Back to the basics

After a whole week in Seattle, it’s good to be back home. Though the city has numerous farmers markets, with very attractive food, the hotel life allows only for limited purchases and preparation. There are also a lot of food trucks but honestly the idea of having lunch standing or seated like punks in the street is not very attractive, though the food looks good. As for restaurants, food was ok, fresh but I didn’t find anything outstanding. The best we had was surely grilled salmon or grilled halibut with asparagus. There might be some nice places serving local food (not limited to seafood, which is not what I like best) but we couldn’t find them… It’s really a pity because driving around Seattle one can find again tones of organic farms selling their products, fruits, veggies, delicious yogurts…

So being back home it is time to go back to the kitchen and improvise some summer recipes with fresh food and light enough to beat the jetlag and the heat. So we’re back to the basics: quinoa and bulgur as a base, baby leaf salad, cherry tomatoes and cucumber, yellow zucchini, ocra, and to finish pumpkin seeds, flax seeds and white chia seeds. Back on the tracks!!

May 31, 2015

Bye bye Tokyo… Welcome Seattle!

I am travelling to Seattle for work for a whole week so you won’t hear much from me for a few days. I hope to find the time to try some nice places over there and come back with new ideas and favorite items. I already know I’ll be packing on some things that are only found in the US and hope to find the earnest cereal bars I found In Boston last month!

If you have any good recommendation of things to do, places to check-out in Seattle and around, let me know!!!

In the mean time Prunellia is taking over, but with a slower pace (she’s busy with other projects) . I’ll be back Monday, June 1st, but you can catch up with me on Instagram and maybe FB… Bye bye!

May 24, 2015

Focaccia

When summer starts I love a good piece of bread with fresh vegetables and why not a barbecue. My favorite bread for that time is focaccia, and even better rosemary focaccia. It’s so easy to make and with a delicious olive oil it’s just too good!!!

To make a focaccia you just need fresh rosemary roughly cut, a fruity olive oil, flour, yeast, water and salt just like for gbe fougasse. But the preparation of the bread when shaping it is slightly different (just as on the picture). And the final touch is to fill the finger holes with olive oil before baking for 20 minutes.

May 22, 2015

Soya fallafel

While in Capetown last year, thanks to our hosts at the Manolo we managed to have a table at the very demanded Test Kitchen. One of Capetown best restaurants, and sometimes ranked in the top 10 xorld’s best restaurants. The experience was great abd what I apprfciated a lot is their flexibility to propose vegetarian full course and vegan full course menus that have nothing less than the regular full course menu. I picked the vegetarian one and was delighted, in particular there was some mini fried tofu balls presented as tofu fallafels. With a crispy deep fried outter shell and a melty inside. Since then I’ve been thinking about it and finally I’ve finally come up with my own idea of a soya fallafel. What I like in the fallafel is the mixture of texture with roughly cut peas and the pureed ones. So my recipe is really simple: I used dry soya beans (daizu-大豆) that I rehydrated and boiled, then roughly blended them and add some firm tofu, stirred well and then made balls and fried in a pan (probably deep frying is ideal).

Though different than the fallafel from the Test kitchen in Capetown it was really delicious!

May 21, 2015

Greens and flounder

In Japan, fish is really delicious and it is not so difficult to find fresh wild fishes from safe places. Spending time in Chiba’s prefecture Sotobo we have access to really amazing products, when the weather allows it. Recently flounder has been really abundant. And with my parents visiting us I must prepare a lot more non vegetarian food than usual. So I prepared this flounder just grilled, with fava, beans and snap peas for lunch on the wok with olive oil. Very simple, fresh and seasonal, all I love!

May 19, 2015

A good start!

Of all meals breakfast is my favorite and I like all of its variations. I also like that my breakfast changes everyday, even if there are some common ingredients. Bread or similar and fresh fruits in salad, smoothy, or just plain are on the menu everyday.

I baked this wholewheat soft bread that accomodates perfectly with jam, honey, butter or cheese. It’s very similar to wholewheat pain de mie but because my covered pie dish was too big the bread occupied only half of it and the result was really delicious with a thin crispy layer covering the soft and tender center.

For the bread it’s really simple. I used 250g of T150 flour, 180g of water, 13g of sordough, 1g of yeast, 5g of salt.

May 18, 2015

Vegetables and tofu wok

As spring fades away and summer approaches (and with it the rainy season) I’ve started to prepare a lot more dishes that look like ratatouille or at least that use the vegetables of the ratatouille.

I prepared a sauted dish in olive oil of new onion, paprika, zucchini and tomatoes, added some dices tofu and topped it with some fresh cresson and a mix of linen, poppy, sesame seeds. Very fresh, the vegetables don’t need to be cooked long, so this can be ready in no time.

May 16, 2015

One-plate dinner

Super busy with work, finishing late every day and trying to still watch one movie every night, the one-plate dinner is really handy. I am also finishing the last spring vegetables as we’re moving towards summer, so I had a few new carrots and new onions to use. I like to prepare carrots with cumin and find it suits also very well chick peas. I was about to add some chick peas to the carrots and onions that I cooked rapidly in olive oil and finished them in their own steam, to prepare some kind of raggu when I remember having a pack of vegan fallafel mix waiting on the shelf for months. Yes, I sometime buy vegan burger mix and vegan fallafel mix but if I don’t use them right away, I usually forget them prefering fresh food or making my own mix. So I decided to use that poor mix, but instead of making real fallafel I used the mix to make some kind of grilled chick pea croquettes to serve with the vegetables. Nothing too fancy but delicious!

May 15, 2015

Tokyo’s croissant ranking

My experience of making croissants was great but not perfect, so before I manage to make the best croissants in town, I am still looking for the best you can buy. You know, the one that are light and buttery, crispy outside and melty inside, well… THE perfect croissant. Hunting truly delicious croissants in Tokyo is as difficult as in Paris and I must admit. There are really a lot of bakeries that make croissants, and I’ve tried quite a lot of places already. In many places the taste of butter is not present, in others they top the croissant with some sirup making them too sweet, and sometimes they just have the appearance but nothing for the tate. Here is my list of bakeries in Tokyo making “real” croissants with hopefully a permanent address (a lot of shops move, open, close in a short time so it’s hard to track them):

1. Johan (in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi, but there are some other places for sure)

2. Le grenier a pain near Hanzomon

3. Kobeya kitchen at Hiroo crossing

4. Vie de France (pretty much everywhere near a train station)

There might be some local stores I haven’t tried yet, so if you have a good address let me know!!!

There are a few big names in the bakery market but for croissant you can forget about Paul (never liked them, even in Paris), Viron (too dry and crispy, baked too long it seems), Kayser, Le pain quotidien (not fresh enough, and buttery enough)…

I’ll keep you updated if I find anything to add to that ranking, but you can send your addresses too and I’ll try!

May 14, 2015