February 2025

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[Castella and Bread Knife]

Isn't it surprisingly difficult to cut castella neatly? They are soft and fluffy, but when you put a knife into them, the cross-section is often torn to pieces, or you can't cut them evenly. I always had a hard time cutting them, but when I went back home, I wanted to bring some castella as souvenirs, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to look up how to cut them well.

As I looked into it, the information that caught my eye was that “using a bread knife will give you a clean cut.” Indeed, a bread knife with a wavy blade can easily cut even soft castella. Moreover, it is said that if you wipe the blade with a wet cloth after each cutting, the cross-section will be more beautiful. Fortunately, my parents have a bread knife made by Tadafusa, so I went to “Echigoya Tareido,” the only castella specialty store in Kyoto, in the neighborhood to let everyone taste the delicious castella cut with the bread knife. It is a 12-minute walk from our Imadegawa Showroom.

Echigoya Tareido opened in 1948 as Kyoto's only castella specialty store in Senbon Imadegawa in Nishijin, separated from the main family store in Karasuma Nijo. The shop has been producing and selling castella using traditional techniques handed down from the end of the Edo period. The castella is baked by hand in the traditional way, using only eggs, sugar, flour, syrup, and rum, without any additives. The castella has a short shelf life of only five days, but this allows customers to fully enjoy its fresh taste. In order to provide customers with freshly baked products as much as possible and have them consumed before too much time has passed, they sell “only the castella baked on the day.”

When you enter the store, you can smell the soft, sweet aroma of castella. The castella lined up in the showcase are all neatly rectangular. Castella is easily dried, and the flavor is lost when it is cut, so it is sold here as a “whole” cake. On a shelf with a glass door, the baked castella is carefully stored, waiting to be delivered to customers. The large 18cm x 22cm castella we purchased is the perfect size to serve our gathered family and relatives.

On the day of the event, with a mixture of nervousness and elation, we opened the retro package, took out the castella, and prepared the breadcrumbs. I checked the blade repeatedly after wiping it with a wet cloth, and repeated in my mind the sentence, “When inserting the knife, do not push or pull forcibly, but use the weight of the knife...” As I tried to cut it... it cut! Straight, without raggedness! I see, the bread knife has a long blade, so even when cutting long castella, I don't have to repeatedly insert the blade as I do with my usual knife. I was able to safely cut the number of people evenly and have them taste it deliciously. The castella was soft and fluffy and melted sweetly in my mouth. It was an experience that made me realize how easy it becomes to cut something that was once difficult to cut with a different knife.

Let me introduce the knife at the end. The bread knife of Tadafusa can easily cut soft bread without crushing it, and even bread with a hard crust can be sliced effortlessly by using the wavy blade at the tip to create an initial cut. This knife is also highly recommended for cutting castella. It will surely be useful not only for bread, but also for cutting a whole cake when you want to make a beautiful cut. The blade is made of a special alloy, SLD steel, sandwiched between three layers of stainless steel. Compared to ordinary stainless steel, the blade will rust depending on how it is used, but it is easy to maintain its sharpness. The bread knives, which are convenient to have at home, are currently available at our Imadegawa and Sanjo Showrooms. The price will be going up soon, so please take advantage of this opportunity.

Tadafusa's Bread Knife
https://www.shokunin.com/en/tadafusa/houchou.html
Syouryu's Suzugami S
https://www.shokunin.com/en/syouryu/
Echigoya Tareido
https://echigoya-kasutera.com/
Imadegawa Showroom
https://www.shokunin.com/en/showroom/imadegawa.html
Sanjo Showroom
https://www.shokunin.com/en/showroom/sanjo.html

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[Cod Hot Pot]

The recent cold wave has made many of you feel chilly and cold. I was thinking “It hasn't snowed at all this season” and “It will be spring like this” in Hokkaido, but in no time at all, we were hit with snow as usual or even more, and I realized that there is always a “balance of the books.” In Hokkaido, where the weather is bitterly cold, people warm themselves up with “cod hot pot” using cod, a fish that comes in season during this cold winter.

Cod is a fish that is abundant along the coast of northern Japan, and there are three main types of cod eaten in Japan: cod, Alaska pollock, and komai. Cod is used in cod hot pot, and is sold in winter when it is in season as fillets, chunks, or half-fleshed fish. Sold together with it are cod milt, which is called “tachi” in Hokkaido. Cod milt is sold as “ma-dachi” and Alaska pollock milt as “suke-dachi.” Pollack itself is often processed into surimi, etc., and is not seen in fish fillets, etc. However, since the price of pollack milt is a little lower than that of cod milt, it can easily be used as an ingredient in miso soup, etc. And pollack ovaries are processed into the familiar “cod roe” and “spicy cod roe.” Komai, described as “fish under ice,” is a small cod sold exclusively as dried fish. The dried fish is hard and difficult to eat, but it is a popular snack with alcohol, and when eaten with mayonnaise and shichimi (seven spices), the more it is chewed, the more flavorful it becomes.

And then there is “cod hot pot,” often eaten in the winter in Hokkaido. It is a nabe with filleted cod, or if you prefer, ma-dachi or suke-dachi, and there are no particular rules for seasoning or ingredients, and each household is free to make it as they wish. Basically, the soup stock made from kelp is seasoned with sake, soy sauce, salt, etc., and vegetables that are hard to cook, such as root vegetables, are added first, and then simmered, with cod fillets added at the same time as leafy greens such as Chinese cabbage, tofu, and shirataki mushrooms to heat through. The secret is to add the cod fillets later, because cod meat is soft and will fall apart if it is simmered too long. The secret is to add the cod fillets later. The fish should be cooked just before eating at the very end. If you cook them too long, they will melt and disappear... If the dashi is lightly seasoned, it is eaten with ponzu (Japanese citrus juice), but cod goes well with any seasoning, so you can easily make it using commercially available nabe tsuyu. Kimchi nabe is also recommended, and if you put in cod, of course, but also taro, its thick creaminess goes well with the spiciness of kimchi nabe.

If you are worried about the fishy smell, sprinkle some salt on the cod and let it sit for about 10 minutes, then wipe off the water with kitchen paper to remove the smell. Put the milt in a bowl of water, add salt, and gently wash the milt in the water to remove the sliminess from the surface. Cut the milt into bite-size pieces with kitchen scissors. Boil water in a pot and run them through the water for 30 seconds at the most, then remove them from the water and let them cool before wiping off the water.

Both cod and tachi are winter delicacies commonly eaten in Hokkaido. Although the cold weather is still continuing, cod and tachi are recommended as ingredients for nabe dishes to warm you up! We have earthenware pots, yosenabe pots, tableware, and other items perfect for one-pot meals at our Otaru Showroom, so please stop by even though the weather is still cold.

Nakamura Douki's Yosenabe
https://www.shokunin.com/en/nakamuradouki/yosenabe.html
Ceramic Japan's do-nabe
https://www.shokunin.com/en/ceramicjapan/donabe.html
Otaru Showroom
https://www.shokunin.com/en/showroom/otaru.html

Reference
https://www.gyoren.or.jp/hokkaidos_fish/tara/