What I love with katsuobushi, it’s that it suits very well greens Simply prepared: delicious spinach topped with katsuobushi, green beans, and even shishito. Shishito is a sort of tiny green pepper with a typical taste, and sometimes they can be really hot, but not often. I usually prepare shishito for snacks, by just grilling them in a pan and serving with salt. But I discovered that adding some soya sauce and topping with katsuobushi make a delicious combination. So simple and yet so many tastes of Japan in one dish!
As I was thinking of preparing something about dashi and katsuobushi for a while, I imagined that I had to pay a visit again at Ninben to see if they were selling all of the different katsuobushi I learned about, and I found there a very nice recipe book. Of course all the recipes use katsuobushi. The recipes are all quite simple and perfect to prepare for every day. Since summer has faded away very quickly this year I’m starting to want to eat some fall typical ingredients: kabocha, mushrooms… So the first recipe that inspired me was a Japanese style tart. I of course changed the recipe to adjust it to my own taste (only Japanese can put potatoes into a tart filling!!!) and it came as a perfect tart with leek, eringi mushrooms and katsuobushi, in a home made brise dough. Delicious!
Basically you prepare the dough, then cut the leek and mushrooms, grill them a little in a pan, add soya sauce and 10g of katsuobushi, stir well. Add 3 eggs and set in the dough. Bake until golden. The mix can be starling at first if you are used to mote classic tarts or quiche but it’s really delicious. the original recipe was also includîg carrot and potato, bit I don’t think it is necessary.
Dashi is one of the basic ingredient of Japanese cooking and refers like “bouillon” in French or broth to the basic soup used for further cooking. Unlike French bouillon usually made out of fresh vegetables, chiken bones or fish bones… the Japanese dashi is made out of drief ingredients. There are several types of dashi: konbu, dry shiitake, katsuobushi, ninoshi… All are related with the taste of umami. Today let me tell you about katsuobushi dashi (鰹節だし) or dried bonito dashi, since this week I will talk a lot about katsuobushi. This dashi is used in many preparations and recipes.
A piece of katsuobushi and the tool to cut the flakes (katsuobusi kezuriki-鰹節削り器)
Actually katsuobushi is not exactly just dried bonito, it also involves a smoking, drying and fermentation processes (arabushi-荒節 and honkarebushi-本枯節), and is usually referred by Japanese as the hardest food in the world. It can be made of different parts of the fish: back or belly, thus more or less fatty giving a different result. The katsuobushi is so hard that it is used in cooking by gratting it to obtain flakes on a special device called katuobushi kezuriki (鰹節削り器). Using this device requires a lot of technique to obtain beautiful flakes and a lot of energy and time. For my chakaiseki classes I learnt how to do it, but for daily use I prefer alredy cut flakes sold in small bags. These flakes are used in many ways (there will be soon a katsuobushi series or week!) and dashi is one of them.
So here are the basics about preparing katsuobushi dashi. The best is to use a water that is not too hard to obtain the most delicious dashi, and of course a good katsuobushi with a not too thin shaving (kezuri katsuo-削り鰹). A good proportion for a base for soup for two, or further cooking is by using 2.2 cup of water and 1 cup of katsuobushi. Heat the water to 85deg. Add the bonito flakes, boil for about 10sec, and then leave for about 1min off the heat. Filter.
With the recent boom of “back to the roots” and to traditions (mainly after the 2011 earthquake) and the renewal going on in Nihonbashi district in Tokyo, a number of very old and traditional shops have revamped their activities and in particular katsuobushi shops. There are now “dashi bar” where you can enjoy a cup of freshly made katsuobushi dashi, and believe me people are queuing for it! Ninben (www.ninben.co.jp) is one of the most famous in Coredo Muromachi.
This all week has been pretty crazy. I knew I would be very busy at work and that I’ll have to go early to the lab too, but what I didn’t expect is that the train to commute would let me down so many times. Usually trains are super reliable in Japan, but once in a while there are incidents, and usually they happen all at the same moment. Spending more time to commute then usual I didn’t have so much time left to spend in my kitchen and still needed to indulged with some simple food to keep : rice with sesame seeds, and greens with soya sauce, and since I knew that wouldn’t be enough for my husband, I stopped by Saboten and added some pork filet katsu to the menu.
There is an infinity of variations with crepes and pancakes, by changing the flour, adding baking soda or not, milk, egg, seeds… I love to play with all these possibilities and create something different each time. This time I grilled some eggplant and sweet pepper, so I decided to bake a big thick crepe made of chickpea flour and added some flax seeds in. For the crepe just chickpea flour, water, olive oil and salt is ok, for a less dense one adding an egg is good also. I baked it at low heat under cover and served with olive oil and pepper.
Japanese cucumber are really tiny compared to the huge one in Europe or America. Their diameter is usually between 1 and 2 centimeters and they are 12 to 20 centimeters long. There are few seeds and the the skin is not too thick so you just need to wash the and can eat them.
In summer we eat cucumbers every day and I realized I should have started a cucumber week! I buy them either in Koganei or in Isumi at the local farmers, and this week I have a load of cucumbers from K. And S. From Tsunan.
I love cucumbers in cold soup and salad, I also love them as pickles. I will soon present you my delicious pickles made in the 2-5-8 but so far I’ve been too busy with work to prepare any.
But my favorite way to eat them is as a snack while dinner gets ready because it takes 3s to be ready: wash, dry in a cloth and cut in 4 sticks and cut the sticks in 4. And when I have an extra 2min I prepare a dip of miso paste. I use fresh organic mild miso but it works with red miso too, to which I add a little of vegetal oil and stir until creamy.
There are evenings when I don’t really have time to cook because I’m late from work or workout and I’m starving. Inicidently these evenings would coincide with a rather empty fridge (for some standards my fridge is always empty!). When this happens I need to fix dinner in less then 10min and I need carbs (no carb diet is definitely not for me). 10min is just the time it takes to boil some trofie, dice two large, super rippen fresh tomatoes, go outside to cut some fresh basil, seat back and snack a little cucumber.
This ultimate simplicity seasonned with a delicious olive oil, for instance from my hometown in France, Camargue salt and grind pepper is just the perfect dinner!
There is one thing that I really love in the end of summer it’s figs. It is relatively easy to find beautiful purple figs in Japan and I usually cook them in tart. I use a very traditional and simple recipe with a classic dough sable and an almond powder base with very little sugar. It is always delicious with the crispiness of the dough and the sofness of the figs and the almond powder. I top it with a little of brown caster sugar for the perfect balance.
I love to eat fresh fruits for breakfast every day, and when seasonal fruits are not too good (autumn and winter) or I have some fruits that got a little too rippen for a fruit salad I prepare a lot of smoothies. My idea is not to have a “super drink” with a whole week of veggies in it, but rather a tasty and delicious drink for breakfast or snack. My rules for delicious smoothies that keep the taste of each fruit are simple:
– always fresh fruits (I don’t use frozen food). At least one very juicy like pineapple, melon, watermelon… The rest depending on the market: strawberries, blueberries, passion fruit, kiwi, nashi, peach, pear…
– 3 or 4 fruit types at max (usually I stick to 3) for better taste of each of the fruit, after more all the tastes are just blended and it’s hard to say what is in.
– no bananas, they thicken the smoothie too much.
– only add water if needed, no other complement.
It gives super easy to drink smoothies, very tasty and always different. Sometimes I top it with a few chia seeds.
