Chef Talk: Kanjiro Mochizuki For Ichedo And Le Diamant
Chef Kanjiro Mochizuki is a world famous, Japanese Executive Pastry Chef and also teaches pastry techniques at noted culinary schools in Japan. Chef Mochizuki started his career in Japan after finishing high school and has spent stints in the US. At the World Pastry Team Championships in 2002, Chef Mochizuki won the award for Best Sugar Showpiece before serving as the Japanese team manager at the same competition in 2010; tough credentials for any Asian pastry chef to beat.
Chef Mochizuki told Talk that after competing in so many international competitions, he began to socialize with many other Asian chefs and restaurateurs. That is how his friendship with Mr. Tsai started. Taiwanese Mr. Tsai came to Shanghai in 1992 and has been working in the industry for 30 years. Due to the decades long friendship Chef Mochizuki shares with Ichido and Le Diamant’s founder Mr. Tsai, Chef Mochizuki was happy to come to Shanghai to create a new summer pastry menu for the Chinese stores. Although in Japan Chef Mochizuki specializes in French style cuisine, his preference is for American style pastry. “The characteristics of the French pastry are very complicated – more so than people are used to. But I think now, everywhere in Japan uses French style pastry. I believe that it is now the time to eat simple and tasty pastry, so I decided to create Lemon Meringue Pie, Blueberry Pie or something very simple but tasty.”
Chef Mochizuki insists that so long as quality ingredients are used, the taste of American pastry is second to none as it is simple and easy to understand compared to a more complicated French version. When quizzed by Talk about the palate of Chinese consumers and whether they would warm to these unaccustomed sweet treats that they are unaccustomed to, Chef Mochizuki explained, “It took about ten years for tastes to change towards pastry in Japan but I think it will take only three years in China due to the rapid pace of development.”
Look out for Chef Mochizuki’s new summer desserts in Ichido and Le Diamant stores now and check out his very precise Lemon Meringue Pie recipe below.
Lemon Meringue Pie
Ingredients
- 90g cake flour
- 100g bread flour
- 175g butter
- 82g cold water
- 3g salt
Method
Sift the cake flour and bread flour together into a bowl and cut the refrigerated butter into 5mm cubes. Using your fingers, rub the butter and flour together then add the cold water and salt. Mix the ingredients into a dough and cover in plastic wrap before refrigerating for 30 minutes. After the dough has cooled, flatten the dough into 3 layers and then rest for 30 minutes. After waiting, roll out the puff pastry dough into a circle with a diameter of 24cm and a thickness of 2mm and place onto a tart pan. Make small holes across the dough using a fork and cover with parchment paper using weights to hold it in place. Bake the puff pastry at 180°C for 30 minutes.
Lemon filling (for 2 tarts)
Ingredients
- 1 liter water
- 240g sugar
- 6 egg yolks
- 150ml lemon juice
Method
- 85g cornstarch
- 1 sliced sponge cake
Boil the water and add in the sugar, cornstarch and yolks. Cook for 5 minutes before adding in the lemon juice. Place sliced sponge cake on the bottom of the baked puff pastry base then pour over the lemon mixture. Place the rest of the sliced sponge cake on top.
Lemon flavored meringue
Ingredients
- 160g egg whites
- 176g sugar
- 1⁄4 lemon peel (grated)
Method
Beat the egg whites with a small amount of sugar. When the meringue has foamed well, gradually add the rest of the sugar. Fold in the grated lemon peel and spread the mixture onto the lemon cream filling. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the tart and then bake in the oven at 220°C until light brown.
