Better love eggplants!!!

While the summer plays hide and seek, the summer vegetables are still around and should be for a few more weeks.

The great star of the summer in my kitchen this year is eggplant šŸ†. We always eat a lot of eggplants in the summer, but this year it looks really like we are eating even more. Last week recipe was a great example but there is much more to do. And today I share with you another Japanese eggplant recipe, vegan this time, as simple as the previous one but with a different set of flavors.

SautƩed eggplants Japanese style

  • 2 Japanese eggplants
  • 1 aburage pad (thin fried tofu sheets)
  • 1 tsp of sesame seeds
  • 1tsp of soya sauce
  • 1tsp of cooking oil, I usually use olive oil no matter what but sunflower or rice oil are OK too

Wash the eggplants and dice them. In a pan set the cooking oil snd heat. When hot add the eggplant and cook at high heat while stirring often. Slice thinly the aburage. Add to the eggplants. Cook and stir until the eggplants are creamy. Add the sesame and soya sauce, stir and serve.

While the base is the same as the perfect eggplant recipe, the flavors are very different. I actually recommend to cook both and compare. Itā€™s perfect to understand umami.

The perfect eggplants

Eggplants in Japan are really something, not just a vegetable but also a mean of transportation, together with cucumbers, for spirits that come to visit during the Obon period.

In Japanese traditional cooking they are often present and prepared in many ways with the other local and seasonal staples. I have introduced several recipe already, yet I surprise myself with new recipes every time I cook some. Recently I have been really into grilling them in the oven without any further complications, and dress them either western style with olive oil… or Japanese style with soya sauce and katsuobushi. I really love the simplicity of a dish that highlights the goodness of a few ingredients. So here is my recipe of the perfect eggplants Japanese style.

Perfect eggplants Japanese style

  • 2 Japanese eggplants per person
  • 1tsp of soya sauce per person
  • 1 large pinch of katsuobushi per person

Wash the eggplants, and cut them in half in the length. Grill them in the oven until they are soft and a bit golden on top. Take them out and let them cool down a bit. Cut each in 5-6 pieces (bite size), just before eating dress them in a plate, top with soya sauce and katsuobushi. Eat immediately.

Potato salad with Japanese flair

I often forget how much we love boiled potatoes. I always have the impression it takes longer to prepare than other ingredients and usually our carbs end up being either pasta, or rice, or a dough of any kind: a quiche, a pie, a stuffed bread etcā€¦ You can argue that making a quiche or stuff bread takes more time than boiling and peeling potatoes and you are absolutely right!!!!

So, once in a while I remember how much we love them and boil a few. And when the season of cucumber is at its peak I love to make potato salad.

One can think of so many variations of potato salad that two are never the same! Once thing that I really love is the mix boiled potatoes and hard boiled eggs, and since I had a lot of fresh green shiso leaves I decided to prepare a potato salad with Japanese flavors. It was simple and quick to prepare, nourishing and tasty. I highly recommend you try it!!!

Potato salad with Japanese flavors (2 servings as one plate dish)

  • 8 potatoes (ping pong ball size)
  • 1 Japanese cucumber
  • 2 eggs
  • 5 leaves of shiso
  • 1tsp of soya sauce
  • 2tbs of olive oil

Boil the potatoes, and the eggs. Once cool peel the potatoes and cut in two or four. Peel the eggs and chop them. Wash and slice thinly the cucumber. Wash and chisel the shiso leaves. In a bowl put everything, add the olive oil and the soya sauce. Stir well and enjoy!

Coral lentils spicy stew

I love lentils of all sorts, but when I see coral lentils on a shelf, I canā€™t help being attracted by their beautiful color. And every time I forget that the color will somehow fade away when cooked (contrarily to some fancy pictures you see on the internetā€¦ or they have a well kept secretā€¦)

So I usually get excited starting cooking them and thinking about the beautifully colored dishā€¦ and 20 minutes laterā€¦ damned! Itā€™s yellowish brownishā€¦ Nonetheless the recipe I came with yesterday was really delicious, and worth remembering. So let me share it with you.

Coral lentils spicy stew (2 servings as whole meal)

  • 100g of coral lentils
  • 5 little potatoes
  • 1 onion
  • 1 eggplant
  • 1tsp of curry powder
  • 1tsp of turmeric
  • Ground black pepper
  • Salt

In a large pan put the lentils and cover generously with water. Cook at low heat for 15min or until the water is gone.

Peel the potatoes, cut them in 4. Cut the onion in bites, and the eggplant. Add to the lentils. Almost cover with water, add the spices, salt and pepper and cook at medium to low heat for 10min, or until the water is almost gone. Serve and enjoy!!

Summerā€¦

Damn I love summer, the heat, the cicadas, the trips to the beach and all the summer foods!!!

Another year without travel has taken us to our usual refuge for the holidays, where weā€™ve been spending more and more time thanks to telework. Escaping for one full week Tokyoā€™s heat, the Olympics fuss, and the again increasing rate of contaminations is just perfect.

Holidays are usually spent between morning and afternoon surf sessions, playing tennis, when the weather allows, gardening (weā€™re expanding our garden so there is quite a bit of work to prepare the new plot soil, as we plan to use it as an orchard and kitchen garden partly), talking, reading and sleeping a lot, and cooking less than I always originally wantā€¦

I must say that the fresh fruits and vegetables are so delicious eaten just the way they are that it doesnā€™t invite to be creative!!! Simple melons, blueberries, blackberries, and now the nashi season has also startedā€¦ though in the past I tried some nashi tart and baking them, I love them just the way they areā€¦ simply peeled and eaten just out of the fridge, thatā€™s when their cold and sweetly perfumed juice is so refreshing! (Top picture)

Breakfasts = fresh fruits and sourdough breads

The one thing I steadily do is baking breads and tarts and quiches. Whole wheat, buckwheat, plain, seeds, focaccia, pizzaā€¦ everything is good for my sourdough! And blueberries tart are also a favorite at home!

Iā€™ve been also making quite a bit of skewers. Simple but easy to serve and grill in a panā€¦ fish, chicken breast, pork filetā€¦ everything is good! My favorite is to roll the fish or the meat in green shiso leaves, that for sure feels like summer. Shiso everywhere! Topping a salad, in white riceā€¦

For our new plot, I hope we could try to turn this desert land into a permaculture forest gardenā€¦ my experience and skills in growing a kitchen garden are rather close to zero but I really would love to have one of these beautiful forest gardens that populate Instagramā€¦ one day maybeā€¦ but planning is fun anyway.

  • Surfinā€™
  • New plot

Enjoy your summer!!

Cucumber šŸ„’ love

If you like cucumbers you surely like even better Japanese cucumbers. They are tiny, crunchy, juicy, with much less seeds. Chilled they are perfect for the summer. Slightly pickled or not we love them and eat some every day in the hottest season. They are good just cut and dipped in miso for a very rapid snack, or prepared in light pickling with salt or with umezu ę¢…é…¢. You can find many of my recipes including cucumber here. But today I came up with a new idea, of a simple cucumber salad, with Japanese flavors. And it is so simple that t is going to be a new summer favorite.

Summer cucumber salad

  • 1 Japanese cucumber
  • 2 myoga (Japanese ginger)
  • 1tsp of umezu (otherwise a pinch of salt and 5 drops of soya sauce)

Wash and pat dry the cucumber. Slice it thinly. Put in a bowl add the umezu and stir with the hand. Wait 5 minutes, in the meantime, wash and chop thinly the myoga. Gently press the cucumber with the hand and remove the juice. Add the myoga and stir. Serve chilled and enjoy!

Ready to eat!

Summer

The end of the rainy season coincides with the beginning of the true summer days. The cicadas start singing full blast, the dusks and the dawns vibrate with the beautiful and typical sounds of the 恋ćŖ恋ćŖčŸ¬kanakanamushi (Tanna Japonensis), probably above all my favorite animal soundā€¦ the humidity goes slightly away and the heat climbs up to another levelā€¦ itā€™s a short time of the year that lasts just a very few weeks, before the typhoons arrive. The heat brings some kind of slowness to our home, and some restlessness because all I think about is going swimming. But there is much to do too.

What do you think is the very first thing I do when the rainy season ends in Japan?

Wellā€¦ itā€™s easy, itā€™s drying my umeboshi. Gently taking them out of the brine on a nice morning one by one and lining them in the sun. Turning them and doing it another day. I must say that I am getting better at picking plums and the worries of the first attempt are now all gone and I am more confident. This year for the first time I also added red shiso to some and I am quite please with the result.

So if you had pickled plums this year, itā€™s gonna be about time to dry them and enjoy them. Keep the brine for the summer energy drink. Add a bit to a large glass of water to pack on salt and minerals.

Malaysian inspirations – fragrant rice

In search for new inspirations and continuing with these inspirations from our travels around the world, after Italy (which I must say was an easy one!!!) I decided we would travel back to Malaysia.

A long long time ago we traveled to Malaysia for a few days in Kuala Lumpur and then north to Langkawi. In Kuala Lumpur we were super lucky to spend time with some local acquaintances that were total food fans and introduced us to all the possible food that exist there, discovering the Malay, Indian, Chineseā€¦ influences of this very original cuisine. I came back from our trip with a cookbook in our suitcase. A book in the end I enjoyed looking at but barely made any recipe from because Iā€™m always missing an ingredientā€¦

This time I decided I wouldnā€™t care and would just do with what I had, assuming that what I donā€™t have in my pantry is something I donā€™t like much. Hopefully, recently I bough some jasmine long rice as a change from round Japanese rice, because this is probably what would make the most difference. So I did a super simple rice recipe. Of course I didnā€™t have all the ingredients and adapted it to our taste. I served it with some vegetables simply cooked in a bit of coconut cream.

The recipe was mentioning that it is traditionally served for weddings. But I am simplifying it so much that I don’t even want to use the original name of the dish to call the recipe I have prepared. Yet the degree of satisfaction for that recipe was really high so I invite trying it!

Fragrant rice Malasia-style (4 servings)

  • 300g of basmati or jasmine long rice
  • 350g of water
  • 20g of butter
  • 2tsp of ground cardamom
  • 1tsp of coriander seeds
  • 1 stick of cinammon
  • 2 star anises
  • 2tsp of soya sauce
  • a pinch of salt

The first thing to do is to prepare fragrant water. In a small pan, heat the coriander seeds, the cinnamon stick, the star anise and the coriander for a few minutes. add 50g of water and bring to a boil, add the butter and keep heating until half of the liquid is gone. drain to keep the water and remove the spices. Keep the spices for decorating.

In a pan set the rice, top with 300g of water, add the fragrant water you just made, the salt, and the soya sauce. cook undercover at low heat until all the water is gone. Stop the heating and keep everything in the pan, under the cover for another 5minutes before serving. use the spice for decorating if you want to.

Too much routine

I need to go outside of my comfort zone in the cuisineā€¦ but I donā€™t know howā€¦

Making ravioli, pancakes, scones, quiches, breads etcā€¦ has become such a routine and is so effortless that I miss the challenge. Because, yes indeed, I am a challenger. Whether itā€™s at work, on the court, in the ocean, or in front of my sewing machine I like challenges. Thatā€™s how I ended up registering to a bodyboard school last year and I still enjoy learning to ride waves better and to spin on my board! Thatā€™s why I enjoy sewing (and here the challenge is massive!!!) . But recently cooking has been more functional than challenging. Even the steam buns, the bread in a pan etcā€¦ are now basically classics and I rush them between two meetings!!

Since my main source of inspiration : experience and local sourcing during our trips has dried up in the past 18months, I have decided to use my imagination and my recollections of some our trips. First stop: Firenze of course! I remembered these gigantic sandwiches they would sell in something resembling focaccia (scaccia in Florence) and I never tried because it is just too gigantic and there was too much fat left on the ham (I have always hated meat fat) and since I just bought some prosciutto it was the perfect timing. So I baked a plain focaccia, and decided that we would have a savory breakfast.

Trying a new type of breakfast: focaccia, prosciutto and fresh tomatoes and peach…

And then because I made a rather giant focaccia we went for it again for lunch, this time in a real panino version with grilled vegetables. (Top picture)ā€¦

It wasnā€™t much but it was a change. Not yet far away from the comfort zone, but new enough!!!

Iā€™ll keep searching my memories!

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