Tag: harvest

Artichokes

Artichokes are not common in Japan. You would never see fresh ones in a supermarket unless you go to the expat supermarkets in Hiroo or Azabu. And there, they are imported from who knows where and super expensive, while not very good…

So a few years ago I decided to plant some in the kitchen garden. The first year was only leaves… the second year I harvested three tiny artichokes, and this year, the third, I finally start to have a decent supply of two artichokes per week!! They are not as big and creamy as I expected but they are tasteful. And I love that they grow year after year without having to be replanted.

My artichokes in the garden

Now with this constant little supply I needed to come up with some recipe, and with the last lemons on the tree, I came up with this recipe of neither barigoule, neither greek style, but my style lemon artichokes. It is super easy and so delicious, the perfect side dish for grilled tuna, swordfish or just with a slice of sourdough bread.

Lemon artichokes (2 servings)

  • 4 artichokes
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 2 large onions
  • Olive oil
  • Salt, pepper and red pepper

Remove the bottom leaves of the artichokes, cut the top and cut in four. Remove the hair.

In a pan heat some olive oil, add the onions chopped very coarsely. Stir until they have softened. Add the artichokes, the lemon cut in four, salt, pepper and red pepper, cover with water and let simmer at medium heat until the liquid is almost gone.

It’s ready and delicious hot or at room temperature.

Failures… and successes

The weekend is so short that two days are not enough to do all we want to do… first there is the mandatory refill of fresh local products, there is no way we can miss that, it’s a must, I couldn’t imagine buying all my vegetables and fruits in Tokyo (I don’t know how I was doing before!!!). Then there is the surf, and last weekend was an amazing one, beautiful weather, great waves! (picture from Y. Kamo), the tennis, the trees trimming, the lawn mowing, the harvesting and the cooking and baking…

So I often forget when the weather is warm and beautiful that we are in the pick time for typhoons. It is so easy to forget them… We had one two weeks ago, and there is one coming now. And that typhoons can be really damaging for a harvest, particularly when it comes to flower harvests… and last weekend I knew I should have harvested the perilla flowers and the osmanthus fragrans flowers, but it was dusk when we finished the trees trimming, too late for a task that takes a lot of time, and requires time after to prepare the flowers… How many times have I carefully and patiently harvested staples from the garden and they ended in the trash because I couldn’t have the proper time to prepare them? Gingko nuts, ripe loquats, fukinoto, strawberry tree fruits etc… I always tell myself “no more”…

So by trying to avoid that, I end up missing the harvest time, feeding the birds (which I am fine with, we share the resources), or risking the harvest to the weather… and that’s what I just did this time… and with the rain and the wind I can already predict that the beautiful orange flowers will be covering the ground in a mushy soup… so no preparation that I was having in mind, no recipe that I wanted to test (osmanthus fragrans jam, coconut and osmanthus fragrans jelly etc…), or the classic syrup I wanted to make, and likely as well, no perilla flower miso this year… well that’s the way it is when you don’t live everyday in the same place and when you are too busy after the slowness of the summer, to shape up your garden among other things…

I learn by my (repetitive) mistakes that harvesting is something that doesn’t wait…

In the meantime, there are some small successes: my sourdough starter Lois has decided to be good! After a hectic first week, the past two weeks have been great and produced a lot of sourdough breads and pancakes and crepes… in the end it was not that hard (I hope it will go on steadily) and I even manage to control its hunger and therefore growth by using approprietly the fridge. Below are a few examples of Lois at work. I still struggle with the oven heat and the cooking time…

Ginkgo nuts – 銀杏

The ginkgo tree is a symbol of wisdom and it is particularly beautiful in late november when it turn a vibrant yellow. Its leaves have also a very pretty and typical shape, symbol  of Tokyo University.

Fresh ginkgo nuts, just harvested
Fresh ginkgo nuts, just harvested

But ginkgo are doomed because they bare the most ignominious fruit: the ginkgo nut. If you have ever tasted ginkgo nuts you probably can’t imagine where it comes from; if you have ever been close to a ginkgo tree in autumn you probably can’t imagine that the ginkgo nut is actually edible. The ginkgo nut is protected by a yellow-orange thick and watery skin that when broken generate an extremely nauseous smell. The nuts have the bad habit of falling on the ground and get smashed by pedestrians, cars… in town and to rot in the country, still smelling so bad that the tree is a real nuisance! Yet gingko nuts are delicious! 

The nuts are usually collected once they’ve fallen. Luckily the little typhoon that passed over Kanto last week, blown down all the nuts and I managed to collect them before they rot and stink. Always use gloves when collecteing the nuts!!!
The next step is to remove the stinks. For that plunge the nuts in a bucket of water for a few hours. The soaked skin is easy to remove (again, use gloves). And brush and wash the nuts until none of the flesh is visible. Finally dry the nuts in the oven at low temperature for about 2h, while shaking them once in a while. This year I collected so many nuts that I gave away most of them to my neighbors because I didn’t have the time to peel and wash them all.

Now the nuts are ready for cooking and harvesting!

Nuts drying in the oven
Nuts drying in the oven

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