Getting ready!

On August 20th I will cook for the final of a cooking contest. It’s my first cooking contest and I have clue how it works. For me cooking is quite an intimate experience, I usually cook alone and enjoy it very much, so cooking in front of people is going to be a fun challenge!!! For the contest I needed to write down the recipe of the dish I will cook and more difficult the quantities required. Since I cook by feeling, on the spot, with the ingredients I have I don’t keep track of what I put in exactly, hence I started this cooking diary to keep track of my ideas, but not the recipe in detail as you may have noticed. So I wrote down some numbers in my recipe but I needed to check if they were actually ok. For example with 100g of buckwheat flour and a bit of rice flour can I roll a dough big enough for a 20cm pie dish etc… I guess I could, but I needed to be sure before the contest. And since tomorrow I leaving Japan for more than 2 weeks (going to the US and Canada) and I won’t have much time when I come back, I finally did it last night. And everything seems to work well!!! I didn’t put to much effirt on the shape, but the taste was amazing!!! I have a winner I’m sure, hope to convince!!!!

July 28, 2016

Nordic inspiration

This winter I talked a little about the cooking books I got for Christmas and I tried several recipes from them. I also use them as source of inspiration. Recently I was attracted by the Nordic cookbook and in particular by salmon recipes. I wanted to prepared cured salmon. So finally I bought a nice salmon filet and was about to prepare it when A. told me that he rather have it right away than wait for 48h for the cured fish… Well.. I left the cured fish for an other time and opted for a butter grilled one. And just blanched the beautiful baby colorful Swiss chard I found at the farmers market and baked some 100% buckwheat pancakes. Added some pickled cucumbers and served all together. Simply delicious. For a Nordic experience I guess that cream and dill would have been on the plate too, but I didn’t have any!

June 21, 2016

Spring veggies quiche

Too happy with last week Japanese style quiche I’ve continued for our guests this week with a spring version. I’ve made the dough with buckwheat flour which makes it really crispy and for the veggies I used new onion, broad beans, snap peas and broccoli.

April 29, 2016

Isumi pork 🐷 → Isumi ham

The city of Isumi has a special pork meat called Isumi pork (いすみ豚), what is special about it I can’t really say now but it is for sure delicious, very tender and juicy. But since they grow pork in the area, we were thinking it’s really a pity they don’t make ham (it’s really hard to find good ham in Japan in particular in supermarket in Ohara), until our friend S. visited us yesterday and arrived with some fresh ham, from Isumi!!! Super nice ham!!! So we decided to go and check out the place where to get some, a small meat shop near the railway and Ohara station. They have smoked ham and pepper ham. We tried both and both are amazing! Apparently the pork farm is apparently in Otaki. We will probably go and check what they have soon. In the mean time, we are really happy to have found some really nice ham and had some for breakfast with eggs and buckwheat crepes!!

April 10, 2016

Na no hana quiche – 菜の花キッシュ

With some ricotta I wanted to finish and some na no hana that are just in season I was thinking about making some kind of pasta but finally I suddenly changed my mind and went for a tart. Indeed recently I have made so many ravioli but so little tart that it was time for a change. So I made a simple dough with buckwheat flour, then I prepared a base with egg, soya milk and ricotta cheese, and lay it on the dough, and finally added raw, just washed, na no hana on top, and cooked until just golden.

March 1, 2016

Another version of the kabocha tart

Spending the weekend in Tokyo we often eat out, so at last I wanted a simple dinner at home on Sunday evening. I hesitated between risotto and tart and finally we opted for the tart. As for the veggies to put in it was all decided: leek, tomato and kabocha, I had also some nice bacon that I added to the mix but it is optional.

So, in a pan with a little of olive oil I grilled the leek cut in slices, the bacon, then added the kabocha and the tomato. I cooked until all the moisture from the tomato was gone. I also added 2 beaten eggs, salt and pepper before putting it in the dough. For the dough I opted for an olive oil base half-half white flour and buckwheat flour. II baked 20min at 180deg. Ready to serve.

December 7, 2015

Buckwheat tart

Rainy and gloomy Saturday calls for a comforting tart for lunch: 100% buckwheat dough for the base, leek, oyster mushrooms, tofu for the garnish. Simple, tasty and warm, just what we needed!

November 14, 2015

Another veggie tart!

With endless variations and always the best seasonnal veggies, a tart is always a perfect meal.

My veggie tart today contains the last green beans and the last broad beans of the season, a handful of edamame, one yellow sweet pepper and one tomato. I prepared the dough with a mix of buckwheat and spelt flour, and olive oil. Except the edamame that I boiled a few minutes, if not they are hard to peel, I just use raw ingredients. Simple and delicious.

September 27, 2015

Buckwheat bread

A new variation of a classic bread: buckwheat and plain flour bread. It is really simple it consists in replacing half of the flour by buckwheat flour and add a little more yeast. It has a subtle taste perfect for breakfast.

September 23, 2015