Coconut oil curry

I am not too much in food trends and I am not too keen in trying new fashionable products. I see them on the shelves of super market: hemp, egoma… but never or rarely buy any. Three months ago when our friends from Germany visited us and we went food shopping for organic rice and Japanese products for them to bring back home, they convinced me that coconut oil was nice, and before that I read that it has many virtues so I bought some. And then I kept it in the fridge since then. Open it once or twice, but the smell rebutted me and I continued cooking with olive oil as usual. Last night I decided it was time to try. So I come up with a recipe where I could as well have used a little coconut milk: a spicy vegetables mix to serve with grilled snapper and black quinoa. I used 1 onion, 1 potato, 1 capsicum, 1eggplant and 1yellow zucchini all cut in bites. In a big pan I heated one large teaspoon of coconut oil and added the vegetables: onion first then potato, eggplant, then the rest a little while after. And cooked under cover. I added 1tsp of curry powder a little of cumin powder, a tsp of anise seeds and a very little of nutmeg powder. Added 10cl of water and stir. Cooked an additional 5 minutes without cover. The curry is ready!

In the meantime I prepared the black quinoa and grilled the fish. Prepared the plates and served immediately.

Then what about the coconut oil? The smell is quite strong and the taste persistent in the food, which for my preparation was perfect but it can be slightly repelling in some dishes or may be one needs to get used to it. It is vey nice for golden brown veggies, I obtained a very beautiful color and texture. So yes it’s nice, but for me it is going to take a little more brain to find recipes where to use it. Any suggestion to start with?

June 8, 2016

Ratatouille ravioli

Yes, I made ravioli again! I was too happy last week to finally masterize the pasta machine and the ravioli mold. So far I was using them but it was never perfect, but now I know how to do and it works really well. And because we love ravioli there is no excuse not to make some! The problem was to find the appropriate filling. Last week I used asparagus, but this time I wanted to challenge myself with something new, something more summer than spring. There was not too many option at the farmers market, so I decided to go for ratatouille since there was everything I needed to make a real ratatouille the way my grand mother would.

So first prepare the ratatouille: onion, zucchini, eggplant, capiscum, tomato. All cut in small pieces, a bit of olive oil, garlic for those who like I don’t), salt, black pepper and a leaf of fragant laurel. Cook at low heat under cover for 2 to three hours, check and stir every 30min. Since we want to use this as a filling it needs to be significantly dry, so remove the cover if needed in the end. Cool when ready, ravioli filling cannot be used warm. Then prepare the dough with the classic recipe: 100g flour, 1egg, salt, olive oil. I actually used half flour half semolina. Then roll your dough until the level of thinness you like (I used 8 out of 9 on my pasta machine). Then flour well one side of the dough and ise the ravioli mold to fill them and shape them.

Now prepare a big pan with water to boil the ravioli, and add one big branch of fresh rosemary for the broth. Keep the water boiling 3min before adding the ravioli. The smell of rosemary should be quite strong before adding them. Cook until they come back to float on the surface. Serve immediately, just with olive oil and pepper. The rosemary broth slightly perfumes the ravioli to bring a perfect balance of taste with the ratatouille filling.

June 5, 2016

Chickpea and flax seeds thick crepe

There is an infinity of variations with crepes and pancakes, by changing the flour, adding baking soda or not, milk, egg, seeds… I love to play with all these possibilities and create something different each time. This time I grilled some eggplant and sweet pepper, so I decided to bake a big thick crepe made of chickpea flour and added some flax seeds in. For the crepe just chickpea flour, water, olive oil and salt is ok, for a less dense one adding an egg is good also. I baked it at low heat under cover and served with olive oil and pepper.

August 22, 2015

Curry and eggplant

For the last recipe of eggplant, I’ve decided to cook some eggplant with other vegetables and to add some curry. I find that eggplant accomodate very well in Indian curry so I decided to use curry but in a dry manner. So in a little of oil in a pan I put 2 little new potatoes, 1 carrot and 2 little eggplants cut in large bites. Once golden I add a spoon of curry powder and a glass of water and continue cooking at low heat until the water is gone, serve and eat!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this eggplant week, and tomorrow is a new week ahead!

July 19, 2015

Raw eggplant salad

The first time I came across a recipe with raw eggplant I was quite suspicious, but then tried it and realized it was really good. So in this “eggplant week” I’ve decided to prepare a raw eggplant salad rather than offering you the more than classic stuffed eggplant, or mozzarella grilled eggplant…

For two as a side dish I used 1 Japanese eggplant, 1 sprout of myoga (wait a little there’s a post coming very soon about it), a little of katsuo bushi, soya sauce. You can add shiso leaves if you have some, I didn’t this time. I cut the eggplant in small bites and drain the water with salt (like you may do for cucumbers), then I slice the myoga finely, (and the shiso if any). Then mix the eggplant and the myoga (and shiso). Serve on a plate, add a bit of soya sauce top with the katsuo bushi and it’s ready to eat!

July 18, 2015

Eggplant millefeuilles

This recipe is an old recipe found in a magazine probably 20 years ago and that I love very much for it’s simplicity. Actually I do a little modification anytime I do it to adjust to my envy of the moment.

The eggplant millefeuilles consists in thin slices of fried or sautéed eggplant filled in between with eggplant purée . The original recipe was also featuring a sweet pepper sauce, but except for the color I don’t think that taste wise it is necessary, I’d rather play with adding spices and herbs to the eggplant purée, this time a few cumin seeds.

For this recipe I used 2 large eggplants. First I cut thin slices: the feuilles, and oven grilled them in a bit of olive oil. I peel the rest and steam them then mash them to obtain a purée, add a bit of olive oil and the herbs to season. Then I just mount layers of each up to the size I want it to be. 3 layers of each is for me a good balance.

July 17, 2015

Miso eggplants

This quite simple Japanese recipe is really delicious and I like it very much now, but for sometimes I hated it because the first time I tried to prepare it, it was a terrible failure. The first and only time I prepared something to eat that ended up in the trash because it was not edible. I surely made a mess of this delicious recipe! Probably a problem with the mastering of Japanese ingredients at the timeand the proportions! Indeed when we arrived in Japan, cooking was a quite interesting task and grocery shopping an even more startling! Almost every evening we would go to our local supermarket and starre at what at that time we found strange mushrooms, awkward fruits and unknown fishes. So after a few weeks I decided to buy a beginners Japanese cooking book and to try most of the recipes to get familiar with techniques and basic products. The book I picked was in English of course and was clearly written for foreigners, so it was really helpful! However most of the recipes in this book make use of mirin (together with sugar), a Japanese cooking ingredient that I find unify the taste and is not very interesting (a bit like glutamate in Chinese cuisine). So I will give you my version of miso eggplant, the one that is just perfect and doesn’t use mirin.

For two as a side dish I use 1 or 2 Japanese eggplants (they are quite small); a spoon of miso; a tea spoon of grounded sesame or “surigoma”; a little of vegetal oil. After removing the stems and cutting in halves the eggplants, fry them in a very very thin layer of oil. In the mean time, mix the miso the sesame and a very little of oil if necessary to obtain a paste. Once the eggplants are cooked, set them on a serving plate and delicately spread the paste to obtain a thin layer. Decorate with a little of sesame. You can also set the eggplants on a cooking shit, spread the miso, and grill them 3 min in the oven to obtain a roasted miso thin crust.

July 16, 2015

Oven grilled eggplants

The simplest way of cooking eggplants is by oven grilling them. It is so delicious and so handy to cook! For oven grilled eggplants I wash a few eggplants and then slice them with a mandoline or a large knife. In a pie dish I put a thin layer of olive oil, then I set the eggplant slices in a thick layer, top the whole with herbs such as oregano, thyme, rosemary… Then add olive oil again, set in the oven at 200-230deg for 30min. The more they stay in the oven the crispier the top and bottom gets and the more tender gets the middle.

If you like cheese, adding a layer of mozzarella sliced in between the eggplant layers and before the herbs is just too good! My husband doesn’t like cheese so I’m skeeping that… 🙁

July 15, 2015

Eggplant and katsuo bushi

The first recipe of eggplant is a Japanese one. It is awfully simple, yet extremely delicious. It is simply boiled eggplant in katsuo bushi dashi (dried bonito consommé to make it short) served with a topping of katsuo bushi flakes (dried bonito flakes). For that I always use small eggplants, like tiny ones. I cut them in four but keep the four pieces attached by the stem. And boil them in katsuo bushi dashi for 10min. Then I drain them well, eventually using some cooking clothe or cooking paper. I serve them cold most of the time and just top them with some katsuo bushi flakes before serving, eventually add a few drops of soya sauce if you think it needs salt, but usually I don’t.

July 14, 2015