Category: Japanese food

Pickling

I don’t know if it’s because of the sunny and warmer days, the abundance of vegetables that I love, or seeing the rapid growing of the plums on the trees that are the prospect of a new harvesting season and making plum fermented syrup 梅シーロップ, and salt fermented plums uneboshi 梅干し, but I’ve recently been in a mood for pickling. I think it is also because I realized I need to clear space for the new bins that will populate the shelf and the fridge soon, so it means emptying all almost finished jars and bottles. Rather than just tossing the precious ume zu in the drain, or the beautiful red shiso (parilla) leaves after they have served for the plum and their conservation I thought of a recipe I was taught by our Hakuba’s favorite restaurant owner and cook which consists of pickling cucumber in ume zu. I then extended it to red shiso leaves too. So my pickling repertoire is rather simple. Nothing about nuka, that stinks and is sometimes a bit difficult to control. As I said, I use the simplest pickling methods: salt pickling 塩漬け shiozuke, ume zu 梅酢 pickling called shibazuke 柴漬けand red shiso ume zu pickling. It is really quick to make if you do asa zuke 浅漬け which a rapid and “shallow” pickling and the result is always a nice add-on to a Japanese meal. I pickle only a small amount at a time and to make the process faster I usually cut the vegetables (otherwise the pickling time is longer and I forget that I had pickled something!!!). So simple and delicious that I’m not sure why I don’t pickle much! Anyway… here are a few very simple recipes to make your own Japanese pickles. You can adjust the amount of salt to you liking.

Salt “shallow” pickles 浅漬け

  • 1 Japanese cucumber
  • 1/2tsp of salt

Wash and pat dry the cucumber. Slice thinly. In a bowl, put the cucumber slices, sprinkle the salt on top. Put a weight on the cucumber slices to slightly squeeze them. What I would usually do is cut a piece of cooking wrap or similar and put a tinier heavy bowl on top. Keep for 2-4h at room temperature depending on the season and the pickling level. Beware, the amount of liquid in the bowl may increase quite dramatically, so either use a large enough bowl, or put in a tray to avoid overflow catastrophe! After 4h the pickles will be ready to eat. The longer the softer. Keep in the fridge after 12h and eat rapidly because it is already sliced.

You can use the same recipe with other vegetables that contain less water, in that case you may want to do a 5% salt brine with 5g of salt and 100g of water, and use the brine to just cover the vegetables. You can also pickle for longer, or not cut the vegetables and pickle the whole vegetables (pickling time would be 8-12h). In that case the weight to apply on the preparation is about twice the weight of the pickled vegetables and once pickled they apparently keep for a few days in the fridge, in a airtight container without the brine. Honestly I pickle just the quantity I want us to it, so never keep them!

Ume zu pickles shibazuke 柴漬け

  • Cucumber, turnip, daikon…
  • 2tbs of ume zu

While this recipe requires ume zu, the salty juice produced by the plum when pickling them, it is a very delicious and simple recipe. Ume zu can be bought in local farmers markets in Japan or at cooperative. I use the one I kept from my plum pickling.

For rapid pickling I wash and cut the vegetables, pour the ume zu and then put a weight on top.

Red shiso ume zu pickling

  • White vegetables of your choice: daikon, turnip…
  • Red shiso leaves that have already served to pickle plum

Same as above, this recipe uses a by-product of plum pickling: the red shiso leaves that are added to plum to add flavor and color. This may not be easy to find of the shelf. But next time you pickle plums think about reusing it!

Same here, wash and cut the vegetables. Set them in a container top with the shiso leaves. Apply a weight on it for a few hours and enjoy!

Eagle fern x bamboo shoot

Well well, the two main protagonists of these past two weeks in the kitchen, are not only delicious alone, but also prepared together. A classic Japanese recipe would be to simmer them individually and then combine them with a bit of red pepper 🌶 and soya sauce. I personally usually pass on the red pepper but this recipe is simple and delicious. Here with brown rice, scrambled eggs and salad.

But really from the start I had something in mind using both combined… something that I love making with whatever is in season: steamed dumplings, of course!!!!

With the beginning of the new fiscal year, school term and the abundance of work in the garden, the surf season… I’ve been pretty busy! But dumplings don’t require that much time to make and they are always a feast. My idea was to combine chopped warabi and takenoko, with coarse ground pork filet, soya sauce and fill some sourdough dough with it, and steam. So that’s exactly what I did and it was soooo delicious I regretted it was our last takenoko!!! So if you still have a chance to get fresh takenoko and warabi I can only but recommend you try! I need mote practice to fold my dumplings beautifully but the taste is here!!!

Eagle fern – わらび – 蕨

When we go with our friends in Tsunan to forage spring wild vegetables, we would for sure also pick some eagle fern – warabi – わらび 蕨. But because it takes a bit of time to prepare (I’ll come to it later) and we have so many other things to eat, we would usually leave without eating them. So, despite the fact that I knew how to prepare them, I couldn’t recall having eaten any fresh ones… and while we were picking bamboo shoots I was looking at fern and picked a few kogomi – こごみ as these are among my favorite sansai – 山菜… but then I grew uncomfortable with the idea of eating them as I have never picked any in Boso before and there are so many varieties… I was worried one may be poisonous… I realized I need to study (a bit) more. I know that it is impossible almost to find kogomi at the farmers market, so either none are locally good or found in tiny amounts that people keep them for themselves. On the other hand warabi can be found at the farmers market!! So I decided to try cooking some in place of kogomi.

As it was my first cooking them I browsed a few cookbooks, and reminded myself of K. in the kitchen parboiling them while stirring them vigorously with chopsticks and then leaving them to rest overnight by the window. A quick reading on kogomi made me understand why this process was so important. It isn’t to remove the bitterness of warabi, it is to remove a toxin from it that is carcinogenic. So don’t try to eat warabi raw or simply cooked. The parboiling, the stirring and the overnight wait are paramount to removing the toxic component. That said and done, eating warabi is totally safe! As a first try I decided to go by the book. I simply prepared them in soya sauce. So here is my recipe, nothing fancy but deliciously simple as I live a recipe to be.

Warabi

  • A handful of warabi –
  • A tsp of baking soda
  • A tbs of soya sauce

Remove the bottom of the warabi, and wash them. In a pan boil sufficient water. Add the warabi and stir energetically. At this stage you can add a tsp of baking soda. Then keep at room temperature for the night. You can prepare them now.

The simplest is to drain the amount desired, cut in 3-4cm pieces, heat in a pan and add at the very end the soya sauce. It can be eaten as it or at room temperature. Enjoy!!

Bamboo shoot pizza

I know that may seems strange… but there are some associations that work perfectly and need to be more explored. The one I totally love is bamboo shoot/tomatoes that I discovered last year by chance. The other thing that I love is grilled bamboo shoots. It reminds me of the grilled thin bamboo shoots we had first harvested with our friends in Tsunan ages ago now… something like 2008… So thinking about how both tomatoes and grilled bamboo shoots could be combined, obviously pizza was going to be a great combo. It just needed to be made. So the night before I prepared the pizza dough with my sourdough. Classic bread dough recipe in which you add a tablespoon of sugar and a generous drizzle of olive oil. You leave it to work gently. And once we get back from surfing in the morning I rolled the dough a bit thick for maximum softness, sliced two tomatoes, a new onion, the takenoko and a local piece of cheese, all in the oven for about 20min at 220deg. Once cheese was golden and crust too, I took it out of the oven, cut and served with a drizzle of olive oil and a bit of ground black pepper. As simple as it is I like my pizza with just 2-3 ingredients in addition to tomato and cheese and I like mixing seasonal vegetables. Many of the Japanese local vegetables actually work well on a pizza. I had already tested burdock, now I know that takenoko is great too!

Picking bamboo shoots

Here we are, spring is here, cherry trees are finishing blooming in a snap. Last week it was pink all over, now it’s new green 新緑 shinryoku everywhere. Everything is so early this year that it feels like it took me by surprise. And spring means not only flowers everywhere in the garden, the jonquils, the snowdrops, the peach trees, and all the others, it means also the spring vegetables and with them the incomparable bamboo shoots or takenoko 筍.

Cooking them is fun and I love creating new recipe with bamboo shoots. I have already posted many recipes in the past and love rediscovering them or testing some others. But beware, the season is short so it’s not like you can take all the time you want. They’re here and in a snap they are way too high and big and no longer good to eat.

What is fun with bamboo shoots is to go and pick them. Bamboos grow pretty much anywhere and in abundance so picking bamboo shoots is rather easy. The point is that you want fresh and soft ones that have pointed out so it looks like a little green/brownish plant so eyes need to get used to spot them, but them accommodate really quickly. Once spotted with pickaxe and a shovel you need to clean around to uncover the hidden part until the very first red spots on the root. And then cut with a firm and clean cut. Return the soil in place and search for the next one.

  • Find the bamboo shoot
  • Cleaning around
  • More cleaning around
  • Ready to pick
  • Yes!!! Got one!!!

Of course said that way it’s rather simple, but you compete in finding bamboo shoots with wild boars and they are really greedy! So they only leave those hard to find, under monticules of earth and fallen leaves, on the steep sides etc… Then the bamboo shoots are often entangled with other roots that you don’t want to damage making it really a puzzle to find where to dig and cut. But that’s part of the fun!

Once you have a nice bamboo shoot to prepare in the kitchen, the first thing to do is to remove the many layers of the soft and furry skin that wrap delicately the shoot. It’s a bit tedious but still important. Then boil your shoot in ample water added with rice first wash water or nuka. Boil at low heat until soft… it can take up to 2 or 3 hours. Pick with a tooth pick to test. And then only you have a bamboo shoot you can prepare for the many recipes. I am working on a few new and a few classic recipes right now, so hopefully in the coming days you should discover some!!!

Peeled bamboo shoot ready for the first boil

Definitely in love with wafu pasta

As I was reading the Japan times the other day I discovered they have a monthly column called Japanese kitchen with some cooking tips and recipes and found an old recipe of natto and umeboshi pasta. Neither A. nor I are fans of natto but it was time to prepare lunch and I was planning to make tagliatelle but I wanted to eat umeboshi, so wafu pasta naturally, and the recently read recipe made me create this super simple version: replacing natto by seasonal vegetables, and using some soya sauce for dressing the pasta. As I mentioned in my earlier post on the topic, wafu pasta are something of their own kind that may be ignominious to the purists but once you have tried them they are quite exquisite and the mariage of flavors can be exceptional. I loved the one of this recipe. I hope you will too.

Umeboshi, nanohana and shiitake tagliatelle (serves 2)

  • 180g of fresh tagliatelle
  • 5 nanohana
  • 3-5 shiitake depending on size
  • 3 plain umeboshi medium size
  • 1tbs of soya sauce
  • A ponch of sesame seeds

Wash and slice the shiitake. Wash and cut the nanohana in 3. In a large pan slightly greased (I used sesame oil, but anything works) start cooking the vegetables under cover at low heat. In the meantime boil the pasta. Drain the pasta and add to the pan. Stir well. Add the soya sauce, the sesame seeds, the flesh of one umeboshi, stir again and serve. Top each plate with an umeboshi, enjoy!

Nabana, nanohana whatever you call it, it’s spring!

I remember reading Natsume Soseki’s novels more than 20 years ago and not fully understanding how he could write that the new year celebrations were also marking the beginning of spring with plum trees blooming… until I realize he was talking of the former calendar and the lunar New year which is basically in February. And indeed at this time of the year spring is in the air. Not only plum tree are blooming, the spring vegetables are sprouting, it’s time for fukinoto and nanohana.

Blooming plum tree: a sign of spring and the promise of many fruits in June

Nanohana, also called nabana 菜の花　or 菜花 that I often translated as canola is indeed a close relative indeed, but also of broccoli. The little yellow flowers at the top of this brilliant green stick and leaves, brings sunshine in any dish. And there can be many. It’s a very versatile vegetable, easy to prepare Japanese way or with western influences. I love nanohana in quiche or with pasta, in sautéed rice, with eggs, also cooked in dashi and topped with katsuobushi, and seasoned with soya sauce. As you can see I love it!

Various way to prepare nanohana

And maybe I love it that much because I believe that the first time I remember eating nanohana was at our wedding lunch, 14 years ago. Indeed, A. And I got married in winter, or rather early spring in the old calendar. And after the ceremony at the shinto shrine we celebrated with our guest in a ryoutei 料亭 we liked very much, in Ningyocho. And the chef who had carte blanche, impressed us with a combination of Japanese traditional and seasonal flavors, and some more western cuisine. Perfect given the mix of culture in our guests. So that’s when I remember eating nanohana.

Incidentally, nanohana is the emblem flower of Chiba prefecture, and the Isumi railway becomes picturesque when they bloom together with sakura (typically in a few weeks), I invite you to come and visit the area, it’s truly beautiful.

More Wafu pasta

I have a principle that I apply for pretty much anything and even more when I cook or think about cooking, it’s to be always flexible and opened to opportunities, or see change in plans as one. Nothing is definite. A recipe evolves and comes to life as ingredients are mixed together, taking the mood and the time into consideration… This is exactly how this wafu pasta recipe was created. It all started with a bicycle ride to go diy shopping. On the way back, if we take this road, I like to stop at the little stall that sells local fresh vegetables grown right on the spot. Sometimes the shelves are empty, and sometimes they have little treasures. They just had many little treasures this day. In particular a big bundle of tiny sweet leeks appealed me. I just picked it, slid a 100yen coin in the box and off we went.

But what to do with them… I had no plan… until a few days later when time for dinner came and it was decided we would eat pasta. Tagliatelle. A bit of sesame oil was remaining in the pan from some little rice crackers I made, so I decided to use it. Chopped the little sweet leeks, coated them in sesame oil, added a very ripe large tomato (that can easily be replaced by a good tomato sauce or preserved tomatoes), and cooked at low heat until I obtained a creamy tomato sauce with the delicious flavor of the fragrant sesame oil, slightly confit. Added the boiled pasta, stirred well and added a bit of sesame seeds before serving. A new version of the wafu pasta…

How do eat your pasta Japanese-style? Have you ever tried???

One year of ochazuke…

Last winter you could see that I discovered having a thing for ochazuke. This thing suddenly arrived when I was stuck at home with a pneumonia and I thought it may be temporary until I fully recovered, but it continued on… so I thought then when winter would be over, but not even… it has lasted a whole year and ochazuke has been on my table many many times and not only on chilly days!

The generous bowl with rice (brown or white are equally delicious) topped with a few vegetables, a pickled plum, sesame… and finished by pouring dashi or something of the like on top has revealed to be a very handy lunch fix for busy days. Indeed since telework is our new way of working, it is more than often that lunch breaks are short or that mine and A.’s do not coincide well. Fixing my lunch in a snap is then paramount and ochazuke are great for this. Rice cooked in advance or by itself in the rice cooker, dashi gently boiling on the stove for a few minutes, a handful of seasonal vegetables, that all needed. Sometimes when I am even more busy than usual it’s simply one of our homemade umeboshi that serves for everything.

For the dashi I mainly use a mix of katsuobushi and konbu, sometimes dry shiitake, less often only konbu, or a bouillon with pork filet cooking juice. For the vegetables, whatever is in season is good!!!

Such simple lunches are really great because they are light and nutritious and allow me to work very efficiently in the afternoon!!! Below is a selection of my favorite! What’s yours???

All time classic: shiitake & spinach
Komatsuna, radish and a bit of pork fillet
Komatsuna and umeboshi
Grilled sweet potato and mizuna
Grilled lotus root and umeboshi
Lotus root and korinki
Late summer version with kabocha and black sesame

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