Tag: cabbage

Almost there

While I’m hoping that the doctor will tell me I’m good to go tomorrow I’m still taking it easy, resting a lot and trying to sleep a lot. But the one thing that makes me confident that I am recovering is that now my appetite is gigantic. Indeed in the first few days when I was sick I had very little appetite and I couldn’t eat much but now I’m feeling hungry all the time. Like really all the time!!! And I have a craving for energetic food, in particular super high carb. So, I eat Christmas breads and pasta all the time. And I came up with a few new recipes that I’d like to share with you today.

One is a vegan recipe very simple and perfect if you have a very fragrant olive oil. The second one is an adaptation of the classic Japanese kabocha salad and pasta salad. A vegetarian, warm version that is becoming a new favorite.

Cabbage pasta: (2 servings)

– 1/4 of a cabbage

– 125g of pasta of you choice

– olive oil

– thyme

– salt and pepper

Steam the cabbage for a few minutes, it should stay in shape but become just a bit translucide. Boil the pasta al dente, drain.

Cut the cabbage in large slices. In a pan greased with a bit of olive oil add the cabbage, the pasta, the thyme, salt and pepper and stir well at low heat. When well stirred add a bit of olive oil and serve to eat immigration.

Kabocha pasta warm salad (2 servings as starter or side, 1serving as main)

– 60g of pasta

– 2 kiri (equivalent to 2 tbs of cream cheese)

– 1/6 of kabocha

– salt, pepper, paprika

– 3-4 hazelnuts and 3-4 cashew nuts

Boil the pasta and the kabocha separately. Drain. In a bowl mash the kabocha with a spatula or a fork, add the cream cheese, salt, pepper and paprika. A pinch of each. Stir until creamy, add the pasta and stir well again. Top with a few hazelnuts and cashew nuts chopped. Enjoy!

Stuffed bread

This all started with a picture that I saw on my IG feed one morning from Jul’s kitchen. I’ve been following her for quite some time now. Her recipes always make me want to be in Tuscany and when two years ago (whoa… It seems like ages ago!!!) we actually were thinking about moving to Florence and went there repeatedly I asked her recommendations about places to shop delicious things in Florence and they were gold. Well, just to say that her blog makes me dream of Tuscany… so… back to that picture I saw very likely on my way to work, last winter I guess… it was a savory stuffed pastry… it looked wonderful and I thought about doing some for a long time, but every strictly new recipe requires to mature in my head and to find the proper timing of ingredients and preparation. It’s only the other day that the winter vegetables started to be back in particular the cabbages, the spinaches and that I bought some pork ribs.

All was finally there to make the stuffed bread. But instead of a pastry dough or a brioche I decided to go with some straight white flour bread dough. The result was a very very delicious and warm meal, perfect for a rainy evening like today. Here is my recipe.

Stuffed bread (2 generous portions)

– 150g of flour

– 10g of salt

– 5 g of yeast

– water

– 1/2 small Chinese cabbage or 1/4 large

– a bundle of spinach

– 150 of pork ribs thinly sliced (豚バラ)

– pepper

– sesame seeds

Prepare the bread dough 1 or 2h before hand: mix the flour, the salt, the yeast, add water little by little and knead until the dough is soft and smooth. Leave to rest in a warm place under a moist cloth for 1 or 2 hours.

In the meantime, in a frypan cook the meat until golden. Wash and pat dry the vegetables.

Roll the dough with a pin, set the meat in the middle, top with the vegetables. Add some pepper. Fold the dough and close it. Flip the bread to have it upside down. Top with sesame seeds. Leave for proving about 30min and then bake at 230deg for 18min. Serve hot!

Burdock – 牛蒡

There are a few vegetables that are hard to find in Japan and I really love: fennels, artichokes, salsify…

When I first ate burdock (gobo ゴボウ 牛蒡) I was quite surprised with the very peculiar taste, and I realized it was a good alternative for both salsify and artichoke at the same time. This long root looks a lot like salsify, with a lot more fiber and this plus the flavor make them close to artichokes in a sense. I love to cook them, though strangely enough I don’t very often… One of my favorite recipe is in soup, but many recipes are more accessible such as in risotto, or these two very simple recipes today: a mixed sautéed vegetables one and a vegetables soup. Both are ultra simple.

Burdock sautéed

– 1/2 burdock

– 3 shiitake

– 1 turnip top

– olive oil

Wash and peel the burdock, cut in 5cm long and keep in a mix of water and vinegar. Wash and chop the shiitake and the turnip top. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the burdock and cook at high to medium heat until slightly golden. Then add the shiitake and a few minutes later the turnip top. Stir until the turnip top are soft.

Burdock and vegetables soup

– 1/2 burdock

– 1 carrot

– 1/4 cabbage

– 1/2 cup of short pasta (optional). I used stelline.

– a bit of olive oil

Heat a pan of water. Wash, peel and slice the burdock, add immediately to the water. Cut the carrot (I don’t peel my organic carrots), add also. Chop the cabbage and add it, finish with the pasta. When they are cooked serve and enjoy!

Simple food: rice

Though when we were first traveling to Japan about 20 years ago, I would get tired of eating rice 3 times a day after one week, now I think I eat rice not enough and I am never tired of it, be it 3 times a day, every days!

It can be plain white rice with just a pickled plum, konbu, miso or salmon, or more elaborated recipes. Everything is good for me as soon as the rice is good. My favorite rice is Koshihikari, as I’ve earlier said, be it from Tsunan or Isumi. But one thing I love to do is to cook more rice than needed so that the next meal can be prepared rapidly using this extra rice. Because if plain boiled rice is amazingly delicious, sautéed rice is also amazing. I love it prepared with sesame oil, and many different seasonal vegetables, it is as versatile as risotto. This time I cooked it with shiitake, carrots and cabbage, and added some sesame seeds and a few lemon peels from the last lemon of these season. A perfectly light combination for both lunch or dinner where the sesame and the lemon are well balanced and the vegetables textures play with crisp and melt…

How do you like your rice???

Lentil curry

Well well well, it’s getting cold and gloomy today in Tokyo and rain and snow are on the forecast for tonight after weeks of dry and sunny weather… I guess that’s it… every year is basically the same… after the brilliant days of January cold, the gloomier days arrive, colder even… To warm the mind and the body, there is nothing nicer than a hot plate of slightly spicy curry with plenty of vegetables, and to make it a little fancier, replace the rice by lentils. So I made a big pot of it, and used the leftovers for another version with even more vegetables inside and a brighter note of anis seeds. Here are both recipes. Enjoy and keep warm!!!

Lentil curry (2 servings+leftovers for the next recipe )

– 150-200g of brown or green lentils

– 1/3 cabbage

– 2-3 carrots

– 1.5tsp of curry powder

– 3 pieces of thin aburage

Boil the lentils until just soft, but not too much. Drain them. Wash and chop the cabbage and the carrots. Chop the aburage. In a frypan greased slightly and heated start cooking the vegetables. Stir regularly. Add 2cup of water and cook at high heat. When half of the water has evaporated add the curry powder, stir well, and add the aburage. When the water is almost all gone add the lentils, a bit of salt and stir. Serve and eat immediately.

Spinach and potato curry (2 servings)

– leftovers of the above recipe

– 2 potatoes

– a small bundle of spinach

– 1tsp of curry powder

– 1tsp of anis seeds

– 2 pieces of fresh cod (optional)

Peel the potatoes and slice them. Wash and chop the spinach. Chop the cod in bite size and remove bones and skin if any.

In a grease wok or large pan star by cooking the potatoes. When they start to golden add the fish and the lentil curry leftovers. Stir well. Add 1/2 cup of water, the curry powder, the anis seeds, the spinach. Cook at medium to high heat until most of the water is gone. Serve and eat immediately.

A soup version is also possible by adding more water and stopping when the water level is just at the vegetables level.

Soup or so

After the snow last week, the snow again this week. The weather in Tokyo was gloomy all of Thursday and Friday and I wanted some simple warm food. One thing I really love in winter is Japanese cabbages. They are perfect steamed with olive oil, thyme and salt, raw with miso, but not only. With carrots, sweet potatoes (or potatoes) they make a perfect rich soup. Soups are an alternative for one plate in winter. And since A. was complaining about the little animal protein we had recently I just added chicken to the basic vegetables soup. Here is my super simple recipe, and very very healthy.

Cabbage soup (for 2 people) 

– 1/2 cabbage

– 2 carrots

– 1 leek

– 1 sweet potato  

– mizuna

– alfalfa  

– 1 chicken breast (optional)

I just wash and chop the vegetables, and put them in a large pan full of water. I cook at high heat until it boils, then lower the heat to low. Chop the chicken breast, add it. Cook for 15min. In the mean time wash some mizuna and cut in 4cm long.

Serve with not too much bouillon, top with the mizuna, and top again with alfalfa. Add a bit of salt, pepper and turmeric if you like. 

 

Chinese cabbage pickles

Earlier in Autumn you may have seen some recipes with pickled Chinese cabbage that my nice old neighbor gave me. She also promised at that time to teach me how to make some and last Sunday she came suddenly home with all (the four) ingredients necessary to make this delicious pickled cabbage. And we prepared it together. I like her way of cooking very much because it is very intuitive like mine. No need of a scale or precise measurements, just feeling. So my cabbage is now on it’s second day being pressed and I can’t wait to try it tonight!

Mrs K. pickled Chinese cabbage: 

– one Chinese cabbage

– 1/2 cup of salt

– 1/4 of yuzu zest or yuzu peel cut thinely

– 1/2 red pepper (togarashi – 唐辛子) cut thinely

You also need a large tupperware box or dish where the whole cabbage can fit, and a lid to put pressure on it (ideal a cutting bord that fits in the tupperware and a stone) 

The process takes 3 days so don’t expect to it right away!!! 

Wash and dry the cabbage, then cut it in 6 or 8 depending on its size, along the long side. Wash the tupperware and dry it. In a bowl mix the salt with the yuzu peels and the red pepper. Throw some of the sslt mic in the bottom of the tupperware, then lay your cabbage pieces in one row with the outer leaves towards the bottom. All in one single layer. Add some more salt mix a bit everywhere insisting more at the root if the leaves where it’s white and hard. Then top with your cutting board and apply weight on it. After 24h water would have come out. Then flip the cabbage, outer leaves up, and apply some more pressure for another 24-36h. Be careful that the water may overflow! Remove some if it might. It’s impressive how much water can come out! After the 2nd night and during the 3rd day you can start to eat your cabbage. Rinse under water and dry it in cooking paper before serving. Delicious with rice, rice porridge, or pasta soup.

Cabbage and sticky potato salad

12 years ago we arrived in Tokyo and moved in our first Tokyoite apartment in Nezu. At that time I was working at the university of Tokyo, a 5min walk from there. Settling in Tokyo without speaking Japanese was a lot of fun but not always easy. A. was not working at that time yet and he’s missions most of the days was to go and investigate for what we needed and then buy it and install it: washing machine, telephone, desktop computer, internet… We were very lucky to have friends to help us. The thing that took us the most time everyday was grocery shopping if you remember my post there. Thanks not only to my Japanese cooking book for beginners but also to our friend Shotaro, who is a very good cook and was living in Tokyo at that time. He came at home and we cooked together. For a reason very unclear, while I was grocery shopping yesterday I saw some nice sticky potato or yamaimo 山芋, and suddenly remembered about that salad we cooked together: cabbage, yamaimo and sesame dressing. And because before starting Tokyo Paris Sisters with Prunellia, I already had a site to share French recipes with our Japanese friends and Japanese recipes with our French friends, I just dug in to find that recipe back!!!! It was even simpler than I thought! At that time we used industrial sesame dressing but last night I came with a vegan homemade version that was really nice! So here is the recipe for 4 servings as starter:

For the dressing: a piece of yamaimo of about 1-2cm; 2tbs of sesame powder, known as surigoma-擂り胡麻 ; 1tbsp of soya sauce; water; salt.

Fir the salad: 1/2 cabbage; a large piece of yamaimo, or half one yamaimo.

Cut the cabbage in bite size chunks, if you like it crunchy use it raw, if you like softer, blanched it and cool it. Cut the yamaimo in 5-8mm x 4cm sticks. I a serving bowl put both ingredients. Now prepare the dressing. Grat the yamaimo to obtain what is called tororo-トロロ, a kind of slime that will give a creamy consistency to the dressing, add the surigoma, add the soya sauce, then mix well. The mix is quite dense and now you need to add water little by little still mixing (optimally with chop sticks) to obtain the consistency you want, it as to be creamy without being too much liquid. Top the vegetables and enjoy!!!

Pickled cabbage

This week, our nice little grandma neighbor gave us some salt pickled chinese cabbage. She has offered to teach me how to make it if we like it. Of course we liked it! So next weekend I’m looking forward to learn how to make it. In particular because I like Chinese cabbage but they are too big, and if I buy one we have to eat some for 3 consecutive days of more and I get tired of it. So pickling a part of it seems a very good option to keep it a little longer. And I find actually quite easy to use when pickled, even more than raw. 

Last night I used it in an improved recipe where I found it brings the perfect salty-crunchy taste and texture to a very simple saffron pasta soup. I used 1 cup of small soup pasta, 1 dose of saffron, a little piece of butternut squash peeled, a puece of pickled cabbage thinly cut, a piece of flounder, optional, black pepper.

In a pan I boil 0.75l of water, add the saffron and the butternut squash cut in small cubes, the pasta. Separately I grill the flounder in a fry pan. A minute before the pasta are ready I add the cabbage. Stir well. Serve the pasta/veggies then the fish, add black pepper. That’s it! 

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