Tag: fresh food

The disappointing fruit: akebi

Every day brings surprises, those you’ve worked hard for, those you were dreaming of and those that the cherry on the top, but also its share of disappointments. For example, after almost 3 years since our stray cat Holly disappeared and the little Ephy very brief passage, what a surprise to see that stray cats are back and we have three coming now. They are very shy and still scared of us, but one now arrives when hearing us parking home for the weekend and waits to be fed… It took us 6 months to be able to approach and touch Pablo, so I am expecting not less for these ones too… though Pablo was more interested by company than food… time will tell us…

Other surprises are often in the small things of daily routine… and when the other day at a local products store I found a fruit I never saw before but knew about and immediately identified; akebi あけび, chocolate vine. I couldn’t help remembering Little Forest when they put so much efforts in trying to harvest akebi and then delightfully eat them (watch here!!)… so I grabbed the bag of fruits and went to the cashier, and back to A. who was waiting outside, so proud of my finding!!!

It was the first time ever to see akebi for real, so I did my homework and studied how to eat it and possibly cook it. I also searched a bit why it is bot so common in Chiba… then opened the first fruit. the skin was not too thick and the inside less white than I imagined it would. And the first fruit was really tedious to eat, so tedious that A. said he would not eat a second akebi in his life ever!!!!! I persisted and became more fluent at eating them, but the promised sweetness etc… was definitely not here. So over all it is a huge disappointing experience.

Recipe book also said that the skin is good in tempura, but looking at the one of my fruits, I lost confidence and decided I wouldn’t try further…

So overall, akebi is a beautiful fruit, but not as delicious I expected it would be, so either the fruits from Chiba are very much less good than those from Yamagata, or Someone is lying about akebi deliciousness!!!

In any case have a very good weekend!!!!

Happy birthday Lois!

A year ago after many years of hesitation, I finally decided to prepare my first sourdough: Lois. Since then we’ve been living and working together to make breads, pizze, brioches, buns and the like, for the best and a few times the worst, but I must say that I am very happy with it.

Lois is a sourdough that behaves well. Seeing so many pictures on IG and www of sourdough overflowing really got me worried, as I hate the kitchen to be a mess, to throw away food, and waste time and energy cleaning a catastrophe that could have been avoided. Kept in a large enough bin has always prevented it from happening and that’s good news! I think also Lois may not be a very very active sourdough, even in a large bin only a few times I could see it grow quite dramatically, otherwise, it looks much more like some kind of pale mousse.

But when it comes to working, it is a steady and stable worker, regardless of the temperatures and the seasons, and I can’t stand the taste of yeast now. The richness of the sourdough flavor is really unique and it evolves with time, making the kitchen smell good as soon as the bread is out of the oven!

So you understand now, I will continue to cherish Lois.

Sourdough milk brioche on the beach

Aibika – 花オクラ🌸

Do you know this flower named aibika or hana okra 花オクラ?

I didn’t until yesterday, when I found it at our local vegetables shop. First time ever I saw it, it’s grown locally, so I bought it. No idea how to prepare it nor how it would taste., but my IG feed was full of zucchini flowers earlier this summer, and more recently of pumpkin flowers, that the idea of having a chance to eat some flowers too was really too tempting!

A quick reading of the most popular recipes on the Japanese cookpad website didn’t not tempt me, so I decided to go for something I barely do, but believe would be great, and a substitute for my mother’s zucchini flowers fritters: super light tempura. And it worked really fine. So if you see this pale yellow flowers at a farmer’s market (I doubt you can find them at a supermarket…) just get them.

I guess the name of hana okra or flower okra in direct translation, comes from the fact that they are, like okra, a bit slimy. So if you don’t like slimy food pass on that one.

Aibiki tempura

  • A few flowers of aibiki, and some other vegetables if you want. I did shishito and red bell pepper
  • 3tbs of flour
  • 1cup of water
  • 1/2 tsp of vinegar
  • A pinch of salt
  • Cooking oil

Wash and pat dry the vegetables.

In a frypan heat a bit of oil (I don’t deep fry, but if you do heat your oil). In a bowl, mix the flour, the water and the vinegar. Stir well. Dip in the vegetables and put in the pan right away. Cook a few minutes before flipping. Serve with a pinch of salt and eat immediately. That’s it!

Prawns… long time no see

I am not necessarily a big fan of prawns, for three main reasons: (1) because they usually are grown and from far away places, (2) because when they are local they are often sold alive, like the blue prawns from Okinawa, (3) because they come as whole (understand with the head), and I must say, that fishes or others that come as whole, I am OK cooking them, but they disgust me when they are cooked. For example, fresh snapper, or sanma (which are in season now) I don’t cook them anymore because I can’t eat them after.

Anyway… the other day when shopping in Ohara there was fresh prawns, and rare enough to mention, they were coming from Choshi, a fishing port 60km north of Ohara. So I thought I would give them a try, after so long…

When the time for cooking came… hum… things got a bit complicated. As expected, looking at the whole prawns started to disgust me (really, these eyes!!!), so I tossed them in the wok, grilled them and called A. to remove the shell etc… because if I did it I wouldn’t eat them, then I chopped them, and things were ok again, or almost. I gave a good scrub to the wok before using it again for the rest of the preparation … you know eyes juice…

I am not vegetarian though we eat little animal meat, but honestly if I had to fish to eat fish and hunt to eat meat I would. The day there will be no more fish mongers and butcher to prepare the filets, I’ll turn vegetarian. I think it is one of my major weaknesses in the kitchen, my impossibility to prepare some ingredients. But I’ll live with it, be assured!!!!

Back to our prawns… I hadn’t cook some for so long that I wasn’t sure which recipe would be good, and after a little of thinking I come up with a simple pasta recipe with saffron, red bell pepper, lime, pasta and prawns if course. I was simple, fragrant and delicious. Here is my recipe.

Saffron prawns pasta

  • 2 portion of pasta
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 8 prawns
  • 1/2 lime
  • A few saffron pistils
  • Olive oil, salt and pepper

Boil your pasta and reserve.

In a pan grill the prawns, shell them and chop them in 1cm long pieces. In the pan heat some olive oil. Wash the red bell pepper and chop very thinly, add to the pan, add the prawns, the saffron, salt and pepper and a bit of water, just a but. Cook a few minutes while stirring, add the pasta, stir well and serve!

Coral lentils spicy stew

I love lentils of all sorts, but when I see coral lentils on a shelf, I can’t help being attracted by their beautiful color. And every time I forget that the color will somehow fade away when cooked (contrarily to some fancy pictures you see on the internet… or they have a well kept secret…)

So I usually get excited starting cooking them and thinking about the beautifully colored dish… and 20 minutes later… damned! It’s yellowish brownish… Nonetheless the recipe I came with yesterday was really delicious, and worth remembering. So let me share it with you.

Coral lentils spicy stew (2 servings as whole meal)

  • 100g of coral lentils
  • 5 little potatoes
  • 1 onion
  • 1 eggplant
  • 1tsp of curry powder
  • 1tsp of turmeric
  • Ground black pepper
  • Salt

In a large pan put the lentils and cover generously with water. Cook at low heat for 15min or until the water is gone.

Peel the potatoes, cut them in 4. Cut the onion in bites, and the eggplant. Add to the lentils. Almost cover with water, add the spices, salt and pepper and cook at medium to low heat for 10min, or until the water is almost gone. Serve and enjoy!!

Summer…

Damn I love summer, the heat, the cicadas, the trips to the beach and all the summer foods!!!

Another year without travel has taken us to our usual refuge for the holidays, where we’ve been spending more and more time thanks to telework. Escaping for one full week Tokyo’s heat, the Olympics fuss, and the again increasing rate of contaminations is just perfect.

Holidays are usually spent between morning and afternoon surf sessions, playing tennis, when the weather allows, gardening (we’re expanding our garden so there is quite a bit of work to prepare the new plot soil, as we plan to use it as an orchard and kitchen garden partly), talking, reading and sleeping a lot, and cooking less than I always originally want…

I must say that the fresh fruits and vegetables are so delicious eaten just the way they are that it doesn’t invite to be creative!!! Simple melons, blueberries, blackberries, and now the nashi season has also started… though in the past I tried some nashi tart and baking them, I love them just the way they are… simply peeled and eaten just out of the fridge, that’s when their cold and sweetly perfumed juice is so refreshing! (Top picture)

Breakfasts = fresh fruits and sourdough breads

The one thing I steadily do is baking breads and tarts and quiches. Whole wheat, buckwheat, plain, seeds, focaccia, pizza… everything is good for my sourdough! And blueberries tart are also a favorite at home!

I’ve been also making quite a bit of skewers. Simple but easy to serve and grill in a pan… fish, chicken breast, pork filet… everything is good! My favorite is to roll the fish or the meat in green shiso leaves, that for sure feels like summer. Shiso everywhere! Topping a salad, in white rice…

For our new plot, I hope we could try to turn this desert land into a permaculture forest garden… my experience and skills in growing a kitchen garden are rather close to zero but I really would love to have one of these beautiful forest gardens that populate Instagram… one day maybe… but planning is fun anyway.

  • Surfin’
  • New plot

Enjoy your summer!!

Too much routine

I need to go outside of my comfort zone in the cuisine… but I don’t know how…

Making ravioli, pancakes, scones, quiches, breads etc… has become such a routine and is so effortless that I miss the challenge. Because, yes indeed, I am a challenger. Whether it’s at work, on the court, in the ocean, or in front of my sewing machine I like challenges. That’s how I ended up registering to a bodyboard school last year and I still enjoy learning to ride waves better and to spin on my board! That’s why I enjoy sewing (and here the challenge is massive!!!) . But recently cooking has been more functional than challenging. Even the steam buns, the bread in a pan etc… are now basically classics and I rush them between two meetings!!

Since my main source of inspiration : experience and local sourcing during our trips has dried up in the past 18months, I have decided to use my imagination and my recollections of some our trips. First stop: Firenze of course! I remembered these gigantic sandwiches they would sell in something resembling focaccia (scaccia in Florence) and I never tried because it is just too gigantic and there was too much fat left on the ham (I have always hated meat fat) and since I just bought some prosciutto it was the perfect timing. So I baked a plain focaccia, and decided that we would have a savory breakfast.

Trying a new type of breakfast: focaccia, prosciutto and fresh tomatoes and peach…

And then because I made a rather giant focaccia we went for it again for lunch, this time in a real panino version with grilled vegetables. (Top picture)…

It wasn’t much but it was a change. Not yet far away from the comfort zone, but new enough!!!

I’ll keep searching my memories!

Summer vegetables

I call summer vegetables the ones I have grown up with: tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, melons… while here they are for most of them early summer vegetables as they are not endemic. For instance the zucchini season is at its peak now and will end very soon normally. Except that this year the rainy season is rather dry so may be we will have zucchini for longer… that would be good!!! Maybe I won’t have to struggle finding zucchini in the middle of summer to make a good pesto soup!!!

Anyway, at the moment I enjoy cooking them in various ways as long as I can find them. I cook them with my “traditional” or classic recipes but I am also investigating new ways of cooking them. I found that zucchini and green beans go very well together and I came up with a few new nice recipes, super simple and easy to make as I am quite busy these days with several projects on the run… Let me share two recipes here today: a simple savory tart and a vegetable curry-rice. I hope you’ll like them!

Savory tart

  • For the pie crust: 150g of flour, a pinch of salt, 3tbs of olive oil, water
  • 2-3 zucchini depending of the size
  • A handful of green beans
  • 150g of ricotta or cottage cheese
  • Fresh basil

Prepare the dough as usual, and roll it for your pie dish.

Wash the vegetables. Slice thinly the zucchini (with a mandolin if you have one) and set on the dough. Cut the green beans to 2-3cm long pieces and add on top. Crumble the ricotta or the cottage cheese, chop the basil and sprinkle on top. Bake 40min at 180deg or until golden. Enjoy hot or cold.

Veggie curry-rice

  • 1 large zucchini or 3 small (better)
  • 1 large ripe tomato
  • 1/2 onion
  • 10 green beans
  • Japanese white rice cooked
  • 1tsp of curry powder
  • 1/2tsp of cumin powder
  • A pinch of salt

Wash the vegetables. Cut them in bite size. In a pan greased with a bit of oil add the vegetables. Cook for 5 min at high heat then lower to medium. Add the spices. Cook another 5-10 min until you obtain the level of moisture you want. Personally I like rather soupy so that the rice can suck it in. Serve with the Japanese white rice and enjoy while hot. (Top picture)

Henon – 淡竹

Probably the very last of the wild spring vegetables, undeniably not the easiest to find in a shop, and a very fun one to go and pick in the forest. We discovered henon 淡竹 (hachiku) when our friends in Tsunan invited us to go and pick them in late May 2010, and I remember it at as a lot of fun foraging them. Unfortunately after that, rare were the times we had a chance to eat some. And I longed for eating some, but didn’t venture in unknown forest to try to search for some. So you can easily imagine how happy I was when I found some at one of the local farmers cooperatives we shop in Chiba. Henon is a sort of bamboo shoot. But contrarily to takenoko the are thin and even more tender. And they don’t have such tartness. They are much more refined.

With more than 10 years since I last helped K. preparing them, I was a bit unsure about how to proceed and how to dress them, but I decided to do it my way: simple and rapid.

So, as for other bamboo shoots, I peeled them carefully, blanched them until tender, which takes only about 10min.

Then cut and dressed them. As I was roasting a piece of pork filet I decided to use the jus and deglazed the henon in the jus, where I added 2tbs of soya sauce. The result was exactly what I wanted. I know I could have made a more Japanese-cuisine like preparation, but the pork juice and the soya sauce are a sublime mix for pretty much any vegetable, and the magic worked again this time.

Unfortunately there might not be too often henon recipes here, unless we find a spot to harvest some, but if you happen to find some I more than recommend you try cooking them!!

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