Corn

Despite a very busy week at work, I wanted to try preparing some nice food, simple but nice… and because we haven’t been to the country, I still had to adjust to what I could find in Tokyo’s supermarkets. One thing I found that was nice was fresh corn… something I don’t cook to often because I totally lack of imagination when it comes to cooking corn. Luckily I was browsing a cooking magazine in the train and found a nice recipe of a creamy corn soup (one of the classic use of corn), with rolled asparagus in bacon. I had corn, I had asparagus, I had bacon, I didn’t want to prepare a creamy soup… but the combination inspired me for a new recipe of pasta.

Orecchiette with corn and asparagus (for 2 people, main dish)

– 120g of orecchiette

– 1 fresh corn

– 4 slices of bacon

– 2~4 green asparagus

– olive oil

– paprika powder

– chili powder

– salt and pepper

I boiled one corn and then I shuck it. In a pan I simply grilled some bacon cut in pieces, added the corn and when the bacon was golden added some chopped asparagus, a tsp of paprika, a bit of chili powder, salt and pepper.
Then I boiled the pasta, drained them, added them to the sauce and stirred well, adding a bit of olive oil, and served to eat right away!

June 1, 2018

Italia!

What was supposed to be a nice and peaceful trip to Italy and France started with quite a bit of a commotion with a few centimeters of snow in Paris… and I landed in Paris at 4:00AM only to learn a few hours later that the flights to Florence I was successively checked-in were all cancelled and I decided to fly to Roma instead and take the train and I arrived in Florence 12h later than expected… My long expected visit to the San Lorenzo market, to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, flowers and cheese was postponed… but not for long! As soon as I came back from work in Pisa on Thursday I went grocery shopping and I could enjoy cooking again the seasonal vegetables that we don’t have in Japan: chards, corn salad… Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with gnocchi, always with fresh cheese. Here is one of my favorite recipe with corn salad, a fresh simple recipe but really tasty (picture below). I spare you the chard recipes because they were really too simple and the pictures talk for themselves.

Corn salad one plate:

– 100g of corn salad

– 2 branches of celery

– 6 green asparagus

– a handful of pine nuts

– freshly grated Parmigiano

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Wah the vegetables, blanche the asparagus. Chop the celery in dice, chop the asparagus. Mix them together and add the pine nuts. Stir. In the plates, start with corn salad, top with the mixed celery-asparagus-pine nuts, add olive oil, salt and pepper and finish with grated Parmigiano. Enjoy!

Have a great week ahead!

February 11, 2018

Quiche

Now that work is getting back to normally busy I have more time to cook for dinner. And sometimes things turn out better than expected, may be because I haven’t cooked for a while. A quiche is very easy to make and always delicious but sometimes it turns out even better than that. Yesterday night that’s exactly what happened to me. While I was preparing it I had a good feedback but after tasting it it was so much over the top that I couldn’t understand why. For the pie crust I made a dough with a mix of buckwheat flour, rice flour, regular flour, 2 eggs, a bit of vegetal oil and water. I rolled it thick because I wanted to make a large quiche with plenty of vegetables and tofu. The tofu was amazing. I have tried a new hard tofu and it was crazily delicious with crumbs like goat cheese or feta cheese, but a much softer taste of course. I used also my new favorite organic soya milk that since now available in most supermarkets. And for the vegetables I chose asparagus and zucchini, and twisted the taste with some green shiso (perilla) leaves. I baked the whole thing for 30 minutes. And then it was magic!!!

I am so glad we didn’t eat the whole thing and I have my lunch all set!

June 1, 2017

Rolled asparagus

I discovered this very simple preparation of asparagus in Japan, I don’t know if it is anywhere else as popular as it is here, but it is for sure an extremely simple recipe that goes very well for barbecue or for very quick dinner fix. It consists in rolling green asparagus in thin slice of pork. In Japan it is simple there are 4 main pieces of pork at the butcher: filet mignon, thick boneless cutlet, thinely sliced boneless cutlet, and boneless ribs or belly. For this recipe usually a fatty meat such as ribs or belly (豚バラ) is used but I prefer a less fatty meat so I use thinely sliced cutlet. You just need to wash the asparagus, I remive the hardest part, then roll them in the meat (from which I remove the fat if I don’t have time to cook them for a long time) and then grill in a pan without any grease. I serve that with rice, it is good too to had umeboshi. It it is so simple and so delicious!

May 16, 2017

White asparagus with parmigiano cream

One ingredient again that is not that easily found in Japan and that you can find everywhere at farmers markets in France at this time of the year: white asparagus! Indeed, in Japan green asparagus are quite common but white are rather rare and most of the time imported, so I never buy some. But in France in spring it is really common.

One recipe I love that I tried when eating at Thoumieux (not the Brasserie, the Hotel Thoumieux restaurant) and prepared by chef Jean-Francois Piege, was white asparagus with just melted comte cheese. The dish was normally served with black truffle (a common pairing with white asparagus), which I don’t like so mine didn’t have it. And the balance between the creamy asparagus and the salty cheese was perfect. I really loved it. But white asparagus also go very well with creamy sauce. I had a delicious combination at Piere in Osaka the other day. But my mother had her own recipe that she taught me. Very simple, and a good combination: parmegiano cream! For that she first clean the asparagus and peel them, removing the hardest parts. Then simply steam them. In a little pan she warm some cream and add gratted parmegiano, about 1tbs per person. Once the parmegiano has melted she serves on the hot asparagus. Add a little bit of black pepper for the color if you want.

Now I am back to Paris, and hotel life so no more cooking in the next days..

April 13, 2017

Soumen primavera

I can’t believe that yesterday I was preparing soumen with spring vegetables and that today I dream of a hor rich soup. Yesterday was spring today is winter! Anyway, spring is just to arrive for sure soon, so a little spring recipe is always good, in particular when it’s that simple and tasty. I have received soumen-素麺, thin wheat noodles from a colleague and I prepared them in my primavera style: tons of greens, fried tofu, a little bit of soya sauce. That’s it!

I used fava beans (blanched), asparagus (blanched), cucumber and fresh chopped coriander. Thick fried tofu heated in a pan and a few mm of water to remove some of the oil. And the simply boiled soumen. For the dressing soya sauce cut with dashi or water. Have a nice weekend!

March 31, 2017

Spring in the plate!

It’s getting warmer, out the winter coats! And the spring vegetables are everywhere on the market shelves! I couldn’t resist to preparing the first spring vegetables sautéed of the year. A classic in our house that can accompany fish, meat, tofu, eggs, or just be eaten like that. Choose the spring vegetables of your choice: new potatoes, asparagus, green peas, snap peas, new carrot today for me, but you can add new onion, green beans… a bit of olive oil in a pan and start to cook the potatoes, then the carrots, the green peas, finish the asparagus hardest part and later the heads and the snap peas. Add kosher salt and pepper and serve!

March 23, 2017

Japanese one plate

It looks
a lot like a French dish or an anywhere dish: seasonal vegetables slightly
sautéed and oven grilled cod. But I gave it a Japanese twist by glazing the
vegetables in soya sauce, a bit of sugar and mirin, and by covering the fresh
cod with a thin layer of red miso. It doesn’t take more time to prepare and it
definitely change from the olive oil sautéed. In particular the taste of red
miso is perfect with all the vegetables. How to cook Japanese without cooking
Japanese!!!

June 4, 2016

Asparagus and herbs ravioli

It’s been weeks I wanted to make ravioli and I totally felt in love with the IG picture of Zucchero e zenzero‘s ricotta and asparagus ravioli just before the golden week. The events during and after the golden week being what they’ve been I didn’t had a chance to make ravioli until last night, and because I found some nice local asparagus I decided to go for asparagus ravioli. Since A. doesn’t eat cheese I skipped the ricotta and used only basil and parsley in the filling. Super easy and really delicious.

For the pasta dough as usual 100 of flour or semolina, one egg, a bit of olive oil and salt. I rolled the dough up to number 8 on my Atlas 150. Thinner for ravioli is quite risky since the way I do it, my filling is not totally smooth. For the filling I blanched the asparagus (I kept the heads for later), drained them well, then add parsley and basil, and grinded all together manually. Then I just prepared the ravioli, boiled them and serve with olive oil, salt and pepper. Simple and too delicious we want to eat ravioli every day!!!!!!

May 29, 2016