Category: French food

Soup and bread…

What is more comforting than a warm soup when you have spent the whole day outside and the temperature have suddenly dropped? Every year I am shocked by the sudden change of the temperatures in Japan in autumn. There is always one day in November when you start the day wearing tea shirts and short pants, and go swimming in the morning and then turn on the heater and cashmere sweat pants and sweater in the evening are more than necessary. When this time comes, I crave for warm vegetables soups. A. always complains as he prefers them to be velouté. I love any style, but rarely bother using the blender, and prefer listen to A.’s complaint… 😉

One thing that I love with soup is when they come with croutons, but I also have amazing memories of rural vegetables soup with fresh sourdough bread eaten at Mme Fages’s place in Mas Saint Chely. Something that I would be so happy to have, warming up near the fireplace after a mushroom hunt in the cold. That and her chocolate mousse!

Now that I have Lois and make only sourdough bread, it was perfect for this kind of very simple dinner: a piece of bread remaining from breakfast, many vegetables waiting too long their turn to be prepared, a pan with the juice of a long cooked piece of pork. That’s what this soup is made of, and here is the recipe.

Vegetables soup and bread (2 servings)

  • 1/2 sweet potato
  • A piece of kabocha (3cm slice)
  • 1 little turnip
  • 1 carrot
  • 2 bundles of komatsuna or spinach
  • Water, salt and pepper
  • Bouillon of your choice, mine comes from the pan in which I slowly cooked a piece of pork
  • 2 generous slices of sourdough bread

In the pan I cooked the pork I add about 600ml of water and heat. I wash, peel and chop the vegetables and add them to the bouillon in order: carrot, turnip, sweet potato, kabocha, greens. I cook at medium heat until the vegetables are soft or mushy. Add salt and pepper. Blend and serve. Top with the bread roughly cut, and eat right away.

No need for butter, olive oil, no nothing.

Quenelles…

That’s something I haven’t cooked for 4 years!!! Can you believe that??? The last time I made some was for that post back in 2016!!! And then… nothing… strange enough because (1) I like quenelle very much, (2) it’s not difficult to make, (3) it requires only simple ingredients I always have in the pantry… So with the weather getting chillier it was a good time for turning the oven on more than usual.

I used the recipe from my previous post and slightly adjusted it, it is for regular quenelles, they don’t become very fluffy… I still don’t know how to make them fluffier, I need to work on it. But even not fluffy it tastes great. This time also I used fresh cream, but I realized once again (I rarely use cream so I have a tendency to forget) that Japanese fresh cream sold in supermarkets is not very good for oven cooking, it dries out and only the fat remains, which looks buttery and not creamy anymore… Milk to cook the quenelles first and adding the cream later is probably a better solution…

Still here is the recipe adjusted.

Quenelles (2-3 servings)

For the quenelles

  • 150 flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 50g of butter
  • a pinch of salt and nutmeg

For the sauce

  • 6 large shiitake or the equivalent of other simple mushrooms
  • 4tsp of fresh cream (if you like it) or olive oil can work…
  • 1 cup of milk
  • salt and pepper

In a pan the butter. Heat until the butter has melted. Add the flour, and cook at low heat for 8min. If you have a hard time mixing in all the flour add a few drops of water.

The final dough after cooking and smoothing

Cool down a bit and add the eggs, the salt, the nutmeg, and stir well. You should obtain a smooth dought that doesn’t stick. If it sticks add a little more flour, if too dry add a bit of water. Cut the dough in 8 pieces and form the quenelles as shown in the picture below. Boil a large amount of water and poach the quenelles until they float.

Set in an oven dish, add the milk. Wash and slice the mushrooms, add to the whole. If you use fresh cream (not Japanese) add it now. Add salt and generously add pepper. Pre heat the oven at 200 degrees. And bake for 30min. At 20min add the cream (if you use Japanese cream). They get golden brownish on the top when ready. Serve and eat immediately.

I knew it…

Well… while this week has been crazy busy with work, I also was very excited with my sourdough experiment… and things turned out almost as I expected they would… with utter fun when Lois grew and foamed and in utter disappointment when it stopped, finishing in a nauseous mess that stunk like I couldn’t imagine it would. Sourdough is not for me, I knew it…

Lois on the 2nd day, gently bubbling

I read books, blogs, websites about sourdough before starting (it took me 5 years to get ready for the commitment!!!!) and while I was observing it growing. I wanted to do right, not to waste precious time and resources. Then I was almost desperate when it started to stink, read even more about all the possible tricks, tested them all: sugar, malt, fridge, not fridge, more food, more mixing, rest, splitting it and starting afresh… nothing seemed to have worked truly. Almost 1kg of mixture went down the drain in a terrible smell. The rest is sitting in the kitchen in a desperate hope I can still save it. The smell is gone but no foaming and bubbling as I thought it would… part of the passive mixture was used for pancakes this morning…

But before things went south I had on the third day just enough to make a tiny bread to test it when it was still good! And damned! Even if I rushed it a bit ( temperature went down with the rain so the rising was too slow for the impatient me!) the crust was perfectly crusty, the crumbs were moist and soft, and the taste of whole wheat and sourdough was amazing. Enough to keep me trying to save what is left of Lois… so now I am in this terrible situation where I want to stop hoping I can grew a stable relationship with my sourdough, but I can’t take the final decision to trash it all, as the taste of sourdough bread was so perfect…

An old recipe

Making a quiche requires quite many ingredients. First flour and butter for the dough, then eggs and milk or cream fir the egg base and finally something to put in: vegetables, bacon, fish, cheese… then it takes 30-40min to bake it to perfection. It’s not something you prepare and serve 20min after you’ve started cooking.

But one day, when I was rather young and staying at my best friend’s house, her mother made a quiche, or rather what in French we call a savory tart with minimum ingredients and cooking time: the mustard tart. Back in France many people buy ready-to-use rolled pie crust so this makes it even simpler, but here what is stunning is the baking time. Because there is no egg base, it is really short.

Unfortunately the original recipe is all about cheese, and this doesn’t work for A. so I barely cook mustard tarts, until the other day when I decided to replace his share of cheese by thinly sliced local sausages. He had his meat, I had my cheese and everyone was happy to have lunch ready in no time!!!

So if you want to try, here is the original recipe and my recipe:

Mustard tart (classic)

  • flour, butter, water for one pie crust
  • 2 large and ripe tomatoes
  • 2tbs of mustard
  • 1-2 handful of grated emmental or gruyere cheese

Prepare the dough and roll for a 30cm low pie dish. Spread the mustard. Wash and thinly slice the tomatoes, sprinkle the cheese. Bake at 200deg until the cheese os melted and slightly golden. That’s it!!!

Mustard tart (meaty version half/half)

  • flour, butter, water for one pie crust
  • 2 large and ripe tomatoes
  • 2tbs of whole grain mustard (makes the whole milder)
  • 1 handful of grated emmental or gruyere cheese
  • 2-4 little sausages

Proceed exactly as above but just slice the sausages, sprinkle them on one half, and the cheese on the other. It is really that simple!!!

Pain au lait

I’ve been baking a lot of breads these days but suddenly I felt like eating a variety of other baked things such as brioche, until A. saw a picture of a pan bagnat in a magazine and asked me to make one for him. I didn’t see the picture, and instead of thinking of the classic pan bagnat from the south of France, that you can eat in Saint Tropez or in Nice, in a kind of ciabatta bread, a little dry, I thought about the soft and melty version in a pain au lait, went straight to the kitchen and started making dough for pain au lait. I used to use the recipe from Kayser bread book, but decided to change, and opted for a mix and match version. The whole thing ended up in delicious, soft and tasty perfect little breads. And that’s when A. told me that the pan bagnat he saw was not in a pain au lait… 🙁

No problem I said, how about egg and ham sandwiches instead???

And that’s how they turned out… and it was damned delicious. So here is the recipe of the pain au lait.

For the egg sandwich filling, I simply hard boiled 3eggs, chopped them with a knife, add a table spoon of olive oil, a table spoon of mustard, that’s it.

Pain au lait (makes 8)

  • 280g of flour
  • 3g of dry yeast
  • 70g of butter
  • 35g of sugar
  • 100g of milk
  • 5g of salt
  • 1 egg + 1 egg optional for cooking

In a bowl mix the flour, the sugar, the salt and the yeast, add the egg and the milk and knead. Add the butter and knead until smooth and not sticky, it may take a bit of time. Let rest under a cloth until it almost doubles. You can flip the dough once in the meantime. Rising time will depend on your room temperature, your yeast, and the original temperature of ingredients. For a faster rise, use ingredients at room temperature.

Once the dough has doubled almost, dust your working surface with flour and the ball of dough. Flatten it and then make a rough oblong shape. Cut pieces of 70g-90g each, shape roughly in sausage. Don’t work too much the dough. And set on a sheet of cooking paper. Leave for 1-2h. Pre-heat the oven to 175deg. If you want perfectly golden little breads, use an egg batter. I you don’t care about the color, just spare it.

Bake at 175deg 10min then at 170deg another 10min or until perfectly golden. That’s it!!!

Have a good week!!

Edamame fougasse

Ohoh! Exploring new possibilities with edamame will last the whole season!!! This recipe of fougasse came naturally to my mind as I love to bale fougasse for summer evenings drinks or summer lunches when I need something quick.

In Japanese bread shops you can sometimes find edamame and gouda breads, and I like them very much, but the idea of a simpler version (without the gouda for A.) and with olive oil and salt tempted me a lot, that the last batch of edamame I had was used to that purpose.

The result is really nice but my recipe needs a little improvements to emphasize more the edamame. So I am sharing with you the improved version but not tested yet… but I am sure it will be delicious.

Edamame fougasse (makes 1 bread)

  • 200g of flour
  • 3g of yeast
  • 7g of salt
  • Water
  • Olive oil
  • A handful of boiled, shelled and peeled edamame

I only use fresh edamame, so the recipe starts by boiling the pods in salted water. Once boiled and cool, shell and peel them. Add a bit of salt.

Prepare the dough of the fougasse: mix the flour, 5g of salt, the yeast, add 2tbs of olive oil, and water to obtain a soft, silky and smooth dough. Add the edamame and knead a bit. Let rest for it to rise. Once is has started to rise you can work it in the shape of the fougasse, and let rest about 30-60min depending on your room temperature.

Bake at 230deg until golden. When out of the oven spread a thin layer of olive oil and sprinkle a bit of salt. That’s it!!!

Japanese flavors meet mum’s classic recipe

In the late spring and early summer, back then when we lived in France, my mother would often cook a potatoes salad with green beans or broad beans and new onion. Or she would prepare broad beans with tomatoes. Broad beans, or Morocco ingen モロッコインゲン, are very easy to find in Japan. In Isumi they seems to be growing quite easily, it’s on the farmers market stall from early June. (Oh! By the way, it seems that the name “ingen” comes from the name of a monk that imported green beans to Japan a few centuries ago!!)

Like my mother, I like to prepare broad beans, and a potato salad is always handy because it can be prepared ahead of time and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. Perfect lunch for a busy day. Though I live the dressing my mother prepare for this salad – her classic recipe is here – I wanted to test the new katsuo flakes from Katsuura I bought recently and I am also trying to finish the last umeboshi from last uear to make space for the new ones that will be arriving in a few weeks. The dressing for my potatoes and broad beans salad was all set. The mixture of flavors, familiar yet newly combined made this recipe really super easy and delicious. So here it is.

Japanese flavors potatoes and broad beans salad (serves 2)

  • 150g of new potatoes
  • 200g of broad beans
  • 1 large umeboshi
  • A handful of katsuo flakes
  • 1tbs of soya sauce
  • 1tbs of olive oil

Boil the potatoes and broad beans. Do not over cook the broad beans. Drain. In a bowl add the vegetables, extract the flesh of the plum, scatter it on the vegetables. Add the olive oil, the soya sauce, top with the katsuobushi. Serve at room temperature or cold.

Bamboo shoot

The short season of this delicious and subtle vegetable has started and it’s time to enjoy it now!!! Usually I would only cook it on the weekend because it requires a very long boiling, but thanks to telework this is something I can cook any day now! That’s the one good thing of working from home! Though with my new rythme since January I was already able to prepare recipes that require a longer cooking time, now I can take it to the next level: bread, Japanese brown rice, slow cooking, and bamboo shoots!!!

To celebrate that I came up with a new recipe: sautéed bamboo shoots and potatoes with olive oil and sansho. Sansho and bamboo shoot are a Japanese classic assortment, olive oil and potatoes more of a south-east French one. I mixed the two ideas. After boiling your bamboo shoot until tender, slice it. Boil a few potatoes, cut them and toss them in a pan with olive oil. Add the bamboo shoot slices and cook at high heat while stirring gently once in a while. Add a bit of salt, serve and top with fresh sansho leaves. Enjoy spring in your plate!!!
If you don’t have sansho you can use katsuobushi flakes… that’s also a great match to both potatoes and bamboo shoots!
Have a great day!

Croissants!!!

I use to hunt down the best croissants in Tokyo, I found some, but best shops making the best croissants change over time… Recently we went nearby our place at the factory, and they have probably close to the best pain au chocolat but definitely not the best croissants… and a space that maybe perfect for a gloomy morning but not for a bright sunny day, I preferred the park nearby.

Pain au chocolat from factory

Knowing that finding delicious croissants in Tokyo, you can imagine that in Isumi it is a bit of challenge. Grain makes delicious croissants and pains au chocolat but they open too late to have freshly baked croissants in the morning. The only option was that I tried making some again. Indeed after three or four miserable attempts in the past years, I decided that an ugly weekend would be the perfect timing for another attempt. And that’s just what we got: pouring rain for almost 2 days and strong winds, notwithstanding a drop in temperature back to a modest 5.

Instead of testing again a recipe I had in my books and didn’t work for me, I chose to go online and pick a video tutorial. After watching a few I picked the video by Domi patiss, because it was neither too short, nor too long, because her croissants look really fluffy and delicious, and she had a few hints that made sense to me. I followed her recipe almost to the letter except for quantities and I must say that for the first time I managed to make croissants that both have the taste and appearance of croissants from a boulanger… They were delicious!!!

So here is what I did… there is a lot of waiting/resting time, so it took 24h to make the croissants, but the actual “action” time is always very short. The video by Domi patiss is in French but quite visual to understand the folding and rolling tips she gives.

Croissants (make 6-8 pieces)

– 250g of flour

– 70g of water

– 60g of milk

– 6g of fresh yeast

– 7g of salt

– 20g of brown sugar

– 10g + 110g of butter

In a large bowl I mix the flour, the sugar, the salt, add the water, the milk, the yeast and 10g of butter. I knead until smooth, roll into a 25 by 15cm rectangle, wrap not too tight and set in the fridge for 12h at least. The dough should raise during that time.

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/video-1.mov

Then I roll it onto a rectangle of about 25cm by 50cm. Cut the 110g of butter (cold) in thin slices and cover half of the dough. Flip the other half on top and roll again to obtain the same size again. Fold in four, wrap and refrigerate for 1h.

Roll again to the same size or larger and fold in three this time. Refrigerate for another hour.

Finally roll again to the same size. Cut the edges to make apparent the feuilletage. Cut 6-8 triangles, roll them into croissant, set for another hour to rest at room temperature.

Apply an egg batter on the croissants and bake at 210deg for 15min or until perfectly golden. Enjoy!!!

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