Category: Life-style

Lack of inspiration

I don’t know if it’s the super hot and humid weather, the hard time we’ve had with jetlag (it took almost two weeks to recover with a permanent impression of being tired, feverish, and to have a cold), or the impression that the summer is over and somebody (Mr. bad weather) still it from me… as it was way too short… but I have difficulties in finding inspirations to cook. For I don’t know how many days our meals have consisted of pasta and vegetables. Not that I don’t like them… but still… or of rice and umeboshi… But even if I have time to cook I don’t have the energy or the inspiration… because nothing attracts me anymore. I reject the autumn vegetables, too early!, and I am not enthused with the late summer ones anymore…

So last night I decided to cook something I don’t cook often but we love: a potato salad with fresh greens, a rich yogurt dressing and herbs plenty. And this morning, the first autumn day was here! Temperature under 30 and a nice breeze… so now I will start cooking a lot more butternut squash, kabocha, shiitake and other mushrooms! But still, here is the potato salad recipe, because what is good is good!!!

End of summer potato salad

– 3 or 4 potatoes

– 1/2 branch of celery

– 1 cucumber

– fresh coriander leaves

– fresh sprouts: broccoli, soya…

– 1/2 cup of greek or nordic yogurt, drained

– olive oil, salt, pepper

Boil the potatoes and peel them. Slice them. Wash and cut in thin slices the cucumber. Cut in 5mm cubes the celery. Wash the sprouts and the coriander.

In a bowl, put the potatoes, the yogurt and the olive oil, salt and pepper, stir well. It doesn’t matter if you crush the potatoes. Add the vegetables, stir again, the sprouts, stir and serve! That’s it!

Panisse

Probably very few of you know what panisse are… you only know if you’ve been to Provence long enough or have a specific interest in regional cooking… Panisse are an other traditional recipe based on chickpea flour and that cones from Italy apparently, but is also famous as far as Marseille. I’ve already shared the recipe of socca from Nice, panisse are something different. They are thicker and fluffier. Most recipes I’ve found are just using the same ingredients as socca but cook it in a pan with a lot more water, and then wait for it to cool down before frying them. I wasn’t too happy with these recipes and tried one I found in one of my vegetarian cookbook. The reason I was interested in that recipe is because you need to add a bit of baking soda to the mix… and you can cook it immediately and eat it immediately too. I still cooked it in a frypan like the socca but it resemble a giant fluffy pancake.

So here is my recipe.

Panisse

– 100g of chickpea flour

– a pinch of salt

– 1tbs of olive oil

– 1tsp of baking powder

– water

In a bowl mix all the ingredients and add water little by little until the mix is thick but not dry.

Heat a frypan of 15cm diameter, grease slightly with olive oil, pour the mix and cook at low heat, under cover, until it’s almost dry on top. Flip, and cook 2more minutes. Cut and eat!

You can use a lot more oil when cooking the panisse, but this is not mandatory… you can also add a bit of salt after too… enjoy!

Ginger

For most people outside of Asia, ginger is this wrinkled beige root that can be found all the time, but in Asia, even if you can find more or less fresh ginger all year round in supermarket, there is still a season for harvesting fresh new ginger, and it’s now!

Ginger is often use as condiment in cooking, with tofu, pork… or even more often pickled or candied in a savory preparation. In Japan contrarily to other Asian countries it is rarely used in sweets: not savory candied ginger is not so easy to find. I made some, quite a long time ago and plan to make some again this weekend. There is one thing I particularly love ginger for it’s for preparing drinks. Remember the apple ginger cider? And the honey ginger? Well these are some classics and honey ginger is so easy to make. Well this time I mage a variation of it. It’s ginger milk and honey. It’s of course richer then the herb tea but it has something less stringent and more comforting. For making it, it’s simple. You need a piece of juicy fresh ginger, milk and honey. Wash the ginger and slice it thinly. New ginger skin is so thin you can keep it. In a pan pour the milk and add the ginger. Let sit for one hour. Then boil the milk, serve and add honey. You can serve without filtering and enjoy the ginger while drinking.

One other way to do it is to extract the juice of the ginger by grinding it, add to the milk and boil immediately. This method is faster but I find that extracting the juice of ginger is quite messy… or maybe it’s just me!

And did you know that ginger is good for sore throat and when you are tired too?

Umeboshi tasting

Remember, I told you about my pathetic failure with one batch of umeboshi a few weeks ago… well when we came back to Tokyo I had a little surprise: I had a tasting set of umeboshi!!! Three types of red shiso umeboshi, with slightly different preparations and different kinds of plums all prepared by K. san. I think she was sympathizing with my failure… Her recipes are slightly different than mines so it was interesting to try them. One is very juicy and pink, the two others are more traditional, yet delicious and juicy. Of course they are umeboshi from the year nothing to compare with the 25year old umeboshi I got from my neighbor which are much drier. All to say that umeboshi may be something that seems first weird, too salty or too sour… But they are a very traditional Japanese food, rather unique, super healthy and side products have many virtues. I am sure that among the many varieties there must be one for everyone’s palate! If you don’t like the juicy and flush flesh jumbo ones, try the small and crunchy: karikari ume カリカリ梅. They are personally not my favorite but I like them too.

Also to get used with the taste maybe try ume flavored food. I use to like the ume potato chips, but I stopped buying potato chips 5 years ago… I’m sure there exist other snacks of the like: age mochi, kaki no tane with ume flavor, it can be a good introduction. I any case never buy cheap ones and those with non natural coloring or other ingredients than just salt and plum and shiso.

Special guest: Eliane

The Causse Mejean doesn’t have too many places to eat out and enjoy local products nor sleeping options… but it wasn’t always the case… until 15 years ago there was a magic place where to eat and that was also an inn. The place where my parents went while looking for a place to sleep when they were honeymoon touring the region. I have never known the name of the inn it has always been “chez madame Fage”. This place was where you could have delicious soup made from the kitchen garden vegetables, a salad just freshly taken and dressed simply, the marvelous chocolate mousse the daughter Eliane would make for dessert. It had the rustic flavors while being perfectly prepared and fresh. I keep beautiful memories of this place. The aperitif under the wisteria, the big wooden tables, the check table cloth and napkins… a picturesque place. Mas Saint Chely, where “madame Fage” was is just a 30min walk from our house through a pasture track, and of course we decided to take the walk up there, not knowing what to expect as madame Fage closed 15 years ago, the bread-shops and the other very few places in the village also closed down more than 20 years ago.

As we were making our ways through the village I instantly recognized the kitchen garden, the winding street and the terrace covered with the wisteria. Nothing had changed. I climbed up the stairs and knocked and Eliane opened the door as she would always do! For a moment time had stopped!

She offered us drinks on the terrace, with the same glasses and the same fresh water, what was new for us was her lavender syrup. Made with the wild lavender flowers found on the causse, it was devine so I needed to ask her recipe and share it with you.

Lavender syrup

– a large handful of lavender flowers rather fresh

– 1L of clear water

– 600g to 1kg of sugar

Wash the flowers gently. In a large pan filled with the water, bring them to a boil for 2min then stop and leave for 24h. Add 600g to 1kg of sugar for 1l of liquid depending on how sweet you like it and how long you want to keep it (the longer the sweeter). Bring to a boil and cook at low heat for 10min. Let cool down and bottle the syrup… that’s it!! Drink diluted with water or use in cooking… with grilled white meat, desserts…

Cat hiding in a street of Mas Saint Chely

Lozère

Hello there!!! You may have wondered where I was all this time… well… after another crazy busy week in Tokyo, a rapid stop in Paris, and a long drive, I was in Anilhac in my parents country house to celebrate their 50´s wedding anniversary. The house is not equipped with internet and there is no 3G or 4G coverage there either. So obviously I had to be disconnected for a while. After that I went straight to Germany for work and now I’m finally on my way back to Paris for a last stop for work before heading home… pfiou…

Being disconnected from my phone wasn’t a big deal to be honest… I can totally live without it and days in Anilhac we’re actually busy with hiking, flying and very little cooking as mom had planned everything… I only made pancakes for the whole family one morning…

Lozère is not very famous for food and staples: the most well known products are chestnuts from Cevennes, cheeses made of sheep milk, honey, wild berries, and wheat… that’s probably it… it’s a very barren region, with tough winters and dry summers, very poor. Mostly sheep and shepherds. Actually, the house is a former sheep house my parents transformed 45 years ago in a country house.

Life for me in Anilhac is about being outside, hiking, reading and drawing by the fireplace, then having meals all together.

Meals there are usually simple… a very lot of cheeses for me (this place is cheese heaven!!), and some cured meat for A., fresh vegetables from the neighboring kitchen gardens, and some wild fruits from the garden or harvested during the hikes: plums, hazelnuts, blackberries… oh… and braised potatoes of course! Baked in the embers of the fireplace.

Oh! And my parents had a surprise for us: I finally managed to fly a glider from le Chanet airfield… it was quite an experience… after seeing my sister doing it 37 years ago, and always wanted to try…

Take off

Bouillabaisse my way

As you already may know or you can check here, bouillabaisse is a classic summer dish in my family. My grand mother, and now my mother prepare it for family gatherings. While I love it and have helped preparing it many times with my grand mother as a child (I even fished the soup…) this is something that I absolutely cannot prepare now as the preparation of the fishes indisposes me. The single idea of emptying a fish and cleaning it, or cutting a fish head or crushing a whole fish just makes me sick. That’s why I always ask at the fish stand that they do it to me or I buy sashimi cuts or clean cuts far from the belly. And so you may remember that recipe of simmered fish a few weeks ago… well I got the same cut again. And while I was thinking of preparing it exactly the same way, an outing to Hoff market in Ohara to see our pottery teacher has made me change my mind as I bought lovely potatoes there. Indeed there are always a few stands selling organic locally grown vegetables. This potatoes made me crave a kind of bouillabaisse. So I made it my way. I first prepared ichiban dashi with konbu and katsuo bushi to replace the fish soup. Then I sliced the potatoes and add them to the soup. After a bit added the fish and a bit of soya sauce, sake, and two lovely purple tiny bell peppers (optional and not in the classic bouillabaisse, but I really wanted to try them) , and cooked under cover for 15min. And served.

The fish cooked in the fish stock and with the potatoes definitely had a familiar taste and reminded me a lot of bouillabaisse, but without all the annoying parts!!

Have a good week!

Plum works

A story of great success and massive failures…

Like every year in June I did my share of plum works. With a garden that produces a lot more fruits that I can handle, I actually spend more time picking fruits to give away rather then cooking them. This year I prepared umeboshi like every year, one for Tokyo and one for Isumi, one plain, one with red shiso. Things were looking really good with both until 3 days ago when I discovered that my preparation in Tokyo was covered with mold. And way too much of it to attempt any rescue operation. Everything went down the thrash… Hopefully the one in Isumi seems to have been doing well and with the beautiful hot weather this weekend it was the perfect day to take them out to dry.

One other thing I made this year was plum and red shiso syrup. Usually I prepare plain syrup, but this year I had some extra shiso so I decided to use it in the syrup. Plum syrup is delicious with cold or hot water and with sparkling water too. With the shiso I find it is much better cold. I gives a beautiful color to the drink too. A nice pink.

Finally, there was one thing I didn’t tested before but I have heard so much about is ume-su 梅酢, not to mistake with ume-shu 梅酒. Ume-su is the liquid you obtain when pressing the plums with salt and in which umeboshi bath until drying. It is basically a mix of fermented plum juice and salt. Ume-su is well known to combat summer heat and because of the salt and mineral it makes the perfect recovery drink. It is used like syrup diluted in water. The salty and plum flavors are super delicious, the one with shiso also. Now that I have tested it I love it and often use it together with syrup to have a good balance of sweet and salty flavor, a perfect drink to use after long time gardening in the heat or playing tennis!

The ume-su can be used to pickle vegetables: cucumber in plain ume-su, daikon, turnips, myoga… in the the shiso one. It will color the vegetables in pink so it’s better to use white vegetables. The ume-su can be kept indefinitely in the fridge for further use, so don’t trash it! If you didn’t have a chance to pickle plums this year, you buy ume-su only at JA shops and local coop shops.

Umeboshi, after 2days sun drying

Pizza!!!

I don’t know why, but quiche and pizza are two things I could eat anytime. Winter, summer, with fresh seasonal vegetables, it’s always happiness in my plate!!!

Recently I haven’t kneaded much… week days are all too busy and weekends none the less but with different activities and more to come as our construction is almost finished and now I will have fun thinking about the new garden. 24h is way too short to do all I want to do!

I love to prepare pizza with the local products from Isumi, with all the cheese farms around making mozzarella, the local tomatoes and the variety of fresh vegetables, there is always something to put on your pizza to make it fancy. In the full summer heat now, okra are a nice option and they are particularly good when baked. Adding some fresh radish tops as the rucola season is over and you have a perfect summer pizza.

For the dough I always use the recipe from the Kayser bread book. But now that I know that I can speed up the kneading without affecting too much the result, I cam prepare pizza dough in no time. It’s simple, never fails and with the room temperature at 27-28 now it rises in 45min, so no need to plan too long ahead… so there will be more pizza coming soon I’m pretty sure!

What do you like on your pizza??

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