Clafoutis

Yes! The season for clafoutis is coming again! I love summer and summer fruits simple recipes like clafoutis, tarts and simply poached fruits with herbs or spices. The clafoutis recipe is really simple: 4 ingredients only: flour-eggs-milk-sugar, but you can easily make some variations by changing the balance between the ingredients, or using vegetal milk rather than cow milk. Recently I’ve been using quite a lot of a new organic non-modified soya milk and again I used it this time. I wanted also a rather thick consistency so I used more flour than usual and fewer eggs (only 3). And since cherries are really sweet, and I had plenty, and I prepared the clafoutis for breakfast I used very little untreated natural sugar. Nothing new here, just that the season has arrived again and many clafoutis will be made this summer too I guess!!!

May 30, 2017

Chichibu – 秩父

Two years ago we went to see an exhibition of meisen kimono and I totally felt in live with this new technique to make more affordable kimonos. I like how it is linked with the societal changes that were occurring at that time, freeing women, and the cultural changes with Japan in between western and traditional cultures. The vibrant colors, the rough patterns are characteristics of meisen, but not only. In the 1930’s there were several regions that were producing meisen. Hachioji and Chichibu are two close to Tokyo. A few month ago, one of our friends moved to Chichibu so it was the perfect occasion to visit her and check the meisen museum and visit the city.

Chichibu is about two hours by train or car from Tokyo in Saitama prefecture. It is a small city nested in a valley where the Arakawa river passes, and surrounded by mountains. The city expanded significantly with ghe meisen industry and a lot of buildings from the Taisho-Showa periods remain. The meisen kan 銘仙館is a former factory. The wooden buildings are really nice and it explains simply the history of meisen and the techniques used to make meisen. They still make meisen with new contemporary patterns. What attracted me to that place was that it is possible to make some meisen: there are three activities cutting-dying-weaving. I really wanted to dye but it was not possible that day so we weaved, and it was fun. Strolling in the city that has many cafes and craft shops was also great. I came back to Tokyo with second hand kimonos and wood furniture… and pumped up with greens and mountain air!

May 29, 2017

Done!

Today, the first exhibition I curated opened at my university museum. It’s a small museum, with a lot of local visitors, and exhibitions about the work done at the university in the present and past, and its history. Having a 3 months exhibition about human and robot is a new thing. It was very exciting preparing it and I was more than happy today for the opening event to see the museum full during the whole time with crowds waiting to try the interactive exhibits we prepared. I am feeling proud and happy to have been able to setup this exhibition with my colleagues. And even more when A. came to visit it. Thanks!

Oh! By the way, last night I didn’t cook. It is not often, but once in a while, we order pizza. .. oops…

May 27, 2017

Rainy season!

Just as planned, this week is pretty busy, I have many duties overlapping, committees I am in charge of, official events to attend and adding up to my lectures, students supervision and research projects and writing. The exhibition preparation is taking most of my (rather short) remaining available time.

So this week no tennis at lunch break, very little cooking, no house chores (thanks A.), up early in the morning and until fairly late, and very little posts because I used all my commuting time to work. At last, today I have decided to take a bit of time for TPS and to update you with some very simple and quick recipes that have saved our dinners this week. Nothing fancy at all but still fresh and tasty. Though, I was hoping the exhibition will be all set and ready by the beginning of the week and we will only have to work details by now, I also knew that working with other people is never that simple, except with some with whom I’m totally in synch, and those I am working with this time hardly meet deadlines, or rather like to work in last minute rush. Everyone finds its way to doing things in the end, last minute rush is definitely not mine, so I had to let go a real lot of things. Learning to let go was an interesting experience though. Back to cooking… so, knowing that my schedule will definitely be affected by last minute changed, last weekend in Ohara I packed on long lasting fresh veggies that will be easy to combine together and rapidly cooked: asparagus, peeled horse beans, red bell pepper, tomatoes, broad beans, celery… and this week I prepared them one way or another, Japanese, Italian, whatever… when I don’t have much time to cook we usually eat vegan adding tofu, cucumber with miso while dinner gets ready… My top favorite from this week are: the orecchiette with tofu asparagus and horse beans; broad beans, asparagus and tomatoes with soya sauce and Japanese koshihikari rice; celery, tomatoes and black pepper risotto. All of these recipes require very little preparation time (the longest is peeling the broad beans after blanching them) and no specific caring while cooking, perfect to catch up with A. or work a little longer.

Happy rainy season!!!

May 26, 2017

Weekend cooking

Beautiful weekend with our normal activities… it seems like it hasn’t happened in such a long time… probably two months or even more with all the traveling in March and April and the visitors in May, plus some bad weather… it means playing tennis, gardening, going to the seaside, and it also means some nice cooking, bread making and pasta. I made two breads: a large muesli and rye bread for breakfast, with a little addition of sugar to obtain a very savory bread, and a classic focaccia, always a success. With the temperatures rising it is so much easier to prepare bread. The risong is do much easier than in the winter. This time for the pasta, instead of making ravioli I made lasagna with my classic pasta recipe, rolled with my pasta machine, some salmon (it’s not often that there is some nice Hokkaido salmon! But recently I found some) and some fresh baby spinach, just add a bit of cream, bake and it’s ready. Really simpler than making the ravioli because you don’t have to dry the filling and wait for it to cool down and it is super delicious.

I wish you a great week ahead!

May 21, 2017

D-9 before the opening!

As many of you may know, I’m a roboticist, cooking is just a hobby. I am the head of 20 people research lab in a national university in Tokyo. Just google me to check!! My days are pretty full with my job but I can’t help doing more than my shre and taking opportunities to do new things, to learn new things. This time, as I mentioned before, I am leading the preparation of an exhibition at our science museum where some colleagues and me will exhibit some of our research work. This keeps me even more busy: preparing the website, thinking about the layout, the exhibits… I’m hoping to make something where people entertain themselves while they learn about human and robots. And the opening is only in 9 days, or almost 8 now, and there is so much left to do!!! Obviously my cooking time has decreased significantly and it is rather simple comfy food that I prepare. I use a lot of legumes these days, because they are versatile, nourishing and easy to accommodate with vegetables. I prepared a simple warm soup with peas, lentils and barley, added a big tomato, a carrot, and finished with some fava beans. Topped with or without cheese. Dimply delicious, and ready to continue working!!!

May 18, 2017

Rolled asparagus

I discovered this very simple preparation of asparagus in Japan, I don’t know if it is anywhere else as popular as it is here, but it is for sure an extremely simple recipe that goes very well for barbecue or for very quick dinner fix. It consists in rolling green asparagus in thin slice of pork. In Japan it is simple there are 4 main pieces of pork at the butcher: filet mignon, thick boneless cutlet, thinely sliced boneless cutlet, and boneless ribs or belly. For this recipe usually a fatty meat such as ribs or belly (豚バラ) is used but I prefer a less fatty meat so I use thinely sliced cutlet. You just need to wash the asparagus, I remive the hardest part, then roll them in the meat (from which I remove the fat if I don’t have time to cook them for a long time) and then grill in a pan without any grease. I serve that with rice, it is good too to had umeboshi. It it is so simple and so delicious!

May 16, 2017

Rough puff

With the terrible weather on Saturday, I thought it was a good occasion to work and cook. And for cooking, I was thinking of making something that I usually don’t have time to do when the weather is nice and we spend most our time outdoor gardening or playing tennis or swimming. My objective was to make puff pastry. Since I have never really made puff pastry (only a version for pain au chocolat, with yeast…) I decided first to browse a few recipes, before deciding what to do, and that’s how I found a recipe of “rough puff” on by Clotilde Dusoulier on her blog Chocolate and Zucchini, a quick version of the real puff pastry, that doesn’t require to insert the butter layer by layer and to be rolled every hour or so. This version only require one hour in the fridge. The layering is done before. Since I had to work and I am always looking for sustainable recipes that I can repeat easily, trying rough puff was a must for me! So instead of classic puff pastry, here I am trying this new recipe. Of course I slightly changed the proportions because I like it less buttery, I used only 100g of butter but may be 115g would have been good for a more golden finish. I use soya milk instead of water or milk. Contrarily to what announced it gave me much more pastry that expected so I made an apple tart, two half moon apple pues and with the rest a bowl of sesame crackers. Making the pastry was really easy and it was really quick (quicker is better because the butter need to stay cold and hard). The pastry was indeed puffy, but not as much as a regar puff pastry, as expected. The taste and crispiness was great. For the sweet version I would have definitely add a bit of sugar. May be it’s because I use nothing but apples without sugar nor flavoring. The sesame salty crackers were addictive (top picture)!!! A great recipe that needs a little improvement to fit my taste but so easy to make that I will use it againand again!!!

May 15, 2017

Miso-lemon dressing

Recently it has been quite difficult to find gnocchi in our usual grocery stores, and gnocchi were our staples for late Friday dinners when we arrived in the country. So I have had to find a replacement. Today I tried soba (buckwheat noodles) that I prepared with plenty of greens and I decided to serve them not with some regular sauce made from soya sauce such as tsuyu, but rather a white miso base. And since I had some fresh lemon I also used it. The redult was even better than I expected. The sweet white miso and the lemon are a super match. The lemon taste is very present, cancelling the sweetness of the miso and the miso softening the bitterness of the lemon. So here is my recipe for 2 people.

– 200g of soba noodles, I use 100% buckwheat flour noodles

– 4 tsp of white miso

– 1/4 of lemon

– 1 tsp of soya sauce

– brocoli, brocoli sprouts, green beans, baby spinach… asparagus, green peas, horse beans… are all good too

Boil a large amount of water to cook the soba. In the meantime in a heated pan slightly oiled cook the washed vegetables. The much remsin crispy, so don’t over cook them. In a bowl mix together the miso, the lemon juice, the soya sauce. Serve ghe noodles in a large bowl, add the miso dressing and stir well, add the vegetables. Eat right away and have a beautiful weekend. Isumi is under the rain, and work for the museum exhibition is what I have to do today!

May 13, 2017