Japanese Pumpkin and Rice

Makes 4 servings

2 rice cooker cups of rice
1/2 tsp salt
1 10 oz. Japanese pumpkin (kabocha), cleaned and cubed
4 pieces of bacon, sliced
minced parsley

1. Wash and drain rice well.
2. Boil the bacon to remove excess fat.
3. Add rice and salt to rice cooker and fill with enough water to reach the two-cup measuring line in the rice cooker pot. Add the pumpkin and bacon and mix well. Let rice mixture stand for 20-30 minutes before cooking.
4. Mix thoroughly and make sure the mixture is evenly distributed and under water. Cook the rice.
5. After the rice is finished cooking, let it sit 10-15 minutes, then mix well. Serve into four individual serving bowls and garnish with parsley.

Reference:

Takagi, Junko. The Classic Rice Cookbook. Shufunotomo Company Limited: Hong Kong, 1996. p. 23.

Savory and Sweet Crepes

Ever since I was introduced to the crepes while I was in Japan, I’ve been obsessed. I found a creperie nearby my former job and I became a regular, ordering an Egg and Curry Sauce Crepe and a Chocolate Banana with Custard Cream Crepe for lunch with a medium Milk Tea with Boba. Ahhh, decadence. Now that I’m unemployed, I can’t find any creperies around my neighborhood I decided to try to make my own. I made crepes for dinner last night using the crepe recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. Here’s what happened:

1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1- 1/4 cups milk
2 eggs
2 T corn oil

Savory Crepe Filling

10 slices of Monterey Jack Cheese, sliced into thin strips, 1/4-inch wide
5 slices of Honey Baked Ham, sliced into thin strips, 1/4-inch wide

Sweet Crepe Filling

1 ripe banana, sliced into thin coins
Hershey Chocolate Syrup, to taste
Whipped Cream (in spraycan), to taste
What I did:

1. Combine flour, salt, and milk and beat until smooth. I then added 1 egg and beat it into the mixture, then added the second egg and beat that into the mixture. Finally, I added the oil.
2. I poured the entire mixture into a 2 cup measuring cup (so it would be easier to pour it out later) and put the measuring cup and mixture in the fridge for 2 hours.
3. I heated my non-sticket skillet to medium heat until a drop of water evaporated on the surface. I took out the measuring cup and stirred it again before pouring about 1/2 cup of batter onto the pan and then tilted the pan to make a roundish shape of a crepe.

Looking back, I should have only poured 1 tablespoon of batter onto the skillet and used the back of a spoon to swirl it around on the pan. This would have resulted in much thinner and more crepes than what I eventually made. At creperie restaurants, I’ve seen the chefs use a wooden rake to spread the batter out.

4. When the top is dry, turn the crepe over and cook on the other side for 15 seconds. Your crepe is now ready to be filled.
5. To make the savory crepe, add the cheese and ham to to the crepe and allow the cheese to melt. Remove the crepe from the pan and fold into shape before serving. To make the sweet crepe, remove a fresh crepe from the pan and add bananas, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream on top. Fold crepe into shape and top with more chocolate syrup before serving.

Folding the crepes into the triangle shape was awkward. Crepe Institute has pretty good photos of what I was trying to do at home. It might be easier if I had a thinner spatula to help me fold the crepes

Verdict: Worth trying again.

Reference: Bittman, Mark. How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food. Macmillan: New York, 1998. Page 750.

Japanese Crepes

2 tbsp butter
1 cup flour
3 eggs
1 cup milk

Melt the butter in a small cup in the microwave. Sift the flour into a bowl. In a smaller bowl mix together the eggs and milk. Add the eggs and milk mixture gradually to the flour, mixing with a whisk. Finally, add the melted butter and stir until just mixed. This batter will keep in the fridge for at least a day, so you can make just a few crepes for one night and have some more the next morning.