More deal!!!

Remember, last week our little old neighbor gave us some of her special ginger and goya preparation.

Since I harvested to many persimmons (and there are still plenty to come) and I don’t know what to do with all these, I gave her a few and then she came back with more of her special pickles and preparations. So this week I managed to deal with her to teach me how to prepare the goya and the ginger, so hopefully I’ll share with you that very soon. She also gave us umeboshi and pickled myoga. Super delicious with plain rice! And plum jam. I’m looking forward to June, the harvest season for plums! This time I want to try to make umeboshi too!!!

Thanks a lot Obasan!!!

By the way, if you live in Tokyo and want persimmons, let me know before the birds have them all!!

October 28, 2015

Ochanomizu-Akihabara revival

The west of Tokyo with it’s big centers like Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shimokitazawa… has been for long the most lively and trendy places of Tokyo, while the east was mere old areas attracting old people, sometimes falling appart or for the tourists: Asakusa, Ueno, Akihabara, Nihonbashi, Ginza… The area between Ochanomizu ad Akihabara, and the one between Asakusa and Nihonbashi (right where we live), have changed slowly in the past 5 years with a lot of cafes and craft shops opening here and there. The trend was confirmed by two big initiatives using the under-track space of the Yamanote line in Okachimachi and the Sobu line in Manseibashi: aki-oka artisan 2k540 and Maach ecute. If I knew about both for some time and have been to aki-oka quite often, I’ve never really had the chance to go to Maach which opened more recently, until yesterday. Since it is an “ecute”, the usual name for stations shopping mall I was expecting to see the same fashion and accessories brands as in every ecute, but it was a completely different thing. Under the arcades of the tracks there is a path and shop, or rather stalls continuously span, without knowing exactly what brand it is. The space is very beautiful, and since I went there around 20:30 it was extremely quiet. The majority of shops are interior and natural clothing shops, which is again the typical new image of Tokyo east side, with similar trends in Marunouchi, in Nihonbashi… There are also a number of cafes and restaurants. I went to Fukumori, because I like their food from the north of Honshu and their simple concept very much, and have been often to their other shop in Bakurocho, but there are several others cafe I’d like to try. I’ll keep you updated!

I didn’t regret paying a visit there, and I think that’d be one of my hide away for rainy days!

October 27, 2015

Macrobiotic dry curry

As I was mentioning earlier, we found close to our home in Ohara, a macrobiotic local kind of small community where they have a cafe and a tiny shop. We had lunch there and it was delicious, and after we went to check out the little shop and I found this book: “whole rice & veggies on plate meals”, which was written by people from the community, and which presents seasonal recipes all gegan and somehow macrobiotic, or what they call “soft macrobi”. Perfect for me who enjoy the vegan food but don’t becessarily adhere to macrobiotics: I hate imposed rules in particular when it comes to food. I have my own, I like them and I think they suit me well. Well, this book is a treasure trive of midern Japanese recipes and I really enjoy looking at all the recipes and in particular the ones using ingredients I seldom use or buy. Coincidently, some time ago, a friend traveling to Koya brang us back some Koyadofu, a kind if dry tofu that can be rehydrated and used in several preparations. So I jumped on the occasion to prepare the first recipe I found with Koyadofu: vegetables dry curry. Dry curry mesns that there is no thick sauce like in regular Japanese curry.

The recipe is awfully simple, I had most of the ingredients but not all, so I replaced them and interpreted my way. For 2 You need 2 blocks of Koyadofu, 1 green pepper, 1 potato, 1/2 onion (I used a red onion), 1 tomato, curry powder, carvi seeds, cinnamon powder, salt, pepper, 1 tbs of miso, 1 tbs of apricot jam (I used kaki jam), a bit of soya sauce and s bit of oil. First cut all the veggies in 5mm cubes, the tomato can be cut in large chuncks. Rehydrate the tofu in hot water, drain roughly. In a pan with oil, cook atlow heat the veggies, but the tomato, add the carvi seeds and the curry powder, the cinnamon. In a mixer, mix the tofu, the jam, the miso, salt pepper, soya sauce. Add the mixture to the veggies, cook until almost dry. Serve with rice. I serve with a mixture I made of whole rice, black rice, red rice, barley and white rice. Super delicious, but not very picturesque I reckon!!!!

October 26, 2015

Lotus root – 蓮根

As you may have noticed already I really love to cook lotus roots (renkon-蓮根) . They have a beautiful white color that goldens when cooked, a very crispy texture, a nice shape and a delicious taste. And practicaly they’re super easy to peel and cut, and don’t require a lot of cooking time. It’s quite simple to find some all year round but spring for tiny ones, and autumns for larger ones seems the best periods. They grow in many places in Japan so local lotus roots are also easy to find, though the best I’ve ever had came from Kanazawa, which is famous for lotus roots.

Lotus roots accomodate very well with other veggies and I like to cook them with carrots, shishito, kabocha… I also love them in homemade chips. This week I’ve been working late pretty much every day, so fixing dinner in a short time was quite a must. So for this recipe I simpl cut and wash the peeled lotus root, stir fry in a bit of oil, added some shishito, and in the mean time cooked some rice with sweet potatoes. I served the rice, topped with the lotus roots and shishito, added some sesame seeds and a bit of salt. Dinner’s ready!

October 24, 2015

Deal!

From left to right: ginger in vinegar, candied ginger, gono

You may remember that I gave away to my neighbors my gingko nuts because there were really too many. So to thanks us our little 84 years old neighbor prepared us some nice Japanese traditional condiments and brang them to us timely just before lunch, so I just had to cook some rice. There were three different preparations: ginger in vinegar, candied ginger in soya sauce, and gobo simmered with mirin, sake, soya sauce, sugar and small fishes. All of them were really delicious and now I want so badly that she teaches me how to prepare these!!!!

October 22, 2015

Left over diner

We had friends at home for diner the other night, and I over spec the diner portions, so, rare enough, I had enough left overs for a second diner. But because I don’t like eating twice the same thing I arrange it in completely different maner.

The original dinner consisted in plain white rice, Japanese autumn veggies (sweet potatoes, litus roots, carrots, eringi mushrooms, turnips…) in dashi and sake, salt-grilled sawara, and a mushrooms and tofu miso soup.

The new version was a cha-an (sauteed rice) with sawara and sauteed veggies, with sesame. For that I fried the rice in a bit of oil, added a table spoon if sesame seeds, added the veggies, and stirred often. I removed the skin and bones of the fish and crumbled it in the rice, stirred again and served. A super delicious diner, ready in 5 min, just perfect after a long day at work!

October 16, 2015

Experimental tart

I was running out of flour and wanted to prepare a leek tart, so I made a little experiment for the dough and give a Japanese twist to my tart. I prepared the dough with rice flour (2/3) and soy flour (1/3), vegetal oil and soy sauce, and of course water. The mixture was incredibly soft and nice to work, so I made a rather thin dough. For the leek it’s Japanese thin ones, so I just halved them and set them in the dough. I baked for 30min at 180deg.

The result? Taste-wise it was just somptuous, a mix of crispy, melty, juicy and dry. Amazing! Plating and eating wise: the sides of dough were really crispy, so hard to make a clean cut. The whole length leeks are difficult to cut, so not optimal. Need some work here, but couldn’t help sharing the recipe of that delicious dough, very likely perfect with shiitake and other Japanese vegetables.

October 15, 2015

Gingko nuts rice

There are several ways to use gingko nuts in cuisine. The simplest is probably to grill them, for that you just beed to break the hard shell roughly, grilled them in a pan and serve with salt. It’s the easiest because no need to remove the hard shell, everyone does while eating. Perfect as a snack. But definitely not the most elegant way. So first if all renoving the shell without breaking the nuts is important. It’s not too difficult. Then there is a brownish skin that you don’t want to serve. To remove it it’s easy, boil a dew minutes the nuts then roll them in a metal net or drainer. The peel will go away with the friction. Now you have the perfect yellow nuts that you can use for any recipe. One of my favorite use issimply with white rice, to accompany a Japanese dinner. Jusr add the nuts in the rice after it is cooked. Count 3 to 7 nuts per person. Finish with a bit of salt when serving to enhance the taste of the nuts.

October 13, 2015

Ginkgo nuts – 銀杏

The ginkgo tree is a symbol of wisdom and it is particularly beautiful in late november when it turn a vibrant yellow. Its leaves have also a very pretty and typical shape, symbol of Tokyo University.

But ginkgo are doomed because they bare the most ignominious fruit: the ginkgo nut. If you have ever tasted ginkgo nuts you probably can’t imagine where it comes from; if you have ever been close to a ginkgo tree in autumn you probably can’t imagine that the ginkgo nut is actually edible. The ginkgo nut is protected by a yellow-orange thick and watery skin that when broken generate an extremely nauseous smell. The nuts have the bad habit of falling on the ground and get smashed by pedestrians, cars… in town and to rot in the country, still smelling so bad that the tree is a real nuisance! Yet gingko nuts are delicious!

The nuts are usually collected once they’ve fallen. Luckily the little typhoon that passed over Kanto last week, blown down all the nuts and I managed to collect them before they rot and stink. Always use gloves when collecteing the nuts!!!
The next step is to remove the stinks. For that plunge the nuts in a bucket of water for a few hours. The soaked skin is easy to remove (again, use gloves). And brush and wash the nuts until none of the flesh is visible. Finally dry the nuts in the oven at low temperature for about 2h, while shaking them once in a while. This year I collected so many nuts that I gave away most of them to my neighbors because I didn’t have the time to peel and wash them all.

Now the nuts are ready for cooking and harvesting!

October 8, 2015