Yomogi (Japanese mugworts)



Yomogi (Japanese mugwort) by bodhilens

Recently a distant relative of mine passed away. She was my mother's older brother's wife's mother, who used to live near my family in Osaka. We affectionately called her obaachan (grandma). When I was a child, I remember her sometimes visiting us with homemade sweets, like kusa mochi (sweet rice cake pounded with cooked yomogi [Japanese mugwort]). Although kusa mochi is available at some Asian grocery stores in Kentucky, I kind of missed fresh homemade kusa mochi. So this spring I bought a packet of yomogi seeds from Kitazawa Seed Company (They sell seeds of Asian vegetables and herbs in California.) and sowed them in a planter. To my surprise (and the company's), they grew into at least three seemingly different kinds of yomogi. (See the photos below.)

To make sure that all the plants in the planter were indeed yomogi varieties, I read a lot of information published on the Internet. A gist of what I learned is that yomogi or Japanese mugwort usually refers to artemisia princeps. However, several hundred varieties of artemisia grow worldwide, and according to some Japanese information, more than 35 kinds of yomogi grow in Japan, any of which can be called "Japanese mugwort." The good news is that they are all edible, although some are less bitter and more palatable, while others are more bitter and more medicinal. I sampled a few leaves and found them all fragrant as yomogi should and some more bitter than others as I had read. So I said to myself, "Fair enough," and harvested a bunch of young leaves, cooked them, ground them in a mortar with a pestle, pounded them into mochi (rice cake) made from glutinous rice flour sweetened with stevia powder, and wrapped a spoonful of anko (sweet red "azuki" bean paste) with the mochi. My first homemade kusa mochi turned out to be pretty good.

Black swallowtail by bodhilens

While watering yomogi in my garden, I was reminiscing of obaachan and her kusa mochi, and a black swallowtail appeared and flew around me. She lingered for a while, so I was able to ask bodhilens to bring his camera and take a photo of her. Japanese say that insects can carry souls of the dead. I wonder if the butterfly was carrying the soul of obaachan.

Tiramisu with cream cheese and custard sweetened by stevia

Tiramisu is probably one of my favorite desserts for a special occasion. Hope this recipe won’t offend Italian people. It’s difficult to find mascarpone cheese at local grocery stores in Kentucky (or anywhere in Japan), and if they sell one, it’s kind of pricey. So I searched alternative recipes online and learned that some people used cream cheese instead. I tweaked this Japanese recipe by replacing fresh egg yokes with custard (well, because I’ve been advised not to eat raw eggs in the United States), and as usual, almost all sugar with pure stevia powder. If I could not find ladyfingers at local grocery stores, I would use Marie biscuits as they were called for in the original recipe. (They are usually sold in Indian grocery stores in the U.S.) Graham crackers might work, too. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for one 8 inch x 8 inch x 2 inch Pyrex square baking dish):

Custard (100 ml or about a half cup of milk, 1 TBSP of flour or cornstarch, 2 egg yolks, and 1 tsp of rum or vanilla essence, sweetened by 3 smidgens of stevia)

1 pack of cream cheese (200-250g)

200-250 ml (about a half pint) of heavy cream, sweetened by 3 smidgens of stevia

24 pieces (or more) of ladyfingers

2 TBSP of instant coffee dissolved in 7 TBSP of hot water (or espresso) sweetened by 1 TBSP of sucanat (or sugar) and 3 smidgens of stevia

1 TBSP of unsweetened cocoa powder sweetened by 1 TBSP of sucanat (or sugar) and 1 smidgen of stevia

Directions:

1. Make custard. If you go for a conventional way, put flour in a sauce pan, turn on low heat, slowly pour milk and whisk until flour is completely dissolved in milk, slowly pour beaten egg yolks while whisking the mixture, and continue to whisk the mixture until it thickens. (If you go for a convenient way, dissolve flour in milk and beaten egg yolks in a microwave safe bowl, heat the mixture in a microwave for a minute, take it out and whisk it, heat it again for another minute, and continue the procedure until the mixture thickens.) Add rum or vanilla essence and stevia. Let custard cool.

2. Make coffee. Add sucanat and stevia.

3. Whip cream cheese in a bowl.

4. Whip heavy cream in another bowl. Add stevia.

5. Make cream mixture. Add #1 to #2 and whip a bit. Add #3 to the mixture and whip a bit again.

6. Place a half of lady fingers in a baking dish. Pour a half of #2 sweetened coffee over.

7. Spread a half of #5 cream mixture on the layer of lady fingers soaked in sweetened coffee.

8. Place the rest of lady fingers on the layer of cream mixture. Pour the rest of sweetened coffee over.

9. Spread the rest of cream mixture on top.

10. Cool tiramisu in a fridge for an hour or longer. (In the meantime, you can wash a pile of dishes in your sink.)

11. Mix cocoa powder, sucanat, and stevia. Sprinkle the mixture over tiramisu with a strainer. Let tiramisu rest in the fridge for a while. It tastes even better next day.

Citrus flavored olive oil biscotti

I had never thought of myself becoming a baker while growing up in Japan. We only had a toaster oven in our kitchen and kept a small container of margarine in our fridge. Several pieces of cookies were all I could bake at home, and my mother would be upset if I used up all margarine for cookies. So you can imagine how excited I was when I seized my first opportunity to bake cake in an American-standard size (= gigantic) oven in my apartment in Kentucky. I had fun trying out a few boxes of cake mix with different flavors, but soon I realized that they were too sweet and heavy for me. Now whenever I find intriguing recipes for sweets, I almost always tweak them. I first see if I can reduce the amount of sugar and butter. Then, I experiment with replacing white wheat flour with whole wheat flour, white refined sugar with sucanat, raw unfiltered honey, and/or pure stevia powder, and butter with extra virgin olive oil.

Here's an example of my tweaking and experimentation. This recipe is based on “Gigi’s olive oil biscotti” that I found in the DHC magazine. (DHC is a Japanese company that is famous for olive oil-based skincare products, and they recently sell fancy olive oil, too.) Although the biscotti were delicious as they were (see the original recipe here) and already healthier than buttery biscotti, I wanted to make them even healthier. You can use any citrus peals/juice/extracts (e.g., lemon, orange, yuzu) for flavor or citrus conserves/spreads to take care of both sweetness and flavor. (Photo by bodhilens)

Ingredients (for about 40 small pieces):

2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 pinch of sea salt
Any combination of sweeteners that is as sweet as 10 TBSP of sugar*
1 TBSP of citrus peels and 1 tsp of juice/extract*
2 eggs
3 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil
40 roasted whole almonds (or any other large nuts)

*I have tried the following combinations of sweeteners and flavors: (a) 4 TBSP of yuzu marmalade, 1 TBSP of orange spread, and 5 pinches of stevia; and (b) 1 TBSP of lemon zest, 1 tsp of lemon juice, 5 TBSP of sucanat, and 5 pinches of stevia. Both delicious.

Directions:

1. Mix all wet ingredients (i.e., citrus peels and juice, and olive oil) and sweeteners in one bowl .
2. Add eggs in the bowl and beat the wet mixture.
3. Mix all dry ingredients in another bowl (i.e., whole wheat flour, baking powder, and salt).
4. Gradually add the dry mixture into the wet mixture to make dough. (You don't have to knead the dough, just mix all ingredients well.)
5. You can either knead nuts into the dough or half-bury them on top of the dough after Step 6**
6. Divide the dough into 4 parts and form them into 5 cm x 20 cm (apx. 2 inch x 8 inch) flat squares on a parchment paper.
7. Bake at 360 degrees F (apx. 180 degrees C) for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.
8. Remove the baked squares from oven, let them cool a bit, and slice each square diagonally into 10 pieces.
9. Return the sliced pieces to oven and bake them for about 10 minutes or until they are crispy.

**In the former, nuts are likely to stay inside but may be placed very unevenly across biscotti; in the latter, they can be placed very evenly but may fall off from the top of biscotti. Your choice J