Kaki かき

A glut of persimmons

So, I cheated - not many colourful leaves around Tokyo yet, but I went to Karuizawa in the mountains .

Autumn is here! It seems to have arrived a bit late this year, but the temperature plunged last weekend and we got out the hot carpet (like an electric blanket for the floor), and set up the kotatsu. A kotatsu is a table with a heater under it. You cover the table with a blanket and snuggle under it (yes, your back gets cold... you can wear a hanten - padded jacket - or a good ol' fleecy hoodie.) Actually, we don't use the heater part of our kotatsu, which tends to cook your legs if it gets too hot; the hot carpet and blanket is enough.

Last year, this old house and its kaki (persimmon) tree were all new to me. I didn't know what to do with kaki, and in my imagination they were very astringent. I found out we have the sweet kind, but not knowing when to pick them, most got over-ripe and became feasts for birds and insects. My mother in law wasn't well enough to prune the tree for years and the branches had become too close and the fruits crowded together. In summer I gave it a random hack (the wrong time to prune, I'm sure), but it resulted in bigger, more robust fruit this time.

Some of our kaki, which the birds and ants didn't get to first. Not as pretty as store bought, but they taste good.

After giving a bunch to family, I still didn't know what to do with our kaki. They're sweet, but to be honest, there's little flavour; just sugar. Then, I saw a show on TV (do you watch "Kenmin Show"? It's a fun look at different regions with their customs, particular foods and dialects; it's surprising that Japan's regions are still so different), dealing with Niigata's specialties.

In Niigata, it seems, kaki are cut in half, dipped in sake and stored in a plastic bag for about a week. I decided to try it. I had a cup of cheap sake (not cooking sake - it's salted!), which I didn't want to drink (sometimes you can win a 'one cup Ozeki" sake or some other random product at the konbini) and a glut of kaki I didn't really want to eat. But put them together and....yum!

I cut up some kaki and drowned them in sake for about 30 minutes, then put the fruit in a bag, with just a little of the sake. After a few days in the refrigerator, the fruit has become beautifully translucent; the colour has deepened from a flat coral to a rich amber.

Before - average, sweet kaki pieces, soaking in sake

Into the refrigerator for a week - or a few days if you're impatient!

After - they almost look like fruit jellies and they taste better!

And they taste fantastic. The sake is just strong enough to give some depth to the fruit, without overwhelming it. If you soaked it in brandy, which works beautifully for strong fruits like oranges, the kaki would taste of nothing more than brandy. The cheap sake is now sweeter and the fruit more delicious. It would be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but I like it best on its own - just a few pieces of delicately sweet fruit to finish off a rich winter meal. I made a big pot of tonjiru - a rich miso soup with pork, konyaku, daikon, sweet potato and because they're in season - heaps of maitake mushrooms. The drunken kaki were the perfect finale.