Tag: home-cooking

Spicy stew

In the series of new preparations I really wanted to try fennel seeds together with north african style spices in a stew with plenty of veggies and a little bit of chicken. Something close to a tajine indeed, but served with a little of couscous for the full blast of energy. So I put one potato, ine carrot, a few green beans, one large tomato and some chickpeas and a few pieces of chicken breast together in a pan and cooked them in a bit of oil before ading some water, North African spice mix and plenty of fennel seeds. In the last minute of cooking I added a few okras. Served with steamed couscous. Enjoy!

Pickled myoga

Recently I’m experimenting a few new recipes or a few new combinations. Since it’s the season of fresh myoga and we love pickled myoga, I decided to try to make some and found a very simple recipe. This recipe is probably impossible to prepare if you don’t live in Japan or if you don’t have access to some very basic yet not common products, since usually they are homemade. First of all you need 3 or 4 fresh myoga, then you need what I call red “umeboshi juice” but which is in fact called umezu 梅酢 and which is the juice obtained during the making of umeboshi, and the red one is when using red perilla (shiso) to flavor and color the plums. It’s a very pink sour and salty liquid with a delicate plum flavor.Once you’ve got this, then you can prepare pickled myoga. Slice thinly the myoga, put in a jar, add 3 large spoon of umezu. Close the lid, shake well and let sleep for at least 12h. You can keep it for about 4 weeks in the fridge, so you can make much more than just 3 or 4 myoga at a time! Serve as a condiment or a snack.

Pancakes and plums

When in Canada our friend C. Gave us a huge jar of peach jam he made. The jam was so delicious that just one month after it is already empty. And of course I totally forgot about it, hoping this delicious jam would be on the breakfast table for ever!!! This morning when I woke up and was thinking about making pancakes for breakfast, I realized there was no more jam… Pancakes without nothing to top them (A. doesn’t like butter nor honey) would be very sad… Luckily I had plenty of fruits and decided to add them to the pancakes directly to create some moisture add recreate a kind of jam effect. I prepared a regular pancake base. Heated a pan and greased with coconut oil, then started to cook the pancakes on one side. For the fruit I opted for juicy plums that I chopped and added to the pancakes while just starting to cook in the pan. The fruits cooked once I flipped the pancakes and the result was quite interesting: pancake taste and texture and clafouti like fruits juicy, sweet and sour. I added a nashi pear for a crunchy-sweet-super juicy refreshing morning plate. Delicious! Have a good day!!!

The simplest Japanese dinner!

Sometimes ingredients just come perfectly together at the farmers market and there is nothing else to do than prepare them in the simplest manner. The summer is soon to ginish but not quite yet and fresh little cucumbers are excellent, crispy, juicy and refreshing. The new rice has just been harvested in Isumi and perfectly cooked it’s crazily delicious, slightly softer and more white and transparent than normal rice. Myoga has started to grow here and there in the woods (our neighbor K. San went to pick some just in the hill back our house and you can find plenty at the farmers market) and the taste of fresh myoga just sliced in a simple miso soup is a little astringent. And to finish a piece of fresh wild snapper filet, simply grilled and topping the rice that goes perfectly with K. San’s fresh umeboshi. I’m starving writing this post and dying for an other meal like that!!!!

Corn soup

May be because I come from the south of France, a region where they don’t grow corn, I never been much use to fresh corn. Only when traveling to the US as a teenager did I discover whole corn grilled with butter and salt, and more recently in Japan corn soup. I must say that Japanese do really have something with corn soup. Something that at first kind of refrained me from trying: they sell corn soup or drink in can in self vending machines!!!! Yes, just like water, coke, tea and coffee… But sometimes in cafe and restaurants they serve some real soup and I actually really enjoy its sweetness. It is often added with cream or some bouillon to make it tastier and creamier.

The other day I bought some corns and decided to try to make some. I boiled the corns, then removed the hard parts and blended the soft ones. I added a bit of water until obtaining the consistency I was expecting because it was more of a purée but you can add milk, soy milk, cream… As you like.  And simply served with salt and pepper. It kept the granulous texture of the corn grains skin which I kind a like bit makes the soup rather rustic, so for a more elegant soup I recommend to filter it. Enjoy warm or cold!

Quiche!

I think this recipe base is becoming my all-time favorite for the quiche: it’s simple and it mixes Japanese and French flavors perfectly. The quiche is a traditional dish in France, simple to prepare and accomodate with everyone taste. The twist comes from the ingredients I use in the egg base: bonito flakes (katsuobushi) and soya sauce. It gives a subtle flavor of dashi and Japan. For the dough you can use whatever flour you like or have around. I change all the time: white wheat, whole wheat, spelt, buckwheat, rice… A combination of the above mentioned is good too. I usually prepare a sable dough because I like it better, but brise dough works well too. Veggies are only seasonal fresh veggies and this time I pocked some end of summer mushrooms: shiitake (well you can fond them all year round!) and bunashimeji, a white smooth version of shimeji. That’s it!

An other rainy day 🌧

The summer is just diluting in rain. What should be the beautiful after season, is this year just a second rainy season. It rains almost everyday and once it’s chilly, once it’s hot and humid. Don’t know what to wear, don’t what to eat. This Sunday was so chilly that it was perfect for gardening and fix a little our trees for the next typhoon and do some additional cleaning and trimming. But with rain all afternoon we were stucked inside and I took this opportunity to prepare a little snack for tea time. The figs season is just now and they are big and rippen. I was thinking anout making a “classical” tart, but the chilly weather pushed me towards something a little sweeter and I devided to try to make a fig crumble. I wanted also to change from the classical almond-fig combination so I decided to add orange flower water to the crumble dough for a fresh taste. That worked very well. I’m thinking also that rose water would have worked too for a more oriental flavor. So it’s really simple. You need 6 or 8 figs depending on their size, 120g of flour, 70g of sugar, 50g of butter, 2tbs of orange flower water. Pre-heat your oven at 200deg. Butter a pie dish, wash or peal and cut the figs in quarters and set them in the pie dish. In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, butter and orange water to obtain the crumble dough. Set small piece by small piece on top of the fruits. Bake for 15min or until golden.

Desktop lunch

I’ll never quit this habit of eating freshly prepared food in my office. No matter what the prepared food in shops don’t appeal me to much nor the cafeteria. I’ve been doing for ever and actually love it. I just get rid of some usual combination so try new ones once in a while. In summer I prefer cottage cheese rather than cream cheese, less fatty and heavy. And I replace the thick large slice of bread by slightly drier and smaller ones. Avocado and tomatoes are my always winning combination and I stick to it while tomatoes are still sweet and juicy!  I prepare this in my office and I enjoy the super fresh and mix of texture very much. What is your best lunch option at work?

Dinner one-plate

Some brown rice left over? The perfect base for a one-plate dinner. I oven grilled some white eggplants marinated in a bit of olive oil and added plenty of fresh coriander; grilled some horse mackerel pieces and added some fried beet on top of the rice. A bit of kosher salt and here is a perfect dinner after a long day at work. Quick, simple, colorful and tasty! What else? 

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