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Yuzu Cake Vegan Japanese School Lunch  柚子餅 学校給食 [Recipes, Winter 冬レシピ]


日本語のレシピは ビーガン、ベジタリアン情報満載の Hachidory から ご覧下さい。

 

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It’s the midst of yuzu season in my town now.

 

Yuzu is the yellow color citron which has a unique fragrance.
It might be most appropriate to translate to “Japanese lemon” as like lemon, it is also too sour to eat just as it is, and usually its juice and peels are used for cooking. 

 

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I use yuzu for almost every meal during this season.

 

When I drink herb tea, I squeeze the juice from the halved yuzu to the cup.

 

When I make the vegetable pickles, I add the peels and juice. 

 

The morning miso soup also has some peels of yuzu.

 

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It is absolutely refreshing taste and aroma for many adults, but I heard from many children and young people that they do not enjoy Yuzu. 

 

The young lady whom I came to know recently told me that the school lunch during this season was always not a pleasant one for her because Yuzu was added to the dishes and that experience made her away from Yuzu even after she finished schooling.

 

I wonder if you have ever seen the scenes of Japanese public-school lunch time.   It is often praised by people around the world as the meals are nutritionally balanced consisting of variety kinds of vegetables and ingredients, and those menus are prepared by professional dietitians who belong to each school.

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 Typical school lunch

 

Lunchtime is not only to eat the nutritious meals, but it is the time to learn the disciplines such as cooperation and manners.  (Lunchtime includes the preparation and tiding up process. )

As the lunch sometimes introduces the menus of other countries, children learn other countries’ culture as well as Japan’s different regions' culture during lunchtime.

 

Wow!  wonderful, isn’t it ?

 

But actually it is not so.

 

 

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 This is the picture that I took when my son was in primary school 12~13 years ago.

 



Like her, there are kids who don’t enjoy the school meals.
For some kids it can be even a challenging time.

 

The biggest disadvantage of school lunch is “milk”, which is provided everyday.  (You can see the milk package is on the tray in all the pictures above.)  
There is a strong belief that milk is very nutritious and good for children, providing sufficient calcium and other nutrients.

 

I have heard from the school dietitian that their pivotal work for making school lunch menu is the calculation.  Calculation  of nutrients. 

It is not easy to create the menus which provide sufficient nutrients especially calcium when they follow the guidelines. 

But if they add a package of milk to it, the figures easily tally with the chart. 

 

Another reason is that the government needs to support milk industry.

 

The custom of providing milk to children in primary schools was initiated by the government after the world war.  It was meant to give nutritional food to children, but it was also to utilize the powdered milk in mass scale.  Those powdered milk was imported to Japan from the US as US had too much excess milk at that time and needed to export. 

 

I heard it is not a must nowadays to drink milk as long as the parents provide the letter to school to state that the child is allergic to it.

 

But it was a must until decades ago so it was a hell for those children who detest it.  I still remember my schoolmate’s sad face when he was scolded by the teacher for not drinking milk. 

I know even now some children drink it reluctantly. 

 

More and more I research on cow’s milk, it is revealed that it has more disadvantages than advantages for our health and it is also creating huge problems environmentally and ethically.

 

May be I got off track from today’s topic ?

Let me come back to the introduction of my yuzu recipe now.


Of course, if you do not enjoy Yuzu, don’t dare to follow the recipe exactly and replace it with other citron fruit!



Yuzumochi 柚子餅 / Yuzu Cake

 

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Ingredients

 

For skins

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l  5g Shiratama glutinous rice flour  

l  10g + 80g water

l  20g amazake / sweet white rice malt or 1tsp granulated sugar

l  10g yuzu juice

l  yuzu peel from one Yuzu

l  50g all purpose flour – sift with a sifter or tea strainer

l  1/2 tsp odorless oil

 

For fillings

 

l  1~2 purple potatoes (to yield 160g of steamed potato paste)

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l  0g ~ 20g unrefined sugar, to be added when the sweet potatoes are not sweet enough.  Adjust to your taste.

l  1/4 tsp salt

 

For assembling

 

Yuzu peel from 1~2 Yuzu

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Utensils required

 

Steamer

Fork or strainer

Sifter or tea strainer

Frying pan or electric griddle – the latter one is more suitable

Bowl

Ladle or big spoon – preferably 20ml size

Spatula

Scraper

 

 

Procedure

 

1.      Steam the purple sweet potatoes till soft.

 

2.      Mash the potatoes with a fork.  Or strain with the strainer and the spatula if you want smoother texture without fibers.

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3.      Divide the paste to 8 portions and form balls.

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4.      In a bowl, mix shiratama glutinous rice flour and 10g of water till all the lumps of shiratama flour disappear.   Then add 80g water, amazake / sweet rice malt, yuzu juice, peels and sifted all-purpose flour, and mix thoroughly. 

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The mixture is quite loose.

 

5.      Heat up the frying pan or electric griddle, coat the surface with the odorless oil using a brush.  

The oil is to prevent the dough from sticking to the pan.  Try not to use excess oil, otherwise the skin would be greasy.

 

6.      Turn down the heat to minimum once the pan turned hot.  If you can control the temperature, set to 100. 

if the pan is too hot, the color of the pancake turns browny.

 

7.      Scoop the batter onto the pan or griddle using a ladle or a spoon which can measure approximately 20ml. 

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8.      When a few holes are seen on the surface, flip over.   Transfer to the plate after 10 seconds. 

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    Do not pile up the skins as the touching parts may stick each other.

 

9.      Place the sweet potato ball at the lower side of the skin, and cover the ball with top half portion.  Decorate with grated yuzu peel.

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Here are other yuzu sweets that I recently made.

 

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  Yuzu cake, introduced in November class.

 

 

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 Yuzu jelly, very refreshing after naberyori / hot pot cooking

 

  

Happy cooking! 

 


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