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.

Autumn 秋

     

At last, Autumn is here! I’ve been humming Etta James since last Saturday, when the temperature suddenly plunged from mid-30s every day, to 21C. My Japanese teacher told me an old saying, [暑さ寒さも彼岸まで」atsusa samusa mo higan made or "neither heat nor cold lasts past higan (autumn equinox)." I kind of doubted her, given the weeks of relentless heat, but sure enough, right on shuubun no hi, or autumn equinox (Sept 22nd), autumn came with a bang. Of course, the signs of the new season have been around for a few weeks – beer and chuhai cans are now dressed in their autumn colours and the supermarket is decked out in plastic maple and ginko leaves. Chestnuts, pumpkins and sweet potatoes are in EVERYTHING! Growing up in Sydney, we didn't have much in the way of specific autumn dishes, so it always feels exciting when autumn arrives in Japan. 

Kuri kanoko, a kind of chestnut jam sweet

Montblanc - my favourite! This is a very fancy version, at Mitsukoshi

Sweet potato danish with black sesame seeds - not too sweet. 

Autumn "limited" drinks are here.

Sweet potato chips!

It’s the perfect weather for walking, and the shops are full of delicious autumn produce like sanma, aki aji, sato imo, nashi and very expensive matsutake mushrooms. Autumn is short, so we’ve got to get out there and make the most of it before winter sets in.

Just over a week ago, I saw my first “akatombo”, or red dragonfly, of the season, our persimmons are getting a little colour (hope I can get some before the birds do, this year!) and random berries, pomegranates and “higanbana”, red spiderlilies are popping up around the neighbourhood. Last week was “ohigan”, or autumn equinox, and these gorgeous red flowers appear right at this time – hence the name. 

It kindly stopped for a photo

Raspberries? 

The persimmons are coming along well

Pomegranate kids.

Higanbana

A lovely autumn kimono and obi combination

We should visit our ancestor’s graves again at ohigan. The traditional sweet is “ohagi”, named after the hagi, bush clover flower. They’re delicious and pretty easy to make. You cook up some mochi rice, the same way you’d cook normal rice, then mush it up a bit, and roll it into egg shapes. Cover it in a layer of anko - bean paste or kinako – soy bean flower. I can’t handle a whole lot of bean paste as it’s very sweet, but as a thin layer over rice, it’s quite tasty.

Ohagi. I think the kinako one tastes best.

Halloween seems to get more popular every year. Our local bakery went a little overboard this year!

This Sunday is Juugoya (15^th August on the old calendar), otherwise known as “otsukimi” – moon viewing. A lot of cake shops are selling dango and moon cakes and you can make offerings of round, ‘moon shaped’ things. It’s a kind of harvest festival, and like many seasonal festivals, it originally came from China. I’m going to try making the traditional 15 shiratama dumplings. The fashionable cake shops are pushing white macarons this year for Otsukimi. Sounds good! If you miss it, don’t worry, there’s another full moon festival in late October, called Juusanya.

Next week, I’m planning to go look for higanbana, inspired by Rurousha’s excellent post from last autumn. Check it out, here: Kinchakuda by Rurousha