Hazelnut and spices cake

It is not often that I make vegan cakes but sometimes there is no choice. I really wanted to make a cake, start mixing flour, baking powder, sugar, and when it cake to the eggs, I realized I didn’t had any. And I didn’t feel like buying cheap eggs from the kombini (not because they are cheap, but because they come from I don’t know where, and how). But since the cake was on its way I just added a reasonable amount of hazelnut powder, and a bit of vegetal oil and soya milk to moisten the dough until I obtained a normal consistency for the dough. Then I added some anise seeds, cinnamon, cardamom in a large amount. And baked at 150 degrees for 30min. The result was a delicious fluffy cake, perfectly balanced in taste between the hazelnut and the spices. Something to try again for sure!!!!

Have a nice weekend!

December 17, 2016

Multigrain risotto with burdock

As I was telling you, I really love the mix fresh parsley and burdock. May be because it makes the burdock taste even more artichoky, a vegetable I love but that is not common in Japan (though I’ve spotted some lovely artichokes plants in my neighbor’s potager garden!). As we will be traveling to Sicily, I know I’ll have opportunities to eat plenty of delicious artichokes very soon! Yet, I prepared burdock with parsley in an Italian manner with a mix of grains for Italian soup (from last year Italian holidays!) and carnaroli rice, prepared like a risotto. I cooked in a bit of olive oil the burdock peeled and sliced, then add the rice and the grains, finally cover with water. Cooked until the liquid has vanished, add generously some fresh ciseled parsley, serve immediately. Perfect with freshly grated parmegiano if you like.

December 13, 2016

Friday’s gnocchi

It is almost a ritual when we arrive at our country house late on Friday evening to have dinner based on gnocchi. Each time I prepare them differently, each time with some vegetables of course. Recently I really like the combination of burdock and parsley, I find the tastes match perfectly and the parsley color enhances the grayish white of the burdock. Both are also great with butter or olive oil. And with the gnocchi it fits perfectly. I cut the burdock in small sticks and blanched them, then in a frypan with a bit of olive oil I roast them, add the parsley, boil the gnocchi in the meantime and serve, with a bit more olive oil, and black pepper. It goes very well with parmegiano too!

All the best for this weekend!!!

December 10, 2016

Carrot soup and almond cake

Carrots and tomatoes could both be on top of my favorite food and favorite infredients. I love how it is easy to prepare them in many different ways, raw, grilled, simmered, in puree, sauce, with herb, just with salt… I could continue endlessly the list of options they offer. Yet, I don’t think it is easy to find delicious fresh products after tomatoes pick season in summer, and carrots, which season for the big sweet ones is now on, are often too hard and a little bitter. So when I find some big, soft, juicy and sweet carrots, I prepare them in the most simplest way: a soup which is just made of carrots and a bit of water, eventually a bit of sea salt and black pepper for the final decoration. Nothing more because the taste is just perfect like this. For two, I used two large carrots, peel them, boil them, blend them, add a bit of water if needed to obtain the preferred consistency. Serve hot or cold.

And because after a long day a soup is just not enough for dinner for us, we need carbs, I prepared a very strange thing that actually was perfect with the carrot soup (I must say that I am a bit in an inventive period now, so I try new recipes I invent on the spot and things have been working pretty well so far!). I made a kind of vegan almond bread, or almond cake: it’s basically the base recipe of the scones, where I replaced half of the flour by rough almond powder, butter by vegetal oil, sugar by salt (much less though) and milk with soya milk, and set in a cake pie to bake for 30min at 160deg. It gave a very crumbly bread texture a bit between scones and brioche and the almond taste was perfect with the carrot soup.

December 6, 2016

Cabbage and sticky potato salad

12 years ago we arrived in Tokyo and moved in our first Tokyoite apartment in Nezu. At that time I was working at the university of Tokyo, a 5min walk from there. Settling in Tokyo without speaking Japanese was a lot of fun but not always easy. A. was not working at that time yet and he’s missions most of the days was to go and investigate for what we needed and then buy it and install it: washing machine, telephone, desktop computer, internet… We were very lucky to have friends to help us. The thing that took us the most time everyday was grocery shopping if you remember my post there. Thanks not only to my Japanese cooking book for beginners but also to our friend Shotaro, who is a very good cook and was living in Tokyo at that time. He came at home and we cooked together. For a reason very unclear, while I was grocery shopping yesterday I saw some nice sticky potato or yamaimo 山芋, and suddenly remembered about that salad we cooked together: cabbage, yamaimo and sesame dressing. And because before starting Tokyo Paris Sisters with Prunellia, I already had a site to share French recipes with our Japanese friends and Japanese recipes with our French friends, I just dug in to find that recipe back!!!! It was even simpler than I thought! At that time we used industrial sesame dressing but last night I came with a vegan homemade version that was really nice! So here is the recipe for 4 servings as starter:

For the dressing: a piece of yamaimo of about 1-2cm; 2tbs of sesame powder, known as surigoma-擂り胡麻 ; 1tbsp of soya sauce; water; salt.

Fir the salad: 1/2 cabbage; a large piece of yamaimo, or half one yamaimo.

Cut the cabbage in bite size chunks, if you like it crunchy use it raw, if you like softer, blanched it and cool it. Cut the yamaimo in 5-8mm x 4cm sticks. I a serving bowl put both ingredients. Now prepare the dressing. Grat the yamaimo to obtain what is called tororo-トロロ, a kind of slime that will give a creamy consistency to the dressing, add the surigoma, add the soya sauce, then mix well. The mix is quite dense and now you need to add water little by little still mixing (optimally with chop sticks) to obtain the consistency you want, it as to be creamy without being too much liquid. Top the vegetables and enjoy!!!

December 2, 2016

Back home!!!

I was in Toulouse for two days and it was not 2h since I landed back in Tokyo to be in my kitchen and prepare some simple meal for A. and me. I miss very quickly cooking, and preparing a nice little dinner is perfect to recover from the jet lag. In particular when the fridge is still well filled with some fresh vegetables. And after being away, I wanted to eat Japanese, so I opted for rice, and a dish of leek, sato imo and purple sweet potatoes, cooked in soya sauce and served with a large pickled plum. Colorful, tasty and light!!!

November 30, 2016

Grilled gnocchi

What’s that you’ll ask me! But it’s so simple and so delicious that it is worth trying. Usually you boil your gnocchi I guess but actually you don’t have to! You can simply grill them in a frypan with a little of olive oil, and takes even less time to cook them. Which, these days is really useful because work is quite busy and we both come home late and starving!

This preparation makes them soft and tender inside and crispy golden outside. It works both with homemade gnocchi or the one you can buy in some supermarket. I love to serve them with salt, pepper and tomato sauce. And I have been lucky enough to receive some tomato sauce my mother has made at the end of summer this year. If you don’t have some delicious tomato sauce, just serve them with a bit of olive oil. Perfect for a very quick little snack while waiting for dinner to be ready!

November 18, 2016

Dinner in a rush

Working Saturday on campus, coming back home and deciding to head to the country to enjoy the beautiful weather, I had to prepare dinner in a bit of a rush once we arrived, with an empty fridge and very few ingredients. Hopefully A. is always ok with simple vegab food, and I prepared steamed leek with miso, steamed spinaches with yuzu and miso, served with a bowl of white and green rice, and a few umeboshi. I actually was impressed by the spinach, and want to share my improvised recipe. I steam the spinach until bright green and then cool them and drained them to stop the process and keep their beautiful color. Then I cut them into 3-4cm, add 2tsp of miso (mild granulous miso in my case, white could work fine too), and mix the miso and the spinach with the fingers. I cut a slice of peel of fresh yuzu and thinly cut it (you can grat it if you prefer) and mix it too, keep a few for the decoration. Shape the spinach as a little mound, top with some yuzu peel. Eat with rice, white fish…

November 14, 2016

Bread making

The temperature is getting low at night these days; and mornings, though sunny are quite chilly. I love then more than ever to have hot bread, freshly baked, for breakfast. But because temperature in the house is much lower controlling the bread making is also much difficult. Yet, with more experience each year, I start to really manage to make bread with a more consistent result. A. loves white breads for breakfast so I prepared a big gâche bread this time. just 250gof white flour, 175g of water, 7g of salt and 5g of dry yeast. Kneaded until soft and smooth, then proven for a few hours (the house is barely 15deg inside) and shaped as a flat ball. I bake it the following morning for 30min (or until golden) at 230deg.

November 7, 2016