Croque-monsieur

I know it’s the easiest meal to cook and it requires actually not a single cooking skill, but it’s always delicious and simple to accomodate with a lot different side dishes depending on the season.

Why simple? Because in my version of the croque-monsieur I do not use bechamel, I find this heavy and it is totally unecessary when the bread is soft and tasty. So the base for my croque-monsieur is a very good and fresh pain de mie (it works with toasts but it’s so much less tasty). I top it with a very little butter, a slice of ham (the quality of the ham also makes a lot: I use always Kamakura ham) and some gratted cheese (gruyere, comte… Anything you like), toast in the oven, and ready to eat! In winter I often serve it with cabbage or cauliflower. This time it was cauliflower and romanesco roughly mashed with a lot of pepper and a bit of nutmeg.

January 31, 2015

Taisho style

At first when we came to Japan I couldn’t get used to these Japanese-Western (wa-yo) style things: buildings, clothes, food… Everything looked like a pale copy of something we have in Europe or there is in the US, but with something wrong. The most significant period of that style is probably the Taisho era (around 1910-1925), after the many trials in the Meiji period, when the style started to be more stable and much established.

It took me some time to really understand this style. Now I think this is my favorite period for Japanese art, architecture, design and clothing and even literature. Strangely, probably one of my favorite period in Western style too!
In terms of food my favorite is probably om-rice (オムライス), even it started in late Meiji. I’ll give you my recipe very soon!
There are fewer and fewer examples of Taisho architecture in Tokyo now because of a total lack of consciousness of these jewels (or maybe trying to ignore them for profits) and they are replaced one by one by ugly plastic prehab houses. But in areas such as Taito-ku north of Ueno, Ya-Ne-Sen between Taito-ku and Bunkyo-ku, or in Arakawa-ku around Senju and Kita-Senju it is still possible to see some along with some early Showa buildings.


Ukiyoe by Yumeji Takehisa present of the shamisen group

Dentist office in Ueno established in 1900,
and re- built in Showa 3/1928

An other excellent example is the Yasuda mansion near Sendagi (unfortunately rarely open to public) where it is possible to also enjoy interior design and original furnitures. More accessible yet less typical is the Asakura Chosho museum in Yanaka. Other options for a condensed viewing are open air museums where such houses have been moved to. There are two excellent places, the first is Meiji Mura near Nagoya in Inuyama, the other is the Tokyo Oedo Museum of Architecture in Koganei. It has a few exemplars that have been moved there for preservation.

Probably I came to understand and like this period through literature. It is widely covered in the work by Yukio Mishima and by Junichiro Tanizaki, where the mo-ga (modern girl) is well represented and that I massively read after starting to live in Tokyo. Probably “Naomi” is an excellent start.
The music that I’ve had the chance to be introduce to by my husband shamisen group of ha-uta has also given an interesting insight about customs and women liberalization at that time.

Regarding graphic arts, I really like ukiyoe from Yumeji Takehisa and Goyo Hashiguchi, and paintings from Kunitaro Suda for example. The museum of modern art in Hayama, besides being ideally located on Hayama beach, hosts many exhibitions during the year of Japanese painters covering that period and each is worth seeing.

But it is only very recently that I came across a fabulous book: Taisho chic, about the aesthetic of Taisho period that summarizes very well the trends at that time (architecture is not covered though) and I really recommend it if you want to understand this period of Japanese history.

January 30, 2015

Chick peas and spinach soup "my way"

After 2 days of cold rain, which is not so common, I needed a sunny and warm dish. Since I just bought Koganei-grown spinach I come up with the idea of chick peas and spinach soup. And the idea went very well for a ready-in-ten-minutes dinner!

I cut roughly the spinach and boiled them in water where I’ve added a few carvi seeds and veggie consommé. In the mean time I’ve cooked some couscous with a few sultanas and pine nuts, and a bit of olive oil. When the spinach were soft I’ve added drained tinned chick peas (yes! Sometimes canned ingredients can be of tremendous help!!). And it’s ready!!! The slightly spicy soup goes very well with the slightly sweet semolina, a perfect match!

January 28, 2015

Curry-rice

One of the easiest Japanese dish to cook is curry-rice (pronunce “karey-rayiss”). I like because it is quick to prepare, and it’s a warm dish you can make with whatever you have in the fridge: perfect for a Sunday lunch after spending hours in the cold treaming trees in the garden. You can use only vegetables, meat, fish or mix vegetables with meat or fish. The variety of ingredients has only the limit of your imagination! So once decided what to put inside it is super easy. I always start with an onion or a leek that I cook with a bit of oil (olive or not) or butter. Once almost brown I add carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, meat if any… And half cook them. Then I add a spoon of curry spice, the quantity depends on how strong you like your curry, I like mine tasty but not hot.

Then add some grinded black pepper, a bit of Japanese 7 spices (shichimi). Now it’s time to prepare the roux. For that add flour and stir well the vegetables. Finally add water. In Japan there are all kinds of curry-rice, some very liquid, some quite compact. This just depends how you like it and how long you cook the roux, anyway, you can add water anytime if you find yours too thick.

In the last few minutes of cooking I sometimes add a few other veggetables tgat need short cooking time: brocoli, cauliflower, green peas…

Ready to serve with some white Japanese rice (for some reason I find it much better than with briwn rice). Japanese eat that dish with a spoon!

January 26, 2015

Classic ravioli

I love ravioli and in Japan it is not easy to find good ones. So the best option I’ve found is to make my own.

Using my pasta machine things have become much easier.

For the filling, since my husband doesn’t eat cheese I use a traditional filling with porc meat. And for the accompanying sauce a fresh tomato, olive oil and oregano.

The result was very nice, though I think I still can improve it a little.

January 24, 2015

Who are the Tokyo-Paris sisters?

We are two real sisters Prunellia, the eldest and Gentiane (me!).

We’re both French and we were raised in the South of France at the foot of Paul Cezanne most famous mountain: the Sainte Victoire. We both like interior design, cooking and fooding and beautiful things,

Prunellia is an architect-interior designer-web designer based in Paris. She has been interested in Japanese architecture and Japanese culture for more than 25 years now and visiting Japan quite often since the early 1990’s.

Gentiane is a roboticist in Tokyo. Being much younger she has been introduced to Japan as a teenager when Prunellia was meeting Japanese students studying in Aix. (I really enjoyed our parties with our Japanese friends Shotaro, Tomoko, Kotomi etc…)

Though being completely different we do share a lot, probably from our upbringings. That’s how the idea of a journal four-hand started.

January 23, 2015

Another quick dinner fix

An other evening when I needed a quick fix for dinner (to be honest it’s almost every day!!), thus a “one plate” and a happy husband!

In these situation quinoa is particularly adequate because you can cook it very quickly, it’s full of proteines, so perfect for my almost veggan diet.

I quickly cooked red quinoa, and added a bit of raw avocado, a slice of wild smoke salmon (not mandatory, it can go veggan), some sprout and young leafs, and a few brocoli that were just 2min in steam (you can steam them on top of the quinoa). For seasoning a bit of lemon juice, olive oil (olives from Provence), salt and pepper. Always simple, always delicious. Plates ready to eat in less then 10 min for 2 (the quinoa os basically what takes the longest but you’re free handed in the mean time!).

January 21, 2015

Hot veggie and bean soup for cold evening

Japanese winters are very sunny and dry in Tokyo area. If there is not too much wind day time sun is fairly warm, but as soon as it gets dark the temperature drops and it becomes freezing cold. A hot veggie soup is perfect to warm and rehydrate at the same time.

My classic is a base with 1 leek, 2 big carrots, 2 small potatoes. I diced them and cook them in water with 1 leaf of laurel and a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then if I want something a little bit more nourishing I add this marvelous Italian mix of lentils, beans and barley that I buy at one of the NYC Eataly shops in Tokyo.

And once all well cooked I serve it with a bit of finely grated parmigiano. Et voila!

January 20, 2015

Flea market in Tokyo

There are several flea market in Tokyo selling pretty much everything, many for refurbish clothing and shoes. But if you’re looking for some Japanese old stuff and some antic my two best picks are Monzen Nakacho flea market and Yasukuni shrine flea market. The latter is my top favorite.

It’s every Sunday morning in the side alley going to the shrine. The number of people depends highly on the weather, and it might not take place during the special festival of the shrine. Every time I go I find something!!

A few years ago I found this beautiful iron lion head that I’ve offered to my sister for her Parisian-Japanese interior.

This time I found some bamboo baskets used as flower vase, but I’m thinking of using them as lamp shade for the country house… We’ll see…

January 19, 2015