They Were Ready to Fight: Chigasaki Castle Ruins Park in Yokohama 茅ケ崎城址公園

As we’re waiting for vaccines and drugs against COVID-19, I’m still hesitating to introduce you places outside of Yokohama … So, this week, I tell you my small adventure visiting a near-by historical forest-castle park in Yokohama. It’s Chigasaki Castle Ruins Park 茅ケ崎城址公園. The nearest public transportation stop for the place is Center South Station センター南 of Yokohama City Subway. These days, riding public transportation itself is a sort of adventure … Not much ad posters both in stations and inside cars ... People try to keep social distance as much as possible, with masks, of course … Anyway, unless you visit Central South Station during rush hours, the Station is normally a quiet place. It’s in the middle of residential area. Oh, disclaimer. The photo for this post was taken early March, before the State of Emergency for Yokohama. I think the forest now is full of early summer green …

Cherry trees had only buds at that time …

The Park is very near the subway station. Please leave the Station from Exit 6 which is on the 3^rd floor of the adjacent business building. Going down, we are in the bus terminal for Center South Station. Looking buses on our left, we’ll see a traffic light in front of us, at the crossing with Rekihaku Dori Street 歴博通り. Please cross it and go straight into the residential area. There is a small forest hill ahead of us. That’s Chigasaki Castle Ruins Park. This was a castle for battle, designed to have limited access. To find the entrance, once we reach to the foot of the hill, please turn left and walk along the hill slope. Eventually, there will be an entrance saying this is a historical castle park.

The ticket gate of Center South Station

The exit from the business building

The traffic light at the Rekihaku Dori crossing.
 Please take the road straight in front of us.

The road from the crossing is like this.
 Could you see greenery at the bottom of the road?
 It’s already Chigasaki Castle Ruins Park.

We’re now at the foot of the Castle.
 Please turn left here.

The road surrounding the hill

On our left, the opposite of the castle,
 there is an old temple,
 Jufukuji Temple Kan’noh-Doh 寿福寺観音堂 rebuilt in 1625.

Going round along the hill foot …

Here is “the” entrance to the Castle.
 A bit beyond from here along the hill foot,
there is a 21^st century wider gate to the park
 where maintenance cars can enter.
 The point of this photo is the original north entrance to the Castle.

The Park is an open-air museum for a ruin of medieval fortress castle. There are many panels explaining the structure and past usage of the places, with the findings of archeological research of the area. The ruin preserves well the former structure. According to one of the panels situated at the entrance of the Park, Chigasaki Castle was built during the late 14^th century by a clan of samurai Lord, Ohgigayatsu-Uesugi Clan 扇谷上杉家, that was a part of Muromachi Government 室町幕府 of Kyoto 京都. The time soon degenerated into the Civil War, and the castle eventually became a frontline fortress for Hojo Clan 北条氏 of Odawara 小田原 against retreated Uesugi Clan. In terms of the chain of command, Chigasaki Castle was a satellite for Kozukue Castle 小机城 (: my post on July 3, 2015). The plan for Chigasaki Castle tells us this was a well-thought of fortress for such requirements of combat. It stood on a hill south of Hayabuchi River 早渕川, a tributary of flood-prone and swampy Tsurumi River 鶴見川 (: my post on February 21, 2020). The river could give the soldiers a natural barrier against enemy troops approaching from the north. The very steep slope of a hill we first find from the subway station actually surrounds 3 directions, south, east, and west, of the castle. Such drop could deter the enemy pouring in the castle. The north slope still has remains of dry moats with artificially created earthen walls with a lean of more than 20° degree. It was a serious work.

A panel along the road explaining daily life for the Castle.

One of the panels
 showing the result of archeological excavation.
 The fragments of china found here was
 mainly from the era of Uesugui Clan, it says.

Remaining ruin for dry moat,
 near the North Entrance of the Castle.
 It looks like a road built by modern civil engineering.
Actually, the ground was intentionally dug,
 and the soil was piled up this way to create steeper slope.

In 2020, the entrance to the park is wide and inviting. But when the place was fully functional fortress, it was much narrower with the gates and tricks easy to be deployed. Although the archeological research has not been completed yet, the scholars consider it had two entrances with such functions. The main entrance today is at the possible north gate point of the fortress. Normally, samurai commander of a fortress located himself in the biggest structure, called Nakakuruwa 中郭. For a typical fortress castle of Medieval Japan, from an entrance to Nakakuruwa a road wide enough for horse-riders proceeds on the hill slopes, always turning left and climbing up slowly. Majority of warriors are/were right-handed so that samurai pulled out the sward by crossing their right arm in front of their body and reaching their weapon at their left waist.  Naturally, at the time when they were reaching to their swords their body center turns to the left. Imagine the soldiers protecting the Nakakuruwa watched from higher position their enemies running up. If road to their place always turned left, at the time when the intruders unsheathed swords, they must have shown their shoulder contorted towards the defense team at least for seconds. That’s the time to attack the enemies. The road of Chigasaki Castle Ruin is simple and follows this basic principle. The ruin is one of the best-preserved archeological sites in Metropolitan Tokyo area where we can actually experience medieval war tactics.

From the entrance, the road goes up rapidly.

This is the point where once the gate and traps were located.
 Could you see the road is turning left?

This is the road along the south of the castle.
 The bamboo forest is on a very steep slope.
Bottom of the hill was the residential area,
called Negoya 根小屋,
 for the subordinates of the Castle commander.
 i.e. They protected the fortress.
 South Entrance to the castle was from Negoya area.

The final approach to Nakakuruwa
 from the possible south entrance.
 Come to think of it,
 the subordinates must have run to this very steep slope
 when emergency happened.
 Hmmmmmmmmm …

Whatever the intent of the architect, the present-day Chigasaki Castle is a peaceful hill with a view to surrounding suburbia. (Yeah, the vista itself is thanks to its former role as a fortress …) When Hojo Clan was defeated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 in 1590 (; my post on December 6, 2019), Chigasaki Castle ended its role as war fortress together with Kozukue Castle. The area became a property for Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康, and he let his subordinate samurais manage the area. The structures of Chigasaki Castle were demolished, and the hill became “common land” for farmer villagers lived on the foot of Chigasaki Castle. I guess at that time those who lived in Negoya abandoned to be warriors and became farmers … They planted jolcham oaks (Quercus serrata), bamboos, and other useful species for their village life, which made the castle ruin a forest. In early March when I’ve been there, the place was a peaceful forest where neighbors strolled, jogged, and played. Early spring birds were singing. As this is a place with historical value, it equips easy-to-understand maps and signposts. The roads were wide enough to be relaxed even with the threat of COVID-19. Up to some point, even wheelchaired visitors can enter the park. I guess the place now receives more visitors thanks to the pandemic … in any case, it’s a small comforting oasis surrounded by megalopolis housing complexes. If you visit or live nearby, please try the medieval war structure within a well-cared forest.

The space once Nakakuruwa stood

The remains of the building,
 excavated by the researchers

Beyond the large oaks,
 we can observe housing complexes …

From Nakakuruwa going down to
the present-day car approachable gate,
 there are toilets and potable water faucets.
 I think these days we need to carry soaps to use them.

This is the car-friendly entrance,
 though permit holding cars only.
 No parking for the Park.

I found a Japanese oakblue (Arhopala japonica)
 there in March. 😀

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 thé pensant: making (oh, yeah) tea from tea leaves (and Amabie bonus)

Probably thanks to COVID-19, this spring I had a chance to make English tea leaves from fresh leaves harvested in Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森. Niiharu Citizen Forest has tea plant (Camellia sinensis) which were planted by the first Chairman of Lovers Association, Mr. Heihachi Nakamaru. They yearly provide fresh leaves without fail. Every spring on the day of Spring Kids’ Festival, people picked “first flash” from the trees and made Japanese tea leaves (; pls. see my post on May 20, 2016). As posted here on February 7th, Niiharu Lovers Association planned this year’s Spring Kids’ Festival for May 10 when kids and families were to harvest tea leaves and prepare fresh Japanese green tea in a traditional way. The State of Emergency negated our plan. On the other hand, such things are none of their business for Camellia sinensis. They had lots of first flashes as every year. They definitely needed to trim the bang.

Tea plants in Niiharu Citizen Forest, early May this year.

“Well, Naomi, if you think so, you can pick the first flash by yourself.” “Really?” “Yeah, but this year we cannot provide the facilities to make Japanese tea leaves. No large steamer. No large cooking pan heated with charcoals. And of course, no crowds of helpers to massage leaves for hours.” “Indeed, what are you going to do with those leaves after picking?” Hm. Naomi had an idea. “Er, I cannot say for sure if it works, but I at least have a plan. Can I have those picked leaves for myself.” “OK. If you say so, try that.” Wow! So, this week is about my adventure to produce English tea leaves from scratch. Why English tea? I googled and found out the way to prepare tea leaves without infrared heater or hours of hand massaging of leaves. It was to make English Tea.

Venerable Twinings …

On this planet there are 3 large categories of tea made of leaves from tea plant: green tea, Chinese tea, and English tea. When we pick tea leaves, they first wither, and then start to ferment with oxygen. These 3 kinds of tea differ in the timing when oxidative fermentation is stopped by cooking. Japanese tea is green tea, for which tea leaves are prevented from fermentation by cooking as soon as possible after harvesting. Various Chinese teas are made by choosing different levels of fermentation. It sounds demanding for amateurs to pick the right moment to cook leaves. English tea is of tea leaves reached to the edible-max of fermentation. To make tea leaves with limited availability of skill and equipment, English tea is the most feasible option to take, it seems to me. So, here is the way I took, based on a HP of Japanese tea merchant.

First, we have to pick the leaves. As you can see in the above photo, first flash tea leaves have distinctive lime green and soft shoot. We pick the top 3 new leaves from each branch.

This year, we have collected this much of tea leaves. Several senior Lovers took some of these. “I’m going to make Tempura this evening with these leaves!” The fresh tea leaves are edible, but we have to be careful. They have lots of Vitamin C and caffeine. Too much consumption for supper can bring us insomnia …

This is the portion I had from 2020 tea leaves of Niiharu Forest. I washed them, and, THIS IS IMPORTANT, left them withering for about 24-48 hours in a shade with good air circulation. My space was filled with fresh scent from the drying first flash …

For Darjeeling First Flash, two days for natural drying are best, they say. So, I waited 48 hours. Niiharu’s leaves were withered to this level. It is time to “massage” tea leaves.”

The way to do is like kneading dough for bread, preferably on a flat bamboo basket for easy circulation of air during the process. The leaves soon became a ball, and my hands could feel a sort of stickiness with tea aroma.

After kneading the leaves for about 30 minutes, the leaves reached the stage to stick each other and did not fall off from the ball. It’s time to stop, and separate the held-together “tea leaf ball” like this photo. It seems to me if we left the ball as a ball, we can never separate the leaves. Spreading them out is important.

I put them in a plastic bag, closed the bag, and left it for half a day at room temperature. The massaging broke the membrane of leaves, which lets protein inside the cell oozing out. That substance acts as catalyst for tea tannin to be oxidized, which is “fermentation of tea.” So, it’s the process different from fermentation done by, say, lactic acid bacteria. In order to stimulate oxidization, I put the massaged leaves in a closed bag and locate it not too hot/cold environment.

The result of 12 hours’ oxidization, or fermentation. It certainly had floral scent. My expectation rose … According to the instruction, 12 hours inside a plastic bag is for first flash tea expecting fresher aroma. If we don’t mind too much about the flavor, 3-4 hours in a bag would be enough. Anyway, to stop fermentation here, we have to “cook” the leaves. The way to do is simple: bake them in an oven at 120°C for 10 minutes.

Done. Wooooow, it looks like leaves of Fortmason Tea! Yeah, we can taste it here. But, you’d better dry it further in room temperature for few hours before storing. Or fllowing the advice from the HP I referred, I decided to let them mature and have sweeter scent by leaving them in a closed container with packets of oxygen absorbent. It will take half to one year more before tasting them ...

I keep throwing in oxygen absorbents from chocolate boxes.

Come to think of it, English found their tea brought from Mumbai by sailing ships of East India Co. The merchants crossed steaming-hot Indian Ocean, went round the Cape of Good Hope and arrived London or Liverpool at last. It would take 6 months or more, passing the equator twice. During the voyage, the barrels of tea had a good sleep at the bottom of the holds … Mine is in a corner of my house now, ready to wave over steaming-hot Japanese summer in a port city of Yokohama. Let me see how they would turn out!

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/

Bonus for this post. I found this sweet in Depachika of Sogo Department Store Yokohama. It’s Dorayaki, a pancake sandwich of red bean paste. (Do you know Doraemon, a cat robot? It’s his favorite.) Could you see a strange figure on a pancake? Now this drawing of Amabie is hot here in Japan. It is said that Amabie is … er, magical spirit appeared early May 1846 in the beach of Ariake Sea 有明海 of Kumamoto 熊本. First, villagers noticed something was shining in sea for several nights. They thought it strange and reported the incidents to Samurai Lord in Kumamoto Castle. He dispatched his subordinates to investigate to the beach. Then, that light approached slowly to the officers waiting on the beach. A strange creature, the one on the pancake, appeared. It said “I am Amabie. I tell you, humans, you’ll have 6 years of good harvests from this fall. You also have terrible epidemic during the time. You have to make picture of mine and spread my figure all over the country.” Amabie then returned to the sea. The officers were astounded, and reported the story to his Lord. From there it became national news. 1846 was not a particular year, epidemic-wise, for Japan, but it was the time of Irish Famine, right? How to interpret her warning …? The “newspaper” issued in Edo (Tokyo) at that time is now in the library of Kyoto University as a historical document. First forward to the 21^st century, Ms. Amabie who loves to be seen by millions is THE Japanese Idol under COVID-19. Here is the site you can check the latest cutie Amabie created by Japanese artists. Happy Social Distance Life, and stay safe.

Un Smilax china pensant: Cooking sweet dumpling with leaves of China root

Euonymus oxyphyllus

Whatever COVID-19 does for us, I love sweets! This week I tell you another cooking adventure of mine using leaves from forest. This week’s leaf is, I’ve heard, regulars for sweets in western provinces of Japan. It’s leaf of China root (Smilax china). China root is a climbing plant native in Japanese archipelago, Korean Peninsula, and China. People in western part of Japan, i.e. Kin’ki 近畿, Shikoku 四国, Chugoku 中国, and Kyushu 九州 areas, use traditionally the leaf of Smilax china for wrapping sweet dumpling made for an annual May 5^th festival to rejoice healthy growth of kids, called “Kodomo-no-Hi (Kids’ Day) こどもの日.” In my post for May 22, 2020, I reported my adventure to cook Chimaki sweet with reeds for Kids’ Day. Another, and more popular, sweet for Kids’ Day is sweet dumpling called Kashiwa-mochi. Today I make Kashiwa-mochi with leaves of China root.

Strawberry Geranium (Saxifraga stolonifera)

In contemporary Japanese language, Kashiwa means Japanese Emperor (Sweet) Oak (Quercus dentata). In eastern Japan, we wrap dumplings for Kids’ Day with leaves of Kashiwa. I’ve heard it’s the reason for the name of the sweet. Though, according to Mr. Hiroshi Taoda 垰田宏, a retired officer for the Forestry Agency of Japan, the truth was different. He reports there was a marketing ploy some 300 years ago for Emperor Oak to replace China root in Eastern Japan. Before Tokyo became Japanese political center, people used ubiquitous China root to make dumpling for the kids’ festival. After Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 started his shogunate government in 1600, the population of Edo (Tokyo), which was till then a remote corner of Japan, exploded. Tokyoite people soon found shortage of leaves for sweet dumpling of Kids’ Day. Kids’ Day festival was important for samurai who dominated Edo then. It was the ritual to pray for their offspring growing stronger, and for their clan prospering further into the future. Eating sweet dumpling was the MUST. Pâtissiers in Edo had to satisfy high demand of dumpling with substitute leaves. They used leaves of Kashiwa tree that were used locally around the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and rationalize their choice by saying “Look, old leaves of Kashiwa do not fall off until young leaves become robust enough. That’s the way to promote success of a clan, as Lord Tokugawa does! We use leaves of Kashiwa for this very important symbolism.” Well, it’s a Confucian catch copy, but anyway became popular in Tokyo. Not all the people in Japan were samurai, especially in old western part of islands. They simply pooh-poohed this “new trend from once rural area of the East” and continued using leaves of Smilax china.

Kashiwa-mochi, Edo-style.
 These days, they are available in
 supermarkets all year round.

In classic Japanese, any large leaves were called “Kashiwa.” According to Mr. Taoda, there are linguistic studies why this “Kashiwa” became the name for emperor oak. Patisserie business of Tokyo utilized such verbal confusion to market their newer approach, I guess. In any case, Kashiwa tree loves chillier places. Western part of Japanese archipelago has milder climate. Kashiwa down there are often planted for luxurious garden. My mom who came from Shikoku Island told me she was surprised to see “Kashiwa-mochi” was actually wrapped in Kashiwa leaf when she first visited Tokyo. Well, a daughter of her, born in Tokyo and grew up in the suburb of Tokyo, has never seen Kashiwa-mochi wrapped in leaves of China root. Having said that, (with a fearless smile on Naomi’s face) I now know where to go for leaves of China root in Yokohama. In addition, Google gives us recipe, right? My adventure begins.

Yokohama’s China root in May.
 It’s growing strong.
 Could you figure out its stems with green hooks?
 As the plant matures,
 they become real hangers causing a mess for anybody
 who ventures into their bush.
 Japanese name for China root is Sarutoriibara.
 “Saru = monkey, tori = catching, ibara = thorns.”
 Got it?

First, harvesting. China root has beautiful, and tons of, red currants in late autumn. I found many of them lying around on trekking roads while I walked in Yokohama’s forests. Several years back, I was tempted to plant it in our garden … and so, did a bit of research. Without fail, the recommendation was, “Don’t, unless you have acres of forest as your private park. It is a strong and dominating climber that should cause havocs in your garden for sure.” Well, indeed, China root is ubiquitous in Yokohama’s forests. It’s not at all difficult to find them. In addition, incentive to remove Smilax china from forests is lower. Their leaves are feed grass of the larva of Blue Admiral (Kaniska canace). Afficionados of butterflies value the existence of the plant as a sort of insurance for their Blue Admiral to dance coming summer. When I checked the leaves of Smilax china, I often met with voracious larva munching the leaves continuously … Sorry, I take just little bit of these leaves, and I hope you don’t mind, caterpillar. 😄

In winter the red currants of China root become matured seeds.
 Don’t you think they are inviting us to do endozoochory?
 Devil’s temptation …

The real very hungry caterpillar for Blue Admiral

Next, strategy. Commercial Kashiwa-mochi uses Kashiwa leaves only to wrap sweet dumpling. It’s a sort of boring, isn’t it? Besides, in Japan, the entire Smilax china plant has been used as an ingredient for traditional herbal medicine. Leaves of Smilax china are edible when they are young. The leaves have slightly sweet flavor, it is said. I decided to sandwich the dough of sweet dumpling with young leaves of China root and to eat all together. Here is the recipe I used for cooking Kashiwa-mochi dumpling with young leaves of China root:

Young leaves of Smilax china

2020 Kids’ Dumpling with China root leaves

<Ingredients for 10 Dumplings>

200g Joshinko 上新粉: rice flour made from non-glutinous rice which is available in large supermarkets.

200cc of lukewarm H2O: Er, I tell you this amount was, it turned out to be, too much. I should not use all 200cc… please look below.

200g Anko: Sweet red bean paste. In Japan, we can find many brands for the paste in ordinary supermarkets. Yeah, if you like, you can make it by yourself. But it’s something of the most important ingredient for Japanese sweet. The maestros of Japanese pâtissiers compete each other to make theirs even better. I didn’t intend to join their life-long pursuit for perfection, and settled with the popular edition.

20 young leaves of China root: to eat leaves, we have to harvest them while they are still young. I collected them in mid-April. Inevitably, the size of leaves is smaller, and so we need a set of 2 leaves to wrap one dumpling. We can collect young leaves and freeze them fresh until usage.

Joshinko and too much lukewarm water …

Anko pouch

Frozen young leaves of Smilax china

<Essential Tools>

Steamer

<Directions>

1. Add lukewarm water little by little in a bowl of Joshinko, and mix well. Don’t damp the liquid at once. It will create lamps of flour which will be difficult to incorporate into the dough smoothly. Also, I found out 200cc was too much to have a dough formed. Mine turned out to be syrupy. I confess I panicked and added one spoonful of Kinako (roasted soy bean flour) to recover from the situation. Why Kinako? Er, our fridge stored lots of them, to be honest. Anyway, it’s very healthy ingredient, you know.

The beginning of mixing …

Kinako was added to too-soft dough of 200c water.
 I was upset …

After-Kinako dough. It was over-mixed, I presumed.

2. Divide the dough and Anko in 10, and wrap one potion of Anko with one portion of dough. My way of doing it was (1) flatten the dough with slightly dimpled center, (2) put Anko in the center, and (3) wrap Anko with dough. It’s just like what we did for kindergarten!3. Sandwich the formed dough with leaves of China root, and steam them for 15-20 minutes.

Anko wrapped by dough and sitting pretty on Smilax china leaves

and sandwiched by another leaves, and situated in a steamer

4. Bon Appetite! 

My mom tried the treat and said “Well, 20 minutes of steaming made the leaves stringy which is irritating for senior citizens with denture.” OK, OK, OK. “And, you mixed too much the dough, didn’t you? Over-mixture can make dumpling not so soft. Next time, you should know when to stop.” Er … Yeah, I panicked and frantically mixed the dough. Though, I think it was a tasty treat with sweet flavor of spring forest. Traditional Kids’ day is around this time of the year, in early June according to the lunar calendar. The leaves of China root now are far larger in Yokohama. Traditional way of cooking the dumpling is wrapping, not sandwiching, the dough by one leaf, and remove the leaves before biting. This week may be good for making Kashiwa-mochi again. Next time, I shall know the time to stop adding water and to avoid over mixing …

Deutzia crenata

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 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/