An unexpected finding

Rainy Saturday calls for a drive to some antiques and old stuff shop or kottoyasan (骨董屋さん) in Japanese. There are not too many but the one from the country are usually much better than in the city and much cheaper. We usually go to one we like in Otaki and where I’ve found many treasures, this time we decided to find new ones, and drove to Kimitsu (west coast of Chiba peninsula). To find a really amazing one. Tons of outdoor stuff (finally found a little (=that fits in our trunk) lantern for the garden), music instruments, paintings and as usual potteries, plates, bowls… As in any of such places it’s never heated nor lit and so cluttered that you need a flash light to see things. Moving around also is an art since passages are really narrow! But still I love these places and could stay hours, looking at all the pieces of life and history that has accumulated there. A perfect occupation for a rainy day.

And because today was unexpectedly sunny we could spend the day outside trimming trees and trying a setting for the lantern.

January 31, 2016

Gnocchi & romanesco

When comes the end of the week (Thursday or Friday) our resources shopped the previous weekend in the country are almost all gone and only a few things remain. This week it was the case gor the romanesco. So beautiful but we had other things to eat first. So easy to prepare that it’s always perfect for late dinners. I tried the combination gnocchi-romanesco-Parmegianno and it was just sublime. As you may guess these are not homemade gnocchi unfortunately, but it work as well if you have some. Boil the gnocchi and 1min before they are ready add the romanesco in little bouquets. Serve altogether when the gnocchi are ready (they float in the water) add so freshly gratted Parmegianno (mine is a souvenir from our holidays in Italy), olive oil, salt and pepper. Enjoy right away.

January 30, 2016

Hot soup for rainy day

The weather forecast is not making me too happy: rain, rain, rain for the next 3 days. No tennis, no gardening, no walking out. Being indoor is kind of making me sad… So to cheer up the rainy mood a good vegan soup with fresh veggies and plenty of lentils, barley and beans is just perfect!!!

January 29, 2016

Setting priorities

Recently I found this urgent need to prioritize both at work and at home to get the best of my time. I don’t know if it’s specific to my job, or to being in Japan where working long hours is common yet with poor productivity, but I feel inefficient. At work it’s quite difficult to prioritize because for me the most important is research and teaching, but I spend most of the time doing paperwork, administration, budget plan and research proposals, though what I really want to do is spend more time with my students and read and write more. In the lab I’m on my own, without any assistance and a growing number of problems to solve, all being more pressing and paying often for others poor organization. At home it’s much more simple and rather the contrary, I have a lot of help, good organization and sharing tasks allow to always have time for urgent matters, and for cooking. Which is absolutely important for me because the kitchen is the place I can make the transition from work to home, set my brain to a quieter pace after the bustling day by keeping it busy with thinking and inventing but on a diffferent topic, by keeping my hands busy with a knife requiring velocity and precision. The more veggies to cut, the more relaxed. And only after that can I sit and relax. That’s why for me going to the restaurant after work is hard because I lack the transition.

So here is a little pasta dish, nothing too exciting but still delicious with trofie, plenty of leek cut in small pieces and diced tomatoes, olive oil of course too! Something that just require the perfect amount of time to move on and of knife manipulation to stay focused. Happy Wednesday!

January 27, 2016

Making (good) cooking mistakes

With beautiful spinaches in the fridge I was wondering what to do with and decided that I should use this pack of flour I had bought in Tsunan this summer. Of buckwheat floor right? Buckwheat and spinaches are really a good match! So let’s make a thin crust and add the spinaches with some eggs. I started to prepare the dough for the crust, I found the flour exceptionally soft and white until A. whom I asked to pass me the floor asked: which buckwheat floor? You mean the rice flour? And then everything made sense: the colour, the texture… But it was too late to change and it wouldn’t be the first time I make dough with rice flour, but it was not was I had in mind! So I slightly changed my plan and instead just added the raw spinaches in the dough and baked. When it was almost done I added eggs and cooked until the eggs where just perfect and served. As most of the cooking mistakes (only this memorable miso eggplant 10 years ago was horrible) I make it was a good one, with a delicious and a nice assortment.

January 25, 2016

Chickpeas and cauliflower curry

Recently I’ve spent quite some time browsing my new cookbooks to ffind some inspiration and this time it comes from the “Encyclopédie de la cuisine végétarienne”. This book is really resourceful not just for receipes but also for a lot of techniques to prepare veggies or cereals, so I will come back to it quite often. One of the recipe that caught my eye at first reading was a chickeas curry with cauliflower and other veggies. I like very much the idea of having a plate all in shades of beige and yellows, and thought it’d be the perfect side for this beautiful piece of yellow tail (buri-鰤) I’ve found. Moreover I wanted to test something with the chickpeas water (heard that it could be used as a vegan egg white when whipped). The recipe for the curry is ultra simple. I used one can of chickpeas (remember I wanna try the whip thing), after draining them I heat some olive oil in a pan and roasted the chickpeas, then added chunks of cauliflower and roast them a bit too. Finally added curry powder, curcuma, salt, pepper and covered with water. Cooked at medium-high heat until most of the water is gone. Finally added a bit of fresh coriander. Ready to serve.

As for the whip, it works!!!! Talk about it soon.

January 25, 2016

Cinnamon buns

Last weekend, to change a bit from French bread and pastries I decided to try a recipe from my new Nordic cookbook and tried some cinnamon buns. As a first try, I didn’t know exactly what it would look like but I found the quantities quite unbalanced and in particular too much yeast, so I deliberately changed them. That plus the poor temperature control in the house in winters led to delicious but rather dense buns. So this time I decided to make it differently and to put a little less butter and more yeast and got a pretty decent result saying that for the second rise I let the dough out in the kitchen all night, where the temperature is anout 17deg when we’re up and it drops to 7deg by the time we wake up.

The process is actually simple. The ingredients for about 8 buns are the following: 250g of flour (hard flour for bread); 80ml of milk (I used soya milk because that’s what I had); 40g of butter + 40g at room temperature; 40g of sugar + 20g (I personally use only brown suger); 1 egg; 5g of salt; 6g of natural dry yeast; a few cardamom pods (I love the taste it gives to the buns, but it’s optional); cinnamon powder.

In a small pan heat the milk, the cardamom and the first 40g of butter, until the butter as melted. Add the 40g of sugar. Stir well. In a bowl add the flour, the yeast, the salt , the egg. Stir well. Add the mix from the pan and knead until smooth, and shiny. Let rise under a wet clothe until the dough is about twice bigger. If, like me the room temperature is low it takes quite some time. Once it has risen, move the dough on a sheet of cooking paper and roll the dought softly into a flat rectangle of a little less than 1cm high. With a spatula spread the butter at room temperature in a thin layer over the dough (on the long side of the dough leave a few cm without butter to close the rolls, then sprinkle cinnamon and the rest of the sugar on top of the butter. Roll the dough along the long edge starting from where the butter is, finishing where there is none, to for a long log. Then cut the buns and wait for the second rise (probably 1h). Heat the oven at 200deg. Move the buns in paper cases (I didn’t the first time and all the good filling went away instead of soaking into the bun, a pity!), add a egg wash if you fancy (I don’t) and bake for 12 to 15min. Just out from the oven is for me the best way to enjoy them!!

January 24, 2016

One-bowl of energy

Saturday, it’s cold and one of the stray cat in the garden has woken us quite early this morning. Damned stray cat (not our little Pablo, a different one)!

So after playing tennis 2 hours in the cold we needed a lunch full of energy and tasty. So I boiled some spelt and served it with 3min sauteed cauliflower chunks and mushrooms, and made some chicken koloke or croquette or balls or whatever you call them, with just some chicken breast minced rolled in panko, and cooked in a bit of oil in a pan. All in A bowl. Yummy, full of energy!! Have a good weekend!

January 23, 2016

Mexican inspiration

It’s cold in the evening and I am glad the week is almost finished, I can only look forward the days to come in the country with some discussions for the reform of the bathroom! So to cheer us up for the last draw I prepared a colorful plate with plenty of yummy fresh veggies. It started as being vegan, but in the end I added some scrambled eggs with coriander.

From left in counter clockwise order: fresh heirloom tomatoes, chopped red cabbage, tofu and avocado spicy mix topped with fresh coriander, coriander scrambled eggs, corn flour galettes. For the tofu avocado I drain a firm (momen) tofu and mix it with one avocado, add some spices of your choice, and some fresh coriander. For the corn galette I mix corn flour and water and fry them in a pan, you can also add one egg for better and quicker cooking. The scrambled eggs are simple scrambled eggs into which I added chopped coriander. The rest is just raw tomatoes and cabbage. No dressing.

January 22, 2016