Back in Hawaii......

I finally have internet! After a week or so I finally managed to settle down in Hawaii after returning from Japan. It seems almost surreal being able to live and work in Japan. If you decide that you would like to travel to Japan and work there, its not as easy as it seems. Asides from the issue of getting a visa to work there, majority of the japanese people don't even speak english so knowing how to speak japanese is a must. Fortunately, my wife is japanese and I can speak the language. If getting a visa is no problem and you can speak japanese and you are pursuing a job in a patisserie or boulangerie you better be damn good at what you do because these people whom hold much pride in their work will expect much from you as a foreigner. If you can hang in with these people, the bright side is that there are many jobs available for patissiers and boulangiers in Japan. Here is a good website for those looking for a job in Japan http://www.gourmetcaree-tokyo.com/index.html . It has listings for all kinds of kitchen work. Just look in the patissier section.

Warm Sponges

I have decided to move my recipes to my blogsite.  It's easier to work with and it's free!

The type of oven that you are working with makes the biggest difference in the overall result of the quality of the pastry that you are making whether it's sponge mixtures, cakes, cheesecakes, or even cookies.  The best ovens are deck ovens that are tile lined on the inside with temperature controls for both the top and the bottom heating elements and a vent control.  Convection ovens move the heat around the pastry too fast.  Before the proteins in the pastry begin to coagulate the the expansion of the air trapped within the pastry have already exceeded their limit.  This leads to dry and crumbly sponges, cracked cheesecakes, and so on.  If you are working with a convection oven set the fan on the lowest level and always rotate 3/4 into the baking time.  Pastry is a science after all.  If there is one book I could recommend it would be Harold Mcgee's On Food and Cooking.    Read it.

On some of the recipe's, lg flour means (low gluten flour), mg flour (medium gluten flour), and hg flour (high gluten flour).  

Check for daily updates and additions for recipes.  

To prepare the genoise, crack the eggs in a clean stainless bowl and add the sugar.  Mix immediately until thoroughly mixed.  Never add the sugar, leave it, and do something else.  The sugar will start coagulating with the yolk of the egg and then you would get lumps (coagulated eggs in your mix).    Place over a double boiler while continously mixing until 43 deg. C./110 deg. F.  You can do this over direct heat, you just have to be careful that you don't make scrambled eggs.  Strain the mixture into a mixing bowl.  Whip on high speed until the mixture triples in volume.  You should be able to clearly see the trail of the whip.  This takes some experience in knowing when the sponge is ready.  Fold in the flour too early and the sponge will collapse.  
Sift the dry ingredients.  Fold into the sponge with a spatula or a plastic scraper.  Always fold in one direction and make sure the flour is thorougly mixed before adding the butter or other liquids.
Melt the butter.  If you are adding glucose and/or milk add to the butter once its melted and warm till lukewarm.  Mix part of the sponge mix with the butter/butter mix with a whisk and then fold into the mix.  Pour into prepared pans and bake.  Japanese genoise recipes have glucose and milk which creates a whole different texture to the genoise.  It collapses the sponge a bit yet, creates a moist soft texture to the genoise.    

Oven temp. for rings:
top/180 deg. C.  bottom/170 deg. C.

For sheets:
top/220 deg. C.  bottom/200 deg. C.

Convection for rings:
170 deg. C.

Convection for sheets:
180 deg. C.

Warm Sponge
Genoise:	1-8"	Chocolate Genoise:	1-8"
egg	3 pc.	eggs	3 pc.
sugar	100 g.	sugar	100 g.
flour	100 g.	flour	80 g.
butter	20 g.	cocoa	20 g.
		butter	20 g.
Sand Mixture		Chocolate Sand Mixture
egg	300 g.	egg	300 g.
sugar	200 g.	sugar	210 g.
flour	180 g.	flour	160 g.
cornstarch	20 g.	cocoa	20 g.
vanilla	5 g.	cornstarch	20 g.
butter	150 g.	vanilla	5 g.
		butter	50 g.
Mocha Genoise:	1-9"	Vienna Mixture
eggs	4 pc.	egg	300 g.
sugar	120 g.	sugar	200 g.
flour	100 g.	flour	200 g.
butter	30 g.	butter	150 g.
coffee powder	10 g.
Hazelnut Sponge:	1-8"	Almond Sponge with Butter:	1-8"
eggs	3 pc.	eggs	3 pc.
sugar	120 g.	sugar	90 g.
flour	90 g.	flour	75 g.
hazelnut flour	90 g.	almond flour	45 g.
butter	75 g.	butter	25 g.
Genoise D'Amande (PH)		Genoise (Japan)
almond paste 50%	60 g.	egg	3 pc.
sugar	50 g.	sugar	100 g.
yolks	33 g.	flour	100 g.
eggs	150 g.	butter	20 g.
bread flour	100 g.	glucose	5 g.
melted butter	350 g.	milk	28 ml.
Genoise (Japan) II	2-8cm.	Genoise (Japan) PP
eggs	294 g.	egg	1215 g.
sugar	170 g.	yolk	135 g.
honey	16 g.	sugar	810 g.
glucose	16 g.	lg flour	810 g.
lg flour	170 g.	milk	162 g.
butter	23 g.	butter	162 g.
milk	40 g.

Good friends and memories.......

My good friend Takashi-san held a party for us at his house in Nagoya.  House's here are quite nice and modern most of which are two or three stories high.  Since they can't go wide, because of shortage of land, they go up.  Lots of beer, shochu, and umeshu!

さよなら日本また来年、かな。。。

Shibuya....

This is the statue of the famous dog Hachiko in Shibuya.

We had margarita pizza and pasta at this Italian restaurant tucked away in a corner in Shibuya.

Parfait anyone?

Here`s something you don`t see that much in American restaurants, Parfait.  It`s quite popular here and needless to say we finished the whole thing.  What`s also popular here is Cold Stone Ice Cream.  Every time we pass by an ice cream shop there is a long line.  Even in the winter time! 

Yokohama....

We stayed on our final days at the Sheraton Hotel across from the Yokohama Station, where we practically go through every day.  Yokohama is perhaps the best place I like in Japan.  It is clean, modern, and accessible.  From where we stayed you can see the Yokohama Bay Bridge in the back.  Things that I will miss most in Japan.......definitely the food, patisserie's, and the boulangerie's.

とうきょうタワ-。。。。

 Since we are nearing the end of our stay in Japan I thought it would be nice to visit Tokyo tower once again.  Here are some images of Tokyo tower and Zojoji temple.

Rainbow Bridge

築地(Tsukiji Market)....

After 1 year I finally got around to going to Tsukiji. It was impressive to say the least. We got there around 9am. I didn't want to go to early and get caught among a mass of people. Yet, it was still busy at that time. I actually managed to do my shopping for dinner, and then some. We ended picking up tamagoyaki(my son's favorite), freshly shaved katsuoboshi, fresh wasabi, chutoro, and some fresh lobsters(the only place that you can actually find fresh lobsters in Japan).

Tsujiki temple

Tamago yaki
Freshly shaved katsuoboshi

Fresh Wasabi

You gotta watch out for these guys driving around in these carts especially if you bring kids here.

Preparing unagi

Shucking clams

あわび (Abalone)

Freshly cut maguro for sale

Assorted fresh crab

たこ (octopus)

I actually had the chance to watch them cut up a whole tuna which was somewhat なつかしい. My first duties, when I started as a kitchen apprentice, was working in the butchery at the Guam Hilton. There we would actually get whole fish like this and have to cut and prepare the fish for cooking. Yet, we didn't have that 1.5 meter katana-like knife that they had to disect that fish which I thought was pretty cool. I'm sure there must be a name for that knife.

The finished product. Beautiful cuts of hon maguro. The top two shelves are the belly cut of the hon maguro, the most expensive and best cuts of the fish.

Where's the beef........

There is a big difference in the quality of beef that you find in your local japanese grocery stores here vs the beef that you find in american grocery stores. Japanese have a knack in perfecting the art of growing not only exceptional fruits and vegetables but also, producing the best quality beef in the world. We got this rib eye cut at a local grocery store at $42 a pound. If you think that's expensive, expect to be putting out at least $150 for 100 g. of Matsuzaka beef. That's $684 a pound!