Shelf Stable #1 - Hojicha Rolls
An intro to my cooking style, as I augment a childhood memory with a new flavor.
Amid a hostile government takeover, whispers of layoffs, and the insistent grey of Portland as the days slowly meander through winter, I promised myself that I would make a tiny attempt at writing about food. I say promise and not resolution specifically so that I may escape the abhorrent shame that a true New Years Resolution can place upon me as soon as December rears its ugly head and I find, once again, I’ve made little to no progress towards a goal wistfully created the prior spring.
Something about this minute shift in verbiage releases me from that pesky little feeling we all try to avoid. This is because few things are as fragile as the hushed pledges we tell ourselves with no one else to police or inquire about. These delicate little vows are destined to fall from the mantle of our mental capacity and plunge freely into our faded memory, thus no shame is needed when breaking something that was born to be forgotten anyway. I find this shift from resolution to promise to be acceptable since many of the decisions that humans make are centered around minimizing shame towards oneself and I cannot pretend to be above the general populace in this particular regard.
And just as fragile and forgettable are the many ideas regarding food that float through my consciousness weekly, though unlike self-made promises, I’d prefer to start setting some of these ideas on that aforementioned mantle, molding and polishing them into something worth sharing. Thus Shelf Stable was born, a place for rampant thoughts on my favorite subject.
I can actually place myself aside from the general populace in the fact that I truly dream of food. This unfortunately is not facetious or a boast. I believe it to be an ailment whose only remedy is to re-enact those haunting visions in my own kitchen. I’ve said this out loud to people who seem to be stunned to learn that questions of future dinner parties of all tomato-based dishes, what my husband is going to eat for lunch, and decadent birthday cakes for friends seem to plague me. And sometimes if I’m lucky, like Jane Eyre suddenly having the answer to a pathway out of teaching at Breckenridge, a fine fairy might plop an idea for a recipe, whole and fully formed into my sleeping lap.
More specifically, there are few things I adore (and therefore dream of) more than a good pantry ingredient. There’s a reason that the contents of my Christmas stocking are usually shiny tins of preserved fish and jars of glistening chili crunch. Whether it be an upgraded version of an everyday workhorse, like a luscious olive oil destined for salad dressings, or a specialty ingredient that I obsess over while traveling, there’s something exhilarating about tearing open the beautifully branded packaging and tasting something for the first time. For the truly unique ingredients, I’ll often place it in a particular part of my pantry and let it take over my subconscious until I’ve worked out exactly how to create a menu around it.
While not revolutionary, that is how I would describe my cooking style, especially for a standard weeknight meal - making a single pantry ingredient the star of the show, while a mix of seasonal vegetables and protein plays ensemble (cue my husband making a joke about Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade). I think about recipes and meals by thinking about flavors -- what I want the feeling of the meal to be. That experience may be that I'm craving the mouth-puckering tartness of sumac or the mouth-feel of steel cut oats. Or, now that my husband and I are basically homesteaders (and by that I mean that we have a single plot at a community garden where we employ a maximalist philosophy on how much we grow), I have recently been dabbling in creating ingredients for myself through canning and drying.
Additionally, I like to tell myself that this method being so ingrained in me is because old habits die hard. While my family made delicious meals growing up, many of those recipes and the memories that I hold dearly of learning to cook were created this way. In my mother’s kitchen, boxes of Bisquick and chicken broth can quickly become chicken dumpling soup. In my father’s, Top Ramen became the base of a creative culinary experience with the addition of a select few ingredients from the sale ads. As I began to articulate this to my husband, I realized that Shelf Stable could become a place for me to muse about ingredients that are more stable than my mental health on any given day in 2025 and, honestly, working out these thoughts on paper have become somewhat therapeutic over the past few months.
So, with all of that out of the way, shall we start with the shining star of this post? An ingredient that has had, as the kids say, an absolute chokehold on me since November.
H O J I C H A P O W D E R!
Photos from Miz on Behance and Japan Tea Guide.
In the final days of our honeymoon trip to Japan in November, my husband and I find ourselves in the honeymoon suite of a romantic little hotel in Kyoto which describes itself as a non-traditional ryokan. Kyoto’s autumn season is a bit late this year due to summer overstaying its welcome, as many of the locals assured us, but to Andy and I the painted red, yellow, and orange landscape of the city still felt spectacular. Our room showcased a courtyard that connects the bedroom, bathroom, and a sitting area - a single lantern greeting us with its warmth. The sound of a water fountain, the wind rustling the surrounding bamboo, and wooden sandals on the gravel pathways quickly become the soothing soundtrack of our time there. Each day as we enter the room after a long day of temples and udon, we’re greeted with a new origami Pokemon that the staff has taken to making me after seeing my obnoxious plushie haul from Tokyo.
This particular hotel also has a dining room where you can purchase meals that are made sukiyaki style is a traditional style of cooking where grilled ingredients are dipped in raw egg. I know some of y’all need a moment to take that in and you can do that, but I’m here to tell you that every bite was delicious. The egg gave the simple grilled vegetables and meats a creamy finish and elevated their flavors. At the end of the meal, our star steps onto the stage in what I can only describe as a tiny bowl of joy - hojicha ice cream.
At the moment, I was too overcome with the need to have this substance in my face, thus I don’t have an exact photo, but you might imagine what looks like a chocolate ice cream. And truly the flavor profile isn’t so different. Hojicha is a Japanese green tea that has been roasted and is often served as tea or powdered to be used in lattes and desserts. It has a deep nutty and toasted flavor without being bitter, but with a vegetal lightness, almost as if cocoa powder and green tea had a secret love child. This memory of the hojicha ice cream made such an impression on me that not only did I beg the hotel to write down the recipe (which I will be gatekeeping for a while longer), but we also planned the next day around finding the best hojicha powder in the city to take home with us. Luckily, the hotel recommended a place that happened to be a short walk from the stunning Kiyomizu-Dera and thus this did not upset our plans too much, other than waiting in the long line GOKAGO for a taste of their hojicha and matcha. Worth it, I promise.
This was back in November and of course it is now February. As you can see, I sat on this ingredient for some time, holding it until I knew exactly what to do with it. I had a few half-formed dreams of hojicha lattes, which I’m sipping on now as I put the final edits on this post. And of course, I knew that I could just replicate the ice cream, but another thing about me is that I don’t always just want to copy a recipe verbatim. I like to put a spin on the flavor profile somehow and make it into something new. I knew that the dish had to feature the hojicha and as well as milky sweetness that the ice cream provided, but in a new way. Thankfully, Jane Eyre’s fairy paid me a visit sometime in late January, after seeing TikTok talk about the Pillsbury Hot Cocoa Rolls. That’s when the idea solidified as a take on cinnamon rolls, which my family often made in the winter months, especially during holidays, and which I crave every year like clockwork. The attached note replaces the standard cinnamon with a bit of hojicha powder and milk powder, which when in its fully-baked, ooey-gooey form will remind you of a milk tea from your favorite boba restaurant.
For our 1 year anniversary, I’ll honor the memory of the ice cream we had in the Kyoto hotel dining room, beaming with too much sake and sukiyaki, and finally make the recipe that they wrote down on the note card. But for now, this little note for hojicha rolls will suffice.
Hojicha Rolls
Ingredients:
Dough for about cinnamon rolls
Hojicha powder , 1/2 cup
Dry milk powder, 1/4 cup
Dark brown sugar, 3/4 cup
Melted butter, 1 stick
Milk, 1 cup
Prepare a standard cinnamon dough recipe of your choosing (like this one from baking goddess Erin Jean McDowell). Instead of using the standard cinnamon mixture, whisk together the hojicha powder, milk powder, dark brown sugar, and melted butter until you get a smooth mixture. It should look very dark, this is normal!
When you’ve rolled your dough out, spread this mixture onto your dough just like you would a cinnamon mixture, making sure to cover the entire surface. Roll and cut the dough as you normally would and place them into the baking dish. If your dough requires a second rise, be sure to do that.
Once the dough is ready to bake, add 1 cup milk to the bottom of the baking dish and bake! Once fully baked, let the rolls sit for an additional 10 minutes to absorb any lingering milk in the pan. Top with an icing of your choice.
Enjoy warm!
Watch me make the Hojicha Rolls on Instagram.