Let's forage some loaf cake in the wild 🦝
New Year, same ol’ feral me.
Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we find a slice of loaf cake in the wild, and make two types of homemade soda. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.
Foraged loaf cake at Mighty Oak Roasters
28-01 24th Ave, Queens, NY 11102
It’s been a long time since I’ve publicly admitted consuming food of mysterious origin (stranger wine feels like a thousand years ago, reminiscent of a Rococo pre-pandemic Sophie) but when I saw a slice of fully wrapped, labeled, and stickered loaf cake on the counter at the coffee shop, far away from the pastry case, with nary a customer in sight, I thought that surely the Universe was testing me. So of course, I pocketed the loaf cake and put it in my pocket, and promptly forgot all about it until the very next morning (er… realistically afternoon) when I went to drink coffee. The cake, although slightly crumbled, was fantastic: Dense, not-too-sweet, but very eggy in rich, in the way I always dream of my loaves being. It was topped with slivered burnt almonds and speckled with some kind of fruit (strawberry? Rhubarb? Am I a supertaster? No.). According to the label, it’s from Bench Flour Bakers in Astoria, and now I’ll be sure to give the bakery a visit.
Chicken nanban at the Izakaya
326 E 6th St, New York, NY 10003
I almost always order chicken karaage when I see it on a menu at a Japanese restaurant – but because we went with the suggested “set” menu* at the Izakaya, it came with chicken nanban instead. I’m not sure what makes the chicken nanban at the Izakaya so much better than any Japanese fried chicken I’ve had (is it the tartar sauce? The fact that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast that day?) but if you order one thing at the Izakaya, let it be that, and a Kagua blanc. Apparently chicken nanban is cooked in an eggy batter, which is possibly why it tasted so moist. Or, maybe it’s because the meat was all thigh. Either way, I really enjoyed this dish.
*Note: The set menu at the Izakaya seems like a deal, but please note that it is actually the same price as ordering the dishes individually! I didn’t notice until I got the bill. While the suggested dishes are quite nice, you’re better off ordering a la carte if you know what you want.
Homemade izakaya pudding at the Izakaya
326 E 6th St, New York, NY 10003
Have you watched Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure yet on Netflix*? If you haven’t, I won’t spoil anything (even though I love to look up the plot of every movie and tv show on Wikipedia as a hobby), but I will say that it’s a surprisingly touching (and adult!) live action series about a depressed egg. In one of the early episodes, we take the perspective of the foods on a conveyor sushi belt, including several peppy puddings. So, of course, I was very excited to see that homemade pudding was on the set menu at the Izakaya. Now, Japanese pudding is not at all like Jell-O pudding and is really more like flan, with a caramelized bottom. Usually dessert in a set menu is a mere afterthought but this pudding was a star all on its own. The texture was really smooth, like silken tofu, and the taste was perfectly creamy.
* Not sponsored.
Homemade yuzu soda at home
Original recipe for yuzu syrup.
Remember when I harvested a small bounty of yuzu at Whole Foods a few weeks ago? It turns out there was one slightly dried out yuzu lemon that had rolled into the bottom of the produce drawer, so I made a small batch of yuzu syrup with it. Since I’d run out of Spindrift for the week, I decided to make a simple yuzu soda, and it was so good, it tasted like one of those fancy sparkling juices. You don’t really need a recipe to make yuzu syrup, or any fruit syrup. Just thoroughly scrub and thinly slice the fruit, and combine in a 1:1 ratio with white sugar, and store in a clean, airtight jar in the refrigerator. When ready to drink, fill a cold glass with ice, add a heaping tablespoon of syrup and yuzu slices into the bottom of a glass, and fill to the top with soda water. Stir.
Meyer lemon (aka the Poor Man’s Yuzu) syrup at home
You can find Meyer lemons at Trader Joe’s.
Meyer lemons – sunny yellow lemons that taste mild, sweet, and to me, slightly of the herb thyme – are a cross between citrons and mandarin/pomelo, according to Wikipedia. And since a yuzu is technically a citron, I figured that since I never ever saw fresh yuzu fruit at Whole Foods again, I would give my syrup recipe a try with Meyer lemons, which are considerably cheaper and easier to find. Meyer lemons are absolutely delicious in their own right, especially in baked goods, but they have way less of an intense sharp perfume when compared to yuzu fruit, and are considerably juicier. Therefore, using the 1:1 ratio of sliced fruit to sugar yielded a much runnier syrup, and a more diluted, tangy-er soda, sort of like a tart lemonade.
Happy New Year!
Soph
P.S. As another year comes to a close, please consider supporting my writing in 2023 buying a paid subscription to Five Things I Ate. This newsletter is a labor of love, and my continued production of it is based off your subscriptions. Paid subscriptions are currently only $30 per year, and you gain access to all recipes in the archives, including my famous Pineapple Buns and Mama’s Scallion Pancakes.