When the season for swordfish starts I am always pleased to start eating some, in particular because it often arrives after several typhoons and fish options have been more than scarce in Isumi. After the long months of bonito, it is time for a change. And if I love sanma, which also marks the beginning of the autumn, I rarely cook some because of the smell. But swordfish is perfect for me. I like the consistency of the meat even better than that of snapper and sea bass, and it has not shape at all (I gave trouble eating fishes that have fish shapes in the plate… maybe another reason why I don’t eat sanma much!).
So, the swordfish (メカジキ mekajiki) season is starting and I found some beautiful pieces of Kesennuma swordfish. Kesennuma is a fishing port up north in Miyagi famous for tunas and swordfishes, and that was badly hut in 2011. They kind of made a brand of it, and the swordfish is actually really delicious.
I like to grill or pan grill my pieces of swordfish, with or with marinating it. Now sudachi, the small green citrus fruits ate in season, and swordfish marinated with the juice of 2 and some soya sauce and then grilled was a great and simple recipe!!!
After a day of rain this week the weather as turned from end summer to early autumn. The cicadas voice is getting harder to hear and the wind gets chilly in the evening. Even though I am slowly shifting to autumn vegetables, tomatoes and eggplants have my favors to hold the summer a little bit longer, and when I saw these broad beans I couldn’t help taking them and prepare a meal that would still feels like summer. I chose for that a Japanese classic preparation boiling them in a dashi of konbu, just enough so that when they were cooked the liquid was alsmost gone (katsuobushi, or a mix of both is also perfect) and added okra sliced and jute mallow. I finished with light colored shoyu. Served it with rice and umeboshi and an omelette with finely chopped green shiso.
In the summer 2012 when we bought our house in Isumi I never imagined how much it would be a life changer. At first it was purely a fancy project to have a Japanese house and a garden, a place to do little DIY projects (since there’s nothing we can do in a rented apartment in Tokyo) and interior design… but these 6 years have provided us with a lot of opportunities for thinking about our life style, what we care for, and we want. But all that I’ll write about later. One thing, among a few others, I really got into is making bread (why and how is there). Handmade bread. Hand kneading is such a quiet and nice moment to talk and think after a busy day in the garden, at the seaside or on the tennis court. At first I was just trying to make bread and brioche with regular flour I could find in the supermarkets but I wasn’t happy with non organic flours, then started to bring back organic ingredients from our trips to France: fancy flours, dry sourdough, dry yeast, seeds and cereals. But this solution was not sustainable since my travels to Europe are irregular, that most of the organic products are usually contaminated with pests and they don’t suffer the Japanese climate to well in particular our house temperature variations and humidity variations are quite dramatic. From 2deg to 28deg and from 10% humidity to 90%. I’ve started back then to keep them in the vegetable drawer of my fridge, which is exclusively used for that now. You can keep them very long and without any pest and they don’t loose their taste. But little by little I learned about the locally produced flours and organic flours have started to appear on shelves here and there. Hokkaido is a very nice wheat producer and they have high quality flours. Cuoca offers a great variety of products when you make bread and a variety of Hokkaido flours (they also have French). I personally don’t shop online, I’d rather go to the shop in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi where I can buy also fresh yeast and choose the flours I like on the spot. But one other great source for finding flours is when traveling around Japan. If you travel a bit in the countryside you’ll discover that many other regions than Hokkaido produce wheat, but likely at a lower scale, and are only sold locally at farmers cooperatives. Try “michi no eki” 道の駅 and JA fresh products markets, they are always a great place to find local food and locally produced rice, beans, and flours… I remember buying amazing black wheat flour near Shiojiri in Nagano prefecture and some super fine white flour in Nasu in Ibaraki prefecture. Options for making bread locally makes me feel better, they are more fit to the Japanese climate and I don’t have to carry kilos of flours anymore with me on my long haul flights! I still carry other staples that I can’t easily find in Japan… recently it’s been semolina, dry fruits, olives, olive oil, but that, it’s another story!
Though it’s still hot in Tokyo, evenings are getting chillier and mushrooms are proliferating on the market shelves… impossible to resist to the temptation and difficult anyway to shop something else as the summer vegetables are finished and there is little transition between the summer vegetables and the autumn ones. It’s either okra and tomatoes or mushrooms and pumpkins or other orange squashes. So mushrooms are a way to slowly enter the new season.
I love the classic chicken and mushroom takikomi gohan and always tale the opportunity to cook some when I miss Japanese food. It is so simple. And it is good hot or cold, so it makes the perfect content for a lunch box.
But mushrooms are also delicious with pasta! And to try the delicious pine nuts from Pisa I decidedly to make a JapanesexItalian recipe with linguine. And because mushroom only may be boring, I added burdock for it has a little bit the taste of artichokes and makes a rather nice replacement (though it doesn’t have the tenderness). So here is my new recipe!
Linguine for the early autumn (for 2 people as main)
– 120g of dry linguine
– 4 shiitake
– 4 white mushrooms
– 1/2 burdock
– 1 handful of pine nuts
– olive oil
Wash and cut the mushrooms. I like to cut the different types in different shape for a nice texture and taste experience. Peel and cut in small sticks the burdock. In a heated pan with olive oil cook all the vegetables. Add the pine nuts. Boil the pasta as you like them, drain and add in the pan, add a little olive, salt and pepper if you like and stir well before serving. Enjoy!
Food in Italy is always simple, fresh and great… I love to go shopping on the markets (there are markets pretty much everywhere) and find some local delish, I love to cook the simple fresh vegetables in season. My favorite Italian vegetables are zucchini, with the flower even better), fennel, artichokes, celery, radicchio, ceps and tomatoes. I love also the fresh pasta, the million varieties of cheeses and the prosciutto and the speck… but Italy is also great for herbs and dry fruits: pine nuts, hazelnuts, pistachios depending on the region. Pisa province is a region where pine nuts are produced and I couldn’t help but try them and bring some back to Japan! Recipes using them coming soon!
While in Italy I cooked a few different and very simple meals. I am a big fan of pesto soup and minestrone, so as soon as I can I usually cook one. In particular when the fresh beans are in season. It is really simple: celery, tomato, zucchini, fresh beans is the base, then add whatever: spinach, chard, carrot, onion… cook in salted water, serve with olive oil and grated Parmigiano. Enjoy warm or cold.
Fresh pasta are always good at least so much better than anything you can find elsewhere that there is no need to make tour own!! And stuffed pasta are always my favorite. Ricotta-spinach ravioli is on the top of the list, served with either a tomato sauce or chards and basil simply blanched and then cooked in olive oil with the ravioli. An other quick and delicious recipe!
When I have more time I like to prepare risotto with fresh and seasonal vegetables. Fennels that can hardly be found in Japan make a fresh risotto served with fennel flowers picked during a stroll in the garden. An onion to start with, plenty of olive oil, the perfect risotto rice, a large fennel, vegetable broth, and here is a beautiful risotto after 30 minutes!
Here it is for my selection of simple recipes for a little dinner fix in Italy!
Well… I’m just back to Tokyo after spending one week in Tuscany, one beautiful week.
It was A. 5th trip and my third in the span of 9months and now is time to share a few addresses and places I really loved.
One of my strong requirement during our trips was to have a kitchen, and for all our trips except that one we stayed in Florence downtown in a very nicely furnished and large enough appartement at the Domux home Ricasoli. The location is ideal to visit the city, go shopping at Sant’Ambrogio market, San Lorenzo market as all detailed in post on Florence. It is also close to the station and to the Duomo.
This time we wanted to avoid crowd and heat so we decided to rent a house in the countryside, something a little typical of Tuscany: a farmhouse on top of a hill. The villa I picked: villa Monterosoli (top picture) didn’t disappoint us. Remote location but still less than 1h drive from all good places and my work places, very quiet and a nice view. A pool for the morning swims, and a cat visiting, some vineyards and olive groves around.
Pip, the cat of the house
As for visiting options they are endless. I usually work in Florence and in Pisa, but there are so many options a short drive away to go for a visit for a few hours. From this summer visits I would say that San Gimignano was a great discovery, Siena’s duomo with the full pavement visible this time was amazing, and Lucca a beautiful small and lively town.
Lucca on top of its historical and classic attractions has a nice vibrant downtown with many shopping options, nice cafes, a cinema in the old villa Bottini with a broad movie selection (old and new), a contemporary art biennale which exhibited large paper sculptures in the street. It felt more crowded than the other places we visited.
Lucca contemporary art biennale: paper-art-designA small bike repair shop in LuccaSan Gimignano from afarView from San Gimignano’s fortified path
San Gimignano was a really great discovery, the scenic going there, the beautiful towers in the city, the churches with beautiful paintings, the paved streets, the view from the fortified path. Everything there was Tuscany at its top. And curiously it was not crowded!
And of course Siena was as beautiful as it was in February when we first visited. The Duomo this time had the full marble mosaics visible (only from mid-August to mid-September) and that was s great surprise. The modernity in the drawings and the beautiful scenes depicted with only white, ocre and black were really stunning.
And of course there are many other small villages to stop by on the way, to discover, to take a short walk, drink a coffee or a freshly squeezed orange juice (my favorite drink in Italy), such as Palaia, Monteriggioni, Greve in Chianti to only cite a few.
There are also the many farmers markets in the morning to go grocery shopping and discover some of the local products. Talk about that in my next post!!!
Sienna’s duomo pavement colorsSienna’s duomo sculptureWalking in Sienna
Going to Paris in August is always a feast! The city is empty of angry Parisian and everything is smooth and nice. Of course there is no theatre show nor opera to see, little exhibitions and some shops and restaurants are closed for the summer holiday, but who cares? It’s the best time to visit Paris to me. The parks are beautifully refreshing and quiet, no little brats to disturb the quietness, the terraces of cafe are less busy, and everything seems to move at a slower pace or in a foggy heat.
I particularly love to walk in the Luxembourg Gardens, stop here and there and look at people, those playing chess, those playing tennis, those seating and lazying, those running frantically… it was perfect because I was working at ENS and we stayed at the newly reopened Lutecia, and the best way to travel back and forth is by crossing the garden!
So one word about the Lutecia… it has always been for me a landmark on the left bank and a place I wanted to stay at. After years of renovation, it finally reopened in July and I was happy A. booked there for this trip. The renovation is in fact not fully finished and it feels like it will be better in a year or so once they will really have finished it.
One thing that I love when traveling is to do a kitchen take over if I don’t have my own kitchen, and after 3 days in Paris I was longing for cooking and took over my best friend’s kitchen for one evening. She picked a recipe she wanted me to prepare and I picked the dessert.
We ended with some gnocchi with jus d’herbe as proposed in Passedat’s book, snd a mirabelles tart. Two simple and delicious recipes.
Mirabelle tart:
– 1.5 kg of mirabelle
– flour and butter for the dough
– a little bit of sugar to sprinkle on top
Prepare the sablé dough with the flour and butter. Roll it, not too thin (mine was and couldn’t absorb all the juice) to the size of your pie dish. Wash the mirabelle and pit them. Set a thick layer of mirabelle in the dough (they will reduce, so really pack them). Sprinkle a bit of sugar. Cook in the oven for 40min at 180deg.
I was planning plenty of posts these days to compensate for the fewer coming in the end of the month due to traveling… but in the end I didn’t manage to get as many as I wanted to… I’m still cooking steadily and trying new combinations but it’s been hot these days and I’ve had little appetite, searching for simple things… so when we had friends over for dinner the other night and I was thinking of desserts… poached peaches immediately were a winner! I love them because they are so simple to make, so delicious and light. I usually prepare them with a verbena syrup but this time I chose to add no sugar to it, so just infused verbena leaves in the water to poach the peaches. A really simple recipe I have from my mother.
Poached peaches in verbena
– peaches (count 1/2 to one peach per person), not to ripen not to hard so that you can remove the stem
– water
– a handful of verbena leaves dry or fresh
Peel and half or quater the peaches. Bring a large pan (where you can put all your peaches) to a boil. Add the verbena leaves and the peaches. Cook until peaches are soft. Keep at room temperature or refrigerated before serving. Yes! That’s it!!!!
When we traveled to Australia last May, I’ve totally fallen in love with lentil pasta and chickpea pasta found in an organic vegan shop. I’m not particularly interested in gluten-free food but taste wise it was really very interesting. So I decided to try to make my own ones from chickpea flour. I knew it wouldn’t have the consistency of regular wheat pasta because it is gluten-free, so I was expecting something hard to roll, but in fact it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. I was first thinking of making farfalle, but I ran out of time, so I just rolled it manually and made some short tagliatelle. Again I new that long pasta wouldn’t hold together and that the pasta machine wouldn’t help here. The result was amazingly delicious. Probably even better with a stronger olive oil and cold. I served them with bacon, zucchini and mallow jute.
Definitely a recommendation and much easier to make than I thought!
Chickpea pasta
– 150g of chickpea flour, plus some for rolling
– water
In a bowl ready with the chickpea flour, a water little by little to obtain a nice mix, not too sticky. Set for rest for 1h.
Then knead a bit shain and on a floured top rolle the dough, cut the pasta.
