Tag: home-cooking

A little Japanese dinner

I love Japanese food but because it always requires several preparation steps: preparing a good dashi, marinating ingredients, multiple cooking… It is rare I prepare a genuine Japanese dinner, unless it is some donburi, like veggies on rice etc… But I really like cooking Japanese and with a bit of organization in 30min it is possible to have someting ready.

First, start with preparing dashi by boiling katsuobushi in water. I put the flakes in a net so that it is simple to use the dashi. Then prepare the rice and start to cook it. Finally start marinating what ever needs too, here for me fish in soya sauce. While everything above is set, prepare the veggies or other ingredients: here wash the spinach, cut the mitsuba, prepare the miso… Once the dashi is ready you can cook the veggies. I picked spinaches because they don’t need much time to cook. I just boiled them in a little dashi and drained them well. Then grill the fish, some fresh cod from Aomori, add the miso to the soup, set the mitsuba in the bowls, and when the rice is ready, serve the miso soup, prepare the spinaches balls, add some delicious yuzu-miso bought in Karuizawa (the whole purpose of this dinner was to try this miso!), served the rice and finish with the fish. Ready!!!

And the miso from Karuizawa was just awesome, sweet tasty and with the perfect yuzu taste. When it possible to buy some of these delicious products locally I see really no reason to try to make some!

Simplicity

Because sometime all you want is plain sautéed fresh veggies, and it’s so simple and so delicious that you wonder why it’s not what is on the menu everyday!!!!

Pasta plate with smoked ham from Karuizawa

As I was mentioning, Karuizawa is a nice place to by cured meat and ham. We bought to types of smoked ham and both are really delicious. Since these are blocks it is not easy to make slices of it, and I found it a good opportunity to use dices, which in my opinion considerably changes the texture and taste, and suits very well to be mixed with other ingredients such as vegetables and pasta. So for this recipe I just boil big pasta, qanything you like is ok. And in a pan with a little of olive oil I heated eringi mushrooms cut in small pieces, then celery, diced ham and just one minute before serving dices tomatoes. I drained the pasta and add them to the pan so that they sunk in the veggies juice, and served immediately.

Short but intense week

Yup!! Today is the last of the week for me!!  But squeezing in a whole week of work in 3 days is quite a challenge. Plus this is the end of the year for students in Japan and that means a lot of thesis reading, preparation for presentations and grading. So from 8:00 to 22:00 it’s all busy. Adding a few round-the-world meetings late at night and the cup is full. So we’ve decided to retreat for a few days in the mountains, probably snowboarding, ice skating and hiking. Being so busy is ok for me, it’s kind of normal, but having to break my sleep habits is really the worst for me. My body stops to regulate its temperature and I feel cold often. So last night I wanted a warm and fresh, soft and crispy, colorful, and ready in 10min. It turned out in a one-plate with steamed spinach, sautéed shiitake, raw celery, chickpeas and creamy boiled eggs.

Just because I love them so much!!

Saturday ravioli, Sunday ravioli, this week end I’ve been cooking quite a lot of things but never so many ravioli. I must say that now I’m really well equipped to prepare some and it’s so much easier that’s a real pleasure!!! And since our little neighbor gave us a bag of shiitake, for a bag of natsumikan the filling was all decided! So I made jumbo ravioli with a dough 2/3 semolina 1/3 chesnut flour. Chopped the shiitake and cooked them in oil, I use fat pieces of pork, until golden, then prepared the ravioli. Served as usual with just olive oil. I prepared 6 per person of these giant things (about 4cmx4cm) and that was perfect for dinner!!

Butternut squash ravioli

This butternut squash was definitely a good source of inspiration for making new recipes, and the last thing I tried with it was ravioli, I really have a thing for ravioli. And that was awesome! For the pasta I used the same recipe as last time, and rolled it with my pasta machine. For the filling I just steamed a peeled piece of butternut squash, smash it and add salt and pepper, that’s it. I served it with just olive oil and gratted Parmegiano. The butternut squash sweetness add a perfect touch to the taste of the olive oil, and the simplicity of the preparation is just perfect to enjoy the taste of the butternut squash. It really surprised me how simple it was to make too!!

Saturday one-bowl lunch

Me unwrapping my Robby, circa 1982... 
Me unwrapping my Robby, circa 1982… 

I’ve heard often that when I was a kid I wouldn’t eat nor sleep. I remember very well not sleeping and that’s why I had my first robot: robby, a robot that would lit up when, scared I would wake up and cry for someone. Robby would also play with me. My first robot was an interacting robot that would keep me company, basically the kind of robot I develop now. Regarding food, I remember loving only a few things and beetroot was certainly not one of them! Now I quite like it and enjoy a lot when they are added to salads. I like the taste of sweet earth they have. So today lunch was beetroot, carrot, salad, rice, grilled katsuo and a bit of sesame. Have a nice weekend!

A warming one-plate dinner

When Thursday and Friday arrive, usually the fridge is getting empty of fresh veggies, but this week since we had some guests for dinner I bought more than usual last weekend to have a wide choice of possible menu, and so there’s still a few deliciously fresh veggies wauting to be cooked. In particular it’s rate to find things different from kabocha in the pumpkin-squash family, but last week I found a beautiful butternut squash. And after all the looking delicious pictures found on IG this autumn, I was really excited to cook it. I just roasted it with yellow carrots, and made a fluffy whipped omelette (which almost tasted like a quenelle and made me think that I really should cook some!!). All in orange tones, the whole plate is served warm and with just a bit of salt and pepper on top. Have a nice Friday!

Simply baked veggies

When the winter market decide for you what will be on the menu, it’s veggies, veggies, just veggies simply oven cooked with thyme and a very little of olive oil. From top left: purple sweet potatoe, potato, romanesco, red carrot, shiitake. Copy paste and get a dinner for two after baking for 1h at 170deg in the oven. Serve as it is or add a splash of olive oil and a bit of salt.

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