I mentioned about Japanese Summer tradition in food –  ‘Chilled Ramen’ before. There is another Must-Have in Summertime in Japan. That is ‘Kakigori‘ – the Shaved Ice!

It is the same as the Chilled Ramen, ‘Kakigori’ also has a traditional Flag to decorate at the entrance of restaurants letting people know that the shop serves it. Apparently the design of this flag has been more or less the same for more than 100 years. The red part in this flag is a Japanese Kanji character ‘氷- Kori‘ which means Ice. The blue part is obviously the sea that is the symbol for Summer and also there for making you feel Cool I believe. And the green part is two birds called ‘Chidori (Plovers)’. Whenever you see this sign you feel the summer is there and you want to have some shaved ice.

But now I am in London. The weather and temperature is quite different from Japan. I did not particularly feel like having some shaved ice for many years, however, when I was in Japan last time I brought this little gadget back to the UK.

It is an Ice Shaving machine! (Please don’t ask me which make it is. I haven’t been offered anything from the company YET so I have no intention of advertising this little product) Now we are in Summertime so I have to try using this!

<Mango Kakigori (Shaved Ice) >

[Direction]

What you need is Ice cubes made in your freezer. Place some Ice cubes into the space in the upper part of the gadget and start shaving. I got this shaved ice in the small compartment in the lower part of the gadget.

  

I topped up the shaved Ice into a glass dessert bowl. The flavour I chose this time was Mango. OK, OK it’s not traditionally Japanese. The traditional flavour is coming next time. Please wait for me posting it.

I placed some frozen Mango pieces (fresh mango is nice too) on the side of the container and also topped it with mango puree. The final and the best part of this Shaved Ice is Condensed Milk. Pour about two Tbs full (or more if you prefer) of Condensed Milk on top of it.

There isn’t that many very hot days in London but yesterday was fairly hot so I was glad I made this Kakigori to chill out in the afternoon.

I did not write the amount of any ingredients. It is because you can add anything and as much as you like. There is no rule in Kakigori! If you have an Ice Shaver at home, why don’t you try this out!