Natural vegan snacks in Bic Camera

Bic Camera is one of the largest chains of consumer electronics stores in Japan. Before the outbreak of covid-19, it was also popular among tourists from abroad. In Hamamatsu, you can find their store on the west of the station building. Today I went there to buy a new fluorescent lamp for the ceiling of the kitchen as one of them had gone out.

In addition to consumer electronics, Bic Camera sells some other things. Near the shelves of lamps, there was a section of alcoholic drinks such as sake, beer, wine, and whiskey. I was surprised to see an unexpectedly wide variety of alcohol that the consumer electronics store provides and checked the section. Like liquor stores, they had also nibbles including some vegan snacks. Though there were some snacks made in Japan, I got interested in breadsticks (grissini) from Spain with the indication “100% NATURAL.” They were BREADSTICKS with olive oil (on the left) and BREADSTICKS Mediterranean with tomato, garlic and oregano (on the right).

In Japan, grissini are often found in import grocery stores and some Italian restaurants as they were originated from Italy. I have never expected to find them in the liquor section of a consumer electronic store. According to Wikipedia, grissini are generally pencil-sized sticks and may be offered as an appetizer in Italian-American restaurants. These grissini were about 16 cm long. The color of a breadstick Mediterranean is slightly darker, and sea salt is visible on the surface.

I found BREADSTICKS with olive oil quite tasty just with the flavors of olive oil and wheat flour. Though they were a sort of bread, they were crispy sticks. BREADSTICKS Mediterranean were a little saltier than BREADSTICKS with olive oil and had subtle flavors of tomato and garlic, which felt natural. Both types of grissini were good as they were. The only regrettable thing is that I can’t drink alcohol and couldn’t eat them with beer. I like the bitter taste of beer that may go well with grissini, but my face would turn red as soon as I drink it.

My favorite muesli

The annual rainy season continues in Japan. It is humid and gloomy. Since I felt like eating something light and cold, I had muesli for dinner today, though it may be supposed to eat for breakfast. My favorite muesli is Elthank Japon’s “Premium Bio Muesli” found in many supermarkets. Though it is more expensive than other kinds of muesli, all the ingredients are organic, and fruits and seeds compose 52% of the contents.

The ingredients are organic raisins, organic oat flakes, organic sunflower seeds, organic barley flakes, organic corn flakes, organic spelt flakes, organic pumpkin seeds, organic apricots, organic kamut puff, and organic apples. The muesli is produced in France and packaged in Japan.

The package bears the organic JAS (Japanese Agricultural Standard) mark.

According to the recommendation on the package, you can have it with milk, soymilk or yogurt, use it as topping for ice cream, or mix it into the dough of bread or cakes. I usually eat it with soymilk.

I like this muesli because of its high content of fruits and seeds. Though no salt or sugar is added, you can be satisfied with the sweetness of the dried fruits. I once gave it to my mother who should refrain from eating sweets, and she liked it. Premium Bio Muesli can be eaten not only for meals but also as a healthy snack. In addition to this “Premium Bio Muesli 52% Fruit & Seeds”, there are two similar products “Premium Bio Muesli 52% Fruit & Nuts” and “PREMIUM HIGH FIBER 52% FRUIT・NUTS & SEEDS.” I like the first one the best of all.

*Next day, I blended a banana and soymilk with a blender and ate it with muesli. I also sprinkled cinnamon. That made the muesli even better though it is delicious just with soymilk.

Chestnut rice with Tianjin sweet roasted chestnut

Tianjin sweet roasted chestnuts (天津甘栗 (tenshin-amaguri)) or sweet chestnuts (甘栗(amaguri)) are one of popular snacks in Japan. They are available in any supermarkets, convenience stores, drugstores, etc. all year round. I thought for a long time that they were called so because the chestnuts were cultivated in Tianjin, China, but I was wrong. In fact, it is because the chestnuts were shipped from the port in Tianjin. They have been cultivated in Yan mountains in Hebei Province, which is known as a production area of good chestnuts.

The other day, I found a reasonable pack of Tianjin sweet roasted chestnuts, which contained 4 bags of 100g chestnuts.

They were organically cultivated and had a cut on the shells so that they could be removed easily. There are also sweet chestnuts sold without shells.

As I have introduced before, chestnut rice is a popular dish in autumn. It takes a long time to make it as it is difficult to remove the shells and skins of ordinary chestnuts. However, it is very easy by using Tianjin sweet roasted chestnuts. I made it with 360 ml of rice, one bag of Tianjin sweet roasted chestnuts (80g after the shells and skins were removed), a pinch of salt, and a little say sauce. I don’t know how much water was required, because I used a pot and added water later as necessary. But if you use a rice cooker, 400 ml of water may be enough. To add a flavor, you can also use sake.

As the name implies, chestnuts are sweet. They are good as they are but also suitable to use for chestnut rice. As they were moderately sweet, I thought it would be ok to add some other ingredients such as shimeji mushroom and tofu skin. As I have still three bags, I can do some experiment.

Season of chestnuts

Last Saturday, my mother called me and asked if I wanted to go with her to Horaiji in Aichi Prefecture. She intended to buy some chestnuts in a Michi-no-Eki or a station on the road in the mountainous area. I went to my parents’ house and had lunch, and then she took me for a drive.
This time, we visited the same places as we did in spring. But the scenery was different. Near the first destination, Michi-no-eki Mikawa Sangoku, we could see many red spider lilies. In Japanese, we call them “higanbana” or flowers of the equinoctial week. During that week, we visit the family cemetery or a large temple where Buddhist services are performed and there are many stalls selling food and toys. Though the autumnal equinoctial week was over, we saw red spider lilies in bloom also along the mountain roads.

This is Michi-no-eki Mikawa Sangoku.

They were selling chestnuts and product containing chestnuts.

In this shop, you can also sit and eat some snacks such as dumplings and goheimochi or flat cakes of mashed rice. For goheimochi, they use vegan miso sauce containing walnuts that is also available separately.

Near the cash desk, there were some Japanese unbaked sweets.

My mother bought this one to eat in the car.

Seen from a distance, it looked like an egg, but it’s a rice cake stuffed with adzuki bean paste, with a big chestnut boiled with sugar on top. To my surprise, the adzuki bean paste also contained chestnuts! In Michi-no-eki like this, you can sometimes find a superb vegan sweet.

Then, she drove further to a farmer’s market Kontaku Nagashino.

They were offering big fresh chestnuts at a reasonable price. My mother bought two bags and gave me one.

Our final destination for shopping was Michi-no-eki Mokkulu Shinshiro.

There I bought steamed kuriyokan or jellied adzuki bean paste with chestnuts. Usually, steamed kuriyokan is sold as a big long bar to be eaten by several people. So, it was lucky to find a small piece. This one is 9 cm long and is made from adzuki beans, sugar, chestnuts, wheat flour, arrowroot flour, and salt. It has handmade feeling.

When we finished shopping, we took a footbath there. Then we returned home satisfied, after dropping in the café in a hotel THE HAMANAKO near Lake Hamana.

On the next day, my mother called me saying that she had eaten up the bag of chestnut with my father. The bag I got from her weighed 650g with big chestnut. Since I had never cooked chestnuts before, I boiled one third of them according to my mother’s instructions;

1. Put chestnuts in boiling water and boil for 10 minutes with a lid on the pot.
2. Turn off the burner and leave the pot for 15 minutes with the lid on.
3. Cool down the chestnuts with ice water and then drain off the water.

I forgot adding ice to the water in the last step, but the chestnuts became edible anyway. I cut them in two to eat with a spoon.

The fresh-boiled chestnuts were good, but I wondered if they could be sweeter with some other method. So, next time, I grilled them for 20 minutes with a cut on the surface.

The surface of chestnuts was burned and hard. Maybe I grilled them too long. But I found them tasty when eating with some sea salt. What shall I do with the remaining chestnuts? Maybe they can be mixed into pancakes after boiling, or cooked with rice as in my parents’ house and many Japanese families.

Crumpets with grilled banana

When I first saw crumpets in a supermarket Seijo Ishii, I got curious about them. I had never heard about nor seen them before. They seemed to be small pancakes full of holes. According to the label in Japanese on the package, they were made from wheat flour, vinegar, sugar, yeast, salt/swelling agent, which meant that they are vegan. Before I bought them, I checked on the Internet what crumpets are. From some websites in Japanese, I learned that they are traditional English pancakes (some people call them bread) eaten for breakfast or snack with butter or honey.

When I ate one as it was, I didn’t think it taste very good. So, it was necessary to toast them and add something after all. Since I had a banana in the refrigerator, I grilled it for about eight minutes (with a slit on the skin) until the skin became black.

Then, I toasted crumpets while cutting the banana in slices. After putting the slices on crumpets, I sprinkled cinnamon on them.

The hot grilled banana was softer and sweeter than raw one. Even before toasted, the crumpets looked like sponge, but they really felt like sponge as I ate them. I liked this interesting texture very much.

The combination with grilled banana was good. I think grilled apple with cinnamon and brown sugar syrup may also go well with crumpets. Maybe I can get some idea on the Internet.

Bus tour to Mt. Ibuki (3) - View of Lake Biwa

A long time ago, Mt. Ibuki had several temples for mountain ascetic practices. Though they don’t exist anymore, there is Mirokudo on the summit, in which a statue of Meitreya is placed. It was a small place but looked somewhat mysterious.

We also went to see the statue of Yamato Takeru, a legendary prince in ancient Japan. One day he came to Mt. Ibuki to defeat the Deity of the mountain but was driven away by heavy rain caused by the Deity himself.

Before we climbed down the mountain, I bought kusamochi for me and my mother as it looked delicious. Kusamochi is a glutinous rice cake in which mugwort is mixed and is stuffed with adzuki bean paste. Though it is a common sweet and I have already mentioned about it a few times in this blog, I must say this one was elastic and very good! It was real kusamochi.

Near the shop, we found a tool to carry things on the back. I think this is a very old kind of tool used in mountains, but the cord wound around it seemed to be relatively new. In another shop, I saw tomatoes and cucumbers soaked in water and sold. Maybe they are refreshing to eat when you are tired after climbing the mountain on a hot day.

On our way back to the parking lot, we went to a spot with a nice view of Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the lake, but the houses and rice fields were clearly seen.

When we came to the field of meadowsweet, there was a butterfly on a lily.

While I was busy taking pictures, the weather changed drastically. When I finished and looked back, a clear blue sky was spreading over the mountain.

It was harder to climb down than to climb up because I had to be careful not to slip and fall. Finally, we could see the parking lot.

My mother found a grasshopper.

After returning to the parking lot, we climbed up the observation terrace. We could see Lake Biwa clearly with an island in it. It was difficult to take pictures as the sun was in the same direction as the lake.

Then, we entered Sky Terrace Ibukiyama and had goheimochi, a flat cake of mashed rice skewered and grilled with miso sauce. Though goheimochi is a common food also in the mountainous areas in Shizuoka Prefecture, this one was a bit different. They used peanut butter in the sauce, which I thought was a good idea.

Tokoroten – Agar jelly noodles

The rainy season is over! Last night, we had a thunderstorm, but it was the last rain of the season. Today, it was fine all day, and I was glad to see a blue sky when I went out during the lunch break.

In Entetsu Department Store, I found a stand of Daishin, a shop selling tokoroten or agar jelly noodles. The sales clerk let me taste a little. Though tokoroten is common snack and available in any supermarket, I found it harder than any other tokoroten I had eaten before. He explained that was because they use high-quality agar weeds from Western Izu. Izu is a peninsula located in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture and famous for its hot springs and many sightseeing spots.

On the stand there was a large block of agar jelly, from which tokoroten was made. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to take a picture, but the sales clerk handed me the last packed fresh tokoroten when I wanted to buy one pack. It was intended for two people, and two packs of sauce were also included.

The sauce for tokoroten varies depending on regions. This sauce was made mainly from soy source, sugar, and vinegar, which is common in Central Japan. I remembered that I had green citrus fruits hebesu in the refrigerator, so I made sauce by myself with juice of one hebesu and a tablespoon of soy sauce. For topping of tokoroten, laver and white sesame are often used. As I didn’t have plain laver, I added laver from Korea flavored with corn oil and olive oil. As for sesame, I had ground black sesame, but I didn’t think it was suitable for tokoroten.

This tokoroten was thick and filling. According to the website of Daishin, their tokoroten is so firm that you can make a knot with it. It’s remarkable. Though the sauce didn’t have anything special, I enjoyed the unusual firmness of tokoroten. It was indeed a good product!

In some parts of Japan, especially Kansai District, they eat tokoroten with dark molassess. I also found on the Internet that tokoroten can be used for salad with tomato, cucumbers, etc. I’d like to eat it with kimchi, but where can I find vegan kimchi? Unfortunately, all the kimchi sold in supermarkets contains some kind of seafood.

Steamed buns with semi-dried apple

At the beginning of May, I met my friends in Tokyo and had a very good time. Before we went back home, one of them kindly gave me a vegan present. It was a pack of semi-dried apple she had bought on her trip to Gunma Prefecture.

Though I like dried fruits such as raisin, prunes, and berries, I had never eaten semi-dried apple before. But somehow, I was sure that it would taste delicious when used for steamed buns. On the Internet, you can find many recipes using wheat flour or rice flour (gluten-free). It was interesting to find that steamed buns are often made for weaning food, and some of the recipes are intended for children allergic to eggs and dairy products. This time, I used about 150cc of soymilk, 100g of rice flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a banana in addition to the dried apple.

The recipe is simple;
1. Mix the soymilk and the banana in the blender.
2. Mix the above into the rice flour, add the baking powder, and mix well.
3. Pour the paste into molds and steam for 15 minutes with diced apple on top.

When the paste was ready, I found it was too much to steam at a time in my small steamer. So, I used just three molds of paste for buns and made a pancake with the remaining paste. I didn’t add semi-dried apple to the pancake. It was good as it was, but I thought it might have better to eat with peanut butter.

These are buns taken out from the steamer after 15 minutes.

The inside looked like this.

It seemed that buns had been steamed sufficiently as they were spongy. This was the first time I had made steamed buns, and I was quite satisfied with them. Since the semi-dried apple was sugared, I didn’t need to add sugar. The buns tasted moderately sweet with the apple and the banana. Semi-dried apple can be used also for cookies, muffins, pancakes, etc. and all of them can be made from rice flour instead of wheat flour. The rice flour I used seemed to be intended to make such sweets because it has some recipes written on the pack. I’m wondering what to make next time.

Kyoto Fair (4) - Abundance of vegan sweets and snacks

Kyoto Fair was held only for seven days. Before it ended, I walked around to get some vegan snacks that would last long. My favorite snacks are rice crackers, but they are often flavored with dried bonito. I expected to find vegan ones in Kyoto Fair. In this shop Yuriya (ゆりや) , I read the labels carefully and bought three different kinds of crackers. The most important task was complete!

In Kyoto, there are many specialized shops of food. This shop Mamemasa (豆政) sells bean and nut snack, and they let customers taste their products. I found that coated almonds flavored with soy sauce, mixture of cayenne pepper with other aromatic spices, and laver, etc. were especially good. There were also coated peanuts and cashew nuts. So, I bought all these nuts.

The colorful snack in the picture below is five-colored sugar-coated peas, which is the specialty of this shop. It was invented in 1887 by using five colors. They are red, white, yellow, green, and brown, which were used for celebrations in the imperial palace. Personally, I don’t like sugar-coated peas very much, but they are colorful and may be good for a souvenir.  

Lastly, I have to mention sweets from Tawaraya Yoshitomi (俵屋吉富). Their fresh sweets were so beautiful that their picture was the most eye-catching in the poster of Kyoto Fair.

In addition to these, they had many elegant sweets such as bonbons, dry confectioneries, and agar jelly. The agar jelly was selling well. When I came to the shop, there were only two pieces. I bought one, so the one in the picture was the last piece.

The jelly was beautiful. When I ate it, I felt the flavors of wine and cherry leaves. According to the label, it contained salted cherry blossoms and leaves, plum wine, and some kind of Western liquor, in addition to sugar, agar, and white bean paste. It may be fit for adults.

Kyoto is a treasury of sophisticated food culture. If you are interested in Japanese traditional confectionery, search with “Wagashi” in YouTube. You can find many beautiful sweets.