Un Yuzu pensant: Cooking sweet steamed treats with leaves of Yuzu under the State of Emergency

Continuing last week’s theme, this week I tell you my adventure in cooking with leaves. This time, the green comes from a garden (alas, not forest) of my family. They are of Yuzu. It’s a sort of ubiquitous garden tree, at least in Yokohama. Our tree is not large, but bears lots of yellow fruits every winter。Our family makes jam, juice, etc. with them. May is the season Yuzu trees unfurl fresh leaves. I’ve heard in Spain people make fried donuts by putting dough on leaves of lemon. The treat has citrusy flavor. Well, then, why not with Yuzu? I employed leaves from our Yuzu tree for steamed sweet ban. Er … I admit with this state of emergency things, I’m worrying my weight these days … steamed foods have lower calorie count than fried ones, right?

Our Yuzu tree. It has lots of thorns.

Steamed Treats with Yuzu leaves

<Ingredients for 6-8 Treat>

120g All-purpose flour
3 Tbsp full of Brown sugar. This determines the taste of this treat, so make it sure its quality.
1.5 Tsp Baking powder
110g H2O
Yuzu leaves (a lot)

<Essential Tools>

Steamer

<Directions>

First, I harvested fresh leaves and washed them well. Ours is surely organic, no chemicals applied but regular feeding of used coffee grounds.

Washed leaves

(1.) Dissolve sugar in water. It may take some time for this to complete. You can heat / microwave water to hasten the process. Pour sugary water in a large bowl.

Brown-sugar water

(2.) Sift flour and baking powder in the sugar water. Mix well. The dough is very watery, which gave me a challenge. You see, the point of this recipe is how to transfer citrusy flavor of Yuzu leaves. I hoped the molecule from the leaves penetrated the dough during steaming. For that, it should be easy for the vapor to move around in the steamer. I tried two way.

Dry stuff was sifted in.

The dough

(3.1) I spooned the dough in silicon molds lined with Yuzu leaves. As leaves contacted directly with the dough, it must have been easier for the flavor to be transferred. However, leaves were of thick ever-green tree. It was difficult to stabilize the filled molds. I crammed them in a steamer hoping they could stay as-was while cooking. The prepared steamer became like this. You see, it’s rather untidy.

Ready to be steamed.

(3.2) Another I tried was using paper molds and lined the filled-cups on the bed of Yuzu leaves. Though paper molds were of wax paper, I thought they could still allow flavor vapor from Yuzu leaves to reach to the dough. The prepared steamer became like this.

The blue cup is of silicon.
 It’s a control in order to see if there is any difference
 between paper and silicon molds.

(4) I then steamed the pan for 10-15 minutes until nothing gooey came with a skewer inserted to the treats. They came out like these.

Version 3.1

Version 3.2

Taste-wise, Version 3.1 had stronger flavor of Yuzu. The shortcoming of this approach is, watery dough poured between the layers of leaves. Although we can make tea from Yuzu leaves, they are too bitter to eat. So, after steaming, we had to struggle for separating the treat from the leaves. It was not so fun. In contrast, Version 3.2 created nice-looking steamed treat which is easy to eat. But flavor of Yuzu is definitely weaker than that for version 3.1. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Thistles are flowering now in Yokohama.
 I’ve heard their young leaves are edible.

My mom advised me to try using just one leaf at the bottom of each paper mold and steam them over the carpet of leaves. This way, the container will be stable and the dough is in direct contact with the leaf. OK. I visited the nearest supermarket to buy another packet of flour, and … met with an empty shelf for baking ingredients. It’s the thing of COVID-19 … From when Japanese became so crazy to use wheat flour!? Aren’t we rice eaters, huh?

If you find a problem in Yokohama’s North Forests, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016

FAX: 045-316-8420

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Un roseau pensant: Cooking Chimaki treats with leaves of reeds under the State of Emergency

The Lovers Association for Niiharu Citizen Forest is now suspending our weekly forestry due to the State of Emergency against COVID-19. In forests, this is the time all the plants burst into fresh greens. We should have started mowing now. Especially for those wetlands in Niiharu, it is vital to control the spread of reeds; otherwise, aridification of bogs starts and the ecosystem will be lost. We cannot begin such care this year, at least yet …

A field of reed in a part of Niiharu Forest, May 2020
 … which should not be.
 We have to cut the reed out
 in order to keep the water to flow this area.

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed,” right? Here is my small resistance against COVID-19. I made sweets using the leaves of reed. In Japan, May 5th (yeah, Cinco de Mayo) is for an annual festival to rejoice healthy growth of kids. The day is called “Kodomo-no-Hi (Kids’ Day) こどもの日,” a National Holiday. Traditionally, we make rice cakes for the occasion. One recipe is sticky rice treat, called Chimaki ちまき, wrapped in fresh new leaves from forests. The common recipe for Chimaki uses new leaves of sasa bamboos, but there is regional variety (; for a research paper about the topic, you can download it from here). I’ve found using reeds is the second popular. Well, I’m a thinking reed in front of COVID-19.

I googled for recipes and combined their suggestions to accommodate the constraints we have now … Thanks to restrictions to visit markets and uber-congestion of on-line shopping, I made a do with ingredients I had in my fridge and the thing I can find in my nearest supermarket. So below is Chimaki recipe purely “Naomi Original.” It’s easy to make. Here is how:

2020 Kids’ Chimaki for the State of Emergency

<Ingredients for 10 Chimaki>

50g Joshinko 上新粉: rice flour made from non-glutinous rice which is available in large supermarkets (even under COVID-19)

50g Shiratamako 白玉粉: rice flour made from glutinous rice which is available in large supermarkets (even under COVID-19, ditto!)

16g Katakuriko 片栗粉: starch taken from the rhizome of Asian fawnlily (Erythronium japonicum). Yeah, we can buy in small supermarket a cheap bag of “Katakuriko” which is potato starch. I do not recommend it. For this recipe, potato starch cannot give us enough stickiness for Chimaki. I happen to have the thing from fawnlily in my pantry.

160g Brown sugar

12g Kudzu powder 葛粉: starch taken from roots of Kudzu. It can give transparent texture to the treat. This too could be difficult to find in an ordinary supermarket. Mine is from my pantry.

150cc of H2O

<Essential Tools>

• Microwave
• Steamer
• Microwavable bowl.
• 15m of kitchen string; cut into 10 pieces, 1.5m each
• 10 boiled leaves of reed: I harvested reed leaves and boiled them. By doing so, we can keep their green in a freezer until we are ready for cooking.

Frozen reed leaves

<Directions>

1. Sift Joshinko, Shiratamako, and Katakuriko, then mix brown sugar well in a bowl. 

Don’t leave lumps of brown sugar.

2. In a cup, dissolve Kudzu powder with water. You should never damp Kudze powder in water at once. If you do that, you’ll have very hard time to make Kudzu water. Add H2O little by little, especially at the beginning, and create 150cc of Kudzu liquid.

When 12g of Kudzu powder is dissolved, it looks like this.
 Now you can add all the remaining water at once.

3. Add Kudzu liquid little by little to the bowl of 1, while mixing all continuously. Avoid leaving any lumpy stuff in the bowl.

The beginning of drizzling Kudzu liquid.

The mixture of dry stuff and Kudzu liquid.

4. Loosely cover the bowl and microwave it at 500w for 3 minutes.

5. Take out the bowl from the machine, and mix well the contents. At this stage, the mixture is still very soupy.

Immediately after the first microwave,
 the content of the bowl looked like this.

Mix well, and the bowl is ready for the second microwave.

6. Cover the bowl and microwave again at 500w for 4 minuets.

7. Now the mixture is stickier, mochi-like stuff. Mix or knead it again until it becomes a smooth ball. Mind you, it’s hot! You’d better prepare cold water near you while you do this.

The result of the second microwave. It’s steaming hot.

Knead or mix it well with a wooden spoon.

8. Divide the dough into 10 pieces, and make 10 elongated cones that can be wrapped each by a leaf of reed. The length of a cone is slightly less than a half of a leaf. The easiest way to make a cone is

8.1. First make a ball.

8.2. Next make a cylinder from the ball.

8.3. Finally, form a cone from the cylinder. You did it in your kindergarten, right?


9. Wrap the cone with a leaf. Below is how to:

Position the treat on a leaf this way.

Wrap it from both sides. Place a 1.5m cooking twine in the middle. You’ll make one side for about 1.2m that is long enough to rolling up the wrapped treat.

Fold the leaf at the half, putting the twine in the leaf. Twist the twine at the bottom of the wrap, and

Wind around the leaf-wrapped cone to the top. Pick the shorter end of the twine. Fasten the twine at the top end of a treat. At this point, if your rolling is not secure enough, the twine could be unfolded. So, make it sure the winding is tight enough.

Or, you can secure the wrap with two twines at once like here. In this method, you place middle of the twine at the folding edge of a leaf, and secure the top,

Like these.

Put them in a steamer and cook it for 4-5 minutes.

Mmmmmm … the contents burst out with the steam …

Dunk steamed Chimaki in a cold water, and pat them dry.

Here they are. 10 Chimaki treats wrapped by reed leaves. Bon Appétit!

I found them easy to eat when we tried it immediately after the water-bath. We could use reed leaves as a sort of burger wrap. In contrast, next day after storing them in fridge, the texture became very gooey. We had to use spoon to scrape the treat from leaf. I may have had to add more kudzu powder … Anyway, they were VERY sweet in complex taste of brown sugar. I guess the flavor of this treat is determined which brown sugar we choose … When can we return to forestry in Niiharu? We’ll have a ton of reed leaves eventually …

If you find a problem in Yokohama’s North Forests, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016

FAX: 045-316-8420

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Globalization: Naomi noticed many transplants (literally) in Yokohama

In Yokohama, a meadow bunting is singing, “Spring!”

The State of Emergency against Covid-19 lets me have a weekly walk in my neighborhood. It was a sort of lucky the time began early April, coinciding with spring. Since then, the scenery in our forests changes continuously. At the start, it was for spring ephemerals like violets. Only a week later golden ray florets showed off their happy faces, while bluish flowers of Veronica family started modestly. In early May, many yellow flowers have become a mixture of fluffs and flowers, but Veronicas are now larger and/or taller. Yellow and white flowers of Rosaceae also appeared early April, and in May many of them have maturing fruits. It is difficult to decide a “right” moment to collect their wild strawberries before birds do …One weekend, some pokes their cute flowers, and next week another genius calling our attention at the same place. Where is the protagonist of last week now? I’m walking with my new portable reference book these days. My book is in the latest APG system! There are so many things to learn … Then, I noticed.

Oriental false hawksbeard (Youngia japónica)

Lapsana humilis,
 which is a relative to Oriental false hawksbeard.

Ranunculus cantoniensis

Old friend Oxalis corniculata

Duchesnea Chrysanta.
 Its fruit is edible, but does not taste at all.
 So no one cares.

Pervasive Veronica persica.
 We know it was first identified
 as transplants from Europe in 1887.

Gentiana zollingeri

Hello, cucumber herb (Trigonotis peduncularis) !

Hemisteptia iyrata.
 My senior for Niiharu Lovers told me
 it appeared here this year for the first time
 as long as he remembers …
 But why, then?

When I was a small kid, dandelions, chickweeds, Chinese plantains, jersey cudweeds … were the regulars in our playground here in Yokohama. They were modest flowers, except violets. When I could occasionally meet with cucumber herbs, I was very happy with their tiny baby blue flowers. Now, in our neighborhood, there are more big, “self-asserting” flowers, it seems to me. They are not in established gardens, but wildflowers on roadside. Yes, there could have been alehoofs (Glechoma hederacea) and Ajuga decumbens before. I guess I did not notice them. But I’m not sure if there were this much yellow of prickly sowthistle (Sonchus asper), or red deadnettle (Lamiun purpureum). Yeah, Carolina cransbills (Geranium carolinianum) are pretty in pink. But were they here en masse near my alma mater elementary school? I’ve checked my brand-new reference book, and a sort of shocked to know many of them are “newcomer flowers from abroad.” No one planted them, but they established themselves here, thriving.

Ubiquitous Carolina cransbills, came here in the 1920s.

Water speedwell (Veronica anagallis-aquatica) from Europe.
 They were first recorded in Japan in 1867.

Delphinium anthriscifolium.
 They came to Japan about 150 years ago from China.

Prickly sowthistle.
 They also settled here about 150 years ago from Europe.

Common bugle (Ajuga reptans)
 which was introduced from the USA
 during the late 1960s.

Eastern black hightshade (Solanum ptychanthum),
 first identified in Japan in 1951.
 I simply wonder why it’s here,
 at the foot of traffic light near a forest.

My way of seeing greenery may have changed thanks to the training as a forest instructor. COVID-19 gave me a chance to restudy my neighborhood with more time. I may have noticed these “new” plants this late … Or, suburban forests of megalopolis Tokyo could have changed for the 21^st century. One thing is for sure. The kids now in “wild,” thanks to school closure, will remember Yokohama’s forests of 2020 spring in a different color scheme from our memory of the 20^th century. I tell you, we could not find elegant ivy-leaved toadflaxs (Cymbalaria muralis) in purple, yellow and white, when we were in wild after school …

Ivy-leaved toadflaxs which was first introduced in 1912
 as a garden plant from Europe.

If you find a problem in Yokohama’s North Forests, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016

FAX: 045-316-8420

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/