Matcha granola

Hello hello! We're back in Melbourne now, pretty much all settled in - unpacked and back at work. I'm feeling pretty decent, apart from some minor jet lag - I'm up bright and early at six every morning, and ready to collapse by eight at night! Eep! The holiday in Germany was soooo great, but after one glorious month of eating lovely homecooked German meals, coupled with gigantic ice-creams every other day, I'm really hoping I can stay on track with healthy eating and exercising regularly!

And speaking of which... the very first thing I made after we got back was this batch of matcha granola. While I was in Paris (just two weeks ago!) with my friend Clarice, we ate her homemade matcha granola for breakfast and it was so wonderful. It was crunchy and lightly sweet, with a prominent matcha flavour.

Clarice's matcha granola, Turkish yogurt, berries, Indonesian coffee

She adapted her recipe from one on She Who Eats - oats, dried blueberries, sesame seeds, nuts, maple syrup, oil, a pinch of salt, some matcha powder and some matcha chocolate. Funnily enough, while we were away, I got a couple of emails offering me free matcha samples to try for my blog. Perfect timing! So when I made the granola myself, I used Kenko Tea's cooking grade matcha.

Ingredients

For the nuts (heh) I chose a mix of pepitas and pistachios, to echo the green vibe, and macadamias because they're awesome and because I had them in the pantry. Making the granola is a simple matter - it's just a matter of chopping and stirring and baking. Boom! The only unusual step was that the oats are baked first, before the other ingredients are added, so that the oats can get nice and toasty without the matcha powder overcooking and losing its colour or flavour.

Ready for the oven

The dried fruit and matcha chocolate aren't added until the granola has been cooked and cooled down. I used dried blueberries because Clarice did and they taste so good! They're a bit expensive, but they're so wonderfully sweet and juicy! Way nicer than ordinary raisins or sultanas. White chocolate would make an excellent substitute if you can't find matcha chocolate. I think you could probably find it at Japanese groceries, (or in larger pan-Asian groceries!) although I must say I'm not a huge fan of Japanese supermarket chocolate. Clarice suggested I buy a tablette of matcha chocolate from pâtissier superstar Sadaharu Aoki for this recipe while we were in Paris, and it was just lovely. (And at 4.50€ for 25 grams, you'd hope it'd be lovely!)

Matcha chocolate from Sadaharu Aoki

I've got a big jar of matcha granola in my kitchen now, and it makes an excellent breakfast with some yogurt and fruit, or a fantastic snack by itself, grabbed in spoonfuls from the jar. Woohoo!

Matcha granola, strawberries, yogurt, almond milk & a cup of matcha

Matcha granola, strawberries, yogurt & a cup of matcha

Matcha Granola
Recipe from Clarice, via She Who Eats, via Uura on Recipe Blog

Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup mixed nuts and seeds (I used pistachios, pepitas and macadamias)
1/3 cup white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons matcha powder (I used Kenko cooking grade matcha)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
Pinch of salt
25-75 grams matcha chocolate (substitute white chocolate), finely chopped
150 grams dried blueberries (approx. 3/4 cup)

Method
Preheat oven to 120˚C. Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Place the oats in the tray and bake for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice during the baking time. Remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool. (Leave the oven on).
You can leave the oats in the tray, or transfer them to a mixing bowl to cool faster.
Either way, add the mixed nuts and seeds, sesame seeds and matcha powder to the oats, and stir together to combine evenly.
Add the vegetable oil, maple syrup and salt, and mix well.
Return to the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, until dried but not browned. Give the mixture a stir every 10 minutes.
Allow the mixture to cool completely, then stir in the matcha chocolate and dried blueberries. Store in an airtight container.

My Matcha Croissants

Sometimes, you taste food overseas whose memory stays with you, and that you're desperate to have again at home, but are never really quite the same when not enjoyed in their native environment. To name but a few of my favourites: ah pong pancakes from Pulau Tikus in Penang, Malaysian roti canai, Mogador macarons from Pierre Hermé in Paris. Perhaps my favourite "taste of overseas", however, is Sadaharu Aoki's matcha croissant, which I first enjoyed on my trip to Paris in 2011, and again last year. Look at the picture below - it's so flaky and perfect, with just the right amount of matcha flavour. So fabulous - no jam or other accompaniments required! Just apply to face.

Sadaharu Aoki's Matcha Croissant

Ever since I came home I'd been thinking about these croissants and - you saw the first picture in this post, you know where I'm going with this - inspired by Sadaharu's deeply fabulous matcha croissants, I baked a batch of my own at home. Of course, mine weren't nearly as perfect, flaky and gorgeous as the Sadaharu Aoki ones, but they were delicious all the same. And besides, most imperfections pale in comparison to the deliciousness of a treat that comes fresh out of the oven.

I made these for a tea party we hosted toward in December last year for some food blogger buddies - I was sure they'd appreciate them, and the recipe makes about sixteen croissants. I did not think it was sensible for me to be left alone with them!

I used Nigella's recipe for processor Danish pastry, adding a tablespoon of matcha powder to the dough. Remember - Danish pastry dough and croissant dough is the same thing: a yeasted laminated dough. I have made croissants the long way before, but I don't think too much is lost from using the "quick" method. Quick is also a relative term - it still takes quite a lot of time!

You use a processor to distribute pieces of cold butter throughout the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, sugar and matcha).

Butter and dry ingredients in the processor

And then you stir through the wet ingredients (water, milk, egg) and let it prove in the fridge overnight.

Dough before overnight proving

Dough after overnight proving

And now we have the "turns": rolling out, folding and turning the dough, which you have to do three times. If you were following the classic recipe, you would make the yeasted dough without any pieces of butter, then wrap the dough around a big flat block of butter before starting the rolling out process. (See my first croissant post for pictures). Furthermore, for the quick version, the turns are completed all at once, whereas the classic recipe instructs you to refrigerate the dough for thirty minutes in between each turn.

Rolling and folding and rolling and folding

As you can see, as the dough is repeatedly rolled out it gets smoother and neater, and the pieces of butter get distributed throughout the layers of dough. (This is what creates the puffy texture - as they bake, the water in the butter turns into steam, forcing the dough to expand and creating air pockets).

Rolling and folding and rolling and folding

I must admit, when I saw the dough, I did not think it would get to be so smooth and pretty! But it did. Phew!

After the second resting time, rolled out and ready for cutting

Cutting out the triangles

I'm not the best at cutting even shapes, so mine were quite uneven - perhaps next time I'll make an isosceles triangle-shaped stencil. Or not! Hehe. I don't mind different sized croissants.

Matcha and white chocolate are a match made in heaven, so I added white chocolate chips to the scraps of dough and made little pains au chocolat.

Making pains au chocolat with the scraps

Rolled and ready for the third proving

Glazed, proofed and ready for the oven

Matcha croissants!

Doughy fluffy goodness

Matcha Croissants 
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's "Processor Danish Pastry" recipe, How to be a Domestic Goddess

Ingredients 
60 millilitres warm water
125 millilitres milk, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
350 grams white flour
7 grams dried yeast
1 teaspoon salt
25 grams caster sugar
1-2 tablespoons matcha powder (I used Kenko Cooking Grade Matcha)
250 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 centimetre slices
1 egg, for glazing

Method 
Place the water, milk and 1 egg in a small bowl and whisk with a fork to combine. Set aside.
Place the flour, yeast, salt, sugar and matcha powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the double blade, and pulse briefly to mix. Add the cold butter slices and process briefly so the butter is cut up a little and distributed through the dry ingredients - you still want visible pieces of butter in there.
Tip the contents of the food processor into a large mixing bowl, and pour in the water/milk/egg mixture. Stir to mix. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Take the dough out of the fridge and tip onto a floured surface. Roll it out to a square of approximately 50 x 50 cm. Fold into thirds, like a business letter. Rotate the dough so the closed fold is on the left hand side. This is the first turn.
Repeat the rolling and folding process until you have complete three turns in total. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Roll the dough out into a large 50 cm square. Cut the dough into long triangles and roll up from the wide end to the tip. Make sure the tip is placed at the bottom of the croissant so it doesn't curl up and burn when baked. Curve the ends in to form a crescent shape. Arrange the croissants on a lined baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg. Leave them to rise for 1 - 1.5 hours or until doubled in size and soft and puffy.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the croissants for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through. Leave to cool slightly on a wire rack before digging in.
Makes 12-16, depending on size

While we're here, I thought I'd show you what else we ate at the tea party! We did two savouries: Ottolenghi's sweet potato galette, which consists of puff pastry, sour cream, roast sweet potato, goats cheese and pepitas, topped with a mixture of garlic, parsley, chillies and olive oil. It's a favourite of mine, and I think it was the most popular item at the party.

Sweet potato galette

I also made some little crab and avocado sandwiches. The crab filling was a mixture of crab meat and Cayenne pepper, with some chopped chives, lemon zest and cayenne pepper.

Crab and avocado sandwiches

Sandra made these fab little crème brûlée tartlets - we used Carême vanilla bean sweet shortcrust pastry, which we blind-baked in mini muffin tins. They were filled with home made vanilla custard, topped with sugar and blowtorched until crisp and caramelised. They were super fiddly to make, but so worth it!

Crème Brûlée Tartlets

And finally, I made some French shortbreads with those salted caramel chips I brought back from Paris - petits sablés aux éclats de caramel au beurre salé. It was this recipe, to which I added 2 tablespoons of caramel chips.

Petits sablés aux éclats de caramel au beurre salé - shortbreads with salted caramel chips

Daisy and Ricky made and brought these super cute little macarons, filled with fresh raspberry ganache.

Daisy and Ricky's raspberry macarons

Matcha and sesame-crusted tuna with soy butter potatoes

Hey hey! Quick recipe post today because I am in a super hurry but totally want to share this recipe with you! (And yes, I've got a November "Unblogged Files" coming up but it's taking ages and I'm only halfway through writing it - it was a very busy month!)

So tuna. I saw a nice piece of tuna at the local fishmonger, and thought I'd do something with it that I'd seen on Jamie's 15 Minute Meals - coating the tuna in green tea, black and white sesame seeds and searing the outside to a nice crust. Jamie used the inside of a green tea bag; I used that Kenko matcha powder that I was given as a sample.

Crusting the tuna

As an accompaniment, I tried a recipe from Bill Granger's Everyday Asian - boiled potato pieces cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, butter and sugar, and served with chopped spring onions. It's a contemporary, unique idea, and as soon as you sprinkle the spring onions over it smells so Japanese. Love it!

Cooking the potatoes

And here's dinner.

Matcha and sesame-crusted tuna with soy butter potatoes

Matcha and sesame-crusted tuna with soy butter potatoes

Rare tuna

The crusty ends

The matcha and sesame seeds give a gentle bitter toastiness to the tuna, without overpowering the delicately flavoured fish. It's a great combination.

Soy butter potatoes

I love tuna, I love potatoes, I love Japanese flavours. Winner winner tuna dinner!

Matcha and sesame-crusted tuna 
Adapted from Jamie Oliver's 15-Minute Meals

Ingredients
1/2 tablespoon each black and white sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon matcha powder
125 gram piece fresh tuna fillet
1/2 teaspoon olive oil, for frying

Method
Place the sesame seeds and matcha powder on a chopping board and mix to combine evenly. Roll the tuna fillet in the mixture until all sides of the tuna are coated.
Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan over high heat, then cook the tuna for forty seconds a side, until seared on the outside and still raw in the middle. Set aside on a clean chopping board to rest for a few minutes. Slice into one-centimetre slices and arrange on a serving plate. Serve with soy sauce for dipping.
Serves 1 as a meal or 2 as a starter

Soy butter potatoes
Adapted from Bill Granger's Everyday Asian

Ingredients
2 medium-sized kipfler potatoes (approx. 200 grams in total)
15 grams butter
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon caster sugar
Sprinkling of finely sliced spring onion greens

Method
Peel the potatoes and cut into irregular chunks. Boil the potato in salted boiling water for approximately 10 minutes or until tender. Drain. Place the potatoes back in the hot and dry saucepan, followed by the butter, soy sauce and caster sugar. Cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the liquid has mostly been absorbed by the potatoes. Sprinkle with spring onion greens to serve.
Serves 1 generously or 2 less so

Financiers, Matcha Financier, Cup o' Matcha

I adore financiers! They're not particularly common here, but seem to be a standard pâtisserie item in France, and are very popular in the French bakeries of Japan. Essentially, they're little almond cakes, baked in an oblong shape, rather like a gold bar - hence the name "financier". (And now that I think of it, they'd probably be a good thing to bake around Chinese New Year!) They're similar to friands, but don't even think of them as in the same league as those dense, dry, mass-produced oval cakes that we get at chain cafes in Melbourne. These are moist, tender little cakelets, fragrant with almond meal and with the slightest crunch on the corners. Gorgeous.

Financier tins are pretty hard to get in Melbourne - I've only seen them very rarely here, and bought mine online on our last trip to Germany. However, I think your best bet would be to go to a proper professional cookware store, something like Cuisine World or London & American Supply. Or you could always substitute a mini muffin tray! I was extremely pleased with the quality of my silicon financier tin, made by Silikomart, so if you do happen to come across this brand, I highly recommend it! (They're an Italian company who call these pans, enchantingly: "finanzieri".)

I baked these one weekend morning, when I had a bowl of frangipane in the fridge, leftover from an apple tart I'd made the night before. (I'd been a bit enthusiastic with the quantities!) So the next morning, I just baked the frangipane in the financier tin and - bang - financiers for breakfast.

Financier batter

I decided to make some plain financiers, and some matcha flavoured ones too. I was recently sent a sample of high-grade Kenko brand matcha powder, and have been looking for an excuse to bake with it. As you can see in the top photo, it makes an intensely green, green tea. However, despite its colour, it isn't bitter or acrid - it just has a pure matcha flavour. (I also think this is partly due to the fact that I've recently learned to use water heated to 70C when brewing green tea, to prevent it going bitter - so even if you're not using fancy expensive matcha powder that's ground to order in small batches, it's worth using a kettle with a temperature control, or just adding a little cold water to your cup before adding your green tea!) I have a couple of other baking plans for the matcha powder, so watch this space.

David Lebovitz has a recipe for green tea financiers in Ready for Dessert, which is where I got the idea to make these, but his recipe is altogether more fancy, instructing you to grind your own almonds. I just added some matcha powder to my frangipane mix, and used his idea of sprinkling the financiers with a mix of black sesame seeds and salt.

Matcha financier batter with fleur de sel and black sesame sprinkles

And ta-dah! Cute little golden (and green) bars!

Financiers

Matcha financiers

As I mentioned above, I was so impressed with the Silikomart financier tray - it didn't require any greasing, and the little financiers popped out very easily, with perfectly clear and defined corners and edges.

Financiers, Matcha Financiers

Tea time treat

I thought these were a great light weekend breakfast, but I think they're even better as an afternoon tea treat, with a cup of tea or coffee.

Financiers
Batter recipe is Nigella's frangipane recipe from the "Bakewell Tart with Fresh Raspberries" in How to Eat, baking times and temperatures from Financiers, idea for the matcha financiers from David Lebovitz' Ready for Dessert

Ingredients
3 eggs
125 grams caster sugar
125 grams almond meal
125 grams unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved. Gently whisk in the almond meal, followed by the melted butter and vanilla extract.
Spoon or pipe the batter into the indentations of a financier tray. (Alternatively a mini muffin tin can be used). A silicon tray will not need greasing, but if you are using a metal tray, I would suggest greasing the tin with a little melted butter.
Bake for 5 minutes at 220C, then turn the oven down to 200C and bake for a further 8-12 minutes, or until cooked through. Allow to cool slightly before unmoulding onto a cake rack to cool completely.
Makes approx. 24, depending on the size of your tin.

Variation
For matcha financiers, omit the vanilla extract, and add 1 teaspoon matcha powder to the batter. Before baking, sprinkle the financiers with a mixture of black sesame seeds and fleur de sel.

Matcha Sablés

When I met up with Catty from The Catty Life for lunch last month, I thought "Hey, what a good excuse to bake something!" Knowing that she's a bit of a matcha fiend, I turned to my copy of the gorgeous Japanese baking book: Okashi, by Keiko Ishida. I love the Japanese style of French patisserie, and this book is so super-cute! I totally want to make the pound cake, the green tea tiramisu, the mont blanc, the beancurd cheesecake, the dark brown sugar Swiss roll... 

Flour and matcha powder

I also used salted butter - I had some Président La Motte salted butter in the fridge (I'd just bought it at the supermarket), and really like it for baking! (And eating...) I think it's quite cute that little water droplets come out when you slice into it.

President La Motte butter with fleur de sel

As you can see, it creams up beautifully!

Creamed butter

With everything mixed up, the dough became a rather serious, malevolent dark green.

Matcha log!

The finished biscuits are prettified by rolling the edge of the log in caster sugar, slicing it into even rounds....

Raw Sablés

...and pressing a few little green tea leaves into each one. It takes a bit of time, but looks so pretty! Totally worth the effort, especially if you already have some green tea leaves lying around.

Decorated with green tea leaves

And here they are, baked!

Matcha Sablés

Matcha Sablés

They had a lovely short texture, and were nice and buttery. Perfect with a cup of coffee, or a cup of green tea if you just can't get enough! I personally found the matcha flavour a little overwhelming (although Catty said she liked it, as did my friend Amelia), so I've included a range of quantities for the matcha in the recipe below. Start with 7 grams if you like matcha, and go up to the full amount of 15 grams if you really, really love it!

Matcha Sablés
(Slightly) adapted from Okashi by Keiko Ishida

Ingredients
120 grams plain four
7-15 grams matcha powder
75 grams butter (unsalted or salted, depending on your taste), at room temperature
65 grams icing sugar
A pinch of salt
1 egg, separated
Extra caster sugar for rolling
Green tea leaves for decorating

Method
Sift flour and matcha powder together. Set aside.
Cream the butter, icing sugar and salt until soft and creamy. Add egg yolk and mix well. Fold in the matcha powder and flour. Cover dough with cling wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes or so.
Place the dough onto a large sheet of cling wrap, and form into a log 3.5 centimetres in diameter. Wrap the log in the cling wrap, and refrigerate until firm.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Sprinkle the caster sugar onto a chopping board or other flat surface. Place the log on the sugar and roll to coat the edge of the log in the sugar. Slice into rounds about 7 millimetres thick. Place the rounds onto a lined baking tray. Brush with the reserved egg white, and press a few green tea leaves into each biscuit. Bake for about 25 minutes, then allow to cool on a wire rack to firm up before serving.
Makes about 25