Category: Cooking

Rucola lasagna and farewell TPS

You may have realized that for quite a while Tokyo Paris sisters was a lot of Tokyo and nothing from Paris. Well indeed… it seems that after a few years it is now time to move on and for the sisters to split. So after waiting for more than 6 months I have decided that it is now time to end this joint work. Of course, I will still be cooking and posting personally on IG and I am thinking about restarting my original food diary, but it will be only me. I will keep you updated about the new link and place where you will find me, with a revamped website and new format. 

Thank you for following us. I hope you’ll be following me and continue enjoy French-Japan-Italian fresh and healthy cooking with me!

goob bye 

The last recipe is really simple but very very delicious, light and fresh, perfect for a spring day, unlike today.

Rucola and mozzarella lasagna

Make some pasta, or use dry one that you need to boil first. Wash and chop some fresh rucola, slice a mozzarella. In an oven dish pour some olive oil, add a layer of pasta, a layer of rucola, a few slices of mozzarella, repeat 3 or 4 times, finish with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 200deg for 15min. Enjoy! 

Miso spring quiche

The last weekend had a real taste of spring, beautiful weather, warm air, flowers in the garden, pollen allergy e tutti quanti! And at the farmers market na no hana of course but also new potatoes and new onions with green, something in between leek and new onions somehow, and grown in Kujukuri, a few kilometers north of Isumi. To test this newly arrived vegetables, as soon as I saw them I decided to bake a quiche, with miso, tofu and na no hana. The recipe is quite aimple and straight forward. First prepare some dough for the pie crust. I used some whole wheat flour and olive oil. Roll and set in a pie dish. Then in a bowl beat 3 eggs, 3 table spoon of miso and add a piece of momendofu (hard tofu). Beat well, and pour in the pie crust. Wash the vegetables and add more or less elegantly in the mixture. Bake at 180deg for 40min. Et voilà!

French toast

Could you imagine that! I have never eaten French toast!!! Not even once! And never made any either! So today I decided to try to make some with some bread leftover… Everyone knows how to make French toast, even me, I knew!!! It is ultimately easy and rapid: some milk (I used almond milk), an egg, a bit of brown sugar, spices (cinnamon and cardamom, my favorite). Bit the egg with the milk, the sugar and the spices. Soak the bread in it, the cook in butter greased frypan until golden… that’s it. And well I must admit that the taste of spices was good but really, French toast are not in my top list… I prefer to use leftover bread for croutons or give it to the birds… I probably won’t make any a second time… I think the idea of soaking old bread is actually quite not something I like, a main reason why I was never tempted by French toast before (neither English pudding). Now I can say I tried, and won’t again!!! But there’s always a good thing in tring recipes, it’s that it gives some new ideas or chances to test new combinations. And with the milk and egg batter left, I added a bit of flour, some more milk and obtained a spicy crepe mix. And I made a few crepes, served just with butter or sugar, and they were super delicious. The spices added a little teist that was simply perfect! That I will definitely do again!!!

Spring angelica

Oh! These green leaves I love so much and that are so popular in Hachijojima are back at the farmers market!!! Spring is coming and this is one of the great things with it: the massive return of the greens!!! Ashitaba (or angelica) is a great ingredient, easy to cook and that suits very well basic Japanese recipes. This time I prepared some vegetables sautéed with slices of pork and then added ashitaba at the end of the cooking. I also deglazed the whole in a bit of water and soya sauce. A great combination for a scrumptious dinner!

Have a great end of the week! 

Dirty hands

I love to put my hands in gooey mixtures quite a lot, and this weekend is what I did!! I first started bu making some brioches for our breakfast. The dough for brioche is always a hard kneading wirk because of the egg and butter the dough gets really really gooey and it takes a good 30-40min of string kneading to obtain the silky soft and smooth dough expected. I could use a robot you could tell me, but kneading is really part of the fun for me, if not most with eating together the final product. The result: 6 little brioches was really great, all warm out of the oven for breakfast. And when they we finished for tea time, I regretted not to have made more…

The other gooey mixture I worked with this weekend was clay for ceramics. After our experience of making pottery in Kurashiki, we wanted to do some more, and finally by chance the other day at some event in Isumi we found Ezonoco a potter which work I like very much and who is also having some classes at her workshop. So we finally went there and spent the afternoon with hands in the clay and shaping our creations. It was tough work but it was great to work side by side and tease each other and I can’t wait to see the results after they will be out of the oven in a few weeks and we can work on them again. I also thought about the so many things I want to make and that it may finally happen! It makes me really happy!

Quiche…

I could never emphasize enough how much quiches are delicious and always different. Just playing with the thickness of the pie crust and the filling changes everything, changing the filling and the ingredients of the dough make it also completely different. It’s a giant playground that adjusts for all seasons, and provides a perfect meal all at once. Contrarily to most may believe it is actually very simple to cook a quiche, and it can be done quite rapidly. The cooking time (compared to pasta, risotto…) is probably the most critical since it can take up to 40min. But This gives hands free to catch up with the news, do another chores, read a bit, or chat about the day with A.. And the result is always worth the wait!

This time I prepared a simple whole wheat dough with olive oil, rolled it very thin. For the filling, I steamed some leek and canola flowers (and drained well to avoid having a too wet mixture), added a few slices of lotus root, plenty of tofu in the egg base. That’s it!!!

Keep warm!  It’s cold and gloomy in Tokyo.

Canola flowers – 菜の花

In a flash we went from cabbages and sweet potatoes to fukinoto and canola flowers. It’s almost spring already, and the vegetables at the farmers market let you know that! Of course it’s only the beginning, and it is nice and interesting to mix winter and early spring ingredients. Canola flowers are versatile and I am very found of them. They start at the same time plum trees start to bloom and they both are markers of our wedding anniversary. Indeed, we got married under beautiful plum trees in full bloom at Gojoten jinja on a cold and perfectly sunny day of February 2007. And for the celebration lunch Kikuya’s chef prepared among the many dishes some canola flowers that we discovered at that time.

I cook canola flowers, or rather I like to call them the Japanese way: na no hana, quite often when the season comes. They are a good alternative to broccoli and more local. I have tried a lot of different combinations and developed many recipes with na no hana, and I still continue. This time with some beautiful cod fish from Hokkaido I prepared a kind of rice bowl. Simple, healthy, tasty and colorful. Try it please!

Na no hana and cod rice (for 2 people)

– 1 cup of Japanese rice (as always Koshihikari from chiba for me)

– 200g or a small bundle of na no hana

– 200g of fresh cod

– 2cups of katsuobushi dashi

– sesame oil, sesame seeds, salt

First start to cook the rice. While it cooks prepare the rest of the ingredients. In a fry pan start grilling the cod on the skin side at medium heat. In a pan prepare the dashi then add the washed na no hana. Boil them until soft. Drain once cooked and chop. Once the rice and the fish are cooked, in a fry pan add some sesame oil, the rice, the fish in crumbles without the skin, and the na no hana. Stir well and cook at high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add salt and sesame seeds and serve. Enjoy!

Italia!

What was supposed to be a nice and peaceful trip to Italy and France started with quite a bit of a commotion with a few centimeters of snow in Paris… and I landed in Paris at 4:00AM only to learn a few hours later that the flights to Florence I was successively checked-in were all cancelled and I decided to fly to Roma instead and take the train and I arrived in Florence 12h later than expected… My long expected visit to the San Lorenzo market, to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, flowers and cheese was postponed… but not for long! As soon as I came back from work in Pisa on Thursday I went grocery shopping and I could enjoy cooking again the seasonal vegetables that we don’t have in Japan: chards, corn salad…  Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with gnocchi, always with fresh cheese. Here is one of my favorite recipe with corn salad, a fresh simple recipe but really tasty (picture below). I spare you the chard recipes because they were really too simple and the pictures talk for themselves.

Corn salad one plate: 

– 100g of corn salad

– 2 branches of celery

– 6 green asparagus  

– a handful of pine nuts

– freshly grated Parmigiano

– olive oil, salt and pepper  

Wah the vegetables, blanche the asparagus. Chop the celery in dice, chop the asparagus. Mix them together and add the pine nuts. Stir. In the plates, start with corn salad, top with the mixed celery-asparagus-pine nuts, add olive oil, salt and pepper and finish with grated Parmigiano. Enjoy!

Have a great week ahead! 

Pancakes best-of

10 years ago I was baking pancakes twice a year or so… I would often use pancake mix and was never fully happy by the taste and usually had to eat them completely soaked with maple syrup. That was until we travelled to Boston in 2009 and I found a great organic pancake mix at a fancy grocery store. I remember coming back to Tokyo, and waking up very early with the jetlag, the sun was already shining and I decided to take the time to treat us with pancakes made with this newly brought pancake mix before going to work. And it was a revelation, pancakes can actually be really delicious, and they don’t need to be soaked in maple syrup!!! Of course I could never find the pancake mix again, but I didn’t care. What was in the mix taught me that it was really easy to make pancakes from the scratch: any kind flour, baking powder, a bit of sugar or salt, milk (of any kind, or water) and an egg or not (actually now I prefer without, I found the pancakes more fluffy). Since then I have declined all possible ideas: changing the flour: plain, whole, soya, buckwheat, spelt… the milk: cow, almond, soya, coconut, water (when I have nothing in the fridge!), adding muesli, oatmeal, coconut, almond powder, spices, fresh fruits, grated lemon (picture)… making them for breakfast or dinner.., and they are always delicious, different and reslly easy to make. So I roughly cook pancakes once or teice a week when there is nothing else. But here is my ultimate top 3 for the moment:

1. Coconut pancakes: plain flour-coconut milk-grated coconut for a tropical breakfast, perfect with passion fruit jam;

2. Chai pancakes: plain or whole flour-cardamom-cinnamon-ginger for a cold winter morning, great with honey;

3. Muesli pancakes: whatever pancake base with muesli (nuts, cereals and dried fruits) added, anytime an extra energy is needed, I love these ones with butter.

But I must say that the lemon pancakes I cooked recently were amazing and could be in the top 3 together with muesli . Unfortunately I find it hard to get organic or non-chemical/wax lemons so it is not a recipe I can often prepare. Though last weekend I bought about 20lemons at a local organic market in Isumi, so I will use more lemon in the next weeks (after I’m back from Italy and France).

Lemon pancakes 

– 150g of flour

– 1tsp of baking powder, a pinch of salt

– 1tbs of brown sugar

– the zest of 1 lemon

– 200ml of soya milk

– a bit of water

– a bit of vanilla  

Mix all the ingredients to obtain a creamy dough not too liquid. 

Heat a large fry pan (anti-adhesive) pour 3 or 4 rounds of dough (depending on the size of the frypan and of the pancakes) cook at medium Heat until the top is almost dry, flip and cook on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Serve with honey or yuzu jam!

 

 

 

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