Tag: Home-made

Dirty hands

I love to put my hands in gooey mixtures quite a lot, and this weekend is what I did!! I first started bu making some brioches for our breakfast. The dough for brioche is always a hard kneading wirk because of the egg and butter the dough gets really really gooey and it takes a good 30-40min of string kneading to obtain the silky soft and smooth dough expected. I could use a robot you could tell me, but kneading is really part of the fun for me, if not most with eating together the final product. The result: 6 little brioches was really great, all warm out of the oven for breakfast. And when they we finished for tea time, I regretted not to have made more…

The other gooey mixture I worked with this weekend was clay for ceramics. After our experience of making pottery in Kurashiki, we wanted to do some more, and finally by chance the other day at some event in Isumi we found Ezonoco a potter which work I like very much and who is also having some classes at her workshop. So we finally went there and spent the afternoon with hands in the clay and shaping our creations. It was tough work but it was great to work side by side and tease each other and I can’t wait to see the results after they will be out of the oven in a few weeks and we can work on them again. I also thought about the so many things I want to make and that it may finally happen! It makes me really happy!

Romanesco

 

Every one knows this fractal cabbage that is as beautiful as delicious: the romanesco! It is now not too difficult to find it in Japan too, and they even grow some in Isumi. Since I want to keep it simple and to be able to admire its beautiful shapes that usually I use it simply steamed, or roasted. And sometimes in quiche (all the romanesco recipes are here). I find that the oven slow roast and the quiche overall suit very well this cabbage, and its flavor suits the flavor of buckwheat and shiitake very nicely, so I made a quiche half flour half buckwheat flour, and in the egg base I added plenty of turmeric and pepper and slices of fresh raw shiitake and raw romanesco. And it gave a very subtle combination that was very pleasing.

Have a great week! 

Plating

We say in French “les jours (les semaines, les annees…) se suivent mais ne se ressemblent pas”  (days (weeks, years…) follow each other but are never alike) and this is so very true these days for me! Not that I complain about it, but there is very little routine. One day it snows, the next is warm; one day I have intense discussions at work with many different experts, the next I spend in paperwork and administrative tasks; one day I spent writing and reading articles, the next listening to students presentations; one day I run errands and meetings in the city, the next I’m seated 12h in my office… and one day I’m in Tokyo, the next in Italy or in France… It’s a captivating work I do and I’m grateful for all it brings, even a short interview in a French peridocal! But honestly this is not making me better at plating, this is a constant observation. Regardless how my recipes are yummy-easy-healthy. The problem is that I seriously don’t know how to improve it. When I look at my IG feed I feel sorry but I use only my best shots… but when I look at my picture album, I see all these delicious tests I made that I will never dare sharing… For example this amazing plate I made with wild hijiki, grilled swordfish, tomato and caper sauce… deliciously half indeed but the pictures are so bad: lighting, plate, plating… all wrong… Or this broccoli and fukinoto bulgur dish (this one is borderline so I decided to share it… but honestly I hesitated a lot before showing it… but fukinoto are seasonal and the season is right now, and the mix with the broccoli was really great… so at some point I wanted to share it.. because there are so many ways to eat local and seasonal staples that change from the traditional ones. For example fukinoto is mainly eaten in tempura, in miso soup or pickled in miso… but in kind of risotto like this recipe it is also really great! You’ll find the recipe below. And if you have plating advices for daily life food, pleeeeaaaaase let me know!!

Bulgur risotto with fukinoto  (for 2 people)

– 100g of bulgur (I use fine one for it cooks slightly faster) 

– 8 fukinoto of medium size. If they are large 4 or 6 is enough

– a piece of broccoli

– water

– olive oil, salt and pepper  

In a pan grease with olive oil and heated pour the bulgur, start cooking at high heat while stirring for 2 min. Lower the heat, cover the bulgur with water and add about 50% more in volume than the bulgur. Wash the broccoli, the fukinoto. Cut them (if the fukinoto are small don’t cut them). When the water in the bulgur as decreased and is no longer visible add the broccoli and cover, 2min later add the fukinoto and cover for 3 more minutes. Add salt, pepper, olive oil and stir before serving.

Ravioli again!

After this busy week at work and several dinners out, a little bit of slow cooking was more than welcome! But it was so cold that I didn’t even dare trying to make bread. Indeed, when we arrived Saturday morning it was 2-3 degrees in the house, it slowly went up to 15-17 by the time it was bed time, and again it was 3 degrees when we woke up the next morning. These old Japanese houses are really not meant to be warmed, they are wind breakers, just to live in wearing many warm layers of clothes. And it totally works. But to make bread in such conditions is really hard (oh! Maybe that’s one reason why bread and alike are not traditional to Japan!). The bread takes forever to rise and it’s never long enough! Instead, I simply kneaded some pasta dough to make ravioli. There was some beautiful salmon from Miyagi, some baby komatsuna, and I had some dill on the verge of drying. The recipe was all set. I put the dill chopped directly in the pasta. I made filling by first grilling the salmon and blanching the komatsuna, then put the two in the blender to obtain an almost creamy texture. Rolled the dough in my pasta machine (with the dill I found it hard to roll it to extra thin) and made the ravioli. I served with some more blanched komatsuna, butter for me, olive oil for A. and it was simply delicious!

I wish a good very week, it might snow again in Tokyo!

Whaou!

Quite a week, and it’s only Thursday!!!  So let’s get back to when I left you last Saturday… Sunday evening we had 4 guests (mix of French and Japanese) for dinner at home in Tokyo so I cooked some of my half new recipes: creamy cauliflower soup with curried croutons (recipe below), pork cutlet with roasted roots: lotus, taro, sweet potatoes, turnips, deglazed in soya sauce, and for dessert hasaku with spices syrup (ginger, cinnamon and cardamom) served with sesame and kinako biscuits. A. picked many Japanese and French wines to accompany my food. Oh… and I also made some plain and olive fougasse, with the olives from the garden in Aix that my mother prepared! But that was Sunday and it seems ages already!!!

And then Monday it had snowed, quite a lot actually, so I came back home earlier than usual to avoid being stucked with train problems. And I was happy to work from home eating left over sesame-kinako cookies with a hot chaï late. And having nothing to prepare or so for dinner since I hade made too many roasted vegetables! I like to recycle leftovers and do new things with them. So I added fukinoto and topped with sprouts for a perfectly balanced dinner. It was a great flavor experience! Fukinoto bring so much!! They are also the taste of coming spring with plum blossoms! And then there was this workshop I co-organized at the French Embassy. Everything went great, I met amazing people, now I can think about what’s next (and there’s plenty) and go back to the work routine for a short while!!

How is your week doing? 

Cauliflower soup with curried croutons (6 servings as starter)

– 1 cauliflower

– 1 potato

– 150ml of cream

– 4 slices of bread (I used half rye bread I made) 

– 2tsp of curry

– oil for the frying the croutons

– salt, pepper  

In a large pan I boil the cauliflower washed and chopped and the potato, peeled and chopped too. When they are very soft I blend everything. Add water if it’s too thick. Then add the cream.

In a fry pan add oil and the curry, cut the bread in cubes and fry them while turning them regularly. When golden take them out and keep them on cooking paper. When serving heat the soup, add salt and pepper if you lile, serve and top with the croutons. I added a sprinkle of tumeric for adding a bit of color.

Crazy week(s)

I knew January would be a tough and busy month and it is exactly what it is. It is the season for student graduation thesis and I have a pile of them to read before the end of the month. It is also the moment to think about final exams for the course I teach. But also national exam weekend, with some duty, and on top of that, conferences deadline, experiments, lab visits… At this point of the year it is also often that the weather is unstable, and temperatures are on day as low as 0 deg, and the next day are 15 or more… it is hard to adjust… but it is for sure not yet the end of winter, February and March are usually colder than January in my opinion, or may be it’s just because I’m getting tired of the cold, seeing the plum trees and peach trees blooming…

For these kind of times, a comforting food is always welcome. Some simple flavors and colorful meals. Orange in the plate is great when served with white: perfect mixing carrots, lotus roots and salmon. And this time I don’t let myself get disappointed by the color change due to oxydation of the lotus root. Once peeled, washed and sliced I bathed it in a bit of vinegard. Actually it added a little flavor to the final dish that I really enjoyed and countered balance the sweetness of the carrots and the salmon. Here is my recipe.

Roasted vegetables and salmon (2 people) 

– 1 leek

– 1 piece of lotus root

– 1 carrot

– 2 sliced of salted salmon (unsalted is also ok) 

– 2 tbs of sesame oil

– 1 tbs of white vinegar

Peel, wash and slice the lotus root. Put the slices in a plate and add the vinegar. Turn them so that each side has been in contact with the vinegar. This is too keep the beautiful white color of the lotus root when cooking. Cut the leek in chuncks, same for the carrot (if organic just wash, don’t peel) . In a heated pan, add the sesame oil, the leek, cook 2min at medium heat while stirring once in a while. Add the carrot. Drain the lotus roots and add them. Remove the bones and cut also the samon in bite size. Add to the pan. Cook at low heat under cover for 5-8 min. It’s now ready! Serve with a bowl of rice snd enjoy!

 

Vegan pie

You know how much I love to make quiches and tarts, there are so many examples already posted, and there will be this year many more. But when like me you love making dough, kneading and having flour on your hands, better than quiches and tarts, there are pies, for which you need twice more pie crust and I won’t complain about that!!! Pies are also great when you don’t want to use an egg base, and simply use vegetables and some tofu or some miso etc… I also love them in winter because they seems to be much warming, keeping the vegetables in their heat and steam and preventing them fir getting dry. I plan to make more pies this year and to try new recipes, I have already ideas flowing in my head, so maybe something like a pie a week or will be a good rythm, let’s try what I can do!!!

This first pie is a pure vegan delight with an olive oil base pie crust, with half flour half oat bran, and a filling of spinach, radish tops blanched and silky tofu. Everything is said! Bake for 30-40min and enjoy!!!!

Winter rolls

In winter, when it’s cold in the morning and we want to have something rich and hot to eat, I like to prepare cinnamon rolls or cinnamon buns. I find them super delicious when made with the recipe from the Nordic cookbook that I’ve slightly modified, but so rich that I actually don’t cook them too often, maybe once or twice a year when it’s really cold. I This time I found that I actually had a very good kneading, the dough was really shiny, smooth and elastic and the rises were really great despite the cold temperatures of the house, the dough actually almost doubled twice, and the result was a very fluffy yet rich cinnamon roll. I didn’t do the egg wash nor the sugar frosting, but they were golden all the same, sweet enough and perfect for a cold Sunday morning breakfast before spending time outdoor gardening. One thing I love in that recipe, is the cardamom. Indeed, in the dough Magnus Nilsson recommend to add some cardamom, and I find it adds some lightness to the preparation. How do you like your buns?

Home-made tagliatelle

As planned there will be a lot of pasta in 2018, and it has already started! For Xmas I received a motor for my pasta machine!!! Not that I am a big fan of going mechanical, I prefer to knead manually, to chop manually, to ground coffee manually… but I must admit that with the pasta machine three hands rather than two were neededto hold the pasta in, hold the pasta out and manipulate the handle, so it was really tricky and to get things done by myself I was flouring generously the whole top and I was making a real mess actually! The motor makes things much cleaner, and the pasta is great: thin and not too floury. I’m starting to be really good at making pasta!

For a change I didn’t make ravioli though I was quite tempted to, instead I made tagliatelle, and simply prepared them with buttered leek and shiitake.  I used the same preparation steps that for the ravioli. I prepared the leek and shiitake in a large pan with a bit of butter and at low heat and used the boiling water to keep the mix moisten, and when the pasta were ready I just drained them and added them to the vegetables, added a little of olive oil and pepper and stirred well just before serving. So simple and delicious, invigorating before going back to work!!!

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