March 26th tart

The day has come again, faster and in a busier moment than usual, my parents being with us. It’s A.’s birthday. The weather has been bad enough to be remembered, A. always says it’s usually sunny on that. Today was not, and after drizzling now it’s pouring. That gave me plenty of time for preparing A.’s birthday cake, or rather tart. He originally wanted a strawberry tart, the classic one, but after stopping at three different places I couldn’t find proper local strawberries with the correct size. So we agreed on a chocolate tart. Last year one was a big hit!

But you know me… I like to try new recipes rather than doing over and over the same things. So I made a classic dark chocolate tart using my recipe from last year, but I also improvised a new one with A’s favorite white chocolate, coconut and cardamom. And though I am not a fan of white chocolate, it was surprisingly not as rich I thought it would be and I enjoyed it a lot. So here is my recipe.

White chocolate tart (4 servings)

Flour, sugar, butter and a bit of water for the dough.
110g of white chocolate
100ml of coconut cream
2tsp of ground cardamom
1tbsp of brown caster sugar
4tbs of ground coconut
1 egg

Prepare the dough and bake it, until still soft and about to golden.

In a pan heated at low heat stir together the chocolate, coconut cream, add the sugar, the ground coconut and the cardamom. Let cool then add the egg. Stir well and pour in the baked pie crust. Bake for 10-15min at 150deg. Let cool a bit and enjoy!

March 26, 2022

Golden week

So, here we are, right in the middle of the golden week. All our friends have left and we’re planning to spend a few days doing some DIY and gardening. Having friends at home I spent a lot of time in the kitchen to prepare them my classics: breakfast with freshly baked bread, creamy scrambled eggs, local products: ham, fresh fruits… For lunch, it is more about vegetables and salads, and for dinner, since evenings are still chilly, cocotte cooked Isumi pork filet with new potatoes and angelica. And the little bonus for dessert: fruits tarts with coconut custard. All my recipes are meant to take the best of the local ingredients with simple preparations.

So here are my recipes:

Cocotte pork filet

– 1 pork filet, the size depends on the number of persons you are cooking for

– 2 large new potatoes/person

– a bouquet of fresh angelica (ashitaba)

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

Cover the bottom of your cocotte with 1mm of olive oil. Set the pork filet and start cooking at low heat. Brush the new potatoes undr water to remove soil and dust and the thickest skin. Cut them in 4, add them in the cocotte. Cook under cover for 25min, stir regularly. Wash the ashitaba, cut the hardest part. Add to the cocotte with salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the bottom is all golden, and stir a few times while cooking at high heat. Finish with a bit of olive oil to melt all the extracts. At the moment of serving cut roughly the ashitaba with scissors.

Coconut custard fruits tart

The recipe is basically the same as here except that I added some fresh coconut in the custard, and added mangoes to the strawberries. The result was 12 superb little tarts! I now often do individual fruits tarts to avoid having to cut them and damaging there beautiful balance and aspect. I also find it easier to keep them that way.

May 4, 2017

Coconut pancakes

Yes, I was worried sick about Pablo, then about her kittens, now about how will we handle the situation, and slept bad and no appetite but A. was still hungry (even the very one time he had high fever he was hungry!!!).

So I had to cook anyway, and when I made the oat bran cinnamon pancakes, the recipe that inspired me was actually oat bran, coconut, cinnamon pancakes. Except that I didn’t like the idea of mixing cinnamon that is more a warm taste to me (perfect when chilly outside), and coconut that is more a fresh taste that I enjoy better when it’s warm. So I slpit the recipe in two, and made coconut pancakes that are perfect eaten with nothing more and when lottle appetite. In the pancake base, made with whole wheat flour, I added the same amount of gratted coconut. Then cook until golden, as usual.

May 9, 2016

Sometimes

Sometimes all these happen: you have a tough day at work, you want to cry it out and prepare a lovely post (yes, for you guys!) when the squarespace app crashes before you’ve saved this beautiful coconut pyramids recipe, the only thing that remains to do is to say “sorry guys, I’m going home and eat the coconut pyramids with my supportive husband!”

Well, hopefully the next morning the sky is blue, Mount Fuji is all covered in fresh snow and the storm has passed, so now I can share with you my recipe inspired by the nordic cookbook. For a 20one-bite pyramids I used 1egg, 45g of brown caster sugar, 100g of coconut flakes, 40g of melted butter. Mix the egg and sugar, add the coconut and the melted buter, stir well and let sit for 10-30min so that the coconut get moisted. Pre-heat the oven at 175deg and on a cooking sheet form the pyramids. Cook until the tip is golden. Enjoy!

January 19, 2016

Coconut-strawberry tart

Coconut ad strawberry tart with a bit of coconut and ice sugar for the decor

I love strawberry tart and I love to make some! Usually the best time starts end of March in Japan, but this year we’ve started to have delicious strawberry for a few weeks already, so I couldn’t wait!

I love to make variations with the dough, with the custard. This year I added some grated coconut in the dough and made the custard with soya milk and a lot of vanilla. I also wanted to try making the dough in circles and just top it with custard and strawberries. I need a little more practice but the result was not bad at all!

For the dough I used flour, brown sugar, one egg, butter, and added some coconut (I always make the dough without measuring anything, I like to “feel” it).

For the custard I used 2 egg yolks, a little can of soya milk, vanilla, a spoon of flour and brown sugar.

March 15, 2015

Coconut meringues

So, what do you do with an egg white once you’ve used the yolk for chocolate truffles?

Meringues of course! Of course? Well it was my first time!!

Making meringues is surprisingly easy but you need to be sure to jave time ahead because the baking takes more than one hour! Unexpectedly I used a bbc recipe again (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue) and divided all the quantities by 4, having one egg. I also prefer to make small quantities anyway.

I don’t have an electric whisk at the country house so I just beat manually and it worked perfectly. At the end I just added a bit of grated coconut.

And more than one hour later beautiful meringues ready to eat!

February 15, 2015