Soba is the Japanese word for buckwheat and by extension buckwheat noodles. You can find soba-ya: restaurants serving soba pretty much everywhere and there are several places accross the country famous for the production of soba that it makes them something really common. I wanted badly to mske my own noodles but on that day I realized I had no buckwheat flour, and couldn’t find some around. So I bought dried soba noodles, which are basically like dried pasta. And I prepared a cold buckwheat noodles salad with seasonal vegetables: snap peas, green peas and cucumber and served with some pork meat balls.
I just boiled the noodles, quickly boiled the peas, sliced the cucumber.
For the additional balls it can be made out of tofu or okara for a vegan dish. This time I promised some meaty dish to my husband, so I mixed some pork meat with and egg and bread crust, salt pepper and then cooked them in a frying pan under cover until golden.
For the overall seasoning I mixed a little of ponzu and sunflower oil.
With all the new vegetables and the sunny days I’m preparing more and more cold salads this year. This one is really taking advantage of spring green peas, little radish, lettuce, cucumber, tofu and spelt, all with a little of olive oil, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. Fresh, colorful, tasty, perfect!
A few days ago you may have seen a picture of a boule bread that I prepared for our breakfast. Actually this bread itokyos one of the simplest bread to prepare.
Here is the recipe for a 20cm diameter bread: mix 250g of flour (T60), 125g of water, 12g of dry sourdough, 1g of yeast, 5g of salt. Mix all the ingredients together and malax until the dough is smooth and soft. Then keep under a humid cloth for 90 minutes. Then make a ball of the dough after flatening it and folding it. The folding marks on top. Wait an other 90 minutes. Pre-heat the oven at 230 degrees celsius. Return the dough (folding marks below) and incise the dough with the square pattern. Put in the oven, and bake for about 40 minutes. (If necessary you may need to add water to moist the air in the oven)
A donburi in Japan is basically a rice bowl topped with something, anything. I really like the concept and you’ve seen a few of my original recipes yet. With each time changing in what I top it with depending on the market and time available.
This time it’s a 100% green topping with avocado, cucumber, cresson and lettuce. A bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds and lunch is ready in just the time to cook the rice!
Recently a lot of my lunches at work look like this! I really love whole grain bread or bagels, I spread cream cheese or cottage cheese, then top with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, leaf of salad, rucolla, sprouts, and my lunch is ready! When it’s not cream cheese it’s avocado slices. Super simple, tasty, crunchy-creamy and easy to make and eat in a very short time.
The other day I was introducing some locally produced cheese by Komagata cheese factory in Ohara, the problem is that it’s not easy to find and so far I’ve seen it only at one of the local product retailer Na no hana. So that’s quite limiting.
Sunday morning we went to Ohara market on the harbour. I thought it would be fish-only market but in fact it is a quite big (for Japanese standards) farmers market, selling also fresh vegetables and many other things than fishes. That’s where I found the stand for Takahide cheese factory. A farm higher inland in Isumi, near Kuniyoshi. Their cheeses look a lot like the ones from Komagata, with a little variation. I picked the Isumi white moon (いすみの白い月) and did not regret that choice. It is perfect!!!
Takahide farm
Very much pleased with that choice, we decided to go and check out the farm directly. It’s a short drive from our house and a nice one among rice paddies and traditional farms. The Takahide farm is up a hill in a kind of group of dairy farms. There is a little shop where they sell directly, but the stock is not big and I recommend giving them a call before if you are looking for something specific because it seems they don’t hold stock very long and depending on the time not every thing is ready yet. They also sell fresh milk and seems to organize some events.
Where it is interesting for you, if you live in Japan and looking for delicious cheeses is that you don’t necessarily have to go to a big department stores or an import stores to buy some cheese from France or Italy anymore! Takahide cheese factory has an online shop where they sell their cheeses and fromage blanc!!! It’s not cheap but it’s really worth the try and it’s local at least.
Since cheese cannot be dissociated from bread for me, at least the cheese that you eat, right not the one to top pastas etc… I prepared a plain fougasse with just a little of salt to eat with the Isumi no shiroi tsuki cheese, a very good match. And I tried their reblochon style cheese: Makiba no taiyo まきばの太陽 with a whole wheat bread. It’s just insanely good!
Isumi no shiroi tsuki and fougasse (Plate from Kutani yaki)Makiba no taiyo with whole wheat bread
Information:
Takahide farm in Isumi 高秀チーズ工房: http://www.takahide-cheese.com
Ohara farmers market 大原朝市: every first and third Sunday morning of the month, plus some extra days during holidays, on Ohara harbour.
Days around Tokyo are getting warmer and the golden week (a few days of bank holidays in a row) is really beautiful this year! A lot of fresh fruits and vegetables just bought at the local farmers market. With this beautiful weather we spend a lot of time outside and crave for fresh tasty meals, so I concocted this one plate for dinner: a bit of cucumber with fresh mint and fromage blanc; a fake ratatouille: just tomatoes, onion, zucchini stewed in olive oil with a bouquet garni; and to accompany the whole thing some chick pea flour and linen seeds pancakes.
For the vegan chickpes pancake it’s really easy: just mixing chick pea flour with water, linen seeds and a bit of salt and olive oil to obtain a thick mixture that can be shaped in small pancakes with the hands. And then grill them or fry them in okive oil.
After the super delicious trial of a classic homemade pizza, this time I decided to use the base of the pizza for a vegan pizza. Instagram inspired me a lot with tones of super delicious-looking vegan pizza. So here is mine: olive oil, fresh tomatoes and zucchini, rucolla for the finish, nothing too fancy, bug you know how I like to keep things simple. It was really delicious, not really a pizza for me, rather something in between a tart and a pizza, but really yummy!! And so easy to prepare in advance.
