Mother-in-law's carrot cake

 I love carrot cake. Especially ones that are super moist and have delicate textures. This is the best carrot cake recipe I have ever come cross.

This is one of the cakes taught to me by my mother-in-law.

Soon after our wedding in Victoria, my mother-in-law arrived with a bowl, a hand mixer, measuring cups and spoons to our Sydney home.

It was her mission to teach home baking to her new daughter-in-law (me) who had never baked a cake before. Modern Japanese kitchens would have an oven these days but when I was growing up in Japan, it was rare to have an oven in a kitchen. The basic Japanese kitchen would have a gas cooker with two burners and a fish grill (perfect for a small kitchen) unlike the Australian standard kitchen which would have a cooker with four burners and an oven all in one.

The only alteration I made to her recipe was I used a fine Japanese grater, which we normally use to grate radish, instead of using a standard coarse grater. It made the cake much more moist and gave it a fine texture.

This recipe had been passed down through my husband’s family for four generations. So I must do my duty to pass this on to my kids.

Waldorf Astoria Carrot cake

Ingredients:

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup peanut or safflower oil
   (I used macadamia nut oil the other day, it was nice too)

3 eggs at room temperature

1 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

2 tsp cinnamon powder

1 ½ cup plain flour

2 cups finely grated carrots
   (I use Japanese radish grater)

pinch of salt

½ cup finely chopped walnuts

Icing

125g Philadelphia cream cheese

30g butter

250g icing sugar

1tps vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 300F/150C°. Prepare 23cm round tin (I like to use square ones), grease and flour the inside of the tin, Line the base with baking paper.

Beat sugar & oil and eggs for 5 minutes. Sift flour, bicarb soda, cream of tartar and cinnamon and salt. Fold into egg mixture and add graded carrots and nuts. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 hour (test with skewer), cool then ice.

For icing: Soften cream cheese, and beat all ingredients until smooth.

Cover top and side of cake. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts if you wish.

* For Japanese readers: link to bakewitheri
http://bakewither.exblog.jp/

Sesame magic

Every Japanese household has suribachi - an earthenware mortar and a wooden pestle. I love the smell of roasted sesame when it’s grinded in an earthen mortar. Even though I didn’t like green vegetables much when I was young but I liked this salad. My grandmother called it “Sesame magic”. For my second visit at the Japanese grocer in Circular Quay, I bought my first suribachi and I still use it now. Suribachi is an essential utensil for Japanese cooking. It’s also pretty enough to serve at a dinner table.

Here is my sesame magic salad recipe.

Sesame magic (Ohitashi_ roasted sesame and spinach salad)

This is one of the most popular and simplest salads eaten at Japanese dinner tables. It’s very simple to make but has such lovely flavor and goodness.

You need a (suribachi & surikogi) Japanese style motor and a pestle.

Ingredients

A bunch of English spinach (not silver beet-it’s too tough)

A pinch of salt

2 tbsp roasted white sesame

1 tbsp white vinegar

1tbsp soy sauce (kikkoman is preferable)

A pinch of dried bonito (optional)

Method

Boil water in a big pot.

Wash a bunch of spinach in a bowl with plenty of water.

When the water boils, add a pinch of salt in the pot.

Grab a bunch of washed spinach and put it in the pot roots first, 
then slowly put them in boiling water until covered with hot water. 
It only takes few minutes (do not over cook).

Once it's cooked, drain spinach then run them under running water to stop further cooking. Once it is cooled, put the bunch together (same side together, such as all roots on one side) and squeeze the spinach by hands. 
Cut off the roots then cut them into about 5 cm length.

Add roasted sesame in a Suribachi and grind with a wooden pestle.

Squeeze the extra water from the spinach prepared before and put it into the Suribachi. Pour vinegar and soy sauce over the spinach. Mix it well. Once it's done, you can serve it in the suribachi or in a different bowl. 
Add dried bonito if you chose.

my comfort food...

Everyone's comfort food is different. When I first arrived in Sydney with a backpack, I did a home stay with a Lebanese family for a month. It's not that I didn't like their food, but after eating BBQ meat, tabouli and homus everyday for two weeks, I really missed my Japanese food. I never thought I would miss Ume Onigiri (rice ball with pickled plum in the middle) and green tea so much. It's so simple but I couldn't get it anywhere. At the end of the 80s in Sydney, there were hardly any Japanese grocers in town (now you have no problem finding them). I found a little Japanese grocer in a corner of Circular Quay (they closed a long time ago), I bought some green tea, Umeboshi (pickled plums) and rice. That was the start of my Japanese cooking adventure a long way from home in a strange town.

How to cook Japanese style rice & make Onigiri
(rice balls) Makes: for two people

You will need:

•   A pot with a lid. (an earthen pot or heavy-based
  Stainless steel pot is recommended)
•  1 cup (220g) short grain rice
  (will make 4 rice balls)
  (Japanese style rice is recommended,
  Koshihikari, Sunrice Sushi rice.etc)
• Water (same weight of the rice after washed
  and drained)
•  A cooking timer
• A scale

Method:
Measure 1 cup of rice (220g).
Wash rice in a bowl (if you use a earthen pot, never wash rice in it.  It may crack while cooking), keep washing the rice in the bowl until the water becomes clear (use your both hands to rub rice). Drain the rice with a strainer and leave rice in the strainer for 20 minutes* ^ (do not soak rice in water).
Weigh the drained rice
(you will find rice is much heavier than when it is dry).
And use the same amount of water for cooking the rice.

* Adjustment: Add extra 1 tablespoon of water when you are cooking small amount and remove 1 tablespoon of water for bigger amount- do experiment and find the perfect measure yourself). Pour drained rice and the measured water in a pot and put lid on.
Turn the gas stove on high (if you are using a electric stove,
it is much harder to control the heat),
Set a timer for 10 minutes (keep an eye on the pot).
Once it starts boiling, turn the heat down straight away
(if you are using electric stove, remove from the heat and start minimum heat using another hotplate), then set a timer and cook a further 7 to 8 minutes in the pot (never, never open the lid). Once you can smell a roasting smell then turn it of, even under the set time. Leave the pot for further 10 minutes without heat. Let rice steam for a while after being cooked. Now you can open the lid for first time, use a ladle to turn rice to aerate. It’s ready to eat.

Tips:

• It depends on how much rice you are cooking.
  Adjust each time to suit your cooking.
• Never leave the pot.
• You need to have a few practices to get perfect rice.
• Don't give up!

* When I cook 3 cups, I leave rice to drain for 30 minuets in summer, 1 hour in winter.
^ You can also wash rice in the morning and drain water and keep rice in a pot with lid.
Keep it in the fridge until you cook in the evening.

Making Onigiri (rice balls) Makes: 4 medium size Onigiri

You will need:

• A cup of cooked rice
• Salt
• 2 Nori (seaweed) sheets, cut in half
• Rice seasoning, Japanese plums, Baked salmon (optional)

Scoop the rice out from the cooked pot, transfer to a bowl
(wet inside the bowl to prevent sticking too much).
It has to be done while rice is hot.
Divide rice in four (easier to make even-sized onigiri).
Wet your hands, put salt on your one side of wet palm.
Scoop one lot of rice and start making a form with pressing hand together.
If you want to put in ingredients, do it before you are
forming a shape.
Once you made a shape, then wrap nori sheet around.
Eat while it warm.
For left overs, wrap it in Gladwrap.
You can always heat it up in a microwave later.

...memories of the kitchen

I love Japanese food, especially what my grandmother cooked for me when I was a child. I spent a lot of time hanging around in the kitchen with my grandmother in my childhood. I relocated to Sydney about 25 years ago. My life here is simply great but I miss small things like eating a freshly cooked warm Mochi (Japanese rice cakes) with my fingers, the smell of grilled fish on the Shichirin when my grandmother was cooking in the garden, or pinching a piece of sweet potato tempura just after I came home from school. Things like these I miss the most. So I decided to write down some of the Japanese home cooking recipes I love and want to pass on to my children. They will be simple enough for my kids to understand so I think this will also be an excellent place for people who want to try Japanese home-cooking too.