A dinner with guests

The other night we had some guests at home, and when we do I need to be super-well organized to squeeze one hour to prepare dinner in my schedule, this usually my target time. So I need to think carefully the menu, the ingredients and once I enter the kitchen I know exactly what I’m doing. Usually I have some extra time or a few ideas on the fly, so that it turns I always improvise something. This time was no exception!

For the dinner it was simple: grilled delicious wild snapper with a little of sesame oil, rice with katsuobushi, white and pink turnip tofu salad with pumpkin seeds (similar recipe with the persimmon salad, but I replaced the persimmon with a little cucumber and the walnuts by kabocha seeds) and some pickled sweet ginger.

Then I realized that we didn’t have too much to snack while drinking so I decided to make a little extra, because it’s nice when you have dinner after work with friends to hang out and chat, to release the oressure of a long day at work. Well, with what I had in the fridge the best option was to make some kabocha chips, so I thinly sliced half a kobocha and cooked it in a bit of oil. Add some salt and served. That was a hit! Everyone loved it! 

Celery potage

Last week end at the local farmers market they had tones of super nice veggies so we came back to Tokyo with the trunk full of veggies (our car has a fairly small trunk though!). And now any time I open the fridge to cook I have plenty of ideas to prepare all these beautiful veggies.  I experimented quite a bit with juices and smoothies but my equipment in Tokyo is not appropriate for that. And then I came up with the idea of having a good soup for dinner made with this huge celery I bought. Since I like the simple taste of one ingredient I didn’t mix it with any thing. I simply boiled 3 branches of celery in some veggie consommé, then blend the whole thing, add a little of cream (vegetal cream is perfect) and serve hot. For those who like you can add a slice of grilled bacon or some croutons. 

Meisen kimonos – 銘仙

After a too long break I went to my Japanese class (which is basically drinking tea while reading articles about Japanese history, culture, craft and arts) and Takeda-san (my teacher for more than 10 years now) told me about a nice exhibition in a small museum in Roppongi: the Sen Oku museum. The exhibition features the collection of Nagano’s “classic museum” meisen (銘仙) kimonos. Meisen kimonos are some kind of cheaper kimonos made of lower quality silk, and that became super popular in Taisho period and early Showa. And as you may remember, this is one of my favorite period in Japanese history (see my earlier post on Taisho period and Taisho architecture). The meisen kimonos are very colourful, with many large patterns made with stencils with a very interesting technique of dying. I recommend you read this very nice article about meisen techniques from Anna Jackson of the Victoria and Albert Museum if you want to know more about it. Her article features many pictures of the making.

Coincidently, my favorite kimono magazine: Kimono hime (kimono姫), had its new issue on meisen.  With as usual, tons of beautiful pictures that make you want to wear kimonos every day, and some nice places to visit in the region of Chichibu, a place known for making meisen kimonos. I thought this was a sign and time to go and explore meisen. After a quick check going to Chichibu is not far from Tokyo but a rather crowded drive on week-ends in particular in autumn because of the surrounding nature. So we postponed the trip there for a day we can go during the week. Instead we headed to the museum in Roppongi and went to see the exhibition. It’s a small exhibition, so it didn’t take much time, but the kimonos exhibited were really nice and the movie explaining the making was also really interesting. It revived my love for wearing kimonos, for mo-ga fashion, and for modern Japanese paintings. It revived it so much that when out of the exhibition I had colorful patterns in my eyes and in my mind and it came naturally to us to go to Ginza to visit a few art galleries that have modern Japanese painters.

The tour was quite quick, we park in front of Tamenaga, that will have a Foujita exhibition starting Sunday, so we decided to come back on Sunday. Then we headed to an other one where didn’t find what we were looking for, finally browsing some leaflet, we found that Shihoudou may have what we are looking for and went there while stopping on our wayhere  and there in others. And yes! Shihoudou had exactly what I had in mind, a simple modern psinting of a girl in a colorful kimono. I love so much the contrast of the kimono and the european style painting, it is just the essence of this period for me. I dream of having such a painting!

Pie

This something that I never cook but that I actually love a lot. Pies are so delicious and so easy to make. And just like tarts there are so many variations that everything works! What I like very much with pies compared to tarts is that 1. You don’t need the egg base, 2. The filling is kind of steamed in the pie so it doesn’t dry, 3. The double layer of dough!! When I started this recipe I was thinking of a tart first but I changed my mind on the way and decided to make a kind of coca or calzone, and finally it turned out being a pie! That’s why the shape is not very pretty because I was rolling the dough in a different shape at first.

For the filling I used hard tofu, drained, shiitake cut in cubes, and chicory leaves (well I am not perfectly sure about what it is actually, but it something like chard). For the dough I used spelt flour, water and butter (which can be replaced by vegetal oil). I split the dough in two and rolled quite thin, but not too thin. I set one in a pie dish, add the veggies and the tofu (as on the picture) then cover with the second one, close tightly the edges together, made a small hole in the middle and added a little cheminey in cooking paper. I baked in the oven for 40min at 170 deg. Serve while it’s still hot. Bon appetite!

Autumn mode breakfast

What best after a perfect week-end to start a rainy Monday with a good apple and cinnamon cake, a hot chai and some fresh fruits? We’re heading to autumn a its full and slowly evenings are getting dark early and chilly, so I have plenty of time to spend in the kitchen. Yesterday I decided to prepare a treat for our breakfast with a very simple apple cake. It’s a basic yogurt cake recipe without yogurt, and I use very little brown sugar because I don’t like too sweet breakfasts and instead plenty of cinnamon, which suits perfectly my morning chai tea. 

I wish you a good week!

Persimmmon and turnip salad

We harvested some more persimmons today and I really have a lot!! So I’m trying a few recipes with persimmons, after the not too conclusive jam experiment. Back when I was going to cha-kaiseki classes there was a really nice autumn recipe of persimmon in salad. Later I found other recipes that inspired me, and today I would like to present you my original recipe of persimmon, turnip and tofu. 

The recipe is ultra simple. For 4 servings, 1 still hard persimmon, 2 turnips or a piece of daikon, 1/2 block of hard tofu, sesame seeds, a few walnuts, salt. Start by draining the tofu, since it takes some time. Then peel the turnips and cut them in small sticks (thin slices can also work); set them in a bit of salt to remove the water. Peel the persimmon, and cut similarly to the turnips. In a bowl, roughly squeeze a tea spoon of sesame seeds and the walnuts. Once the tofu is drained, press it in a clean clothe to remove the additional water and once quite dry mix it with the sesame and the walnuts. Drain the turnips and add ghem to the tofu, add the persimmon. And serve.

Pasta dinner!

Recently I’ve been cooking Japanese a lot for dinner. For sure I love Japanese rice, but I also love pasta!!! So I come up with a little autumn recipe for some delicious fusilli: leek, tomato and kabocha, with a few cumin seeds and plenty of olive oil. A perfect dinner before my evening meeting with the other side of the world!!

I simply cut in small pieces all the veggies, cook them in a bit of oil then under cover until golden add generously pepper and cumin seeds. Boil the pasta, and serve together.

Autumn meal

I love when I get back to work a bit late (which is to be honest pretty much every day) to open my veggie drawer in the fridge and to find a whole set of fresh things just waiting to be prepared. What and how just naturally flow from my mind and in less than 15min the dinner is almost ready or at least all decided!

This time my fridge had a wide choice of autumn veggies, no surprise there. And I prepared a little mix to accommodate a simple bowl of rice and some pickles. So I just just a red onion, a piece of lotus root, a carrot, a piece of kabocha, some shimeji and a few green pepper. I cooked them in a bit of oil at high heat for a few minutes then under cover at low heat for an other few minutes, finally add a little of soya sauce and serve.

Madeleines

Since my last trial of madeleines this summer I didn’t had te time to get my molds and to try again, but now that days are really getting shorter and cooler the tea-time after gardening all afternoon requires a little complement and madeleines are perfect for that. So I went to buy some molds to Kappabashi street the other day and I just tried to make some madeleines again. I picked a different recipe than last time but I am not completely satisfied with the shape. They get a little bump, but not as big as I expeted. Taste-wise: perfect. Let me work a little on the recipe before sharing it. But if you have a good one let me know!!

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