Miso

Remember last March? I made miso with our friends… and I had to wait about a year before being able to try it… actually our friends came home the other day and we talked miso, and they said that their miso was ready and 9month were sufficient… so I couldn’t wait to open my bucket and check what was under the big stone and the bamboo leaves… I totally didn’t sneak peek in during the whole time, worried that could prevent it from fermenting correctly.

First there was a bit of beautiful blue mold on the edges of the bamboo leaves, but that is normal. Under the bamboo leaves there was a beautiful, clean and fresh miso waiting!!!

Just uncovered miso

Without any delay I moved the miso from the plastic jar (I like better the old pottery for pickles… but mine was too small…) into bins and started using it right away. First of all with daikon and carrot sticks. It’s always the best way to test the real raw taste of miso. Then of course in miso soup, and with spinach and finally a simple recipe with chickpeas, spinach, and an egg. The miso I made is really nice. It has a texture where you can easily see the crushed beans and I love this texture for classic miso. Of course you don’t find this in white and red miso, which are much creamier. I found it a bit salty when I first tasted it, but now I don’t feel that anymore. I will definitely make miso again this year!!!

Miso soup and spinach with miso for our friends visiting. Picture from @Chinoshot

Chickpeas, spinach and miso

– 150g of boiled chickpeas

– 1 bundle of spinach

– 2tbs of miso

– 2 eggs (optional)

Wash and chop the spinach. Blanche them in very little water. Drain them. In a slightly olive oil greased pan put the chickpeas, the spinach and stir well, when the chickpeas are warm, in a small bowl dilute the miso in 2tbs of water and add to the pan and stir well. Cook a sunny side egg if you want. Serve the chickpeas and top (or not) with the egg. Enjoy and stay warm!!!

Bread for every mornings

Earlier in December as I mentioned in my first post this year, I discovered a book thanks to Giulia @ Julskitchen that makes the promise to prepare fancy breads in 5min. I was skeptical at first but also curious so the only option was to try by myself a few recipes and see how it was actually feasible on regular working days. So during the holidays I started to get familiar with the processes and this week I have used the recipes and method non stop for breakfast mainly, sometimes dinners. So here are my thoughts and findings after almost 2 weeks of using the book bread in 5 on a daily basis.

First of all yes! it is undeniably making bread baking really easy and despite the rises that take time, but that is inherent to bread making and I didn’t expect to have this time reduced, it really takes 5min for most of the recipes to mix the ingredients and shape the bread(s). I tried both with fresh yeast and dry yeast and it is equally working well. I didn’t try with sourdough yet…

I have tried recipes for the classic breads, milk bread, brioche, panettone… I must admit that of all the brioche was really bluffing and when I remember how much time and effort it took me to knead my first brioche and that the result was so so… I can only recommend to use this recipe for people new to kneading and baking. I will definitely use the recipe again and again to make brioche for breakfast when we have friends over.

As I mentioned in my earlier post the breads are simples and can be easily upgraded: this morning I added vanilla, I made walnuts rolls, or salt rolls for dinner… but they are not French breads with a thick and hard crust, I never managed to obtain anything close and I don’t think it is possible. It is totally fine, you just need to know that. Rather the breads are fluffy but very nourishing and soft. A. told me they looked like breads his mom made with a bread machine once… I never really had bread from bread machine, so I couldn’t say… I finally enjoyed them more as individual rolls than bread to slice.

The one thing that was a great learning for me was the conservation of the dough after the first rise. Knowing that you can keep it refrigerated for up to a week was quite a finding. Though I found it worked well with breads with plain ingredients, I liked it much less for breads with butter, milk or eggs… in particular I found that after 3 days the milk bread I made had a stronger fermented taste that I didn’t like much… personal preference I guess… I also wonder if keeping the dough that way works with kneaded doughs… something I need to try to find out. Because for me the kneading part, in particular for French breads is actually something I like to do on Saturday evening. It is relaxing and a time for reflection that I need in my busy schedule. Some meditate and run… I knead and garden… yet having freshly baked bread on the breakfast table every morning is just fantastic… and it’s even easier than pancakes, once in the oven there nothing to do… oh! And there are many recipes of braided bread, something I find quite beautiful when well done…

So bread in 5 was a revelation for me but I need to adjust it to my habits and liking!!

Ravioli with Japanese flavors

By now you must know that I love ravioli, that I love both making and eating them. With the end of year/new year holidays in Japan, most of the farmers market were off until today, so I had to buy some long lasting vegetables that would last 7-10 days and enough for having friends at home and unscheduled meals to cook, just in case… so I packed on shiitake, spinach, sweet potatoes, daikon, cabbages and carrots mainly. So when I wanted to make ravioli I was a bit falling short of options at first… but then I decided to use the ravioli recipe I learned in Florence last year: a base of potato and a sauce with mushrooms. I just twisted the recipe enough to make it Japanese style: filling of Japanese sweet potato and soya sauce, and the sauce with shiitake, spinach and a bit of grilled pork for those who like it. The result was really up to my expectations, even though I could have added a little more soya sauce. But each vegetable flavor and texture was remarkable and I and A. were both very happy with the result. So here is my recipe:

Sweet potato ravioli (2-4 servings depending on serving size, for it was 4)

For the pasta as usual:

– 100g of flour

– 1egg

– a bit of olive oil, a bit of salt

Mix all and knead until soft. Wrap and leave to rest for 30-90min.

For the filling:

– 2 medium sweet potatoes

– 2tbs of soya sauce

Boil them, when soft, drain, peel, and mash. Add a bit of water if too dry.

For the sauce:

– 1 bundle of spinach

– 4-6 large shiitake

– olive oil to your liking

– thin slices of pork if you like

Wash the vegetables, chop the spinach and slice the shiitake. In a heated pan with olive oil cook the vegetables, add the pork if you want. Add a bit of water if too dry. Keep.

Roll the dough and fill the ravioli. I used a 12-ravioli rack which has fairly large size ravioli (the dough quantities make for two racks: 24 ravioli). Mezze lune are also easy to make as in the recipe here. Fill them and boil them. Once they come to the surface take them out and add to the sauce. It doesn’t matter if a bit of cooking water comes too, on the contrary. Stir gently to cover the ravioli with the sauce and serve to eat right away.

Hand making

I’ve always loved making things with my hands… whether it’s been cooking, or small crafts, or drawing, but with a grand mother professional knitter, a mother and elder sister that know sewing, as the smallest one I didn’t really get a chance to learn any on these. Knitting I would probably be able to catch up, I did a little knitting when I was a child, but sewing… except for making squared pillow cases and the like, I really know nothing, and cutting is even worse, ask A. about my attempt of making a cylindrical pillow case… so when my old neighbor asked me if I wanted to learn how to make a traditional Japanese quilted jacket, I knew it would please her to spend some time with me chitchatting, I just couldn’t say no! I love learning new things to do with my hands. She told me what to buy and I prepared everything to be ready when the making day would come. She told me: “you’ll see it’s very easy” I understood “it will take one afternoon or one evening and you’ll have a new overcoat”… it was underestimating the skills needed and my total lack of them!!! It took me one evening just to cut and prepare the basic shape and she was guiding me all along, one other evening to add the filling and do the preparation sewing, and one evening to finally finish the hand sewing! But I did it!!! I am very proud of my first real piece of clothing! Hand sewing is yes time consuming but the cutting and mounting part were really interesting to learn!!! Learning how to make the best of the piece of fabric you have, how to avoid useless cutting and sewing, and how to optimize ease of mounting the whole thing together was really eye opening on knowhow and craftsmanship. I will definitely try again. The thing I found the best of all was that rather than watching an online tutorials I found that having someone experienced to show me was crucial in succeeding and in making the whole experience engaging and fun. Because not only did I learned how to make the jacket but also how to make small consistent knots, to use a supporter to make straight and regular stitches… and one million other things about Japan 70 years ago!!!

That said, you can understand that I had fewer time for cooking, so it was always simple. And with the chilly evenings, a warm soup was always welcome. I made a sweet potato and cauliflower soup. It’s so easy and requires so little work that it was perfect for me.

Sweet potato and cauliflower soup (2 large servings)

– 1 small cauliflower

– 2 small Japanese sweet potatoes (or 1/2 if it’s only big ones you can find)

– 200ml of milk

– salt and pepper

Boil the vegetables after washing/peeling and cutting them. When tender, move the vegetables in a blender, add the milk salt and pepper and mix. If too thick add a bit of the cooking water. Serve immediately and eat hot!

Welcome 2019!

How are you starting this new year? I am welcoming the new year as a normal day in our country house, with a garden harvest of lemons, natsu-mikan, daffodils, camellia flowers and maple leaves… and a lot of cooking and baking. I also started learning cutting and sewing with my old neighbor. Regarding baking, this week I am trying some recipes from my new baking book: bread in 5, that my parents offered me for my birthday, and the new flours I bought at Cuoca in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi.

I was indeed interested by the book when I first read about it from Giulia @ Julskitchen IG. I thought how wonderful it could be sometimes to have fancier breads than regular French breads, and to be able to prepare them faster. I also got fresh yeast which makes bread so much better, fluffier and they have less the taste of yeast. So far both the book and the ingredients have delivered amazing results. I’ll talk about that in detail in a later post, after I have tried a little more recipes. But simply the introduction and the tips page were full of teachings!

For this first morning of the year, I wanted something rich, sweet and fancy, as A. loves them. In winter I really love cinnamon rolls so I was first going to make some when I found the recipe of this Swedish tea ring in the Christmas bread sections. Indeed, Christmas was just last week!! The recipe uses a brioche dough as base and I was really intrigued by how to shorten the extremely long hand kneading time of the brioche and what it would give. To shorten kneading the recipe uses melted butter, smart indeed. And it worked perfectly for the ring (I need to work on my shaping!!). I modified slightly the recipe of the rolls, and didn’t use neither the egg wash or the icing as I thought it was rich enough that way for breakfast. This for sure was a hit! A. was very pleased with the result and so did I!

I wish you a beautiful year 2019 from my kitchen!

Lemon cake

For my birthday for the past 6 or 7 years, when possible, A. bakes me a birthday cake of my choice. The season is such that it involves often lemon or apple. This year the tradition went on and he prepared on my request a lemon cake. With the lemon just harvested in the garden. These lemons I have seen slowly growing and are totally free of pesticides, wax and other things that make you think twice before using the zest. The cake he made was super delicious, on of the best I have had! I wonder why he doesn’t bake more often!! And because he used the recipe he found online and didn’t want to halve the quantities, we obtained 2 cakes of perfect size for tea and breakfast for two. I slightly ask him to modify the recipe to be less buttery, so here is the actual recipe he used:

Lemon cake

– 200g of flour

– 120g of brown sugar

– 80g of butter

– 4eggs

– 1tbs of baking powder

– 1 lemon (free of chemical)

Melt the butter. Wash the lemon and extract both the zests and the juice.

In a bowl, mix the flour, the baking powder, the sugar, add the eggs, the butter and end with the lemon juice and the zest. Pour in a cake dish (one 30cm or two 20 or less).

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180deg for 35min to 45min

When ready eat right away or once is has cooled down.

Have a beautiful end of 2018!!

Getting old…

Tomorrow I’ll turn one year up… now I know that I didn’t achieve my main goal for this year, despite trying hard for the past few years, but I realized I actually don’t care much because it doesn’t depend on me actually but on appreciation of others, and being alien in a conservative country doesn’t make things easy. Discrimination, racism, are things I face every day but I live with it because I chose to live in Japan. And finally I prefer that than living in a sad country where I could fit in. Our trip to France last weekend was quite eye opening again. The city was so sad and gloomy that I didn’t enjoy it much. Our hotel was right in the middle of two main riots spots, police cars everywhere, shops closing instantly to avoid being savagely deteriorated, security staff in front of the hotel, with main doors closed and all trying to keep a low profile… There is no way I can regret one second having left that sick self-destructing country.

I ate the idea of getting old… but the good thing with my birthday is that in Japan it is often holiday, as it is the first day of the long new year break. This year is particularly long since we will have 6 days!!! So I decided to go packing on flours, fresh yeast and other baking staples to be sure I am fully equipped to bake everyday. In particular because in my birthday presents bundle (in the gigantic amount of presents I brung back from Paris) I know there is a baking book and I can’t wait to open it!!! Since I went shopping at Cuoca in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi I also bought a few vegetables and some fresh fish from Chiba, and cooked simple pasta too. Here is my recipe.

Flounder with Brussels sprouts and spinach (2 servings)

– 1 piece of flounder

– 10 Brussels sprouts

– 1 bundle of fresh spinach

– 125g of pasta of your choice

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Boil water and cook the pasta. Wash the vegetables. Chop the spinach, and halve the Brussels sprouts. In a large pan greased with olive oil and heated start by cooking the Brussels sprouts, then add the spinach and the fish. Stir the vegetables, be careful not to break the fish. Remove fish when cooked, add a little bit more olive oil, the pasta, salt and pepper, and stir while cooking at high heat. When all is well mixed, serve in the plates, top with the fish and enjoy right away!

Have a great day today, last working day before next Friday!!!!!

Moyashi – soya sprouts

Soya sprouts (or moyashi) are one of these things I love but I hardly buy and cook because it’s hard to find some that are made properly. I remember reading about how they were made and stopped eating some. So last night when We went shopping after flying back from France, and I found organic moyashi at our local Seijo Ishi supermarket I couldn’t help buying them. Moyashi is a super food: easy to prepare, packed on protein and nutrients, and also it is very very cheap!!!! One of my favorite combination is moyashi and fried tofu. I love the mix of the crunchy and watery moyashi, with the soft oily tofu. This goes super well with simple rice or in chahan (fried rice). Here is one version of my recipe, it’s a vegetarian option that can be turned in a vegan one by removing the eggs or turned into a plain one if adding thinly cut chicken breast or pork slices.

Sautéed moyashi (for 3 small portions or 2 large portions)

– a bag of organic moyashi

– 2 slices of aburage

– 1tbs of sesame oil

– 1tsp of sesame seeds

– 2tbs of soya sauce (light colored recommended)

Optional: 2 eggs, 1 chicken breast or 5 thin slices of pork meat

Wash and drain the moyashi. In a pan greased with the sesame oil and heated add the moyashi. Cut the tofu in thin strips, add to the pan. Stir and cook at medium heat until l the moyashi is getting softer. Add the eggs or the meat if you want, and stir very well. Finish with the sesame seeds. Serve warm with rice.

Xmas approaching

Except for some Xmas decorations and tangerine, pompe a l’huile and panettone I am not a big fan of Christmas. This time of forced happiness, of forced making presents and receiving some, the bad timing with my birthday following just after… no really… I could easily pass. And pass on the weeks before too starting early in November when each family member asks you what you want for Xmas… like I needed anything… I prefer more spontaneous family gatherings than that one, presents made when something nice has been found or is needed. A nice time spent together on no particular occasion. Traveling to the Mediterranean is at least for me a not so bad way to spend the holidays and I definitely miss not traveling to Italy this year, as I already mentioned. This year, with the many circumstances we will spend Xmas eve on the plane on our way back to Tokyo… but way back means that we are going somewhere… indeed before that, we will fly to Paris for the weekend to spend a pre-xmas with our families all gathered in Paris for the occasion. The good point of flying for such a short time is that you don’t have to bother with jetlag and family is happy… Even if it is only for a short time we are away, I prefer to eat simple and delicious food before going to Paris, as the food when eating out is often too much for me. I love conchiglie and in particular with thinly chopped spinaches, when they can hide inside the pasta with a bit if olive oil. Last time I prepared some with bacon and ricotta, this time I used fresh anchovies. The anchovies prepared for sashimi are perfect, the are clear of bones and just need to be cooked. I first blanched the spinach, then chop them, I boil the pasta, and in a pan with olive oil I cook the anchovies and add the spinach, finish with the pasta, salt and pepper. It is really simple and rapid.

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