Category: French food

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.

Dough at half time of the first rise
Shaped and ready for the second raise
Breakfast ready with hot bread, homemade persimmon jam and enjoying the fall colors in the garden

October craze

October is always a busy month… start of the new term and teaching again, hunting for the new students for the next spring, a few business trips usually, people visiting from Europe and the best season to enjoy outdoor and prepare the garden for the winter, so days and nights are way too short…

But there are always great things happening in October… Yesterday we had the visit of M.-san… though we’ve been in touch through SNS we haven’t met since May 2016 when we delivered to her house two of the four little kittens Pablo has left orphans. When we met then I was heart broken from the loss of our beloved stray cat and of having to split with the kittens so I remember barely the lunch we had together… Time has showed that M.-san is a loving mother for the cats, they’ve grown beautifully and I see pictures of them often on IG!!! But it was time to meet again, and I was happy when she said she would visit us. M.-san is both into cooking and into flowers. And she does that for a living… so it’s very inspiring for me!!! But it was challenging to chose then what to cook for her, as she teaches cha-kaiseki. I decided to prepare something very French, classic and simple, using the products from Isumi. And I opted for a classic quiche lorraine with Isumi smoked ham, milk and eggs from Chiba and a sablé pie crust. I served it with a simple shredded salad, cherry tomatoes and olives from the garden in Aix.

And for dessert a spicy apple compote. Nothing too amazing but simple fresh and delicious products only… we had a great time chatting about food, flowers and cats of course!!!

Winged beans

As I was explaining on IG yesterday, at the farmers market I found a new (to me) vegetable, it is green, fancy shaped and called 四角豆 shikakumame in Japanese. As it is a 豆 mame (bean) I figured I would like it, and after discussing with the farmer who told me it is easy as okra to prepare, I immediately put them in my basket. I wasn’t sure what to do with them but a quick browsing of the web inspired me. And rather than preparing something Asian style, which seems to be what it is mostly used in, I decided to go for something more western style: pasta with butternut squash and crispy bacon and the famous winged beans. That was simple and a great discovery! The winged beans taste like green beans but greener. And the wings are a bit like mushrooms in texture but green… I really loved them! I hope I’ll find more in the future!

Winged beans pasta (for 2people)

– 4 or 5 winged beans

– a piece of butternut squash

– 3 slices of bacon

– 120g of pasta

While boiling water for the pasta, cut the ban and grill it in a pan. Peel the butternut squash and cut in bites. Add to the bacon and cook at medium heat under cover. Wash the winged beans and cut them in bites. Add to the pan, and cook for 8min under cover while the pasta cook. After straining the pasta, add to the pan, stir well and serve. Add a bit of salt and pepper if you like.

PS: I had to remove the comments option from the page because it was trashed with spam… sorry… please use fb or ig or dm me!

Making bread

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!

Paris

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.

Figs are back!!

This year I have the impression that everything is earlier than usual.

Blueberries are almost finished and figs are already ripening and are quite delicious. Farmers are getting ready to harvest rice in Chiba. Even Sarusuberi trees are blossoming almost 1month earlier than usual… So with the figs ready I was thinking of rich almond powder and fig tarts… but them I changed my mind because I wanted something less buttery and less sweet for breakfast, and without eggs. I then opted for a new recipe of scones with fresh figs.

In the regular scone dough I added half of a big fig to the mixture and almond powder. Then I topped each scone with a quarter of fig before baking. The result was a delicious breakfast. Nourishing and full of summer flavors, but not as rich as a fig tart. It’s too hot for such rich food now!

I’m looking for new ideas of recipes with fig, so any idea is welcome!!!

Some new greens

Every season brings a new kind of greens to the table, not just seasonal but also things I have never seen or cooked before. That’s what is fun with shopping at local farmers markets. Each one has some different products. When I shop in Ohara, I don’t find the same things than when I shop in Kuniyoshi, 10km inland or in Ohtaki, just a little further inland. There is always something I have never seen, or something rare in Ohara. For example cresson cannot be found easily in Ohara but inland yes!!! This time I’ve found a new type of green with beautiful thick and shiny green leaves and hollow stems. I used them like spinach somehow but it has a more grassy taste. And with the heat settling in Tokyo I prepared a simple dish with French green lentils, this new green blanched with okra, olive oil and curcuma.

Stay cool!

Cherries

When I was a child, every year for mother day, which in France is at the end of May, we would go to my grandparents country house in Le Castelet to have a family lunch. From those lunches I remember catching tadpoles in the small stream that was running down the garden and picking cherries in the giant cherry trees near that stream. The trees were so old and big that we could spend the whole day in the trees picking and eating cherries, there would still be so many left. For me, cherries are great eaten from the tree, big, ripe and juicy Burlat or from the market stand. I love to keep one seed in my mouth for hours and work it like the sea would work a pebble. Since we’ve been in Japan it’s been quite hard to find cherries, and cherries by kilos like you see them in the south of France or in Italy… the only cherries you can find are from the US, or the local ones are from Yamagata and are sold by the handful, not more. They have different varieties of cherries from dark burgundy to almost white, large or small. I still love them large and almost black! I don’t buy cherry often but when I do I usually prepare them in clafoutis, and when I don’t have enough for one clafoutis I mix them with other seasonal fruits.

I find that clafoutis are the perfect option for breakfast on a rush as they combine both fruits, carbs and protein, and they are easy to eat when not yet really awake when we wake up early. They are also easy to eat on the go because there easy to wrap. Perfect for breakfast on the beach after a morning swim or a bodyboarding session.

I wish you a great week and love to hear how you like your cherries!

Recurring failure

I’m usually pretty confident in what I do, and in cooking more than anything else. I can try new recipes or invent new ones on the fly with quite some easiness and usually I obtain very very good results (it was one if the motivations for me to start this culinary journal, to keep track of my inventions).

That said (a little bit of self flattering never hurts!!!), I am not super human and there are things that I can never manage to master. Croissants are a great fancy for me and I love the idea of freshly baked croissants, buttery and fluffy, with a perfect puff to start a great Sunday. Despite having tried 4 or 5 times, having checked different recipes, watch videos and read books… I failed poorly in reaching my goal every single time. The taste is always great but the result is never a puff pastry croissants, it is a bread-ish, brioche-ish, milk bread-ish thing but never puffed. I don’t know what’s wrong with what I do or use. I’m incriminating the floor, the yeast, the kneading, the rolling and the folding… tried to improve each but didn’t succeed. If you are a successful croissants maker I’ll be more than happy to receive first hand feedbacks and hints to succeed next time. I’m also considering finding a class, if you know any I’ll be happy to learn about it…

Please help me make puffy croissants for Sunday morning breakfast !!!

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