DashiDashi

UPDATE: Sakura has moved from Hanover Street to Conduit Street (about 3 minutes walk from the original site). The interior is vastly improved, with pretty lamps along the walls and general lack of ‘dinge’. Service is the same, conditions of booking (10 minutes lee-way, all of the party must turn up) still the same, and the menu is mostly unchanged.

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Let’s play a game. See these gorgeous sakura blossoms? Now close your eyes and imagine a room that embodies their exact opposite traits. There you have it: the interior of Sakura.

Dark, verging on dreary. Well-worn tables, faded paintings, hand-written specials scrawled in bold black marker. Bizarre Japanese gameshows play soundlessly on wall-mounted TVs above. This is light-years away from destination dining, except in the strictest sense of the word.

Only a wallet’s throw from Regent Street and the ping of the high street tills, yet take a step inside  and the normal rules of customer service cease to apply. The receptionist and manager look you up and down accusingly. No reservation? The latter pauses to survey the room, for just a moment too long, then nods curtly. You’re in luck, this time.

Got a reservation? That’s when things get complicated. They warn you on the phone to turn up within ten minutes of your booking, else lose your table. When you do turn up, beware: all members of your party must be present before you can be seated. (Best to give a fake time to any perpetually-late friends.) Lastly, there’s some form of minimum order — somewhere in the region of one to two portions of nigiri.

(No biggie, but given that the last time I triggered this rule, it was late afternoon, the restaurant was half-empty, and I’d popped in for a quick bite with a friend who wasn’t hungry, it didn’t do much to endear them to me.)

So why, given the threadbare furnishings and less-than-fawning service, do I end up here on an at least  semi-regular basis?

 

Sundays, that’s why. Sakura is the only authentic Japanese restaurant in London to open on Sundays (to my knowledge). Plus, it’s as central as you get and the food is decent and affordable — you can eat well for a tenner and rarely need to spend more than £20 for a slap-up, waddle-to-the-tube-station dinner.

The menu is long and varied, with all the usual suspects (soba, udon, sushi, teriyaki dishes, tekka don, unagi don, etc.) as well as an extensive list of traditional smaller dishes. Sets come with rice, pickles, and fruit, everything served individually in charmingly-mismatched crockery. Sashimi is fresh, but not overly generous when ordered as part of a larger set. There’s also shabu-shabu, for those who like the swish-swish sound of beef.

Verdict? A reliable destination when the Japanese food cravings hit on a Sunday, and with the wide-ranging menu, it’s a good place to bring friends who are newbies to Japanese cuisine.

Plus, Sakura is proof that, despite the concerted and noble efforts of the Chinatown eateries, London’s Chinese restaurants have failed to hold a monopoly on brusque, no-nonsense, this-customer-is-the-bane-of-my-life service.

Heart-warming.

 

Sakura
23 Conduit Street (new address, since 26/12/2010)
London  W1S 2XS
020 7629 2961 (same old number)

According to economic theory, most assets fall into one of two categories: fixed or consumable. My wok is a fixed asset; my supply of Lindt 70% dark chocolate is alarmingly consumable. So far so good.

We then get to crockery and the boundaries start to blur. Being a certified klutz, when I buy bowls/plates/mugs, it’s with a calm Zen-like detachment and full acceptance that at some point in the future I’ll be sweeping up ceramic shards into a waiting bundle of newspaper. It may be tomorrow, it may be in 10 years time, but it will come.

Over the past few years, I’ve totalled: a matching set of four cat-embossed glasses, several plates, one lovely glass tumbler (Tescos, thank goodness), my flatmate’s irreplaceable mug, and more than a few pint glasses.

So it was sad but unsurprising, when, after having used my new chawan-mushi cups (pictured above) for the first time, I turned around, caught my elbow on the spoon resting in an empty cup, and sent the whole thing tumbling towards the ground. One down, one to go, I thought, with a weariness born of years of crockery-loss.

 

So: chawan-mushi. Tsuji translates this as ‘savoury egg custard’, which frankly sounds pretty unsavoury to me. Last time I tried this description, my friend thought it was a dessert and was subsequently rather put-off. Then again, “a delicate steamed egg-jelly-tofu-kinda-thing that’s not made with tofu at all” doesn’t really cut it either. If anyone has a better suggestion, do let me know.

Crockery: Use any small bowl/cup that you’re happy to subject to steaming. I’ve used Japanese green-tea cups in the past. The thicker the cup, the longer it takes to cook. You can also use a bain-marie (in oven at 220°C, 30 minutes) instead of steaming.

Steaming arrangements: For a make-shift steamer, I use a large pot or wok with an upturned shallow bowl in the bottom (to act as a platform), pour water around the bowl, then put a plate on top. Tada, steamer. Don’t forget the lid.

Measurements: The key to the recipe below is the 3:1 stock-to-beaten-egg ratio.

Taste: Taste the stock before you add it to the egg. For the first time, I’d recommend erring on the side of under- rather than over-flavouring — a too-salty chawan-mushi is a trial to eat, while if under-flavoured you can pretend that you have uber-refined tastebuds.

Variations: The recipe below is just for a plain chawan-mushi (because I’m lazy). It’s common to add in small pieces of chicken, prawn, and vegetables such as sliced mushrooms, before steaming.

Recipe: Chawan-mushi
Based on recipe from Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji

Serves 4

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 3-4 eggs – to make 2/3 cup (150ml) of beaten egg
• 2 cups (450ml) dashi (or light chicken stock — yes, Tsuji says it’s ‘as good as dashi’ in this case)
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• pinch of salt (leave this out if you’ve used instant dashi powder)

Beat the eggs ’til completely mixed but not frothy.

In another bowl/jug, mix the dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and salt. Pour this stock mixture into the beaten egg, and mix well. Strain this mixture. You don’t want any froth/foam in the final mixture (for appearance’s sake), so skim off any bubbles.

Pour strained mixture into individual cups. Add any extra ingredients (chicken, prawn, veg) at this point.

Cover each cup with foil or plastic wrap and place in the already-hot steamer. The steamer should be on low/medium heat – if too hot, unattractive bubbles will form in the chawan-mushi.  [On my electric hob, I use the 3rd setting (out of 6). Experiment.] Steam for 20 minutes.

To check that it’s cooked, insert a toothpick into the centre – it should come out clean if cooked. [Personally, I just make an extra serving, and destroy it with a spoon to check.]

Serve hot or fridge-cold.

So it’s official: the secret of happiness is not love, beauty, or a tax-free jurisdiction.

It’s having a signature dessert.

Just imagine: never again will you be left peering into the oven, running an hour late and covered in flour, while your newly-attempted gateau fails to rise to the (special) occasion. Or your panna cotta doesn’t quite make it to cotta, and you’re left with plain old panna in a ramekin.

With a killer signature dessert, pot-luck parties and ‘you don’t have to bring anything, really’ occasions become a walkover. Soon the host is begging you to make your ‘usual’, as after several months of Pavlovian (or rather strawberry pavlova) training, it just doesn’t feel like a party without it. While other guests wrap up their half-dissected blackberry tarts and untouched supermarket sponge rolls, you’re scouring the room in search of your missing cake stand and the miscreant who’s proceeding to lick it clean of all crumbs.

A few years ago, at a party far far away, a friend of a friend brought along a dessert that changed my life. It was a cake fashioned by angels – the lightest, softest, most transcendental cake I’d ever inhaled. I’d met my future signature dessert.

 

Life being life, it took two years before I finally procured the recipe. Cotton-soft Japanese cheesecake, it said. Not a problem. I mean, how hard could this be? Tiny hitch no.1: I don’t bake. Apart from the odd apple crumble, and some seriously questionable macaroons in Food Tech, this was the first time in I’d knowingly attempted to bake a cake from scratch. Not-so-tiny hitch no. 2: It may have tasted of harps and halos, but the recipe was pure devil: double-boiling, ‘folding in’ flour, whisking into ‘soft peaks’ (like, Everest but more fluffy?), separating (but still legally married) eggs, and the pièce-de-résistance, a bain-marie.As a neonate baker, however, I took this all in my stride. If it had asked me to beat the eggs with a pitchfork, while hopping on one leg whistling Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, I’d have been none the wiser.

Fast-forward much egg-wrangling, kitchen-equipment improvisation, and sitting on hands to avoid opening the oven to ‘have a peek’ (which is death to rising cakes, apparently), finally, steaming and more than just a little soggy from the bain-marie, I had my cake. And ate it too.

 

Hint: If you’re not a swell baker, enlist a more competent cake-maker to help you. Really, you need them.

 

 

Recipe: Japanese Cheesecake
Based on recipe from Dianna’s Desserts

Prep time: around 1 hour (faster if you’re a seasoned baker)
Cooking time: 1 hour 10 mins

Equipment

• Double boiler, or similar – I use a Pyrex bowl sitting on a smaller pot of boiling water, with the base of the bowl ideally not touching the water
• 8” round baking-tin, with high sides (say 3”) and a sealed base – if the base is removable, use tinfoil to wrap the entire outside of the cake-tin to seal it
• Bain-marie – I use a large pot (with the plastic handles removed) or a high-sided roasting tin
• Electric whisk – or a normal whisk and arms of steel

Ingredients

• 250g cream cheese
• 50g butter, unsalted
• 100ml milk
• 6 eggs, large – separate into whites and yolks
• 60g plain cake flour
• 20g cornflour(cornstarch)
• 140g white granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/4 tsp salt

Melt the cream cheese, butter, and milk together in the double boiler, until there are no lumps. Cool this cream mixture, e.g. by put the bowl/pot into a larger bowl of cold water.

Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites, and whisk until foamy. Add the sugar, and whisk until you get “soft peaks”.

Returning to the cooled cream mixture: mix in the egg yolks and salt, then the lemon juice. Gently fold in the flour and cornflour, sieving the flour/cornflour as you add it.

Add the cream-flour mixture to the egg white mixture bit by bit. Mix together very gently, to not loose the “airiness”.

Line the sides and base of baking tin with grease-proof/baking paper, and pour in the combined mixture. Put the baking tin into a bain-marie – fill the bain-marie with enough water that the tin starts to float and then add some more (as it will evaporate off).

Place bain-marie into preheated oven (160°C, on fan-assisted, adjust as necessary), and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes. Don’t open the oven before you think the cake is ready.

To cool, tip the cake out, upside-down, onto a plate (if you leave it to cool in tin, the top surface will crumple as the cake subsides). Leave to cool in fridge (e.g. overnight).

To serve, remove baking paper and tip cake back to brown-side-up. Serve cold.

I’ve yet to see fresh straw mushrooms being sold in London, but enokitake mushrooms seem to be all the rage — at least, in upmarket joints like Waitrose and Borough Market. Which suits me, as these long pale noodle-ly specimens (aptly called ‘golden needles’ in Chinese) long ago usurped the lowly straw mushroom as my all-time favourite fungus.

Inspired by Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji

Prep time: 3 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

• Enokitake mushrooms  (these will reduce to at least half the volume when cooked, so be generous)
• Butter, salted
• Mint, finely-chopped

Cut out a large (say 25cm) square of tinfoil, and butter the middle (where the enoki will go).

Wash the enoki, and chop off the browny root (1cm-ish).

Place the enoki in a bunch in the centre of the tinfoil, and top with a few pinches of chopped mint and a few small lumps of butter.

Fold the tinfoil loosely around the enoki, to trap a pocket of air inside. Cook mid-shelf in a preheated oven (245°C) for 5 minutes.