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Michiko Aoyama

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“I'd left the soon-to-be-blue doors open, and Clementine had let herself in. As we entered the kitchen, I could see her putting the finishing touches on two bowls of something chocolaty. "What is this?" I asked, taking a closer look. Clementine finished her plating and stepped back. "Nutella mousse with hazelnut liqueur, served with chocolate-dipped hazelnut shortbread." She was good; I had to give her that. Nico and I shared a deep, genetic affinity for the chocolate-hazelnut spread. Without hesitation, I picked up the spoon and dug in. An intense, perfectly complex Nutella taste met my tongue. My eyes slid shut. "That is so good." "Try it with the shortbread," Clementine instructed. I dipped the chocolaty-end of the shortbread into the mousse. The crunch of the cookie set off the rich mousse like a dream. A chocolaty, hazelnutty, Nutella-y dream. Dragging my attention away from dessert, I looked to Nico to see his reaction. He stood staring at me, spoon in hand, mousse untouched. I frowned at him. "What on earth are you waiting for? Eat!" Nico scowled but dug his spoon into the mousse. He took a bite; his face froze. "Seriously," I said, working two more spoonfuls, "I might lick the bowl." Nico shrugged. "It's pretty good." Clementine squared her shoulders. "Pretty good?" "You want the job?" "Yes, I do," she answered. "I'll think about it," he told her, his expression guarded. "Thank you," Clementine replied, unfazed. I scooped another bite of mousse. "This shortbread? It's perfect!" "It's the French butter. I get it from your grandmother's supplier--he gives us, I mean, me, a good deal. I bake croissants for him. He imports French butter but can't bake. Isn't that sad?" I nodded, nibbling at the shortbread. "The butter certainly imports a richness of flavor that's quite special.”

ChocolateFrenchInterviewButterNutellaMousseShortbread
Book:A Table by the Window
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“Is this a potato? It's so smooth! It doesn't have that muddy, earthy smell to it! It's not fluffy or dry, and it just melts away in my mouth!" "This is 'potato stewed in butter.' It's a dish I learned from Ajihyakusen, an izakaya in Sapporo. For the soup, you use the ichiban-dashi of a katsuobushi. That way you won't waste the scent of the potato. And for ten potatoes, you place half a pound of salted butter into the dashi... ...flavor it with a very slight amount of salt and sugar, and stew it over extremely low heat. In about forty minutes, the potatoes will start to float in the dashi. If you keep boiling the potatoes, they'll sink again and then come floating back up in two and a half hours. All you need to do after that is to boil it for about thirty more minutes, and it's done." "Then you boil it for almost four hours total?" "Right. It takes a whole day to cook this, so even though this dish only costs 600 yen, you have to order at least a day in advance to eat it at the izakaya. The dishes Kurita and I made the other day were all made to your order. They were dishes that avoided the true nature of the potato. But this is a dish that draws out the full taste of the potato in a very straightforward way. By cooking the potato for several hours over low heat, the flavor of the potato seeps out into the dashi, and when that happens, the unique muddy smell of the potato disappears. The potato can be easily broken apart in the soup, and it melts away on your tongue." "That's the biggest difference from the other potato dishes." "You can taste the true flavor of the potato with it.”

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Book:Izakaya: Pub Food
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“For every day I have known her, she has eaten the same breakfast: sourdough toast with butter and whipped honey. She slices the golden brown toasted bread into four small squares and places them on a paper towel she has folded in half. A generous smear of softened butter goes on each piece, as thick as frosting on a cupcake, and each is then topped by a good-size dollop of whipped honey. As a child, I watched her do this hundreds of times, and now, when I'm sick, sourdough toast with butter and honey is like medicine.”

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Book:The Violets of March
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“The butter should still be cold. Remove it from the fridge just before. Superior-quality butter should be eaten when it's still cold and hard, to truly luxuriate in its texture and aroma. It will begin to melt almost immediately with the heat of the rice, but I want you to eat it before it melts fully. Cool butter and warm rice. First of all, savor the difference in their temperatures. Then, the two will melt alongside one another, mingle together, and form a golden fountain, right there inside your mouth. Even without seeing it, you just know that it's golden--- that's the way it tastes. You'll sense the individual grains of rice coated in butter and aromatic fragrance as if the rice were being fried will ascend to your nose. A rich, milky sweetness will spread itself across your tongue...”

RiceButterBook TitleHow To Eat
Book:Butter
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“The dusky-pink pollock roe she removed from its polystyrene packaging gleamed wetly and, for an instant, the image of Kaiji's puckered lips passed through her mind. Leaving its outer skin on, she broke up the roe with a fork and mixed it unfussily into the spaghetti. She sliced off a knob of the Calpis with a knife and perched it on top, then watched as the pale-yellow solid gently began to change color, spreading out to the sides and turning golden, mingling with the fish eggs. The full, milky aroma of the butter married with the salty marine tang of the roe as the scent of the dish went rising up to her face, and she breathed it deeply into her lungs. She garnished the pasta with a scattering of shiso leaves she'd torn up with her fingers, then moved the bowl of pasta over to her cardboard box. There was a rosy-cheeked frankness about the pink of the roe, and in combination with the oozing butter, it looked positively carefree. Rika tool up her fork and wound up the spaghetti, before lifting it to her mouth. Cloaked in a coating of minuscule fish eggs and butter, the spaghetti strands sprang around Rika's tongue as if in excitement. The dish was adequately salted, but there was a relaxed, mellow quality to its taste. What a wonderful combination pollock roe and butter made!”

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Book:Butter
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“Can I offer you a slice of this amazing caramelized white chocolate apricot brioche made by my favorite granddaughter?" "You may indeed." When you slice the rich, buttery bread topped with crunchy bits of pearl sugar, you get a swirl of white chocolate, which now also has hints of caramel flavor from having been roasted, and chunks of apricot. It is a good one. Herman loved it and immediately said we would have it in the rotation all summer and to order more apricots. Bubbles hands me two thick pieces of my bread, lightly toasted and lavished with butter. It is delicious, if I do say so myself.”

IngredientsFlavorsButterBriocheSophie BernsteinWhite ChocolateApricot
Book:Wedding Girl
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“Hey, you just 'member it's all in the butter. I keep trynna tell your cousins that, and they don't listen for the life of 'em." Butter is probably Grandma's favorite ingredient, and she puts it in nearly everything. I believe she'd put it in her raisin bran in the mornings if she could. One year, she made deep-fried sticks of butter and dipped them in chocolate sauce and melted peanut butter. I'm not gonna lie. It was pretty flame, but I'm sure at least one of my arteries clogged up.”

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Book:Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love
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