Category: Japanese food

Brown rice and curry double-tap

With all the fresh spring vegetables now available, in particular carrots, lotus roots, snap peas… and the weather changing quickly from sunny and warm to windy and chilly, a warm curry is always nice, accompanied with brown rice.

And with friends around I cook always much more than we can eat so I often have left over and brown rice makes a great base for a crunchy pie crust. So here are my recipes.

Spring coconut milk vegan curry:

– carrots

– lotus roots

– snap peas

– new onion

– red bell pepper

– coconut milk

– curry powder

– salt

– brown rice

Cook the brown rice in a rice cooker or in a pan at low heat under cover with twice more water than usual.

Was and peel the vegetables and cut them as pleases you. In a large fry pan or wok start by cooking the onion at low heat to soften them a bit, then add the lotus root, the carrots, the coconut milk and a tsp of curry powder, a pinch of salt. Cook at low heat for 10min. Add the red bell pepper and finally the snap peas. I like my vegetables crunchy so I try to avoid over cooking. Serve the rice and the curry together.

Brown rice quiche:

The base of this recipe is the left over from the previous, but you can start from the scratch.

– cooked brown rice

– flour

– vegetal oil

– sesame oil

– new onion, snap peas, and any other vegetables of your choice

– tofu

– eggs

For the pie crust, in a bowl mix the brown rice, flour and add a bit of water and vegetal oil and sesame oil to obtain a very granulated dough. Roll it on cooking paper to a thin layer the size of your pie dish, plus the sides.

Drain the tofu. Wash and cut the veggies (if using the leftover then it’s all set). Mix the tofu with the eggs, the vegetables and pour everything in the pie crust. Cook at 180deg for about 25 min. If you didn’t use the leftover you can still add coconut milk and curry to the tofu-egg batter.

Have a great week!!!

New wakame

There’s a season for everything and now is the season of new wakame apparently. This dried seaweed that is most often used in miso soup and in salad can be used in a variety of recipes I assumed and so I tried something half French half Japanese for this recipe. It all started with the finding of wild (should I mention) splendid alfonsino (kin me dai 金目鯛) that really attracted me, and some green peas (I’m a big big fan of green peas), that could complement the snap peas and new onion I had already. For the fish I simply grilled it on the skin side in a pan without any thing added, and flipped it when almost done to obtain a crispy outside. For the vegetables, that’s where the new wakame goes, I simply blanched the peas for 2min then drained them and in a pan with a bit of olive oil I grilled the onion and the added the wakame cut with scissors in small bits, and finished with the peas. Wakame, new or not is a dried seaweed, it needs a bit of moisture to return to its normal condition. The oil and the moisture from the onion and the peas is the perfect amount to keep it a little crunchy, too much moisture makes it quite chewy I find. Stir a bit and serve. No need to add salt, it’s already salty from the wakame.

Oh! I forgot! It’s the beginning of golden week in Japan! So happy golden week!!!

Bamboo shoots – 筍

The season for bamboo shoots has started for sure and it goes together with the season for Japanese pepper or sansho 山椒 fresh leaves also called kinome. The sansho shrub in our garden is actually growing steadily after I thought it might be dying last summer and there are plenty of new leaves and soon plenty of fruits. Bamboo shoots and sansho leaves are a very classic mix in Japanese cuisine and it indeed matches very well. I already introduced the recipe two years ago after we tried an amazing version at the shojin cuisine restaurant Daigo. My recipe is not exactly the classic one since I use simply olive oil and kinome. Nothing else. It is really simple and very tasty. It makes a perfect starter. Bamboo shoots are always a little long to prepare because they need two cooking. The first boiling to make them tender and remove any bitterness, the second for the final preparation, but they are definitely worse trying. Remember that to remove the bitterness it is good to cook bamboo shoots in rice water (the first rinse of white rice) or in rice nuka, but honestly rice water is much simpler and cleaner!!! This time I used katsuobushi dashi for the second cooking. Then cut in thin slices and added chopped kinome with olive oil.

Spring savory delights

Nothing to do with the recipe I am presenting today, but the other night we went to check the newly opened Tokyo midtown Hibiya. A new building with many shops, a large Toho cinema and a terrace garden with a view on Hibiya park and the imperial palace. The place just opened so it was very crowded in apparence but the overall place was quiet and walking around was smooth and nice. Shops are for the most the same as elsewhere. Brand names, big and small, chains. Nothing really to impressive. The only thing that I found fun and interesting was the retro corner on the 3rd floor, with some craft, a barber, a book store and some sculptural clothes.

There is one trend tough that I find quite interesting. 15 years ago when we arrived in Tokyo there a few cinemas, mainly old, that little by little were closing down, until it was a real pain to find one. Recently many of the new shopping places downtown have a large dedicated cinema. Toho cinemas are really spreading and now it is really easy to find a screening in original version too. Yet movies release is still super delayed compared to other countries and we usually watch the “new” movies on the international itunes store before they are available in Japanese theaters!!! And what to eat with a good movie? Pasta or a good and simple Japanese vegan meal with rice and sautéed vegetables. To celebrate spring I really like snap peas, for the crunchy texture, the little tart and sweet taste, and the brillant green. And I also love the salted sakura flowers with rice in particular, but not only ( I made some sable last weekend and it was great!). And since I still have some lotus root (I bought a giant one!) I cooked the all thing to be served together. Sautéed in a little of oil for the lotus root, then add a little of water to steam the snap peas on top, finish with soys sauce. For the sakura, I wash the salt in water and add them to the cooked and hot rice. Serve all and eat happily while watching a movie!!

Stuffed lotus root

There is one thing that I don’t cook often but I love, is stuffed lotus root. It is not always easy ro find big, clean or still untouched lotus roots, but when I do, I definitely try to make some stuffed lotus root, changing recipes depending on the available ingredients and the mood of the moment. This weekend I found huge lotus roots that were untouched and perfectly cleaned. And I tried a filling made with chicken meat and curry spices. The result was a crispy melty spicy combo that I served with simple fresh salad and radishes and a bowl of plain rice.

Spring vegetables

March/April is a busy time of the year, this is the end of the fiscal and academic year and the beginning of the new one. It is usually busy at work, with graduation ceremony, budget closing, preparation of the lectures, and new students arrival. It is also A.’s birthday and the time when cherry trees are blooming. The season also to say goodbye to winter and to mushrooms, cabbage, leek and sweet potatoes and welcome all the new spring vegetables. Last week we also had the visit of friends from Germany and Though I was busy I wanted to cook something Japanese and seasonal. Luckily I found some udo, and I remembered a nice recipe with white miso. And since I has some dried hijiki I added them to the preparation (wakame is also great, but I preferred hijiki for the black & white effect. It is a very simple recipe, delicious with very typical Japanese flavors.

Udo with white miso dressing

– 1 udo

– 20g of dried hijiki, or wakame (optional)

– 2tbs of white miso

– 1tbs of sake

– 1tsp of brown sugar

– 1tbs of white vinegar (for removing the bitterness of the udo)

Cut the udo in 4cm pieces. Peel them and slice them finely. If the udo is really large cutting them in half is better. In a large bowl put 500ml of water and the vinegar, add the udo and once in a while give a turn.

In a bowl of tepid water add the hijiki or the wakame to rehydrate them.

In a small pan add the white miso the sugar and the sake and cook at low medium heat while stirring until creamy liquid.

Drain the udo, the hijiki, put in a bowl and stir well, add the miso dressing, stir again and serve.

Japanese spring

Here I am! Back to warm and blossoming Tokyo! What a difference from Canada! Not only it is warm and all the cherry trees are blossoming, people are out to enjoy the weather and the flowers, there is this very special euphoria in March in Japan. The season for graduation, for endings and soon new departures. And we are no exception to that. April is going to be busy, full of novelty and surprises.

When I left Tokyo almost two weeks ago we were only having a few spring veggies: new potatoes mainly and a few greens from the south of Japan, by the time I’m back new carrots, onions, green peas, all the wild vegetables are displayed at the fresh food corner. Bamboos shoots also will be there soon! Since both A. and I are coming back from long separated trips and we are both suffering from jetlag from different time zones, the first things we did was to go grocery shopping to indulge ourselves with a nice dinner that will make us feel the season and prepare our mind and bodies to the Japanese time. It is quite rare I shop for food in Tokyo recently, but I have a few favorite places: Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi, Seijo ishi Tokyo Dome or Isetan Shinjuku. This time we stopped at Mitsukoshi and got some fresh new vegetables and a piece of fresh red sea-bream. It’s not always easy to find wild fish but at least I know each of these three places usually have some. And the dinner then was just simply decided with a classical preparation of sautéed vegetables slightly deglazed in soya sauce and pan grilled fish. And I am so happy to be back.

Haru kiku – 春菊

I’ve seen these beautiful green leaves for a while now but never cooked any before. Cooking is quite a big word for something that is perfect just washed and chopped like lettuce etc… In fact the trigger for trying was a recipe I found in browsing one of my macrobiotic cookbook and I totally loved the recipe at first, not because of the haru kiku but because of the hijiki. Some time ago I bought a little bag of dried hijiki made locally in Isumi. I made a few things with them but I find myself very limited, or I didn’t try enough, so this recipe was saving me. And it is just the season for haru kiku, so of course I found some right away at the local farmers market and I was more than happy to try them!

The original recipe is simply hijiki, haru kiku, olive oil and balsamic vinegar (a little weird for a macrobiotic recipe though…). My recipe goes like this:

Haru kiku and hijiki salad (for 2 as a side dish)

– a handful of haru kiku

– 20g of dried hijiki

– 2 slices of whole wheat or so bread

– 2 tbs of olive oil for frying the bread

– 1 tbs of olive oil for the dressing

– 1 tsp of white vinegar (I used rakkasu)

First rehydrate the hijiki in a bit of water. In the mean time dice the bread and fry it in the olive oil. Wash the haru kiku and cut the leaves from the stalk with the fingers, keep the leaves, trash the stalks. Then brake or cut the leaves in three. Drain the hijiki, add them to the haru kiku in a bowl, add the olive oil and vinegar and stir well, finally add the croutons and stir again. Enjoy as a side dish!

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! 

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