Fukinoto – ふきのとう

Fukinoto growing in our garden

As a lot if places, Japan is full if wild plants that are edible. A lot of them come as a set called 山菜 (pronounce that sansai, literaly the “mountains vegetables”). It includes kogomi, tara no me, warabi and fukinoto. Most of them are great fun to pick, just like mushrooms. Depending on places they are more or less abundant and they grow at different times. For example fuki no to grow in January-February in Chiba prefecture, while in the Niigata mountains they are snow piercer and grow in May.

The first time we ate fukinoto, we actually went to pick them in Tsunan machi area with some friends connoisseurs. Later, I realize that we have some in the garden!! Fukinoto are delicious, with quite a strong taste easy to identify. They are better eaten while still at the bud stage (not as opened as the picture show them). They are often prepared in tempura (I skip this since I don’t deep fry at home), in a mixture with miso: fukinoto-miso which allows to preserve them longer, and in miso soup.

Today I tried the miso soup with tofu!

For that you need a good katsuo dashi, or konbu dashi for a vegan experience (I promise to prepare something about dashi soon), some miso (I prefer white or light colored miso for miso soup, which is also what is used for winter miso soup in cha-kaiseki), a piece of silky tofu, and some fresh fukinoto. Once you’ve prepared the dashi, mix in a spoon of miso per person. In the bowls put a few dices of tofu (after draining it), top with the finely chopped fukinoto (for a softer taste of fukinoto you can boil them once chopped in a net for 30s) and finally add the miso soup. Et voila!

Plain rice and fukinoto miso soup

February 18, 2015

Even faster fix for dinner: tomato-carrot-chick pea raggu

This is the end of the year at the university and it is a busy time for both professor and students. Recently, I’m coming back home later and later in particular because this no excuse not to go to the gym. Last night after my pilates class I needed a very quick fix for dinner so that it allowed me to have some time to prepare the apartment for my sister’s visit later this week (yes! Prunellia is flying to Tokyo very soon!).

Chick peas are really handy when it comes to prepare something in 5 minutes! Dinner menu tonight: tomato & chick peas raggu with carrots.

I first roughly cut tomatoes and cooked them in olive oil, add laurel, ginger, carvi seeds, salt and pepper and small carrots halved.

I left it on low heat, time to do the other tasks I had to do. Then once ready to eat I added a can of drained chick peas and served with baby leaf salad, olive oil and linen seeds. Delicious, warm and slightly spicy!

February 17, 2015

Sweet potato crust tart

Probably the last time I talk about purple sweet poratoes this year! There seems to be no more at the cooperative shop.

The other day I spotted on Instagram a really nice idea: instead of making the dough of the tart with flour, @acvb3 used thin slices of sweet potato.

I wanted to try badly but needed my mandolin that is in the country house. So finally, yesterday I could try.

I sliced finely one large purple sweet potato, olive-oiled them and lined them in a pie dish. I pre-baked them a little and then added a mixture of egg, silky tofu, sliced shiitake, na-no-hana. It’s better for the mixture not to be too liquid because the potato crust might leak here and there so the tofu is really helping a lot here. Then I just baked it normally. It was really delicious!

February 16, 2015

Coconut meringues

So, what do you do with an egg white once you’ve used the yolk for chocolate truffles?

Meringues of course! Of course? Well it was my first time!!

Making meringues is surprisingly easy but you need to be sure to jave time ahead because the baking takes more than one hour! Unexpectedly I used a bbc recipe again (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue) and divided all the quantities by 4, having one egg. I also prefer to make small quantities anyway.

I don’t have an electric whisk at the country house so I just beat manually and it worked perfectly. At the end I just added a bit of grated coconut.

And more than one hour later beautiful meringues ready to eat!

February 15, 2015

Sunday breakfast

For Sunday morning breakfast I like to eat homemade freshly baked bread, pancakes, crumpets, or anything alike, and fresh fruits in salad or smoothie. It’s a good start before spending the day out.

This weekend I prepared sugar bread, the recipe comes from Erik Kayser’s book, my reference for bread making (in French).

It’s basically bread base in which a little sugar has been added, and the final shaping is slightly different. After baking it it is also finished with sugar sirup.

Perfect with butter, jam or just nothing.

February 15, 2015

Quick entrée

The other night we add friends over for dinner, but since I was busy at work I needed things that could be ready quite rapidly. Because my may dish was vegetarian I cooked the entree with egg and bacon. I made a batter of eggs, milk, salt and pepper like an omelette and cooked it in my new metal rings that I start to use pretty much every day!!! I grilled some bacon and prepare a leek fondue in olive oil. I used the circles again to prepare the plates and set a layer of leek under the egg and topped with the bacon. For a colour touch I added some fresh leaves of spinach and other leaves.

Delicious!

February 14, 2015

Japanese Valentine

In Japan Valentine is not celebrated as in Europe or North America. In Japan, on Valentine day girls are supposed to offer chocolates to boys. It can extend to nonlovers too: offering chocolate to your colleagues etc… Not to say that the chocolate business is at its climax and prices are skyrocketing. So a lot of people make their own chocolates and you can find all the necessary goodies in any supermarket.

Since I have a chocolate addict husband I can assure you the Japanese Valentine pleases him very much, and if we’ve never celebrated Valentine before we were in Japan, now I always try to prepare something. Usually it’s chocolate truffles, and this year again that’s what I’m preparing.

The recipe is simple and there is no possible way to make it wrong: melt 125g of dark chocolate with 40g of butter, then add 1 egg yolk, 40g of ice sugar, vanilla, stir well and keep refrigirated for 1h or 2h. Once the ganache is hard ise a spoon and roll some in yours hand then in cacao. You adjust the size to your taste.

Now I’m supposed to wait for White day (March 14th) for the counterpart present when boys are supposed to offer something to girls…

Happy Valentine!

February 14, 2015

La vie en rose

As I was telling you, I’m completely in love with these purple sweet potatoes. They are so nice with other colorful vegetables such as carrots, cabbage, bricoli etc… And they have a powerful coloring effect: remember my u no hana that I stirred a little too well?

Using this powerful coloring effect I decided to make “pink gnocchi”. It is often that gnocchi are colored: spinach fir green, tomato for red, pumpkin for orange… Now pink with purple sweet potato. It was really intuitively easy. I boiled two potatoes with their peal and a 1/3 of a purple sweet potato. Then I pealed them and mixed them together in a bowl. The mixture was a perfect pink!!

Then it’s just like making regular gnocchi. Adding flour little by little until you can shape the dough. Honestly I don’t like gnocchi that taste flour so my dough is always on the sticky side rather than the firm one, which make it a little more complicated to shape.

Then just before eating I boiled them. And I served them with a piece of thyme-grilled breadt chicken and some olive oil. I believe cream could make a more beautiful effect, but we don’t eat cream.., I leave it to you to show me yours!

February 13, 2015

u no hana – うの花

I really love okara. It’s basically the pulp of soya beans remaining after the fabrication of tofu and soya milk. It’s full of proteins and it as a very mild taste. It is easily found in supermarket in Japan (together with tofu, nato and yuba) and also very easy to use in several recipes. The most famous okara recipe in Japan is probably u no hana (うの花). A mixture of okara and cooked vegetables.
Since I found nice okara, I wanted to make u no hana, but as always I twist the recipe. Usual u no hana is often very mild in taste and in color, and recently I like colorful plates for dinner (see my recent post). So instead of the classical ingredients I used carrots, purple sweet potato (again!), shiitake and na-no-hana (rapeseed).
I cut in small stick all the vegetables and cook them in the above order in a bit of oil and finally added soya sauce, a little of sugar, a little of sake (the original recipe has mirin in it, but recently I don’t use mirin anymore, for it’s too strong taste that covers the taste of the other ingredients).
Finally I added the okara and stirred (a little too well so that the purple color of the potato transferred to the white okara:( ).
A delicious colorful vegan dish, served with rice and ume-boshi.

February 12, 2015