Kakigori -Ice For All Year Round

We may be on the cusp of fall but pastry chefs are turning out mounds of delicious ice for dessert. Kakigori or Japanese shaved ice is hot right now as American chefs are adding it to their dessert menus, It's a different take on a frozen treat but just as satisfying and delicious.

Tejal Rao, a regular contributor to the Wednesday New York Times Food section wrote about this trend yesterday,Kakigori is different than Italian ice in the respect that it's fluffy and light as opposed to dense and packed. However like Italian ice, it was once reserved for the noblity and the ice brought down from the mountains,specifically from frozen lakes. It began during the Heian period, from the Eighth Century to the Twelfth. Now every Japanese family has a kakigori machine according to Norie Uematsu, a pastry chef at the Cha-an Teahouse in the East Village. She, herself, makes it, all year round , Kakigori is more similar to the Hawaiian shaved ice than to Sno-Cones (although all three are relatively similar) The difference is the texture Kakigori and to a lesser extent, shaved ice has a fluffy melt in your mouth texture. Snow cone ice is gravelly and pebbly, There's a definite  crunch to it.because of it's texture, Snow -Cones have all the flavor at the bottom of the paper cone.Shaved ice hold the syrup so every spoonful is highly flavorful.Depending on where you are, shaved ice is more prevalent, being sold at roadside stands and trucks. Snow Cones are usually sold at carnivals , state fairs and oceanfront boardwalks. Home chefs can buy kakigori or shaved ice machines and serve the treat year round.

For those thinking about buying a shaved ice machine, try to emulate the Japanese masters of this dessert/treat. You could buy different flavored syrups or you could alp it up. Yoojin Chung, the general manager at Stonemill Matcha in San Francisco serves the traditional ujikinoki , with green tea or matcha flavoring with a topping of red bean paste.Homemade coffee jelly(!) and soft mochi, soft Japanese rice cake top it..Cha-an Teahouse has been serving this kind as well as other flavors. Chef Uematsu developed  a white peach flavor , wrought from poached peaches and other fruit and decorated with house made peach gummies cut into star and heart shapes..Marc Johnson, chef de cuisine at David Chang's  Los Angeles based Majordomo used citrus, namely blood orange and grapefruit pieces layered with the ice.Now he's putting a Mexican spin on it creating a frosty version of horchata.Rice pudding is put at the bottom of the bowl, followed by coffee syrup and a strong brew made with horchata a ground milk like beverage made with tiger nuts. He hid pockets of caramelized sweetened milk and whipped cream. This was similar to the kakigori Ms, Rao tasted at the cafe Kuriya Kashi Korogi at the University of Tokyo The ice had fresh soy milk and sweetened condensed milk layered with whipped cream. There were stripes of red bean paste and topped with a sweet and salty puree of fresh edamame.

Kakigori is definitely the rising star of the American dessert scene. It elevates shaved ice to new levels, with it's unique flavors and toppings, This ice will be hot all year round.