Recipe: Hijiki Doughnuts and Hijiki Hotcakes

Hijiki (Sargassum fusiforme) is a type of seaweed that grows along the coastlines of China, Korea, and Japan. Available in grocery stores in dried form, hijiki is commonly used in Japanese home cooking. Its crinkly, tea-like leaves are soaked in water for about an hour, swelling to tadpole sized pieces. Hijiki is very high in iron, calcium, and magnesium. Although it contains minute levels of inorganic arsenic toxin, Japanese health authorities do not consider hijiki to be health threatening as it is consumed in such small amounts. Furthermore, the toxicity level decreases significantly when hijiki is soaked, rinsed, and cooked.

For more about cooking with hijiki see this post from Just Hungry. For more on seaweed, see my post on agar-agar.

Hijiki seaweed, with a late 19th century English copper tea canister in the Aesthetic style, depicting cranes.

Hijiki has a mild seaweed fragrance, chewy texture, and a nutty flavor that is delicious in soups and mixed into rice. Yet the first time I tasted hijiki was in doughnuts that my mother had made in a Japanese cooking class: ping pong-sized balls of sweet and crispy, fried dough that concealed a soft interior filled with hijiki. Although I haven't been able to locate my mother's recipe from the cooking class, I have adapted my favorite recipe for baked doughnuts from 101 cookbooks to include hijiki.

Recipe
Baked Hijiki Doughnuts
Yields about 2 dozen 2" balls

Ingredients

2 Tbs hijiki
2/3 cup warm milk
1/2 packet active dry yeast (about 1 generous teaspoon)
1 Tbs cooking oil, such as canola
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter
confectioners' sugar

1. Cover hijiki with water and soak for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Drain in a colander, rinse, and place hikiji in a towel to wring dry, as you would with spinach. Set aside.

2. Place half (1/3 cup) of the warm milk in a large bowl and sprinkle yeast over top. Stir until dissolved. Let it sit for 5-7 minutes, or until you can see the yeast start to activate and produce little bubbles. Place remaining milk in a mixing bowl and stir in oil and sugar. Add this to yeast mixture. Whisk in egg, flour, and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined and then knead with your hands (either in bowl or turn onto a floured countertop) about 5 times, or until the dough becomes homogenous, elastic, and soft. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle more flour on as you knead. If too dry, sprinkle more milk on as you knead.

3. Place dough in a large, greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and place in a warm spot to rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

4. Punch down dough and knead hijiki into dough until evenly distributed. Place 1 1/2" balls of dough on parchment lined baking sheets. Cover with a damp towel and let rise another 45 minutes.

5. Bake doughnuts in an oven preheated at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt butter in a saucepan. After 8 minutes, check on doughnuts. When the bottoms are golden brown they are ready. Remove from the oven, brush liberally with melted butter, dust with confectioners' sugar, and serve.




Another way to use hijiki is in dorayaki-style hotcakes. Dorayaki are Japanese filled pancakes, consisting of two castella cakes encasing a filling of either red bean, peanut, chocolate, or cream cheese.
The recipe below features hijiki and cream cheese inside a pancake made buoyant with whipped egg whites. I'd like to experiment with flavor combinations, substituting whole wheat pastry flour for all-purpose, and adding pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, or carrot to the batter.

Shown in an onigiri (rice ball) carrier, that works well for transporting hotcakes too.

Recipe
Hijiki Hotcakes
Yields about 4 hotcakes. To make a large batch, simply multiply the proportions below. Freeze any extra hotcakes and thaw in the microwave to serve.

Ingredients

1 Tbs hijiki
2 oz. cream cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbs sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk or soymilk
2 Tbs butter, melted and cooled, plus more for the pan

1. 1. Cover hijiki with water and soak for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Drain in a colander, rinse, and place hikiji in a towel to wring dry, as you would with spinach. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks with milk and butter. Add to flour mixture. In another bowl, beat egg whites at high speed until peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter in 2 additions.

3. Heat a pan over medium high heat with butter. Add a spoonful of batter and as the edges start to firm, gingerly place a teaspoon of cream cheese and a pinch of hijiki (about 7 pieces) on the center of the cake. Top with a little more batter. When bottom is golden (1-2 minutes), flip over and cook 1-2 minutes more. Repeat with remaining batter.

Culinary Ephemera: Siew Kee Restaurant Menu, Malacca ca. 1960

Restaurant related objects such as business cards, matchboxes and matchbooks, menus, and advertisements, as well as utensils, promotional memorabilia, and decorative accessories, can illustrate and help determine the tastes and customs of particular places and time periods. I have a small collection of business cards taken from roadside restaurants on a cross-country U.S. trip some years ago. Looking at the restaurant name, its specialties, and the graphics reveals an encapsulated sense of time and place. Menus are an excellent source of information on culinary trends and anomalies as well as social interaction.

Below is a menu from the Siew Kee Restaurant in Malacca (Melaka) in present day Malaysia, specializing in Chinese dishes. Malacca was one of the three port cities, including Penang and Singapore, which comprised the Straits Settlements of the Malayan peninsula when it was under British control up until 1946. Long before British rule, these trading centers attracted Chinese, Indian and European immigrants. Intermarriage between these groups and the indigenous Malay population created a region of cultural diversity. At this cultural interface, the culinary practices of each immigrant blended and expanded into unique, regional specialties. For more on Straits Chinese cuisine see my post on Peranakan Cookery.

Siew Kee Restaurant Menu

With red leather front and back covers, a blue cloth spine and silver lettering, this bilingual English-Traditional Chinese text menu features 15 leaves with the watermark of Loh Printing Press in Malacca. The restaurant's offerings are divided into: Baa Mee, Shark's Fin, Bird's Nest Soup, Snow Fungus, Pigeon, Duck, Chinese Dishes, Hot and Cold Drinks, Beer and Stout, Special Chinese Small Dishes, Special Chinese Dishes, and Champagne. There are no prices listed. The menu is undated but I suspect it to be from around 1960, based on the graphics and condition. The menu is well preserved, with slight foxing on some pages. I've included some of the pages below (click on the images to enlarge), along with a brief description.
Size: 5.5" x 8.5" (14 cm x 21.5 cm)

Online Digital Menu Archives and Menu Collections

Alice Statler Library
Cornell University Library
Culinary Institute of America Conrad N. Hilton Library
Harley Spiller Asian-American Menu Collection
Los Angeles Public Library
Northwestern University Library Transportation Collection
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
University of Nevada, Las Vegas Digital Collection Menus: The Art of Dining
U.S. Navy Holiday Menus
University of Washington Library
Virginia Tech Culinary History Library

Also of interest...

The Science of the Menu

Variations on a Theme: Sandwiches, Part II

Speaking of the eponymous John Montagu (1718-92), 4th Earl of Sandwich, credited for his innovative method of staving off hunger at the gambling table, Elizabeth Robins Pennell writes: "A hero indeed is he who left the sandwich as an heirloom to humanity. It truly is the staff of life, a substantial meal for starving traveller or bread-winner; but none the less an incomparable work of art, a joy to the gourmand of fancy and discretion" (33). "The Subtle Sandwich" is one of a collection of essays that appeared under the title The Delights of Delicate Eating in 1896. The writer, Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936), a Philadelphian émigré to London, was a writer and art critic involved in late 19th century arts circles, who took to culinary writing in magazine columns in the later part of her career. Pennell's writing advocated for creativity in the kitchen; her prose, absent of recipes, instead describes food, cooking, and eating, as one would describe art. Indeed that is how Pennell, the all but forgotten predecessor to food writers such as Elizabeth David and M.F.K Fisher, saw it. A connoisseur and collector of early cookbooks, Pennell's impressive collection is accessible in the archives of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. It seemed fitting to quote her poetic truths in this post, Part II of Sandwiches. See Part I here. The sandwiches I've included below attempt an expansion on the idea of the humble sandwich, but maintain the traits of ease and portability. As Pennell advocates, "Set your wits to work. Cultivate your artistic instincts. Invent! Create! Many are the men who have painted pictures: few those who have composed a new and perfect sandwich"(38). In her characteristic allusion to possible ingredients, Pennell suggests "...the cool cucumber, fragrant from its garden ground, the unrivalled tomato, the crisp, sharp mustard and cress. Scarce a green thing growing that will not lend itself to the true artist in sandwich-making...And your art may be measured by your success in proving the onion to be the poetic soul of the sandwich, as of the salad bowl. For afternoon tea the dainty green sandwich is the daintiest of them all" (40). The setting was important to Pennell as well, completing the eating experience: "lyrical indeed is the savoury sandwich, well cut and garnished, served on rare faience or old silver..." (36).

Cottage Cheese Sandwich

For each sandwich you will need:

2 slices of bread

1/2 cup cottage cheese

2 Tbs chopped poblano peppers

1/4 tsp cumin

Grease a griddle or frying pan over medium heat.

Combine last 3 ingredients in a bowl and spread between bread slices.

Place sandwich on hot griddle and cook until golden on both sides.

Grated Carrot/Zucchini Sandwich

For each sandwich you will need:

2 slices of bread

lettuce

mustard

1 medium carrot or 1 small zucchini, grated

1 Tbs mayonnaise, preferably Vegenaise

dash of curry powder

Mix last three ingredients in a bowl.

Toast bread, spread one or both slices with mustard.

Drape one slice of bread with lettuce and top with grated filling.

Note: You may substitute 1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels for the carrot or zucchini.

Fresh or frozen roti (available at Asian grocery stores) is delicious in place of bread.

See photo above.

Herbaceous Sandwich

For each sandwich you will need:

1/2 baguette, slit open and toasted

1/2 cup assorted fresh herbs such as basil, oregano, parsley, chives, tarragon, lovage

2 Tbs cream cheese

tsp olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

mustard, optional

Spread cream cheese and mustard (if using) over each side of toasted baguette.

Gently pile herbs on top, tearing the larger basil leaves into smaller pieces.

Drizzle with olive oil and black pepper.

Rose Petal Sandwich

adapted from The Art of Cooking with Roses (1968) by Jean Gordon

For tea sandwiches you will need:

5-7 slices of high-quality white bread, such as Japanese white bread or brioche

6 oz. cream cheese or butter, softened and whipped with a fork

1 Tbs snipped chives

1/2 cup rose petals

Cut out bread using using a 3" round cookie cutter.

Spread with cream cheese or butter and sprinkle with chives.

Decorate with rose petals radiating from center. Repeat with one or more layers.

Suggested reading:
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins. The Delights of Delicate Eating. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
Andrew F. Smith. "Sandwiches," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed. Gordon Campbell. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Sandwiches Part I