Walnut bread

After a few weeks without kneading and baking bread it was time to get my hands in the dough again. First wanted to make a rich brioche for breakfast since it has been chilly the past few days… but then I realized I had no eggs… so I opted for bread… but I wanted something a little different than the usual breads I have made last month. I chose a walnut bread, slightly sweet and soft, from my Kayser bread making book, one of the few that I hadn’t tested yet. So I started preparing for it, measured the flour in a bowl, add water, salt, sugar and yeast… but before I could start kneading or carpenter arrived to talk about the plan of our next project, so I had to leave the dough. After about an hour later when I started kneading I felt things were doing really good. The dough was easy to knead, it became very soft and smooth. And since the house was rather cold I decided to use a trick I used once or twice in the past and that seems to be the best way to guaranty a temperature that will allow the dough to raise in a proper time: I put hot water in the sink and leave the dough in a metal bowl just floating around. After 2h the dough had perfectly risen and was ready to be prepared for the shaping. The dough had risen so well that shaping it was perfect and the second rise went very well. I finally baked the breads, but not until golden because I like to eat my bread hot in the morning just out the oven, so I keep the baking to perfection for the second baking round. And the result was exactly what I wanted: a very soft bread, with a thin crunchy crust. Overall, the waiting before the kneading and the rise in the warm water just made the though great! Two tricks that I will try again for sure!

Here my recipe for the bread:

Walnut bread (for two breads)

– 250g of flour, I used 2/3 of white flour and 1/3 of whole wheat

– 115g of water at 20deg

– 20g of sugar

– 8g of salt

– 6g of dry yeast

– 80g of loose walnuts kernels

In a bowl mix the flours, the yeast the sugar, the salt and half of the water. Mix well, add the rest of the water and knead until soft and smooth. Add the walnuts. I didn’t crush them, I prefer having them as whole. I kneading in a metal bowl for better heat conductivity. Then I leave for 2h in the warm water. After that shaped two balls with the dough, waited another 30min before shaping the two breads and waiting 90min at room temperature (about 16deg in our house). I finally baked 18min at 230deg. Took out of the oven when ready and let cool down. I put in the cold oven and baked at 180deg for 10min in the morning just before eating.

Breakfast ready with hot bread, homemade persimmon jam and enjoying the fall colors in the garden

December 9, 2018

Angst

Today I was reading some articles and stumbled upon the word “angst”. If I understood the general meaning so that my reading wasn’t impeded, I still wanted a clear definition. It’s not hard to search and find the answer and I started immediately to like this word very much, it described so well what I often feel and the awkward position I feel I am in. Enough to make it the title of this post. I feel angst in particular about the so many questions to which I cannot find answers… of course growth has been a long time one, urbanism too, more recently it was about legacy, heredity and filial pity…

All these questions of course don’t prevent from cooking and from experimenting new recipes. When I was a child Laura Todd cookies opened a shop in Aix en Provence. I loved these cookies very much but the shop didn’t last long and soon replaced by a pizza shop… I was surprised in 1999 to discover a decade after that there was a shop in Paris nearby our house (shop that since then as closed too). A. and I would go there once in a while to buy a cookie. A. loved them even more than I did. Laura Todd cookies are very soft but not oily with always melting chocolate chips of a very generous size. A while ago he asked me to make some cookies that would ressemble that. I didn’t try right away, but finally did and made white chocolate chips cookies and raisin cookies. And it worked out very fine. I prepared a recipe in between cookies and scones. Now I just found that Laura Todd cookies recipe is online on their website… (in French) so now I need to try it!!!

I’ll let you know soon how it is and if it is better than my recipe!

Have a great week… mine is busy and lonely…

December 2, 2018

14

Last week we celebrated thanksgiving but also 14 years in Tokyo. Time flew so quickly, in particular this year with all the ups and downs and the business that it seems almost yesterday we arrived with rudimentary knowledge of hiragana and katakana, Pimsleur lessons fresh in our heads and one suitcase each…

Timing was perfect to celebrate with the new acquisition of a little plot of land adjacent to our property and start afresh like we did 6 years ago: pulling weeds and cleaning to see what we can do with it. Plans have overflown our heads from the simplest to the craziest… time will tell.

We also celebrated with friends visiting us. And cooking for friends is always a nice moment, recalling when we last meet, what I cooked then, what I will cook this time and what we will do. For this time I prepared a brocoli quiche with katsuobushi and iwanori. But since I had leftovers of the pie crust dough I decided to make some iwanori crackers, and it was really a great match. We took them to Yorokeikoku to see the fall colors and even enjoyed seeing wild monkeys!!

Here is my recipe:

Iwanori crackers

– 100g of flour of your choice, I used whole wheat

– 50g of butter

– a bit of water

– 20g of oat bran

– 50g of iwanori or just nori roughly cut

– 5g of salt

Mix the flour, the butter, the water and the oat bran to obtain a smooth dough. The quantity of water will vary, so as usual add little by little and knead well in between. Then add the iwanori and roll. Sprinkle the salt on top and roll once to fix it. Cut into bite size and bake at 180deg until almost golden. Don’t over cook them. Eat as snack or with a salad.

November 27, 2018

Vegetables quiche

Every season has its delicious vegetables and every season has therefore a possibility of cooking quiches that is infinite. For this autumn or early winter version I used all the vegetables I love for their déclinaison of white to green: cauliflower, leek and spinach. Coupled with a rich pie crust made of soya bean flours, whole flour and wheat bran it gave the perfect balance of flavor and texture, and of colors.

Tell me about what you like on IG!

November 23, 2018

Cake

When I was in primary school once in a while on Monday afternoon we would have a class where we would do pottery and other crafts and 2 times we cooked: once yogurt cake, and once pound cake. My mom kept these recipes in her classic cookbook for easy recipes that we would use when I was a child to cook together. I did so many of these yogurt cakes, pound cakes and clafoutis, far breton etc… but pound cake was one of my favorite. I love infusing the raisins with rum and drink the remaining juice. It was always a great family hit for tea time. Now I don’t infuse raisins in rum anymore because I can stand alcohol, and it’s been a while I didn’t bake a proper pound cake. But the other day I was planning to make a panettone and bought some raisins for that but then postponed the idea… yet I thought it was stupid to have bought this panettone mold in Italy last year and not using it… so I decided to bake something that would/could pretend being a panettone but that takes so much less time! The pound cake then appeared as the best option! Perfect for a breakfast on the run, as we had to go to sign for our new piece of land!!

Pound cake

– 200g of flour

– 100g of sugar

– 1tsp of baking powder

– a cup of raisins

– 80g of butter melted

– 3eggs

Rehydrate the raisins in hot water, then drain.

In a bowl mix the flour and the baking powder, then add the raisins and coat them well with the mix. Add the sugar, the butter, the eggs and stir well to obtain a creamy dough. In a greased mold pour the dough and bake for 30min at 150deg then at 180 until a knife comes out clean.

November 21, 2018

Radish tops and salmon ravioli

Ravioli have always been in the very top of my preferred dish ever both to eat and cook. For me to enjoy them, they have of course to be fresh and with a green and tasty filling. Ricotta spinach are of course a classic that I enjoy all the time, but seasonally filled ravioli are always something I like to prepare and enjoy. With the autumn salmon in peak season and the beautiful radishes also, I decided to use super fresh and tender radish tops, simply blanched with grilled salmon as filling. The radish tops have a nice flavor that is very different from other greens. I already tried with spinach and dill in the past. And because it is nice for the final cooking and the final plating to have a little of a sauce I prepared a butter and pink peppercorns sauce. Here is my recipe:

Radish tops and salmon ravioli

For the pasta I used my usual recipe (1 egg for 100g of flour), but I used half of “semolina di grano duro” instead of regular flour.

For the filling:

– 100g of radish tops

– 100g of fresh salmon

– pink peppercorns

– 15g of butter

– salt and pepper

I first grilled the salmon and blanched the radish tops. Then once they had cooled down I chopped the tops thinly and crumble the salmon together, stir well, add a bit of salt.

Then I make the ravioli, rolling the pasta as thin as possible. I didn’t use a ravioli rack, but cut the dough with a medium round shape and used two to make one ravioli. In your left palm hold a small round of pasta, with the right finger, moisten in a glass of water moisten the edge of the pasta. Set half or more tea spoon of filling, then take an other round of pasta and close tight removing the air as much as possible.

Then I boiled the ravioli. In the meantime in a large pan I melted the butter, added the pink peppercorns and when the ravioli were coming out to the surface I catch them and add them to the pan. It is fine if there is still some cooking water with them. At hight heat I finished cooking them in the pan and served with a little of salt and pepper added.

November 18, 2018

The small things

Tonight I’m back home at 21:30, that’s the earliest I got home in quite some time. Though it’s only Wednesday our fridge is almost empty already: obviously I didn’t shop enough this weekend in the countryside. Yet I have a last one of these late summer giant and very ripe tomatoes, so I decided to make some tagliatelle with a tomato base sauce, shimeji and sage. And because it is early and A. won’t be back until the usual 22:00 I can work a few details: adding a carrot cut in small dice to the sauce to add more flavor, peeling the tomato to only have the creamy and juicy parts, cooking at low heat for a longer time to get the sage to perfume the sauce more profoundly. All these small things that I have a tendency to skip and that actually are important to obtain a better result in the plate and for the palate…

The little cubes of carrots and the mushrooms and the sage goes very well together I find. But to eat them with pasta I also find that the carrots shouldn’t take the first place, and therefore should be cut in tiny cubes. The sage thinly cut add a nice touch, but is better when the vegetables are slowly cooked until they almost caramelized, and then are deglazed in the final stage with a fragrant olive oil. Regarding tomato, there is indeed nothing more annoying than cooking tomatoes and ending up with small rolls of skin half attached or floating in a tomato sauce in particular. And tonight peeling the tomato had the bitter taste of sadness because I got used to do it while I was cooking with my friend K. when we visited her and her husband in the Tsunan mountains in Niigata, and this morning we just learned that S. has past…

November 15, 2018

Shojin cuisine

As I was questioning myself about Buddhist cuisine in China regarding these Chinese beancurd noodles, I decided to do a bit of search and reopen my Shojin cuisine book. I was right, until the 18th century in China buddhist and taoist temples would only serve vegetables soup and tea to pilgrims, the same thing monks were eating. Only it started to be a more elaborated and widespread cuisine during the Qing dynasty (late 17th to 20th century). In japan shojin cuisine was of course imported from China together with Zen by Dogen during the Kamakura period in the 12th-13th century. All the basic about Shojin cuisine were actually written in the 典座教訓 (Tenzo Kyokun) itself inspired by Chinese writings. It has evolved regularly from the early 17th century during Edo period to become shat it is now. Next time I go to China I’ll try to eat in a temple and try local buddhist or taoist cuisine for sure!

But back to my kitchen I decided as I said to reopen my Shojin cuisine book from the Sanko-in past abbess. I always have a lot of pleasure opening a cookbook I haven’t opened for a while and this one is no exception. One thing I love with that book is that it actually tell not only how to cook but also how and how long you can keep the food you have prepared, something that I find extremely useful. Browsing the book, I found plenty of autumn recipes I wanted to try and luckily I had all the ingredients needed to proceed. I tried two recipes one of kabocha and one of burdock. Both extremely simple. And I was very happy with the result, being back in my kitchen and preparing delicious locally grown vegetables. Here are the two recipes, not the way they were in the book but the way I actually cooked.

Burdock:

– 1/2 burdock

– 3tbs of sake

– 3tbs of soya sauce

Wash and cut the burdock in 4cm long sticks. Cut each piece in the length in 4 to 10 depending on the diameter.

Place in a small pan with water and boil 10min. Drain and the in a little pan add the sake and soya sauce and simmer for 20min at low very heat under cover. Eat warm or cold. Keeps one month refrigerated according to the book but it was so good we ate everything at once!!!!

Kabocha with black sesame and yuzu:

– 1/4 of kabocha

– 4tbs of black sesame

– 1/2cup of sake

– 3tbs of brown sugar

– grated yuzu peel

– pinch of salt

Cut the kabocha in bites keeping the skin of course. In a pan put the kabocha and cover with water. Add the sake, and sugar and bring to a boil, cook until kabocha is soft but not mushy. Grill the sesame in a pan and grind finely in a suri bowl. Add 2tbs of the cooking broth of the kabocha, add the salt. Remove the kabocha from the broth, set in a plate, add the sesame mix and finish with grated yuzu peel.

November 11, 2018

Taken for granted

This short trip to Beijing has been quite eye opening for me. I realized that there are three things that I take for granted: the quality of the air I breath, the quality of the water I drink and the quality of the food I eat. This third one is more of a life style I have inherited from my family and won’t talk about it today. The two others, I’ve never really thought about it before to be honest… there has been a few times when I was living in Paris I felt suffocated by the pollution in the air, and that the water tasted really bad. In Tokyo of course I have been worried after March 2011 with air, water and food. In early spring and in the summer I sometimes check the quality of the air for pm 2.5 but it has nothing to do with how I felt unsecured about that in China. Last year in Shanghai I was concerned by the air quality but it wasn’t as strong as it felt this time in Beijing. When seeing everywhere that you cannot drink tap water unless boiled, I realize I was living on bottled water in plastic containers, something that I avoid as much as possible to use in Tokyo… and feeling always worried about what I drink was quite strange actually for me and made me think that being able not to care about what is coming out the tap is just a precious gift. Add this to waking up in a smoggy city with air quality quite alarming made me ask myself unformulated questions about this giant gap between ultra-urban areas and rural areas. Not that rural areas are free of pollution… the river cleaning we did a few weeks ago showed me how much farmers destruct their surroundings by being careless and lazy. And I think carelessness and laziness are really two keywords for me that represent very well our societies. Being so careless that in the end you can’t breath the air around you seems unbelievable to me but that’s what it is in Chinese big cities and I do believe that it is not only China… society has decided it’s better to consume more of an electricity produced by coal rather than breathing normal air. Looking always first at serving a purpose that I cannot understand, up to a point where cities are becoming unlivable just revealed to me my misunderstanding of the world I live in, the gap between the ideals I believe in and a certain urban reality.

In the meantime, traveling is always full of surprises and even during such a short and busy visit I discovered at least two interesting things food-wise: beancurd noodles that I had in a restaurant and rose and honey milk tea that I had at a bakery where I stopped for breakfast making quite good pastries and funny artistic cakes (that I wouldn’t eat). I actually have a very bad knowledge of Chinese cuisine mainly for two reasons: the use of many ingredients I don’t eat (jellyfish, shark, seafood, meat…) and the spicy food from some regions. I would love for example to know more about Chinese zen cuisine but never actually heard about any. May be they just ate rice… but these beancurd noodles could have been something they ate… I’ll definitely try to find some information and get back to you soon if I find anything interesting!

November 9, 2018