Month: January 2015

A well deserved tea time

After a short but really intense week at work, and the perspective of working* for the entrance examination this week-end. I treated myself with a good Earl Grey (I really love the Empress Grey from M&S), and a toast (not home-made this time) with butter and my marmalade made last week-end. And I must say that I am very very pleased with the results. It’s the third year I make some, and this year is the best: it’s not too bitter, not too hard and very tasty. The peels are of good size too.

* I don’t if I can say “working” because our job is to dispatch problems and answer shits to the students, stand or seat without doing anything for 80min, collect the answer shits, count them, and repeat that 5 or 6 times in the day… which is not my normal job…

Go organic!

A few months ago my local grocery store in Koganei changed its branding (probably due to some group acquisition). After a few days a lot of the products I was buying vanished from the shelves, replaced by low quality products and I was left with almost nothing decent to shop there. No more delicious organic lemon, no more Italian honey soft candies… I started to shop elsewhere. 

A few weeks ago the shop went under massive renewal, and recently I’ve been checking in again and realized that they’ve completely changed their pitch: now half of the products are organic from fresh vegetables to smoke salmon, tea, spices… and they even have a nice selection of familiar imported products of good quality mainly from France and Italy!
It seems that the organic trend is finally making its way in Japan, after years of undergroud unlabelled existence… How good is that going to be?

Special fish dinner

Last night I was invited at one of the university senior professor’s place for dinner. It was mainly for business purposes, but it’s not so often that Japenese invite you home. After 10 years there, hundreds of dinners at home, I can still count on the fingers the number of houses we’ve visited as guests!! Most people prefer to invite you at the restaurant.

Last night host’s hobby is fishing and he offered us a selection of unique fishes he fished on Tuesday for dinner. Something really delicious and fresh!
The first one was slowly oven grilled sabre fish served with a little of soya sauce and rice. This fish has a very fine white flesh, juicy and it’s shape and color make an simple beautiful plate.

The other one, more exceptional is scorpion fish. A quite rare and difficult to catch fish. This very muscly fish has a very firm flesh very similar to the monkfish was served in a shabu-shabu style. Something like a hot-pot where you dip the slices of fish to cook it. 

Everything was home-made and delicious! Thanks for letting me discover these fishes!

Quick dinner fix

It is very often that we come back home quite late from work, starving and tired. In that case I like to prepare what Japanese call a “one plate”. It is usually a composition of several unrelated elements all combined in one plate. In some restaurants the one plate can cover from starter to dessert!!! I don’t go that far, but it is a nice way to fix rapidly something for dinner. 

This time it was awfully simple: and colorful: baby leaf salad with a bit of olive oil, red cabbage+carrots+linseed (I shredded roughly the cabbage and carrots and because it’s winter and cold I wanted something warm to eat I cooked them 5min rather than serving them raw), some fresh delicious “katsu” from Saboten*.

* Saboten (http://www.ghf.co.jp/saboten_rest/) is a shop that sells “katsu” in various forms. They have a lot of veggie: asparagus, potato croquette, edamame, and porc: tonkatsu, hirekatsu… They are made on the spot, ingredients are chosen carefully, menu changes with season and they are always yummy. They have a few antenna shops in town. Since I never fry at home, it is a good option once in a while, and I know some that are always happy with these, but it means leaving work no mater than 21:00, if not there’s nothing remaining…

Alternative greengrocery shopping in Tokyo

There is something really amazing in Japan, and I believe it is what we could call “trust” (or may be laziness!). For example in many places you can book without paying in advance (hotels, car rentals…), you can shop and pay later (it may not work everywhere though, and this also happens elsewhere)… Yet there’s something like Japan got stucked in the 50’s or the 60’s. And what I love most it’s when it comes to fresh vegetables and fruit shopping!

It is not unusual in the country to see stands by the road with freshly picked fruits and vegetables and no one there. It’s not that it is closed… There is a box someplace: you pick-up what pleases you and put the money in the box. The deal is simple: super fresh resources for a super price!

I have the chance to have such a system on my way to the lab, close to Higashi Koganei station in Tokyo. When there are crops on the shelf there is a red flag floating and you just have to help yourself. Depending on the season they have daikon, cabbage, cucumber, potatoes, etc… Usually for 100yen. It’s grown on the plot behind, and they use no chemical or whatsoever. It’s fresh, natural and local! You just have to be quick to catch something, first in first served! 

Fruits from the garden in various forms

We’re lucky to have a garden full of trees and flowers that grow without too
many difficulties. Every year at every season there is something to pick
in the garden. Last week I just picked the last tangerine, now we have
plenty of a sort of grapefruit (a little more sour). This year they are
particularly soft and sweet so they are delicious in juices and hot
lemonade.
This morning I just picked one for some fresh squeezed juice.



Yet, there are so many of them that marmalade is always a good way to enjoy them all year long.

For the recipe I use a British one of course (from the Guardian) a little modified since the fruits from the garden are not oranges, 1kg of brown sugar, 700g of fruits, 1.25L of water. Depending on how it sets I usually add some apple pips, this time it was not necessary. It made 7 jars. Can’t wait to try it with some good home-made bread!



Whole-wheat baguette viennoise

Still running out of regular white flour, I prepared a whole-wheat baguette viennoise for breakfast (regular recipe from Kayser’s book). Despite the granulous texture due to the whole-wheat it was perfectly soft and tender. I replaced the yolk egg batter with a whole egg batter and the color and crisp of the shell was much better too.

Spelt baguette

I wanted to make some baguette but realized I was running out of white flour, so I replaced it by spelt flour. The result was really tasty and I managed, despite the cold temperature in the house in that season, to obtain a very soft crumb in a relatively short time. 

Saturday market

Every Saturday we spend in Ohara, the first thing we do is to go to the local JA cooperative to shop for vegetables, fruits, eggs… Every thing is locally grown in very little farms or by old folks, using no chemical, it’s super fresh, super tasty and super cheap. We’re lucky because Chiba prefecture is famous for growing a lot of things and our area is known for strawberries, nashi, tangerines in particular. There is also an amazing variety of tomatoes and cabbages. Nearby, they also produce eggs, pork and milk, and Ohara fishing port has great fresh fishes and spiny lobsters (and s fish market on Sunday once a month). It’s just fresh food heaven.

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