Tag: bonito

Insalata di riso – インサラータ・ディ・リーゾ

In France, the early summer is the end of the school year, and more than often children go on day trips. In which case parents should provide a lunch box. I have no idea what today’s lunch boxes look like, but when I was a child (saying that feels like I 80 years old or something!!!!), one very popular recipe for the lunch box was “rice salad”. There were two main versions: the cheese and ham one, usually with mayonnaise dressing, and the tuna one either with mayonnaise or olive oil. I personally liked the later best. With a piece of fresh local bonito, some cooked rice, and summer vegetables plenty, the menu for dinner tonight was all set: it would be a classic rice salad. Of course rice is a key ingredient in the recipe and I wasn’t sure it would work well with Koshihikari rice, but it is truly perfect.

For the other ingredients, that would be normally can-ready food: corn, tuna… but I don’t by much canned food, and it is the season for delicious local corn now. And it makes a much much better meal. Almost fancy!

Here is my recipe.

Rice salad (2 servings, one dish meal)

  • 1/2 cup of rice
  • 1/2 fresh corn
  • 1/2 filet of fresh bonito
  • 1 tomato
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 leave of laurel

First, cook the rice, and boil the corn.

In a pan set the bonito filet, some olive oil and salt, pepper, laurel add a little of water and cook slowly under cover.

Dice the tomato and the cucumber.

In a large bowl, set the rice (much better if it has had time to cool down. Generously splash olive oil and stir. Add the tomato and the cucumber. Stir again. Once the corn is cooked and had cooled down, add the husked corn, pull the bonito, like you would do with pork and add too. Stir, add salt and pepper if you feel it’s needed. Enjoy at room temperature or chilled.

A close up of the finalized salad

Bonito

Not far away from our house is Katsuura 勝浦, a city on the ocean with a fishing harbor, a fish market, a few nice street to browse and a sea front further south where we paddle surf (or least try to!!).

Katsuura is quite famous as a bonito fishing harbor in the area and they indeed have delicious fresh bonito in season, which is basically from spring to mid summer. We’ve eating quite a bit of bonito, and one of my classic way of preparing it is either pan grilled or in a sort of ragù with vegetables. But after a few times eating it that way always, I wanted a new recipe.

Inspired by the pies and other yummy pictures I saw on IG, I decided to try making a bonito pie. The shape of the filet is perfect to fit in a cake dish and with the season of bell peppers starting, I had a perfect combination. The pie cooking is quite interesting as all the juices and flavors are trapped in the pie and reveals when you cut it, guaranteeing a very interesting tasting experience. Though I could have worked a bit more on how to shape and plate it (as usual), the taste was amazing. Definitely a recipe that will go to my favorite recipes of the moment.

Bonito pie (2-3 servings)

For the pie crust

– 200g of flour (I used whole wheat)

– 4tbs of olive oil

– water

– a pinch of salt

For the filling

– 1 bonito filet (for sashimi)

– 2-3 bell peppers red, yellow, orange… you name it

– 2 leaves of laurel

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Prepared the pue crust. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and olive oil. Add water little by little and knead until you have a smooth dough. Roll it in a rectangular shape to fit your cake dish, yet twice bigger.

Set it in the cake dish. Add the laurel leaves in the bottom of the pie, then add the bonito on top. Wash and slice the bell peppers. Arrange them around and on top of the bonito. Add salt, pepper and a bit of olive oil. Close the pie with the dough. Make a small hole on the top and make a small chimney with baking paper. Bake at 180deg for 40min. Or until golden.

A very classic dish twisted

This preparation has the taste of my childhood… it is something my mum cooks often and very close to the first one she cooked when A. first visited them. Mum would cook it with rice, but without too much time polenta is a faster option. And the fish… it could be tuna or bonito. In the south of France we had a lot of delicious red tuna when I was young so that would be prepared with tuna slices. In Isumi we have delicious bonito from the nearby fishing port of Katsuura, so I use local and seasonal bonito. But the idea is exactly the same. My mum classic recipe uses a lot of bell peppers, red with a lot of flesh, a bit of onion and tomato and plenty of olive oil. Everything is simmered together in a large pan or a wok. You can also add capers to the preparation to add a bit of sourness. This can be eaten warm or cold, and it can be prepared ahead, so it’s a very convenient meal when you are not sure about dinner time!!

In my recipe since I served it with polenta I gave it an Italian twist using rucola instead of onions. The result was a much lighter version of the original but as much tasty! I love to twist and change a bit classic recipes to adjust them to my mood or the available products.

Japanese summer noodles

In the summer, it is very common to eat chilled or cold noodles in Japan. Cold soba, cold udon… but one of the most popular is probably cold somen. These are thin wheat noodles that are very quick to boil, and very quick to cool down. They are served with a lot of different items and dressed with some soya sauce based tsuyu. Now that it is hot in Tokyo, making somen is a really perfect idea for a rapid dinner preparation. I didn’t use the classic soya sauce base dressing, rather olive oil and a few drops of soya sauce. And I served them with simply grilled fresh bonito and okra, cucumber and lettuce. Light, fresh and well-balanced for a hot summer evening.

Fresh lunch

After our tennis game turned short because of a sudden snow fall, we went grocery shopping (beautiful radishes, carrots, spinach, cauliflowers and the first of spring veggies: na no hana (colza flowers) and fuki no to) and then back home for lunch. I was frozen and was about to prepare a warm curry or soup. But then the sun came out and the sky cleared again, so I changed my mind and went for a light radish, carrot and spinach salad, served with bonito sautéed in a crispy  chickpeas flour crust. I just sliced the radish and carrot with a mandolin, washed and drained the spinach and removed the hardest parts. For the bonito I used a puece of a filet for sashimi and sliced it. I dipped the slices in chickpea flour, and then cooked them on both sides in vegetal oil. Dressed the plates and serve with a bowl of rice. Have a nice weekend!

Greens part 2

Cold  version of the greens with raw zucchini, almost raw asparagus and snap peas, little radish, avocado and purple cabbage sprouts, a bit of Sicilian olive oil, and additional on the side grilled bonito. Fresh and delicious recipe perfect both for lunch or dinner.

Cooking and baking, yes!

Finally the weekend, almost done with my administrative duties at the university, and also done with two crazy weeks of dining out. So the first thing we did when we arrived in Ohara was to rush to the local farmers market to shop fresh food, then I started baking and cooking!! Hurray!!  

Baking a big bread for our breakfast tomorrow; and cooking our dinner, something simple but fresh: plain white rice with fresh shiso leaves chopped; lotus root cooked in sardines dashi and then slightly fried; and bonito, just cooked in a hot pan. Back to simple and delicious homemade food, back to the country with our stray cats, back to spring with the frogs now in the rice paddies!

Weekend one-plate

Sunny weekend, fresh food from the market and the beginning of spring vegetables: na no hana. So I prepared a simple one plate with white and green rice, boiled daikon in dashi with yuzu miso, boiled na no hana in dashi with soya sauce and katsuobushi, grilled fresh bonito, and some little radish. All simple all delicious!

Saturday one-bowl lunch

Me unwrapping my Robby, circa 1982... 
Me unwrapping my Robby, circa 1982… 

I’ve heard often that when I was a kid I wouldn’t eat nor sleep. I remember very well not sleeping and that’s why I had my first robot: robby, a robot that would lit up when, scared I would wake up and cry for someone. Robby would also play with me. My first robot was an interacting robot that would keep me company, basically the kind of robot I develop now. Regarding food, I remember loving only a few things and beetroot was certainly not one of them! Now I quite like it and enjoy a lot when they are added to salads. I like the taste of sweet earth they have. So today lunch was beetroot, carrot, salad, rice, grilled katsuo and a bit of sesame. Have a nice weekend!

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