Flounder – ヒラメ

One of the great advantages of living near the ocean is to have access to nice fresh, local fish. One may think options are limited as they depend on the weather and the season, but freshness of locally fished wild fishes is incomparable and price often too. So yes there are times when the only fish you find is bonito or tuna, sometimes snapper, and at the moment it’s flounder. But I must say that I have always loved flounder. My grandmother would make delicious ones. My mother too. So it’s a kind of “full of memories” flavor and texture. So every year when the flounder season comes I am always pleased with it. My favorite way of eating it, as for most fish we eat, is simply grilled in a pan without any fat.

Last night I decided to upgrade the recipe a bit by adding a large amount of chiseled parsley and a bit of panko grilled in a pan. It looks like a classic combination you would use for an oven grilled fish recipe, but my oven is way to big to grill only a tiny piece of fish so I created a pan roast version. It works amazingly well, and allows for better control of the fish cooking time and the parsley mix. Which in the end may actually be better. I served the whole with some leftover parpadelle with a thick tomato sauce. Here is my recipe.

Parsley crust flounder

  • A piece of flounder. I use a piece for sashimi from a big fish to have a thick piece
  • A handful of parsley
  • 1 tbs of panko (I served with pasta so went easy on panko, but you can use up to double if you want for maximum crunchiness)
  • A drizzle of olive oil

Wash and chisel the parsley. Put in a pan, and turn on the gas to medium. Heat for a few minutes while stirring to remove all the moisture. Add the panko. Continue heating and stirring once in a while until the panko starts being golden.

In the meantime cut the piece of fish into portion of the size you want and grill them in a pan at high heat. Flip once.

When perfectly cooked serve the parsley and top with the wish, or the otherway around. Enjoy!

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 – 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.

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

Anise bread

Anise, fennel, star anise, and also cumin, carvi seeds and caraway seeds are some of my favorite seasoning seeds. Maybe because I grew up in the south of France where fennel grew everywhere on the path sides and it was so easy to harvest while admiring the beautiful shape of the flowers and the little white snails that would gather on the stems, that I used to call “colimaçon” but are in fact “caragouille rosee”, and chewing a piece of flower… or because of my grand mother homemade pastis, this very distinctive drink made from anise and also typical from the region. My mother would use ample fennel to stuff a fish we would have fished, and bake it with potatoes and tomatoes. A dish every one loved very much.

Funnily, in Japan this is not something so common. And I hardly have seen fennel growing anywhere in the wild. Maybe some areas do have some, or my eyes haven’t been opened enough. So most of the fennel and anise I use is either coming from my parents, or bought from the grocery. Recently I have bought quite a bit more often than usual, probably since we’ve been to Malta, to make Qagħaq tal-Ħmira… so I decided to use them to make straightforward anise seeds breads. Less elaborated than the Maltese breads and I was very very much please with the result. I must say that it is thanks to a very healthy sourdough and warmer temperatures. It goes like below for the recipe and I hope you will enjoy!

Anise breads

  • 300g of flour
  • 80g of sourdough
  • 1tsp of salt
  • Water
  • 1tbs of anise seeds

The recipe is simple as can be. In a large bowl mix the sourdough the flower, the salt. Add water little by little and knead to obtain a smooth dough. Add the anise seeds and knead a little further.

Let rest under a wet clothe until the dough grows. Mine was really growing happily.

When quite fluffy move to a flat surface dusted with flour. Flatten the dough gently with your palm. Cut into 6 pieces. Make 6 balls. Then flatten and cut three ribbons and braid then. Leave to rest for an hour then bake at 240deg until golden.

First spring of my sourdough Lois!

I’m still new to the sourdough owner community and a novice still learning many things with my 6months old Lois. We have had a difficult start, very… but I must say that I am impressed by its behavior for the past few weeks. I am keeping exactly the same regimen and treatments, keeping it in the fridge during the week and outside during the weekend to bake that I have always had. But now Lois is responding in a beautiful way… is it that spring is in the air? I can’t yet explain it and wish it will last… It doesn’t starve in the fridge after 2 days (Lois is/was a glutton), rather the contrary. And anytime I use it to bake it has a much better taste and smell and a faster process. It’s making baking easy and very very enjoyable. So pleased that I decided to use it to make bao again. I filled them with what I had in the fridge: onions and smoked sausages. Chiba prefecture has quite a few pork farms and some make rather delicious sausages, that A. likes very very much so I always have some in the fridge, just in case. So here is the recipe of the bao.

Bao (makes 8 pieces)

For the buns

  • 200g of flour
  • 50g of sourdough
  • A pinch of salt
  • Water

For the filling

  • 1 onion
  • 4 little (smoked) sausages
  • A large pinch of cinnamon

First prepare the bun dough as it needs a few hours to raise. In a bowl mix the flower, the sourdough and the salt. Add water little by little while kneading to obtain a slightly wet dough. Soft and smooth. Leave to raise for some time (a few hours depending on your sourdough, room temperature…). It should raise and at least become elastic with an homogeneous texture. While it’s raising, peel and chop the onion rather thinly. In a pan cook the onions at low heat, with a bit of water. They shouldn’t change color much. Add a bit of salt and the cinnamon. Continue cooking under cover until very soft and tender. Add a bit of water if needed to avoid roasting them. Once cooked, let cool down.

Now your dough should have raised enough. Cut it in 8 equal pieces, and make 8 balls. Roll each of them a floured top into 15cm rounds. Split the onion in 4, and fill 4 of the dough rounds. Roll the 4 sausages each in a dough round and roll them. Let them rest for an hour our two.

Prepare a steamer and steam them for 15min. I put them on a square of cooking paper to avoid them to stick, and put a lot of space between as they will inflate quite a bit.

Finally I served with soya sauce. The sausage bao could be nice with a bit of karashi (Japan kind of mustard), but I didn’t have any…

Stuffed bread or kind of calzone

It’s past 20:00 and A. is done working. I know because I can hear him play a tune on his guitar from my “office”, meaning he is waiting for me to stop working and he is hungry… now is going to be a good time for me to think about dinner if we want to eat anytime soon! I am not in the mood for a Japanese recipe, nor for pasta… I was thinking about a quiche but that will take too much time to bake… so what then?

The rainy day makes me crave for a sunny recipe… I have this ball of campagne bread proving since the morning that has risen to a lovely volume. And this mozzarella from a local cheese farm I am slowly eating into bites as I think… diner is all decided! It will be a stuffed bread or a kind of calzone, with fresh vegetables in and mozzarella.

I turn on the oven to 250deg. I take a piece of my dough, about 10cm diameter ball, and roll it into a 4-5mm thin circle of 40-50cm diameter. Cut my mozzarella into slices, top half of the dough. Wash a tomato, a bundle of spinach, cut them and continue topping the half. Then I fold gently the second half and close it. It kinda look like a giant gyoza!! A bit of olive oil on the top, a pinch of salt, a few tiny pick to make some holes and in the oven for 20min!

The result was really great, crispy crust on the outside, but still a bit melting on the inside, infused with the vapors of the vegetables. Something I will do again for sure!!!

Auto pilot in the kitchen…

There are times in the year like the one now: busy at work that leaves shorter times to cook, busy in the garden that leaves little time to cook too, end of the season and timid transition to a new one that force to use the same ingredients over and over and inventing new recipes or testing new recipes is not really on the agenda. I have exhausted my resources or almost. When time comes I put myself in autopilot for the cooking: I use as less resources as possible, working on the basic, classic versions of my registry. Spinach, shiitake, broccoli, carrots and bok choy are cooked in minimum time for the simplest recipes ever.

I have a few new recipes I’ve been loving to make in the past year. One is coconut milk curry, and it is one of my favorite super quick lunch fix. It is sooooo very simple and hands free that you can cook and work or cook and go for a walk while the pot is on the stove. And the result is always so colorful and tasteful that it’s a hit! I serve it with brown rice preferably but white rice would work too. Here is the recipe for today’s version, of course you can adjust the spiciness and the vegetables to the season, the location and your taste. I would usually use a combination of three vegetables: one crunchy, one creamy and one green…

Coconut cream curry (serves 2)

  • 1 large carrot
  • 1 bok choy
  • 5 shiitake
  • 100g of coconut cream or milk
  • 1tbs of turmeric
  • 1/2tbs of curry powder
  • 1 tiny pinch of red pepper
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 pinch of black pepper

Wash and cut the vegetables to the shape and size you like. In a pan slightly greased, put the carrot and the shiitake and start cooking at medium heat, then add the coconut cream or milk and stir well. Cook at low heat under cover. It your vegetables pieces are rather large add 1/2 cup of water. Add the spices. Let on the stove for 15min still at low heat. Add the bok choy and cook for 3 minutes until leaves are still bright green. And that’s it… serve with rice.

If that isn’t super simple tell me what simple means for you!!!

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