocolate mixture in the middle of the mould..let them cool and keep in fridge for an hour..

Serve chilled with any toppings..

Kappa Maki (Cucumber Rolls)

Kappa Maki, its a simple cucumber rolls with sushi rice and cucumber thin strips rolled with Nori(roasted seaweed sheets)..simple japanese sushi with simple ingredients..i never ever tried or had sushis at home and also in restaurants.. for the first time i tried at home and served this maki rolls with store bought sauce, for my surprise my H liked it much also for the first time he tasted this japanese rolls..i thought how am going to roll the nori sheet once i spread the rice but its really very easy to roll this sushis even without the bamboo mat, i loved this simple maki...usually sushi rice are prepared with dashi (a stock prepared with water, seaweed and fish flakes)i skipped everything and while browsing i saw that sushi rice can be prepared well with soyasauce and salt which seems quite easy and prefect for me, so i prepared my sushi rice with soyasauce and salt, i found this kappa maki here..this kappa maki goes to AWED-Japanese guest hosted by Lavi of Home Cooks Recipes, event by DK.

2nos Nori sheets (dried seaweeds)
2cups Sushi rice
4nos Cucumber sticks
Few sesame seeds

Arrange the half nori sheet on the top of the bamboo mat(i didnt used bamboo mat) and spread the sushi rice over the nori sheet..place the cucumber sticks lengthwise and springle few sesame seeds over the cucumber...roll the nori sheet by pressing firmly to shape the sushi as cylinder..if u r using the bamboo mat, press the nori sheet firmly..

Cut the sushi roll with sharp knife as medium size pieces.. Serve this rolls with any japanese sauce!

Hakusai Cabbage N Tofu Cream Soup

Hakusai is chinese cabbage..i crossed this cream soup while browsing for japanese soup here...this creamy soup is quite simple and easy to prepare, usually japanese style of soups goes for always for many ingredients which we may not able to find out that much easily..but this simple soup just need chinese cabbage which is quite available in chinese groceries and other ingredients which we need for this soups are milk, vegetable stock water and tofu..i prepared this soup within few minutes and they tasted delicious..i skipped the chicken pieces and chicken broth which the original recipe needs for, i replace the chicken pieces with tofu and chicken broth by vegetable stock water..Simple soup tastes amazing and also creamy..This soup goes to AWED-Japanese guest hosted by Lavi, event started by DK..

2cups Hakusai cabbage(chopped)
10nos Tofu cubes
3cups Vegetable stock water
1cup Milk
2tbsp Corn starch
Salt
Pepper powder

Saute the tofu pieces in a pan, season slightly with salt and water..add the vegetable stock water in a large vessel and heat..add the chopped hakusai cabbage pieces and sauteed tofu pieces to the vegetable stock water and cook in simmer for 15 minutes, add the milk to the soup and bring to boil..make a thin white sauce with corn starch and water, add this sauce to the cooking soup and stir the soup until it get thickens..add the pepper powder and salt as per ur need..

Delicious easy cabbage soup is ready!

Chilled Sesame Udon Salad

There  are many kinds of noodles in Japan, udon are white and the thickest noodles, these noodles are made by kneading wheat flour , salt and water...Dried udon, boiled udon and fresh udon noodles are available at stores, to cook udon noodles we just need 2 minutes with hot boiling water..Udon can be eaten hot or cold and can be prepared in many ways as stir fry, soups also as cold salads...cold udon salads are really refreshing and popular in summer...This udon noodles salad with sesame seasoning is among the cold salads with udons, usually this udon noodles are garnished with grated ginger, nori(seaweed) etc but i prefer with sesame seeds and sesame dressing, which needs only 5 minutes and a very easy salad, prefect when served chilled...This is my second entry to AWED-Japanese guest hosted by Lavi of Home Cook's Recipes, event started by DK..

1packet Fresh Udon Noodles (500gms)
3tbsp Sesame oil
1/2tsp Lemon juice
1/2tsp Ginger (grated)
3tbsp Soya sauce
2tbsp Coriander leaves (chopped)
2tbsp Sesame Seeds (dry roasted)
Salt( as per need)
Pepper powder

Cook the fresh udon noodles in boiling water for 2 minutes, drain the excess of water..meanwhile make the sesame dressing by adding the sesame oil, lemon juice, soya sauce, chopped coriander leaves, salt, pepper powder,grated ginger and sesame seeds in a large bowl..once the cooked udon noodles get cooled, add the sesame dressing and toss the noodles gently with wooden spatula until the noodles get well coated..

Serve chilled r in room temperature!

This chilled udon noodles are really very refreshing to have while its too hot, this salad goes to Priti's Summer Treat ...

Yakisoba ( Soba Noodles With Vegetables N Tofu)

Japanese foods, its quite a new cuisine for me to try out...I never tried or had japanese dishes until Lavi was asking her blogger friends to come up with Japanese dishes..As am curious to know more about japanese cuisine, i went through google and completely got hooked with delicious and easy japanese dish, i was really happy to introduce this fabulous cuisine to my family who also loved having these delicious noodles...i went to asian store with my list to try out japanese dishes...its was really interesting to went through many japanese noodles also their spices, sauces etc...I bought a packet of japanese soba noodles and back home i tried out this yummy fried noodles with plenty of colourful veggies and pan fried tofu..my first japanese dish itself turned out marvellous and we loved it...This yakisoba noodles is my first entry to AWED-Japanese guest hosted by Lavi of Home Cook's Recipes, event started by DK...

500gms Soba noodles
1no Onion(slices)
1/2cup Carrots (juliennes)
1/2cup Red bell pepper (sliced)
1/2cup Sugar snaps
1tbsp Ginger (chopped)
3nos Garlic( minced)
1/3cup Soya sauce
1/3cup Rice vinegar
1cup Baby bokchoy(chopped) r any other greens
1/2cup Tofu cubes
1tsp Sugar
Sesame oil

In a small bowl, put soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar, stir them well until the sugar gets dissolved, set aside. Boil water in a pan,put the noodles in the boiling water and cook for about 8 minutes, until they are tender...drain water from the noodles and rinse them with cold water.

Heat the sesame oil in a wokand add the onion slices to the heated oil, cook for few minutes, add the ginger, garlic, carrot, sugar snaps, baby bokchoy and saute for few minutes again until the veggies get tender...Meanwhile heat few drops of sesame oil in a pan and fry the tofu cubes on both sides, keep aside..now add the redbellpepper pieces with the already cooked noodles to the wok n saute everything for few minutes...now pour the sauce over the veggies and noodles, cook the noodles for few minutes in simmer with lid closed...

Transfer the noodles to a serving platter and garnish the noodles with chopped green onions (optional) serve hot!

I have been to Lourdes for past two days, am very sorry friends for not visiting ur blogs and commenting, we had a great trip to this historical place, here is a picture of my visit to Lourdes in South France...