Month: November 2015

Mushroom and chard millefeuille

No news from the TPS yesterday? Well, it seems that we’ve lost the connection with the Parisian sister… As for the Tokyoite sister I’ve been really busy with my day job, working late and whole Saturday spent at the university. I’ve had also a number of work dinners to attend. Hopefully yesterday we managed to take some time to see friends and go to the opening of the Foujita exhibition at the Tamenaga gallery (they have two drawings of cats that are sumptuous and one beautiful water painting) , and I could finally spend some time in my kitchen.

 I had in my fridge this beautiful chard and some lovely kind of oyster mushroom, and I was thinking of making ravioli with it. So I slightly cooked them together in a bit if olive oil and salt, and blend half of it to obtain a creamy green paste. Then we went out, and came back right for tea time, so I made us a little cake and used up all my eggs… oups! How would I make fresh pasta without an egg? Well I decided to change my recipe into some kind of millefeuille of little chestnut flour and flour crepes. So using a mix of chestnut flour, wheat flour, water and a bit of olive oil and I made about 10 little crepes. On each I spread some green paste and layered them, I topped the whole with some mushrooms and added the remaining veggies that I didn’t blend. Add some fleur de sel and some grinned black pepper. Simply yummy, but I still want to eat ravioli…

Adopt me!

Or how to be or not to be trapped by a stray cat with a lovely fur and a cute face… Indeed, it’s been a few weeks this cat has been around our house (basically since we came back from France) but I thought it my have been some of our neighbors cat so I didn’t give her anything and anyway couldn’t approach her. But then when 3 weeks ago we learn from our old neighbor that it is indeed a stray cat I thought she might be hungry so I started to feed her with katsuobushi and she seemed to like it very much, spent most of her time with us but still was innaprochable, yet we named Pablo. Last week-end we made a move and decided to build her a little place since it’s getting colder at night, she started to answer her name or it seemed and didn’t leave the premises of the house, even more, she’s been staying literally with us while we were gardening, she tried many times to get in the house and succeeded twice, and she broke my heart when we left, since she accompanied us to the car, a place she never go with us usually. Now, this week end I’m working and we are staying in Tokyo, and I wonder if she’s waiting for us. I’m not sure we want to adopt a cat but this one is definitely trying her luck with us, and already adopted us.

A dinner with guests

The other night we had some guests at home, and when we do I need to be super-well organized to squeeze one hour to prepare dinner in my schedule, this usually my target time. So I need to think carefully the menu, the ingredients and once I enter the kitchen I know exactly what I’m doing. Usually I have some extra time or a few ideas on the fly, so that it turns I always improvise something. This time was no exception!

For the dinner it was simple: grilled delicious wild snapper with a little of sesame oil, rice with katsuobushi, white and pink turnip tofu salad with pumpkin seeds (similar recipe with the persimmon salad, but I replaced the persimmon with a little cucumber and the walnuts by kabocha seeds) and some pickled sweet ginger.

Then I realized that we didn’t have too much to snack while drinking so I decided to make a little extra, because it’s nice when you have dinner after work with friends to hang out and chat, to release the oressure of a long day at work. Well, with what I had in the fridge the best option was to make some kabocha chips, so I thinly sliced half a kobocha and cooked it in a bit of oil. Add some salt and served. That was a hit! Everyone loved it! 

Celery potage

Last week end at the local farmers market they had tones of super nice veggies so we came back to Tokyo with the trunk full of veggies (our car has a fairly small trunk though!). And now any time I open the fridge to cook I have plenty of ideas to prepare all these beautiful veggies.  I experimented quite a bit with juices and smoothies but my equipment in Tokyo is not appropriate for that. And then I came up with the idea of having a good soup for dinner made with this huge celery I bought. Since I like the simple taste of one ingredient I didn’t mix it with any thing. I simply boiled 3 branches of celery in some veggie consommé, then blend the whole thing, add a little of cream (vegetal cream is perfect) and serve hot. For those who like you can add a slice of grilled bacon or some croutons. 

Meisen kimonos – 銘仙

After a too long break I went to my Japanese class (which is basically drinking tea while reading articles about Japanese history, culture, craft and arts) and Takeda-san (my teacher for more than 10 years now) told me about a nice exhibition in a small museum in Roppongi: the Sen Oku museum. The exhibition features the collection of Nagano’s “classic museum” meisen (銘仙) kimonos. Meisen kimonos are some kind of cheaper kimonos made of lower quality silk, and that became super popular in Taisho period and early Showa. And as you may remember, this is one of my favorite period in Japanese history (see my earlier post on Taisho period and Taisho architecture). The meisen kimonos are very colourful, with many large patterns made with stencils with a very interesting technique of dying. I recommend you read this very nice article about meisen techniques from Anna Jackson of the Victoria and Albert Museum if you want to know more about it. Her article features many pictures of the making.

Coincidently, my favorite kimono magazine: Kimono hime (kimono姫), had its new issue on meisen.  With as usual, tons of beautiful pictures that make you want to wear kimonos every day, and some nice places to visit in the region of Chichibu, a place known for making meisen kimonos. I thought this was a sign and time to go and explore meisen. After a quick check going to Chichibu is not far from Tokyo but a rather crowded drive on week-ends in particular in autumn because of the surrounding nature. So we postponed the trip there for a day we can go during the week. Instead we headed to the museum in Roppongi and went to see the exhibition. It’s a small exhibition, so it didn’t take much time, but the kimonos exhibited were really nice and the movie explaining the making was also really interesting. It revived my love for wearing kimonos, for mo-ga fashion, and for modern Japanese paintings. It revived it so much that when out of the exhibition I had colorful patterns in my eyes and in my mind and it came naturally to us to go to Ginza to visit a few art galleries that have modern Japanese painters.

The tour was quite quick, we park in front of Tamenaga, that will have a Foujita exhibition starting Sunday, so we decided to come back on Sunday. Then we headed to an other one where didn’t find what we were looking for, finally browsing some leaflet, we found that Shihoudou may have what we are looking for and went there while stopping on our wayhere  and there in others. And yes! Shihoudou had exactly what I had in mind, a simple modern psinting of a girl in a colorful kimono. I love so much the contrast of the kimono and the european style painting, it is just the essence of this period for me. I dream of having such a painting!

Pie

This something that I never cook but that I actually love a lot. Pies are so delicious and so easy to make. And just like tarts there are so many variations that everything works! What I like very much with pies compared to tarts is that 1. You don’t need the egg base, 2. The filling is kind of steamed in the pie so it doesn’t dry, 3. The double layer of dough!! When I started this recipe I was thinking of a tart first but I changed my mind on the way and decided to make a kind of coca or calzone, and finally it turned out being a pie! That’s why the shape is not very pretty because I was rolling the dough in a different shape at first.

For the filling I used hard tofu, drained, shiitake cut in cubes, and chicory leaves (well I am not perfectly sure about what it is actually, but it something like chard). For the dough I used spelt flour, water and butter (which can be replaced by vegetal oil). I split the dough in two and rolled quite thin, but not too thin. I set one in a pie dish, add the veggies and the tofu (as on the picture) then cover with the second one, close tightly the edges together, made a small hole in the middle and added a little cheminey in cooking paper. I baked in the oven for 40min at 170 deg. Serve while it’s still hot. Bon appetite!

Autumn mode breakfast

What best after a perfect week-end to start a rainy Monday with a good apple and cinnamon cake, a hot chai and some fresh fruits? We’re heading to autumn a its full and slowly evenings are getting dark early and chilly, so I have plenty of time to spend in the kitchen. Yesterday I decided to prepare a treat for our breakfast with a very simple apple cake. It’s a basic yogurt cake recipe without yogurt, and I use very little brown sugar because I don’t like too sweet breakfasts and instead plenty of cinnamon, which suits perfectly my morning chai tea. 

I wish you a good week!

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