Friday, July 18, 2014

Matcha affogato


Encounter with affogato

I was fascinated by encountering a dessert called “affogato”. It was probably one or two decades ago: I can’t remember exactly when. I knew ice cream and I knew espresso but pouring the espresso on ice cream was a shock. It was terribly good. Europeans know such cool way of enjoying ice cream. I tried it at home. I even enjoyed it with matcha instead of coffee. Nowadays, I’m into mixing Oreo cookies into ice cream. I think that it’s better than getting a ready-made cookies and cream. Anyway, I forgot about affogato lately. 

Reunion with new version

This spring, a new Japanese-tea house opened in my city. I found “koicha affogato” on their menu. This is it! I ordered the koicha affogato. The ice cream came with shiratama dumplings and anko (sweet been paste), and koicha came in a different cup. Koicha is a thickly prepared matcha, against thinly prepared usucha.  (Related link about Koicha and Usucha: http://everyonestea.blogspot.jp/2014/04/thick-tea-and-thin-tea.html) What I enjoyed in the past was one with thin tea, usucha. I have never thought of using koicha. This one is new to me. I poured koicha from the top of the ice cream. I like this new version better. I can enjoy rich flavor of green tea much better. Now I think that my affogato with usucha was a little watery and koicha goes much better with it.



I tried koicha affogato at home

I liked it so much and wanted to try it at home. I found the perfect thing at a supermarket. It’s dumplings on a stick with anko!

 It’s not shiratama dumplings but it’s similar. So I think that it’ll be all right. I didn’t have to buy a whole can of anko or make shiratamas from scratch.

I disassembled the dumplings and anko, and served them with ice cream in a bowl. I made koicha with the usual recipe (matcha:3.6g, water:36ml at 80C). 

It looks quite nice, doesn’t it?

The amount of koicha was too much for100ml (a half cup) of ice cream that I used.

It’s heaven

For the second time, I tried it with a half amount of koicha. It was perfect! The outer layer of ice cream was melted by the hot matcha. I scooped the melted creamy matcha sauce and lump of ice cream together with my spoon and put them in my mouth. It is wonderful to savor the cold part and the aromatic matcha sauce merging. I also put dumplings and anko into my mouth after dressing them with the sauce. It’s nice to have various change in temperature, texture and flavor. It is a very amusing dessert. Even if you don’t have dumplings and anko, it is going to be much more fun putting koicha on ice cream than just having ice cream only.

*If you try it, don’t use expensive matcha for koicha. Use inexpensive one. Bitter flavor goes better with ice cream.

My mixture
Vanilla ice cream: 100ml (a half cup)
Koicha: matcha 1.8g, hot water 18ml

 

4 comments:

  1. I definitely have to try this! I've love matcha-flavoured ice cream a long time. =)
    Though when I first saw the top picture it looked like a small cabbage and two eyeballs in a bowl. Took a few seconds to un-see that.
    Do you think it'd be easy finding a cafe in Japan with this on the menu, or is it just the place you found?

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    Replies
    1. Hahaha, cabbage and eyeballs. That’s funny!
      Not many café or tea house have affogato, but I guess that some have.
      I tried it a small tea house in my city, “Cha-no-iroha”.
      http://ameblo.jp/cha-no-iroha/

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