Fresh home-made food every day
After a whole week in the US, I was cruelly missing Japanese rice and Japanese food. So I fixed this little dinner with rice, green peas and green shiso and shoyu-grilled Tachiuo fish (beltfish). Simple and perfect!
The rice is just steamed, in the last few minutes I add the fresh green peas, and just before serving I add chopped green shiso leaves. The fish is grilled in the oven with a bit of soya sauce and served immediately.
In Japan, fish is really delicious and it is not so difficult to find fresh wild fishes from safe places. Spending time in Chiba’s prefecture Sotobo we have access to really amazing products, when the weather allows it. Recently flounder has been really abundant. And with my parents visiting us I must prepare a lot more non vegetarian food than usual. So I prepared this flounder just grilled, with fava, beans and snap peas for lunch on the wok with olive oil. Very simple, fresh and seasonal, all I love!
This week, just back from the US, has been quite crazy at work and since we haven’t been to the country our stock of fresh veg has turned short quickly, and we’ve eaten a lot of avocado, baby leaves salad, fresh sprouts and tomatoes. Recently also I wasn’t cooking pasta or risotto too much, but I must admit that I shut down a bit on cooking the last few days, and focused on simple dishes. So we’ve been eating pasta a few times! Pasta, like risotto and quiche are an amazing source of imaginative dinners, while being always different, you can make any variations and never eat twice the same thing. This time I prepared spaghetti with a slightly spicy tomato sauce and sardines. In Japan it is really easy to find good fish, and already “prepared”: 刺身用 for sashimi. Which means no fishbone, no skin, perfect cut, 100% edible, and for me something quite crucial to eat fish: no head, nor fish shape!! Depending on seasons and locations you can find different varieties of fishes, this time I found nice sardines. I prepared a tomato sauce with tomatoes, olive oil, oregano and a little of Japanese 7 spices, then grilled the sardines, and topped the spaghetti.
This litlle radish (little compared to giant Japanese daikon), or this big turnip, was so beautiful that I couldn’t help buying it at th coop shop.
Nabe is a traditional Japanese soup with vegetables (Chinese cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, leeks…), tofu (here we have yuzu tofu), shitaki (white Japanese konyaku pasta) and fish cut in small peaces (or meat, as you like).
Last night I was invited at one of the university senior professor’s place for dinner. It was mainly for business purposes, but it’s not so often that Japenese invite you home. After 10 years there, hundreds of dinners at home, I can still count on the fingers the number of houses we’ve visited as guests!! Most people prefer to invite you at the restaurant.
The other one, more exceptional is scorpion fish. A quite rare and difficult to catch fish. This very muscly fish has a very firm flesh very similar to the monkfish was served in a shabu-shabu style. Something like a hot-pot where you dip the slices of fish to cook it.
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.
