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The pumpkin on the other hand, is a central part of Japanese cuisine - it goes into everything - soups, pickles, mixed rice and tempura.

Non alcohol Christmas Kanten Jelly.

Sweet spring rolls for Christmas You don't need me to remind you that Christmas is fast approaching. Last year, for the first time I can remember, there were no parties, no dinner guests - just lockdown. Let's hope this year more than makes up for that! I thought I would re-post a couple of my Christmas fusion dishes for you to experiment with now that you will be doing some seasonal entertaining again. So, this weekend's recipe is my sweet mincemeat spring rolls. Yes, a sw

Kanten is vegan jelly and healthy.

cheese and sundried tomato scones if i ever go back to live in japan, one thing i shall surely miss from my life in the uk is the cheese. you see, japan doesn't really do cheese - of course, you can buy cheese in japan but it tends to be the rather bland, waxy processed sort that comes in slices. since i came to the uk 30 years ago, i have become a lover of all sorts of cheese. in fact, most japanese people who live abroad for any time in a "cheesy place" tend to fall in lov

Pumpkin Kabocha Scones Younger Japanese (and not a few older ones) love Halloween. Millions of people strut their spooky stuff in Tokyo, Osaka and other cities in Japan on Halloween night - if you're ever in Japan over Halloween, you have to go and take a look - you'll never have seen anything like it! On a related note, I've been using some of my home grown Japanese kabocha pumpkins on perfecting a pumpkin scone recipe - if you've never tried pumpkin scones, I think you're i

Berry fruit Kanten Serving a chilled dish of kanten in Japan is a true sign that summer has arrived - when the mercury is into the thirties and the cicadas outside are in full song, there's nothing like a little bowl of chilled kanten and fruit to give you that, "ah...i needed that.." feeling. If you haven't heard of kanten, it's a seaweed based gel that is derived from red seaweeds. You could be forgiven for concluding that kanten is in fact, agar agar, but the two are a lit

Coffee Kanten with Whipped cream Do you remember a recipe for berry fruits kanten that I posted a few weeks ago? I'm a fan of kanten (agar agar, jelly) because it's easy to use, versatile, low/no calorie and contains no animal products. So, I thought I'd post another kanten based dessert today - this time using coffee as a flavouring. As kanten has no calories, I thought I'd be a little extravagant and top these desserts with whipped cream but, of course, that's up to you en

Two layer Fruit Kanten Hello everyone. Here's my latest offering - a kanten based dessert made in two layers. For anyone who hasn't come across kanten before, (agar agar is a close relative,) it's an algae based product used to make jellies and other desserts. It's similar to gelatine but it's completely a non-animal product, so suitable for vegetarians and vegans. It's also full of fibre so it's also great for your digestion. This recipe is healthy, a cinch to make and it a

Souffle Pancakes Here's another Japanese expression for you, "fuwa fuwa" (it's pronounced fwa fwa). What does it mean? If you imagine something light, airy and fluffy, you're headed in the right direction. The other day, I went to the Fuwa Fuwa cafe in Russell Square, London. It's a specialty outlet that sells one yummy product - you guessed it - Japanese souffle pancakes. The cafe has recently moved to bigger premises just a few units from where it began in the Brunswick Sh

Japanese Chocolate Mousse Chocolate desserts probably wouldn't be high on your list if you were asked to name Japanese foods but the Japanese actually consume more chocolate than any other Asian country and that's steadily increasing. T he preference in Japan is not for chocolate bars but for chocolate desserts and cakes but this is also changing. Just type in "Japan chocolate" to your search engine and you'll find some very niche (and very expensive!) Japanese artisan chocol

Matcha Green Tea Latte Now that the days are growing shorter and the nights a little chilly, my thoughts turn to warming autumn drinks and there's nothing better as far as I'm concerned than a matcha latte. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that matcha is considered as something of a superfood because it is ground from the whole tea leaf into a fine powder, making it much higher in anti-oxidants than green tea in leaf form. I also don't exaggerate when I say it is pr

Matcha Muffinscheese cake Have you ever seen the very entertaining "Paul Hollywood in Japan" series? Yes, that Paul Hollywood , the celebrity chef and baker. He goes to Japan to sample the food culture and entertain us with a few quirky features of Japanese life. Anyway, I was interested to see how surprised he was by the quantity and quality of Japanese bakeries. But I'd forgotten that most people react like that when they're in Japan for the first time - they just don't e

Matcha Tiramisu If you are of a certain age, you might remember that back in the 1980s, Tiramisu was the absolute must eat dessert, especially in Japan. Nowadays, this Italian dessert is still a firm favourite and like most foods that have stood the test of time in Japan, it's "gone native" to fit the Japanese palate and undergone a few changes. For example, unlike the Italian original, Japanese tiramisu doesn't use eggs which makes it a little less rich and a little less cal