Remember my post about making a Japanese cheesecake? It’s a simple recipe, but very difficult to retain the fluffiness because of all the egg whites. Although it rises high during baking, but it shrinks down like an old person once you take it out of the oven. It’s like taking Viagra before baking: it performs so well while in oven, but as soon as there’s no more “heat,” it shrinks.

Sigh.

Though I haven’t kept up with my numerous battles of perfecting this cheesecake on UM, I have tried about five times. Although it has tasted good each time I’ve made it, it just kept shrinking so much. One time it looked like a piece of fish cake.

So I’ve done a lot of research and found the right oven temp, as well as the correct egg white consistency, as they are some of the most important elements of this recipe.

My previous mistakes were:
1.) Oven temp was completely off. I don’t mean the oven itself, but my brain. For some weird reason, I always thought 350°F = 160°C. It’s actually 180°C (178 to be exact)! No wonder it rose way too quickly and the top part got so dark. Many Japanese recipes for cheesecake says 140°C = 284°F for an hour. So this time, I set the oven at 280°F to take it slow and steady.

2.) Egg whites. There are two opinions. One is to make stiff peaks, and the other is not to do that because egg whites with stiff peaks rises too much and then ends up shrinking too much.

3.) How to mix in the cheese with egg whites. Some say to go gently, which is the general rule of thumb when folding in egg whites. But others say that since egg whites are beaten to stiff peaks, you can abuse them, so use a whisk when mixing. I’ve tried both, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

The best recipe I’ve found so far is this:

1 stick (225g-ish) cream cheese
50 g (just a bit shorter than half a stick of) butter
100ml milk
60g cake flour
20g corn starch
1tbsp green tea powder (you can omit if you want to make a regular one)
6 egg yokes
6 egg whites
140g sugar

Some recipe calls for lemon juice, yogurt, or heavy cream, but I like the one above the best.

METHOD

Sift flour, corn starch and matcha powder together. Set aside.

Put butter, cream cheese and milk in a small pot and heat them up until it all melts together.

If the heat is too high, you have to wait a long time for it to cool off, so keep stirring and stop when it’s a creamy consistency.

This is also an important process. Butter the pan, GENEROUSLY. This will help prevent the batter from sticking to the sides (it also helps the cake rise).

Then coat the butter with powder sugar.

Once the cream cheese mixture cools, add egg yolks, the sifted flour mixture, and mix well.

I found these roasted chestnuts at the nearby grocery store. Great thing about this is, it’s only $1.49. Do you know how much a jar of chestnuts cost at Williams-Sonoma? At least $10!

Chop up the nuts and put it on the bottom of the mold.

Now, the egg whites. Unless you have muscles like a professional tennis player, don’t even bother to manually do it. Use an electric or a stand mixer, beat it until you get stiff peaks.

Below is the way some people like, not too stiff. By the way, all the sugar goes in while making the meringue.

This is how I made the meringue. As usual, be sure to use a dry bowl. Even a drop of water in it will destroy the meringue.

Once the egg whites are done, fold in a quarter of it into cheese mixture. Mix well. I used a whisk.

Repeat this, and once you have a quarter of meringue left, add the cheese mixture into the meringue, and mix well. Again, some say to be gentle, and others say to mix it like hell. I went somewhere in the middle.

Pour the batter into the mold. This will be baked in a hot water bath. Be sure to wrap the bottom of the mold with aluminum foil to avoid any seepage.

Put it in a 280°F oven for an hour and 10 minutes. Et voila!

To make it holiday-esque, I brushed some plum jam on top. Green and red, simple, yet elegant. No need to add whip cream or any other crap on this one. Simplicity is the key to this gentle, soft cheese cake.

Nice green color inside.

Umamiporn here.

As you can see, this is not a typical holiday cake. But I say, why not?! It’s very soft, and almost melts in your mouth– so the opposite of a NY-style cheesecake. One bite of that makes you feel like you ate a stick of cheese. But this one, thanks to the egg-whites, is so fluffy. You can definitely eat a quarter of it without thinking about calories.

Think about the benefits of this cake. You eat meat, fish, sides, appetizers, cheese balls, nuts, whatever else during your holiday meal, and you dread the thought of a heavy cake or pie at the end. But at the same time, you feel you are obligated because it’s your grandmother’s secret recipe, or Aunt Linda came all the way from Kentucky with her famous red velvet cake.

Gram, Aunt Linda, make this instead. It’s so light and everyone’s face will brighten up since it’s not smeared with cream.

This is not the easiest recipe because the oven temp and egg whites are pretty sensitive issues. Also every oven has its own character, so you might want to try a couple of times before the big day. If it shrinks too much on the day of the holiday gathering, just serve it as if it’s the way it’s supposed to be. No matter what, it tastes good.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

*Yamahomo is based in NYC and enjoys cooking and baking. He prefers staying in the kitchen all weekend long rather than being outside.

I actually made this a week after the first trial, hence my memory isn’t too clear.

So after the first trial, from when I bought cheese curd at Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I was determined to make the very best mozzarella. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to find curd in the city. Even a store like Western Beef makes their own mozzarella, but when I inquired if I can get some curd, she was like, “No it is all mine to make cheese with, ain’t gonna give it to ya,”… So i decided to take the long way and started from scratch.

The very best milk you can get in the city is probably Ronnybrook, and fortunately there is the shop at the Chelsea Market where bought a gallon of it. $14 for a gallon?! WTF! This better be good.

As you see, all you need to make mozzarella is a gallon of milk, 2 tea spoons of citric acid (you may apparently substitute with lemon juice), and rennet. I bought rennet online, and 10 tablets for about $10. To make cheese out of a gallon of milk, you need 1/4 of a tablet, so I can make shit load of cheese…

Pour milk into stainless steel pot (can’t use aluminum), and add citric acid. Meanwhile, break rennet and mix it with 1/4 cup of water (they say to use bottled water, but I didn’t have it and used regular tap water). Heat milk to 88 degrees (my candy thermometer starts at 100, so I had to guess), then add rennet mixture, turn the heat off, and wait for 3-5 minutes.

This was pretty amazing how it started curdling up. Looks like tofu, doesn’t it?

Scoop curd up, try to lose as much whey (water) as possible, and pour it into a glass bowl.

Out of a gallon of milk, this is all you get. No wonder cheese is so fatty.

You can use whey for something (don’t know what), but it tasted like sour weird water.

Microwave cheese for about 1 minute, then squeeze more whey out, and repeat this until cheese is too hot to touch. Meanwhile, keep squeezing out the water every time you take it out of microwave.

Once most of the water gets squeezed out, add salt (I think I put about 1tsp) and start stretching. Caution, it’s damn hot, and too bad I didn’t video record this part. This cheese was cursed out.

Stretch and squeeze. You kinda see little speckles, which I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t warm it up enough (though it was hot as hell). More stretch, more stringy cheese, and less stretch, more moist cheese. Also during this part, my apartment smelled like a house with a baby. You know that smell of baby and milk? I barfed a little in my mouth. I don’t like milk, nor that baby house smell.

Seriously $14 gets you this ball? I am going to try with regular milk next time. Flavor wise, it was fine, but I didn’t find Ronnybrook to be that different from any other mozzarella.

Fall has come, and cooking season has started. I will try a couple more times. Meanwhile, if you are in NYC and interested in making your own mozzarella, I can give you a rennet since there’s no way I will use it all up. You can buy citric acid at Zabar’s, or Chelsea Market’s Buona Italia.

Sorry for my long absence. Summer has been occupying me and it’s also too hot to cook anything in particular.

Last weekend, my friend Sal from da Bronx took me to Arthur Avenue. I’ve always wanted to check it out, but was scared to go by myself. It’s da Bronx after all, ya know? Sal was born and raised in da Bronx (how he become a lawyer is a bit of mystery, he might have great “connections”). He guided me through the neighborhood, telling me which stores carries the best cheeses, etc. Sadly, many of his favorite stores (especially the best past’ shop) were closed for the week. But I got pretty awesome fresh ricotta, olive bread that put Amy’s Bread to shame, prosciutto di parma, and fresh pasta.

Italian people’s conversations are funny. When he called his mom to ask for specific store locations, and the conversation went like:

Sal: “Ma, I see two bakeries, which one is the good one?”
Ma: “The one next to the butcher.”
Sal: “Ma, butcher is in between two bakeries.”
Ma: “The one with cashier on the right.”
Sal: “… No Ma, we don’t need to come over for barbecue later.”

Love Italian mothers.

Anyhow, the highlight of the trip was Casa de Mozzarella. I was too scared to take photos since you never know how Italians might react to an Asian taking a photo of them or their store. Their fresh mozzarella was so good, and so huge. But I didn’t buy the finished product.

I’ve been wanting to make my own mozzarella, but never had a chance to buy cheese curd, and I asked if they sell curd, and the guy at the counter was like, “Sure, it’s $3.99 a pound”. So I got two pounds, and came home and started to research around the recipe.

The curd itself looks like a hunk of tofu.

The process is pretty easy. Basically you cut the curd into small pieces, then melt them in hot water, stretch and shape. How easy, right? Not at all. The simpler the ingredients are, the harder to perfect them- which applies to many simple recipes.

Chop into small cubes.

Put cubes into a bowl, add room temperature water.

Here comes a tricky part. Some recipes said, “Do not raise water temperature any more than 170 otherwise you will lose too much milk fat”, and others said, “Put boiling water in it”. I watched a video of a guy teaching a small audience how to make mozzarella, and the fucking video ended right before he started talking about adding boiling water. Goddamn it! So I added 170 degree salted water (about 3-4 tbsp salt in a pot of water). I waited, and waited, then curd started to get soft. Yay!

I should have known, though, that the guy at the cheese shop was stretching cheese as if they were very soft bread dough. This looks like very dense bread dough, which is not a good sign.

After a couple of stretches, I squeezed the ball, and it looks ok here.

Place end product into water.

Tightly wrap them and mozzarella cheese is complete.

Of course it tasted good since the curd is from Casa de Mozzarella/House of Mozzarella, but the texture was horrible. It was similar to kamaboko (Japanese fish cake), and very rubbery. Also I didn’t add enough salt. I was dreaming of having a nice caprese salad, but instead, I gathered my friends and had a pizza party.

You know what happens next right? Yep, I am doing it again, for a Mozzarella Battle! Unfortunately it’s very difficult to find curd in the city, but fortunately, making cheese from milk isn’t hard either (well, according to websites). All you need is whole milk, citric acid, and rennet tablet (whatever it is, I ordered it yesterday). I think citric acid separates milk from water, and rennet solidify the milk into cheese. Let’s see how this comes out. Stay tuned.

We ventured out to Pescadero a few weeks back, which is about an hour south of San Francisco, to visit Harley Farms Goat Dairy. It was such a special Umamiventure- Yoko was here from Tokyo, and Jenny and Mitch from NYC! It was the first time on a goat farm for many of us, and I can say with confidence that we all had a delightful time. Here’s what everyone thought- photos by myself and Thien Vu.

PAMELA
I had such a good time at Harley Goat Farm! Who knew there was another special place in Pescadero besides the Arcangeli bakery!? I had never hung out with goats before. I always thought they were skittish animals, but they’re actually quite friendly and curious like dogs.

PAMELA
We were encouraged to linger with the goats as long as we wanted. I think my very favorite part was hanging out with the babies because I could get down low and hug them and I didn’t fear getting pushed over or nibbled on. As of that day, there were 267 babies, so there were lots of cuddle options.

KAYOKO
There were these cuddly sheep and llamas too!

The sheep sort of kept to themselves, despite the fact that all I wanted to do was snuggle with them. The llamas, however, were super friendly and loved the attention. Janet, our tour guide, said that they are natural born watchmen and protect the goats from predators- such as coyotes. Llamas are quite graceful, gorgeous creatures.

THIEN
Everyone on the farm is so nice and friendly. Even though it’s clear that there is always a ton of things to do on the farm, anyone will pretty much stop and chat with you to answer your questions.

YOKO
Milking the teet of a goat was the highlight of the Harley Goat Farm Tour. For $20 a person, the tour included a chance to frolic with goat and sheep, smell their excrement, milk their teets, visit the cheese making facility and taste the cheese in their magically rustic barn turned dining hall.

Milking a goat required a simple motion where you make an “OK” gesture with your hand, put the teet in the “O” part, and tighten. Once the “O” part is firmly gripping the teet, the middle, index and pinky finger (in that order) wrap around the teet.

Milking facility.

YOKO
There were about 30 people on the tour so I only got to milk one teet, once. The task was very hands-on and satisfying as the product (goat milk) appeared right in front of you. I wouldn’t mind envisioning a life of milking teets at five in the morning everyday.

THIEN
Milking a goat is fun.

PAMELA
Oh, and my other favorite part was eating Harley’s signature Monet cheese that our tour guide had just put together in front of our eyes. It was so fresh and smooth, with a layer of herbs in the middle that complemented the sweetness of the cheese. We got to eat different all sorts of different cheeses to our hearts’ and tummies’ content. I didn’t want it to end!

Seperating the cheese from the whey.


Harley’s award-winning Monet cheese.

YOKO
The barn turned dining hall was also a highlight of the tour. A long dining table that was a slice of a huge oak tree was the centerpiece. The slab of wood was curvy, kind of like the long curvy roads of 84 that took us to Pescadero. The chairs were also curvy.

YOKO
The whole atmosphere of the dining hall reminded me of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas (the country barn version). It was really imaginative and cozy. The next time I make the trip out to Pescadero I would really like to try the $120 evening meal at this barn.

Besides the long, motion sickness-inducing road that leads to Pescadero (don’t eat In-and-Out beforehand), I would totally recommend a visit to Harley Goat Farms. The cheese is amazingly smooth and the staff (and goats) are really friendly and pleasant. Lending me some of their vibrant energy was definitely worth the $20.

JENNY
Harley goat farm was such an amazing experience!! Normally I’m skeptical about arranged tours but it was great to experience every step of the operation, from seeing how the goats live, to milking… to chevre! As an eater, I think any opportunity to see how food is made and produced is incredibly valuable- and tasting that goat cheese on the premises made it all the more pure in flavor and experience.

THIEN
It’s a very green farm in the middle of the Bay Area – which used to be a farming area, but it’s thought of more as the Silicon Valley now. The amount of effort that they put into being green and sustainable is amazing.

KAYOKO
This visit was certainly a fantastic, hands-on learning experience, from start to finish. Definitely book your spot in advance- the tours fill up quite quickly, and they can get quite large (there were nearly 30 people in our group!).

Thanks to everyone who made it out, to Harley Farms for accommodating all of us, and to Janet for a great tour. We’ll be back!

More photos of the trip by ChimChow and softglowingsun.

*Umamiventures are organized monthly, traveling far and wide in search of good, cheap grub. Join the UM Facebook Fan Page to stay updated on all future events. Hope to see you soon!

They call this bit “la religieuse” meaning the nun. The crust of the cheese after all the fondue has been eaten up by greedy mouths. Unfortunately failing to scrape it up in the preferred one piece.

Out with the nun, in with tête de moine-Monk’s head cheese


Have you ever had this cheese before? It’s quite sharp but most notable is the special device you use to grate it. A round disk with a rod through the center that passes through the cheese. Hmm maybe it’s hard to describe without a picture. But I found it packaged which shows you the shape that it gets from the special device.

Yogurt Roundup-
1. Birchermüesli- my favorite flavor


Subtly sweet, raisins, fruits, nuts and oats

Emmi brand “at the bottom” flavor is not as good…not enough large pieces.

2. Lychee Pomelo


IRL it is a beautifully creamy light rose color. The taste is excellent, lightly fragrant and tiny pieces of pomelo and a genuine lychee flavor.

Hmm I guess I forgot to take pics of the fig, pineapple, apple flavors…

Best lunchtime snack


Purée of abricot and pear, with raspberry coulis at the bottom and this absolutely delectable whipped cream on top. Lucky kids!

Do you remember my post on Malakoffs, the most umami of the umami?? I used the recipe from the link and made it…basically grated Gruyère, kirch, egg, flour, baking soda, pepper and scooped onto egg-white brushed toast.


I love frying…very satisfying for some reason. Check out the induction cooktop. It gets hotter than my gas range!

So deliciously unhealthy. My toasts became too brown for some reason. Should you not fry with sunflower oil?? Swiss dairy products are so scrumptious…make sure to eat your fill of cheese when you’re there.

It was the best thing ever but strange because it was kind of a everything included community; there was no reason to leave, ever. Sanatorium.

From my room.

They made these really alcoholic chocolates in house and it was awful, I was lounging around staring at the mountains in a robe and ate around 20 in total. The bottling factory of Valser water was just down the mountain…

I only have pictures of two meals because I went by myself and I felt really conspicuous reading trashy books and taking pictures while everyone else was like drinking cocktails and listening to the jazz band.

My defense is that some sorry Italian tourist left these at the reception desk. But I guess since I read them I don’t really have an excuse.

I always forget not to eat fish in Switzerland. Salmon mousse and some kind of awful other thing that was supposed to be some kind of bastardized sushi but was helpfully masked with a strong mustard sauce.

The English menu was rather funny and sounded sort of engrish. Like essence of meat stick, fried. Anyways this just turned out to be a consommé with barley which was rather a nice version.

Huge delicious salad! Beets, sauerkraut, curry rice etc.

Fresh raviolis with spinach, hazelnuts, browned butter and ricotta. Their pastas were so good here they also had a totally sick mushroom “dumpling” that was so unhealthy, then covered with butter.

Main was normal duck with gnocchis parisiennes which is the kind with no potatoes, in this case no taste.

The best part of all the meals! The local and imported cheeses. Omg. It was ridiculous there were so many stanky delicious varieties that were from the alps. The round tube is a Swiss goats cheese that was so unexpectedly pungent. Bottom right is truffle Brie and at the top, the brown coated Camembert was Calvados flavored. The beer and nut breads were also delicious.

I knew sour cream ice cream would be delicious! Funnily enough, the German word for it is “eis” pronounced “ice.”

Breakfast was buffet style with more cheese again and brown, nutty breads and the ubiquitous and delicious birchermüesli! I love Switzerland.

Therme Vals
7132 Vals/GR
T: +41 (0)81.926.8080

This was my favorite cheese choice from there. So thin that you didn’t spread it; you just dripped it. Actually it was not so heavy but so silky and light+

I went to Germany a few weeks ago and got just a couple of things…


Kayoko, you would have loved this. I don’t think they have rum raisin flavor in the US? Well if they do please run out and buy it is amazing and totally smells and tastes alcoholic. Delicious. I also bought blood orange white choco (summer) flavor which I will not be showing because it tasted like floral plastic.

My friend described this as “kids beer.” Like what, have you never had kids beer before? Notice the children holding hands and frolicking on the label. It tasted like coke and beer mixed together, which I guess is a popular thing to do there as well. Oh those Germans.

The X mark suddenly got bigger and bolder.

But seriously, who wants to write a report about movies when you can be writing about a nice-looking box of overpriced British crackers instead??? Check it out.

The Fine Cheese Company is based in Bath, England, and sells a plethora of cheeses, and other goodies online. I found these chive crackers at Blue Apron in Park Slop, with other unique flavors such as fennel, red pepper, olive oil and rosemary. Wanted to buy all of them, these box designs are so damn cute, but um, they cost $5 a pop.

These freehand pencil-like drawings are really darling. I love how it suggests the type of cheese you should eat with these.

The taste? Eh, they’re ok. Not anything spectacular. A bit too dense maybe- a very substantive cracker. There’s Naoko!

Appropriately, here I am blogging about biscuits amidst serious crunch time. Get it? Get it???

What the hell is wrong with me. Back to work!!!

My friend Stephen is a professional gardener at the Conservatory Garden in Central Park and he invited me to a sweet little soiree they were having on Wednesday. If you haven’t been, it’s a spectacular garden on 105th Street and 5th Avenue that is filled with summer blooms right now.

A wine and cheese party was thrown by the Central Park Conservancy for members and supporters of the garden. It was a beautifully warm June evening that felt whimsical with roaming musicians, wine and cheese tastings, and an amazing dessert sampling table that I had a hard time getting away from!

A selection of Cabot Vermont Cheese was provided (local, affordable and delicious- I buy this brand all the time at the grocery store!) along with wine from Martha Clara Vineyards on the North Fork of Long Island. The cold Pinot Grogio was great (and local!).

Here are a few photos from the evening…thanks, Stephen!

Stephen & I: