Curry mochi

Because fresh rice cakes, or mochi 餅 come in a bundle of 6, I had some to eat so I decided to experiment a little with a vegan curry not served with rice, but with grilled mochi. Something in between a nan and rice! And it worked super well!!! So here’s what I did: in a large pan greased a little I cut 1/2 leek, 1 potato, 2 little purple sweet potatoes, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 1 red carrot, after it started to get golden I added some water just to cover, and 2 table spoons of curry powder, 1 tea spoon of tumeric (curcuma), 1 tea spoon of carvi seeds, 1 tea spoon of coriander seeds, grinded black pepper, a little piece of cinnamon and cokked until most of the water is gone. In the oven I arranged the rice cakes on a sheet of aluminum foil and baked them until they grown (I love to watch them in the oven, moving, breathing…) and the tip is golden. Then served all together.

January 21, 2016

Cod & spinach version 2

When I find a seasonal combination I like, it is not rare that I test it in several bariations and versions. Right now there is some nice cod and plenty of Japanese spinaches, and I particularly like the two together, so after the wet risotto I tried a butter grilled cod with spinach and oat bran pancakes and some blanched spinaches. Super delicious! For the cod just a little of butter in a hot pan grilled both sides until crispy. For the blanched spinaches in a little of boiling salted water, I soak the cut spinaches no longer than 5min, then drain well. For the pancakes I used spelt flour, oat bran in the quantity you like, add baking powder, salt, chopped spinaches, 1 or 2 eggs, soy milk, stir well, then cook in a pan at low heat. Serve all while still jot and eat immediately!

January 19, 2016

Sometimes

Sometimes all these happen: you have a tough day at work, you want to cry it out and prepare a lovely post (yes, for you guys!) when the squarespace app crashes before you’ve saved this beautiful coconut pyramids recipe, the only thing that remains to do is to say “sorry guys, I’m going home and eat the coconut pyramids with my supportive husband!”

Well, hopefully the next morning the sky is blue, Mount Fuji is all covered in fresh snow and the storm has passed, so now I can share with you my recipe inspired by the nordic cookbook. For a 20one-bite pyramids I used 1egg, 45g of brown caster sugar, 100g of coconut flakes, 40g of melted butter. Mix the egg and sugar, add the coconut and the melted buter, stir well and let sit for 10-30min so that the coconut get moisted. Pre-heat the oven at 175deg and on a cooking sheet form the pyramids. Cook until the tip is golden. Enjoy!

January 19, 2016

2 versions for the same veggies base

This weekend I tried quite a few new recipes, mainly for breakfast and teatime and we spent quite some time outside in the garden preparing for spring: there’s still loads of fallen leaves, and trees to trim… So when it comes to a meal, something warm and energetic was really important. I had a piece of cabbage that I really wanted to use, and some beautiful winter red carrots. The leftovers of whole rice, and fresh rice cakes (mochi) that I bought at the local farmers market (I love rice cakes but my husband don’t like them to much so I don’t buy fresh ones too often). So I decided to prepare a two way dinner, one a vegan chahan (sautéed rice) and the other a kind of o-zoni (the soup for new year with rice cake in). In a wok I cooked the chopped piece of cabbage and one carrot sliced with a bit of oil and then a bit of water. In the mean time I prepared some konbu dashi by boiling two pieces of konbu in 0.5L of water. I then moved roughthly half of the veggies in the soup and cooked a little longer, while in the wok I added the whole rice already cooked, a bit of sesame oil, and some sesame seeds. I grilled the rice cake to soften it, and added a large spoon of miso in the soup (ideally white miso, but I didn’t have any).

I served both, added the rice cake in the soup, and ready to eat!

January 18, 2016

Colorful winter plate

It’s incredible the sudden change in temperature and weather, one day is winter, one day spring. Some of the plum trees in the garden ate already starting to bloom which is incredibly early. So for the food it’s one meal winter one meal spring and a colorful is always welcome and with a beautiful red cabbage a plate is always a feast, with tomatoes, baby leaf salad, avocado, whole rice and scramble eggs with sesame.

Just the perfect boost before a new week!

January 17, 2016

New cookbooks

For Christmas I had a few new cookbooks from Europe that I am now reading (yes, they are this kind of cookbooks that you read) before trying any of the recipes. The first one is a vegetarian encyclopedia cookbook in French with a lot of inspiration to take such as quinoa soup. As the name suggests it’s quite a big book. It’s the same series as my beloved Italian cookbook so I’m quite familiar with the structure and the way it reads. The book as many pictures and most of the recipes are quite simple, the one that just need a little “gentiane” touch to be done for dinner in a really short time. The one that one can easily use. So there’s plenty to extract from it very quickly. If not already done!

The second one is a completely different approach, not exactly the kind of book you actually bring to the kitchen (even thicker than the previous one!!!), but the one you read and mature. It presents extensively the Nordic cooking from of course Northern Europe but also Iceland and Greenland and covers all the possible ingredients from herbs to whale (yes you read well), and I reckon that there are some recipes that will never make their way to my kitchen! But they retain some interesting historical components just like we also have in France “boudin noir”, blood sausage… It is richly documented, with beautiful few pictures and really interesting because I see many common things with Japanese cooking tough the climate is completely different. It is half a cooking book half a research paper so I really enjoy reading it. I think if I were to write a book on food that’d be something like that!

In any case both are very refreshing and different than Japanese super practical and thin cookbooks! What are your recent cookbok pick?

January 15, 2016

Spinach risotto and cod

As expected, it is now getting cold in Tokyo and the real winter is here. Nothing better to get warm than a kind of thick ice soup or wet risotto with veggies and fresh cod.
In a pan greased with olive oil, first grill the rice (arborio or carnoli), then cover twice with some veggie consome of your choice, and cook. When the consome has lowered by 1/3 add some fresh spinach roughly cut, and cook until the consome is now just on top of the rice. Add the cod, a slice of lemon and cook some more until the liquid has almost vanished. Serve immediately while still wet, and eat when hot.

January 14, 2016

Cauliflower soup x katsuobushi

Too happy with the mix cauliflower and katsuobushi in the tart the other day that I decided to try it in an other version: a warm soup for a cold evening. And the magic worked again!

It’s crazily simple and delicious: boil a cauliflower (I just removed the green leaves, washed it and boiled it all in one piece in 3cm of water under cover. Once soft I roughly crush it with a wooden spoon and mix it with the remaining water in my blender, add black pepper and the soup is ready. When I serve I add some thinly cut katsuobushi (usukiri), that’s it!

January 13, 2016

3 types of cabbage tart

At the local farmers market the other day I found beautiful cauliflower, romanesco and broccoli. Having all them together I couldn’t help but cook something mixing it. I love the idea of having ingredients close in shape but different in taste and color, and the first idea that I had was to make a tart with a piece of each. And becauseI really love the idea of mixing Japanese flavors with western ones I decided to add in the base some katsuobushi flakes. For the dough, I opted for a classic sable dough. A perfect balance.

January 12, 2016