Category: Recipe

Bitter sweet…

Last Sunday, late afternoon, after surfing in the morning and gardening the whole afternoon I remembered that it’s been two days we have had no chocolate… well that is a HUGE problem for us, or for A.. We both do indulge in a bitter sweet treat after dinner. Indeed, unless we have guests or we celebrate we never have dessert, just a piece of chocolate… so when we forgot to refill our chocolate stock… there’s a bit of drama in the air! 😉

That’s when the magic of Instagram happen! While browsing my feed I stopped on @dans_ma_boite_a_biscuits post: a quick chocolate cream, with 4 ingredients that I always have (or almost… because her recipe uses dark chocolate, I used cacao) and that is so simple I couldn’t help trying!!! I never found it so easy to make a dessert. It takes 10min and then time to cool down, and it was so delicious that I will forget to buy chocolate more often!!! Because I slightly modified the original recipe (in French) I share mine with you… A. was so pleased with the result that he asked for more this weekend!!

Cocoa creamy pudding (4 servings)

  • 250ml of milk (vegetal or not)
  • 12g of corn starch
  • 50g of cocoa (I used cocoa from Plaq)
  • 25g of brown sugar or equivalent

In a pan, put all the ingredients, stir well, then start cooking at low heat while stirring. Increase to medium heat and stir well. It should start thickening, don’t over cook or you’ll get something too stiff. Once the consistency is creamy serve in 4 ramekins. Let cool down in the fridge for one hour or two and enjoy. I personally prefer eating them at room temperature rather than cool from the fridge…

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!

Tarte au chocolat

Every year, for more than 20 years I have made a strawberry tart for A.’s birthday. With a birthday in the prime of spring I always thought it was a great moment to celebrate strawberries and A.. Many times waiting for the cherry trees to bloom. This year, the cherry trees are in full bloom already and I always thought traditions are meant to be changed or twisted when opportunities are there.

Two weeks ago I received a little package from France, from my childhood friend M. with a little cookbook and some bean to bar chocolate from a shop in our old neighborhood in Paris: Plaq. M. knows very well how much we love chocolate and well sourced products, together with a delicious bar of chocolate there was also some cocoa to cook. A.’s birthday strawberry tarts was all forgotten and it would be chocolate tart instead.

The plan was, and I browsed a few recipes online to get an idea of how to make the chocolate filling. The whole thing is very simple and requires fresh cream, so since the morning I had on my mind to buy some, except that we went grocery shopping we were on a rush, a bit more traffic than expected on the road, and A. was about to be late for a meeting. So fresh cream I forgot… damn… Hopefully I had some coconut cream so I decided to replace the fresh cream with it, and it added a very gentle twist in the taste, without being overwhelming. So met me share my recipe, I hope you’ll like it, we did, and it is soooo simple that I wonder why I never tried earlier!

Tarte au chocolat (makes 6 servings)

  • Flour-butter-sugar for the dough
  • 150g of chocolate, dark, for cooking or of cacao powder
  • 200ml of coconut cream
  • A bit of milk (if you use cocoa)
  • 1 egg

Prepare the sable dough the way you like it. I made mine very buttery and rather sweet as my cocoa was bitter and unsweetened. Set in individual shapes or a larger one also as you wish. With the cut parts I made sakura shaped little sablés. Cook at 180deg until just golden. Let cool a bit and remove from the pie dish if the bottom of the dish is not removable. Other with you may struggle once it if filled. Set on a baking sheet, as you’ll need to cook them again once filled.

In a pan warm the coconut cream and the chocolate or cocoa and stir until creamy. If you use cocoa you may want to add a bit of milk to make it creamier as it may bit a bit dry. But really just a bit. Stir well. Let

cool a bit and add the egg and stir again very well. Pour in the pie crust(s) you just baked. Decorate with the little sablés if you made any. Cook at 140 deg for about 15min, but this will depend on the size of your tarts. Best is to check visually: no bubbles on the side or very few, and when gently shaken it should look like an egg pudding (flan) and gently move. Serve warm or at room temperature. And enjoy!

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!!!

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!

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