Month: December 2016

Multigrain risotto with burdock

As I was telling you, I really love the mix fresh parsley and burdock. May be because it makes the burdock taste even more artichoky, a vegetable I love but that is not common in Japan (though I’ve spotted some lovely artichokes plants in my neighbor’s potager garden!). As we will be traveling to Sicily, I know I’ll have opportunities to eat plenty of delicious artichokes very soon! Yet, I prepared burdock with parsley in an Italian manner with a mix of grains for Italian soup (from last year Italian holidays!) and carnaroli rice, prepared like a risotto. I cooked in a bit of olive oil the burdock peeled and sliced, then add the rice and the grains, finally cover with water. Cooked until the liquid has vanished, add generously some fresh ciseled parsley, serve immediately. Perfect with freshly grated parmegiano if you like.

Butternut squash ravioli again

Last winter I made some butternut squash ravioli  with a very simple filling and in small size, with the ravioli plate I bought in Roma last year. This time I decided to add some nutmeg to the filling and to make large ones, where there is plenty of filling. And since I had plenty of sage in the garden seeved them with olive oil and sage. Simple and soooooooo delicious! How do you prefer your ravioli?

Red onion and pickled plum chutney

That may seem an odd combination but it really was delicious and simple. I love to prepare some sour mix, one of my favotite is probably chrisanthemum chutney. This time I wanted to use pickled plum, umeboshi, in a non Japanese recipe, so I opted for some red onion kind of chutney. I used one large red onion and two large pickled plum with a lot of soft flesh and a bit of umeboshi juice if any. I slice thinely the onion by halves. Then I cook it in a pan at low heat, I add a bit of water if needed. When very soft and fairly dry I add the flesh of the plums and stir well. It’s ready to use. Perfect with pork, chicken, white fish, potatoes… I served it with boiled potatoes, spinach and grilled swordfish. Perfectly balanced.

Friday’s gnocchi

It is almost a ritual when we arrive at our country house late on Friday evening to have dinner based on gnocchi. Each time I prepare them differently, each time with some vegetables of course. Recently I really like the combination of burdock and parsley, I find the tastes match perfectly and the parsley color enhances the grayish white of the burdock. Both are also great with butter or olive oil. And with the gnocchi it fits perfectly. I cut the burdock in small sticks and blanched them, then in a frypan with a bit of olive oil I roast them, add the parsley, boil the gnocchi in the meantime and serve, with a bit more olive oil, and black pepper. It goes very well with parmegiano too!

All the best for this weekend!!! 

Stuffed lotus root

It’s been quite a while I wanted to try making stuffed lotus root, but somehow, I never did… Probably because usually I buy rather small and thin lotus roots and I cannot imagine how to stuff them. Finally, I found some huge lotus root, very fresh and nice, so it was THE chance! I hesitated with different option for the filling, but finally opted for chicken. Just chicken. I peeled and washed the lotus root. Stuffing was very easy then I cut them in large slices and cooked them in a bit of oil in a fry pan, flipping them a few times and until golden on both sides. I served them with rice and nori, and with a few little pickled plums. And will try again to stuff lotus roots with some vegetarian or vegan options very soon!!!

Carrot soup and almond cake

Carrots and tomatoes could both be on top of my favorite food and favorite infredients. I love how it is easy to prepare them in many different ways, raw, grilled, simmered, in puree, sauce, with herb, just with salt… I could continue endlessly the list of options they offer. Yet, I don’t think it is easy to find delicious fresh products after tomatoes pick season in summer, and carrots, which season for the big sweet ones is now on, are often too hard and a little bitter. So when I find some big, soft, juicy and sweet carrots, I prepare them in the most simplest way: a soup which is just made of carrots and a bit of water, eventually a bit of sea salt and black pepper for the final decoration. Nothing more because the taste is just perfect like this. For two, I used two large carrots, peel them, boil them, blend them, add a bit of water if needed to obtain the preferred consistency. Serve hot or cold.

And because after a long day a soup is just not enough for dinner for us, we need carbs, I prepared a very strange thing that actually was perfect with the carrot soup (I must say that I am a bit in an inventive period now, so I try new recipes I invent on the spot and things have been working pretty well so far!). I made a kind of vegan almond bread, or almond cake:  it’s basically the base recipe of the scones, where I replaced half of the flour by rough almond powder, butter by vegetal oil, sugar by salt (much less though) and milk with soya milk,  and set in a cake pie to bake for 30min at 160deg. It gave a very crumbly bread texture a bit between scones and brioche and the almond taste was perfect with the carrot soup. 

Simple pasta

Friday evening and Sunday evening we usually have dinner rather late and I like to have something that can ready quickly with short cooking time, yet still with fresh vegetables. Pasta and gnocchi are usually my best picks for their short and simple cooking, and their versatility in terms of topping and arrangement. Recently I’ve been attracted by green leaves, but not necessarily spinach, and by trying novel associations. So here are two recipes of gnocchi and pasta that use greens. The meat is optional and can be easily removed for the gnocchi recipe and replaced by hard tofu in the pasta recipe for a vegan option.

Gnocchi with rucolla, basil and grilled bacon: for 2 people as a one-dish meal, you need a bundle of fresh basil and a bundle of rucolla, in Japan that would be a bag of each since they come conditioned in bags. You need fresh gnocchi for two (for homemade one check the recipe here), olive oil, salt pepper and additionally bacon and gratted parmegiano. Boil water for the gnocchi. In a pan grill the bacon if using any. Wash the rucolla and the basil, remove hard parts and cut roughly with scissors. One the gnocchi are boiled, in a large bowl add the gnocchi, the greens, olive oil, salt pepper and the bacon, stir well, serve immidiately. Add a bit of gratted parmegiano if you like.

Mizuna and chicken fettuccine: for this recipe for 2 you need: 2servings of fettuccine (fresh or dry); a large pack of mizuna fresh leaves. The younger the better. 100g of grounded chicken breast or 100g of drained hard (momen) tofu, olive oil, salt, pepper. Boil water for the pasta. In a pan heat some olive oil and cook the chiken or the tofu to obtain small crumbles. Wash the mizuna, remove the hardest parts. Cut in 3cm length segments. Add the mizuna in the pan, start with the bottom parts, keep the leafy parts for the end since they do not need so much cooking, add salt and pepper. Drain the pasta serve and add the topping. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, parmegiano to your liking. Have a good week!!!

Oh my god!

There are things that keep me breathless and sadden me bybeing so utterly ridiculous. This time is the new opening of a shop in Aoyama that has been quite a buzz. It took some time for me to realize what it was exactly when I first heard about frozen French food products sold in Aoyama, but then niw I got it: Picard, the French frozen food supermarket has opened a supposed “luxury” store in Koto dori, in Aoyama. And they sell some some processed frozen dishes. This goes against all my principle: proccesed food+frozen+from far away, but not everyone adheres to these principles. What saddens me most is that the shop products are overpriced (according to the website, because I will not go there) and presented as luxury 高級 products, which they are not at all. It looks like a big scam, the shop frontside looks just like this cheap supermarket in Paris, of course they’ve tried to make it fancy with colors and French written everywhere, but Picard is just an average frozen food supermarket in France. So if you want to eat delicious French food, definitely don’t go there!!! What also pisses me off is that frozen food has not a strong culture in Japan and neither packed prepared meals. Indeed, one of the first thing I remembered from Japanese supermarkets is that frozen food was mainly ice creams, and in any case their were very few freezers and very few items in them. And I found it was a beautiful thing. Same with ready-to-eat dishes, in Europe, and in France more particularly, you can find ignominous pre-prepared food packed in plastic containers to microwave that basically ressembles airplane economy-class food, terrible… In Japan that is replaced by freshly prepared food that must be eaten within 24h with fresh ingredients and without too much dressing, salt, fat or additional shitty products. So having Picard making its appearance big and loud in Tokyo is just scaring me…,

Cabbage and sticky potato salad

12 years ago we arrived in Tokyo and moved in our first Tokyoite apartment in Nezu. At that time I was working at the university of Tokyo, a 5min walk from there. Settling in Tokyo without speaking Japanese was a lot of fun but not always easy. A. was not working at that time yet and he’s missions most of the days was to go and investigate for what we needed and then buy it and install it: washing machine, telephone, desktop computer, internet… We were very lucky to have friends to help us. The thing that took us the most time everyday was grocery shopping if you remember my post there. Thanks not only to my Japanese cooking book for beginners but also to our friend Shotaro, who is a very good cook and was living in Tokyo at that time. He came at home and we cooked together. For a reason very unclear, while I was grocery shopping yesterday I saw some nice sticky potato or yamaimo 山芋, and suddenly remembered about that salad we cooked together: cabbage, yamaimo and sesame dressing. And because before starting Tokyo Paris Sisters with Prunellia, I already had a site to share French recipes with our Japanese friends and Japanese recipes with our French friends, I just dug in to find that recipe back!!!! It was even simpler than I thought! At that time we used industrial sesame dressing but last night I came with a vegan homemade version that was really nice! So here is the recipe for 4 servings as starter:

For the dressing: a piece of yamaimo of about 1-2cm; 2tbs of sesame powder, known as surigoma-擂り胡麻 ; 1tbsp of soya sauce; water; salt.

Fir the salad: 1/2 cabbage; a large piece of yamaimo, or half one yamaimo.

Cut the cabbage in bite size chunks, if you like it crunchy use it raw, if you like softer, blanched it and cool it. Cut the yamaimo in 5-8mm x 4cm sticks. I a serving bowl put both ingredients. Now prepare the dressing. Grat the yamaimo to obtain what is called tororo-トロロ, a kind of slime that will give a creamy consistency to the dressing, add the surigoma, add the soya sauce, then mix well. The mix is quite dense and now you need to add water little by little still mixing (optimally with chop sticks) to obtain the consistency you want, it as to be creamy without being too much liquid. Top the vegetables and enjoy!!!

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