The Recipe That Changed Harumi Kurihara's Life.

I mentioned that I stopped buying cookbooks, since Japanese food magazines provide more current, diverse, and less biased food knowledge.

So whenever I visit a bookstore, I grab one of Harumi Kurihara’s quarterly magazines.

I know the Japanese reading this are cringing right now because Kurihara is - how do I put this, the Jamie Oliver of Japan.

Remember when Jamie was about naked cooking? Professional cooking, educational cooking? And then he became about Italian cooking. Then nonna cooking. Then American cooking. Then Spanish cooking, the great British cooking. Then 30-minute cooking. Then 15-minute cooking. Then five-ingredient cooking. Then vegetarian cooking. And his most recent cookbook is - check this out, five-ingredient Mediterranean cooking.

So Kurihara is a little bit like that.

She’s not a cook anymore. She’s a celebrity, an idea of what a calm, peaceful, family-loving mother should be. A concept that transcends books, Tupperware, jewelry, cutlery, Japanese curry roux, crockery, and clothing line. A shape-shifter. She is whatever the industry needs her to be.

Google any of her cookbooks and tell me it doesn’t just scream ‘Cibi’ to Melburians. (And if you’re older than 35, you’d remember Minna-no-ie, Cibi’s aborted twin sibling.)

Her most recent magazine next to her first cookbook from a hundred years ago. Which is which, right?

Still, that doesn’t stop me from recommending her books to anyone who wants to get into Japanese cooking.

Because, unlike Jamie, her recipes are somewhat encouraging.
That is, they will taste decent enough that you don’t hate yourself.
And will attempt to cook more.

That’s why I don’t mind the clickbait title - ‘Recipe that changed my life’ section in her magazine.

In theory, all recipes change our lives.
Good ones enrich, and bad ones educate.

I’ll just taichi her title to my title, providing photography and translation.

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Recipes That Changed My Life
#5 Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients (Makes 8-9)
2 eggs
120g granulated sugar
160g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp fresh cream
50g unsalted butter
100g canned blueberries

Method

1. Cut the butter into 2-3 equal pieces, place in a small heat-resistant container, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and heat in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to melt.

2. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add the granulated sugar, and beat with a hand mixer until foamy.

3. Sift the flour and baking powder into step 2 and mix gently with a rubber spatula.

4. Add the butter and fresh cream from step 1 to the part where there is a little flour left, and mix quickly.

5. Add the blueberries and mix thoroughly, being careful not to crush them.

6. Pour the batter into the mold, place it on a baking sheet, and bake in the oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes.

7. Once baked, remove from the mold and remove from heat.

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The real reason I paid attention to this recipe was because my daughter saw it and wanted to make blueberry muffins.

It was something she could do herself. With supervision.

There was improvisation, of course.

We used cultured butter. We replaced some sugar with raw sugar. We mixed plain flour with cake flour. We added white chocolate bits and vanilla bean extract. We added pearl sugar on top. Instead of canned blueberries (wtf is that) we used frozen ones from Aldi. One time, we replaced the cream with yogurt. I’m sure raspberry, banana, chocolate chip, cherries, or whatever in season are all fair game.

Baking muffins is the act of hiding leftovers with sugar, flour, and eggs.

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This recipe has also changed our lives.

Everything can be done in less than 40 minutes - the same time it takes for my child to dress up, head to the shop, and buy the muffins.

Hana started asking if we could bake blueberry muffins after school.

Because back to my point about Kurihara in general, it’s encouraging.

For Hana, it’s something doable and fun.

I’m not going to say ‘no, we have to cook from Beatrix Bakes’ and ruin a potentially good afternoon with my daughter.

And so far, every time we have guests visiting, their children will consume three at the very least.

Some, without permission.

“OMG I don’t know why she did that, she’s usually quite well-mannered.”

First of all, it’s not rude, it’s a compliment.
Secondly, you know your kid is always like that. You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to yourself.

In my cookbook I wrote the most important part of a muffin is the crust. This recipe seems to disprove that because look at the ingredients again - sugar, butter, cream, eggs, and blueberries.
There’s nothing untasty in that recipe.

The only advice I have is probably double it if you have more than two kids.

Triple it if you have guests coming.

A no-brainer addition to lunchboxes.