Tag: home-cooking

Why I love Instagram… inspiration…

There are few social media I really like or use… I joined facebook a longtime ago to try and as an alternative to my first blog, but never get too convinced except that my professional community is very active there and it helps to get the hot news quickly… Twitter never attracted me, and I only created an account when forced at work as part of my role of publicity committee member… this account is now closed… Pinterest was great when we were refurbishing our house to make idea boards… until the next house (maybe sooner than I think!) I probably won’t use it anymore… The rest… not even tried… my bad… but only Instagram won my heart and I have a steady instagrammer for now a little more than 7 years. Posting 1 picture a day has been my routine since I opened my account. But more than sharing my daily life and food recipes, it has been a tremendous source of inspiration. I love to browse the pictures of seasonal food that echoed to what I have in my fridge or in the garden; from the picture to guess how it could prepared, or plated and how I could recreate or adjust it to our liking… sometimes it just creates a craving… seeing 3 or 4 pictures in a row of beautifully golden quiche, or replete ravioli and dinner is all decided! Sometimes it takes more time to mature and after I thought it over for a few days I test something… That’s how I tested handkerchief pasta, stuffed bread etc…

Yesterday while going to work, after my usual morning post I was scrolling down my IG feed and got captured by a sweet potato and coconut milk soup (don’t ask me which account… I can’t remember :()… and miracle, I just had a large sweet potato waiting to be cooked in the very bottom of my fridge and bought coconut cream the day before… stars were aligned! So what did I do when I came home last night????

I prepared a fragrant sweet potato soup, and here is the recipe, perfect for a cold day like we have right now in Tokyo.

Sweet potato & coconut fragrant soup (for two, as main dish)

– a large sweet potato

– 200ml of coconut cream

– a large pinch of salt

– 1tsp of turmeric

– 1/2tsp of chili powder

– 1/2tsp of ground black pepper

Peel and boil until very mushy the sweet potato in enough water. Add salt. In a blender add the potato and cover with the cooking water. Blend. Add the coconut cream and blend. If too thick add more of the cooking water. Move to a large pan, heat again and add the spices. Serve very very warm.

How do you get your inspiration for your new recipes? Does a picture only inspires you like me? Or do you prefer a full story/recipe?

Has anyone tested Feedpost or is a user??? I just realized and was surprised they ranked In Gentiane’s kitchen in their ranking of top 100 home cooking blogs!!! And I was wondering if I should also use it for further inspiration…

Noodles

Last time I made gyoza A. complained because I didn’t make the wrappers. And I totally agreed with him. The homemade ones are thiner, tastier and so simple to make that I kind of felt a bit ashamed of it… When I cook in the evening on week days I usually like to prepare things I am sure about and won’t mess because I am too busy to mess. So I felt I needed to practice dough making.

What does it have to do with noodles???

Well the gyoza wrappers and the noodles I made are basically the same recipe: flour and water… and it takes literally 5min to make the dough for each. And for the noodles just 2min to roll and cut them. Perfect to enhance a simple vegetables soup! So here is my recipe for a quick, simple, energizing and warming soup.

Noodles soup (1 serving)

– 1 carrot

– 1 leek

– a pinch of turmeric

– a pinch of chilly pepper

– 4-5 coriander seeds

– a pinch of sesame seeds

– a pinch of salt

– a bit of ground pepper

– 40g of flour

– water

In a pan with 500ml of water, add the carrot and leek cut in the shape you like. Add the spices and condiments. Bring to a boil. And keep boiling at low heat under cover.

In a small bowl mix the flour with a little of water to obtain a soft dough, silky not sticky. Knead a bit. Roll with a pin onto a floured top to a flat 1mm or less sheet. Cut 5mm wide noodles, add to the soup and boil while sometimes stirring for 5min.

Serve and eat while hot!!!

Have a good weekend!

Taking time

The past two years have just gone in a flash. Since A. changed jobs and we moved, it’s been a continuous flow of things: 2 jobs for A., a cross appointment for me (which is basically a new job on top of mine), we started pottery classes, we had a giant garage and workshop built, we started paddle surfing and surfing, we started a kitchen garden with less rather than more success and I got more confident at baking breads. These have been for sure 2 amazing years, but they also left me with an impression that I have done nothing but running from one work appointment to the other, from one work task to the other, and when the work week was over either we flew to the countryside or we had to stay in Tokyo because I had some work related events to attend. Business trips were plenty as well. This resulted in working days of 12 to 14h with a lot of moving here and there, spending time in trains and metros which in Tokyo can easily be an hour or more. Both of us coming back home often past 22:00 and I then start to cook for dinner, a dinner that needs to be quickly made to satisfy our empty stomachs. While I still dream of country life in a sense, I believe that by changing my habits I could just as start by improving our Tokyo life. Being sick with fever and bed ridden for the first time in more than a decade and then working at a very low speed has taught me to be super efficient again. When your efficient brain time is just a tiny portion of what it used to be you have to use it wisely! I realize I could work differently and I have started as soon as I got back last week. I need to process information on a priority base, and for that refuse all extra work that is not exciting and to help someone I care for. Being sick was a good excuse to start with, now I just need to continue. Time with my students and with my colleagues for projects I care for should be valued over administration. That said it won’t make days shorter.

So the other major change concerns cooking. I was tired of rush cooking so my new schedule is that no matter what I leave the lab between 17:30 and 18:00, go back home, start cooking dinner, and then work again from home. I am lucky enough that most of the work I do can be done everywhere. It means I can cook things that take more than 10min such as spelt, lentils, brown rice and all the others alike.

So when A. comes back dinner is ready and we can eat a much better prepared dinner and at least 30min to 60min earlier!!

This has been really great to finally cook a lot of cereals and products I bought on our trips and they end up in the fridge waiting to be cooked. For example pearled barley from our trip to Italy a year ago… This recipe is highly Mediterranean with capers from Greece that my parents bought me when they went there last spring, sun dried tomatoes from a farm in Gozo I brought back from Malta and olive oil from my home town. The fish comes from our local fishing harbor in Katsuura.

Pearled barley and bonito

– 120g of pearled barley

– 5 sun dried tomatoes

– 1tbs of capers salted or in salty water

– olive oil

– a piece of bonito or tuna

Wash and cover with water the barley. Boil under cover for 20min. If all the water didn’t go, drain it. Add a splash of olive oil. Cut the tomatoes, add to the barley, add the capers. Stir well. In a olive oil greased fry pan, grill the fish. Serve in plates with a last splash of olive oil.

So far I applied this new concept for a week and it worked very well. Let’s see how the second week will work!!

Ochazuke – お茶漬け

Those who are familiar with Yasujiro Ozu’s movies must know “The flavor of green tea over rice” or “お茶漬けの味”, while being a cinematographic beauty and a brilliant socio-cultural representation of the the Japanese society transition of the time, it also introduces to a large audience ochazuke. Literally, as in the movie, it’s a dish that consists of pouring green tea over rice. A warm and comforting dish. While for westerners this might sounds odd, this dish, well prepared is actually delicious. It is also very simple if you have the right ingredients: rice, a hot tasty liquid, some topping eventually.

Ochazuke as you can imagine, is not supposed to be eaten with freshly cooked rice, while it is ok to do so, it is rather a recipe to use rice leftovers that have cooled down. So what I usually do is cook more rice than I need once to guarantee leftovers and then keep them for the next meal. Of course I mean Japanese rice cooked the Japanese way!!! You can use white rice or brown rice, it is equally delicious.

Then you need a hot liquid. As the name may be misleading, the liquid can be, but does not limit to green tea. Of course a nice and tasty green tea will work very well, yet my favorite recipe is with a flavor-rich dashi. A dashi made from konbu and katsuo, or from shiitake for a vegan version. The liquid must be hot enough to warm the rice if you use leftovers as it might be just at room temperature.

Finally you need a topping. Something that brings in a new texture and a new flavor. The topping is in rather low quantity, about one~two table spoon for one bowl. And as the rice and the liquid have quite a fine and light flavor you can use a topping that contrasts vividly such as umeboshi, salty salmon, mitsuba or create new combinations. Well, to be honest umeboshi is one of my favorite, and it can be used with some other toppings as well.

Why is that that I suddenly I talk so much of ochazuke when in the past 15 years I barely made one and only have them in restaurants? I think its just a matter of interesting circumstances: (1) Finding a nice dashi made from natural ingredients (dashi bars and tasting are becoming more trendy but not all dashi are made from simple natural ingredients) (2) Having leftover rice (when I was sick I would cook rice for 2 or 3 meals to have always something ready in case I would be hungry) (3) Wanting to eat a warm meal (with the temperature changing rapidly and the days becoming chilly one needs a warm, light and comforting meal…)

Here are the ochazuke I made in the past couple of weeks, top to bottom: umeboshi and pickled red chiso, umeboshi and mitsuba, 7 herbs and salmon, umeboshi grilled mushrooms and salmon.

For all the principle is the same: serve the rice in a large bowl such that it uses not more than half of it. Top with the topping of your choice. I blanched the round turnips in the 7 herbs version and slightly grilled in olive oil the long ones. Same for the mushrooms, I grilled them before. Prepare the dashi of your choice and pour while hot gently to cover the rice. Eat right away!

Scones forever!!!

There are so many things I love to eat and so few meals and time to eat them all, that I end up forgetting a few things I love. Last weekend I decided to catch up with these. So I prepared avocado rice bowls, quiche and scones. When it comes to scones I usually have in mind something for breakfast or tea-time, but this time, as we went surfing and then were busy fixing things in the house I only get to the kitchen around 18:30… and given the cold weather this weekend it was probably too late for bread. So I decided to prepare scones. And since it was almost time to think of aperitif snacks I went for two recipes.

Both use the same base. One is sweet with yuzu harvested in our garden, the other is savory with pancetta and shiitake. It is very simple and by simply changing the size or shape of the scones it can feel very differently.

Scones

– 180g of flour

– 50g of butter

– 1tsp of baking powder

– a pinch of salt

– milk (quantity will slightly vary depending on flour quality, temperature etc… but usually not more than 200ml)

In a bowl mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter cut in small pieces and start kneading. Add milk little by little until the texture is smooth but not sticky. Form a 5cm diameter stick and leave to rest for 30min.

For the yuzu scones:

– 1 yuzu

– 2tbs of brown sugar

– a handful of flour

Wash the yuzu and dice thinly the skin. Add to the dough. Extract the juice roughly and add to the dough. Add a bit of flower if the dough becomes too sticky. Roll 2cm thick, cut to desired shape and size and bake for 12-20min at 180 depending on shape and size.

For the shiitake and pancetta scones:

– 50g of pancetta

– 1 or 2 fresh shiitake

– 1 tsp of salt, pepper

Chop the pancetta, wash and chop the shiitake. In a small pan heated at medium- high heat add the pancetta, stir gently until the fat starts to melt, add the shiitake, and stir once in a while. Cook like this for 5min. Add the cooked pancetta and shiitake to the scone mix, add salt. In really needed add a bit of flour. Add ground pepper generously. Roll 2cm thick, cut to desired shape and size and bake at 180deg for 12-20min depending on size. Enjoy!!!

Actually you may want to add some grated fresh parmigiano in the mixas well…

Gyoza

I cannot hide that I have a thing for stuffed food, for pies and for dumplings… whether they are Italian ravioli, Japanese gyoza, French ravioles, Russian pilmini, Chinese shumai and other little stuffed breads… I simply love them, how the filling is steamed in the little poach and when opened all the captured flavors develop in the mouth. And I enjoy a lot making them with my own prepared filling. You already know how much I love making ravioli, well I also love making gyoza and I want to try other recipes from Asia and eastern Europe. From the scratch, or when I am a little too busy I use gyoza “skin” 皮 that only contains flour and water. Luckily in Japan it is easy to find some (be careful though that most gyoza skin sold in supermarket contains a lot many ingredients to be good, so, as usual look at the label, if there are more than 4 ingredients, pass).

To celebrate the beginning of the cold weather I invented a new filling recipe with seasonal vegetables and that was a very nice try, to reproduce soon.

Here is my recipe!

Early winter gyoza (makes 30 pieces)

– 30 gyoza skins

– 100g of ground pork meat

– 2 sweet potatoes (mine are 15cm long, 3cm wide)

– 2 leeks

Boil the sweet potatoes with the skin. Once very soft, peel them and crush them in a bowl, add the meat. Chop the leeks and add to filling mixture. Stir well. Now it’s time to prepare the gyoza. In a skin set 1tsp of filling and close it. Repeat until all is gone.

To cook the gyoza, grease a fry pan (I used olive oil) and put the gyoza in, add 1cm of water. Cook under cover for some time until the water is gone, flip the gyoza and when they are golden flip again. Serve hot with soya sauce in which a bit of white vinegar has been added. Enjoy!!!

Stuffed bread

This all started with a picture that I saw on my IG feed one morning from Jul’s kitchen. I’ve been following her for quite some time now. Her recipes always make me want to be in Tuscany and when two years ago (whoa… It seems like ages ago!!!) we actually were thinking about moving to Florence and went there repeatedly I asked her recommendations about places to shop delicious things in Florence and they were gold. Well, just to say that her blog makes me dream of Tuscany… so… back to that picture I saw very likely on my way to work, last winter I guess… it was a savory stuffed pastry… it looked wonderful and I thought about doing some for a long time, but every strictly new recipe requires to mature in my head and to find the proper timing of ingredients and preparation. It’s only the other day that the winter vegetables started to be back in particular the cabbages, the spinaches and that I bought some pork ribs.

All was finally there to make the stuffed bread. But instead of a pastry dough or a brioche I decided to go with some straight white flour bread dough. The result was a very very delicious and warm meal, perfect for a rainy evening like today. Here is my recipe.

Stuffed bread (2 generous portions)

– 150g of flour

– 10g of salt

– 5 g of yeast

– water

– 1/2 small Chinese cabbage or 1/4 large

– a bundle of spinach

– 150 of pork ribs thinly sliced (豚バラ)

– pepper

– sesame seeds

Prepare the bread dough 1 or 2h before hand: mix the flour, the salt, the yeast, add water little by little and knead until the dough is soft and smooth. Leave to rest in a warm place under a moist cloth for 1 or 2 hours.

In the meantime, in a frypan cook the meat until golden. Wash and pat dry the vegetables.

Roll the dough with a pin, set the meat in the middle, top with the vegetables. Add some pepper. Fold the dough and close it. Flip the bread to have it upside down. Top with sesame seeds. Leave for proving about 30min and then bake at 230deg for 18min. Serve hot!

Yuzu!!!

Japan has hundreds of different citrus fruits, strangely few oranges but surely many types of tangerines, lemons, natsumikan, kinkan, kabosu, sudachi, shikwasa… and of course yuzu. Yuzu 柚子 is used either non ripe in September and becomes ripe in the end of October or the beginning of November. It is used a lot in Japanese cuisine, in particular for its skin and its juice, which are both very fragrant and typical.

In our garden we have two tall and big natsumikan trees that took me some time to understand how to eat them, a fairly nice tangerine tree as well. Last year we decided to plant a yuzu tree and a lemon tree to expand our citrus fruit collection with trees that would produce fruits I love to cook. The lemon tree gave some lemons last winter, but it’s only this year that we harvested many yuzus.

I personally like to use the fresh yuzu from my garden squeezed in hot water with honey. And I really like to use the juice and the skin in savory recipes. There many options but to really enjoy the flavor simple preparations are the best. This time its some black Tuscan rice riso nero venere simply steamed, served with a grilled piece of swordfish, the whole topped with olive oil and yuzu peel chopped very thinly. A bit of salt and that’s it!!!!

How do you like to prepare your yuzu???

Extravagant bread!!!

Last night I asked A. what he would like for breakfast, or more precisely what kind of bread, brioche etc… ans he said I want an extravagant bread!!! But not extravagant because there are fancy things inside… hum… that didn’t really help so I started kneading a 1/3 whole wheat 2/3 white wheat and decided it would be extravagant in the shape…

With the chilly evenings now and our house rather cold I have tested over the years many options for the first rise of my doughs. If like me your house is not very warm (20-25deg) and your dough has difficulty rising and you don’t want to invest in a machine for that or use your oven and waste energy you have three options:

1. Prepare your dough 6 or 4h earlier than usual and give it enough time to rise. This only work is the temperature is higher than 18.

2. Soak the bottom your bowl in a sink or larger bowl filled with warm water (35-45 deg). Change the water once or twice if your house is really cold.

3. If like in Japan (and like me) you have the habit to take a bath in the evening, keep the dough in the warm bathroom. It’s very nice because the air in the bathroom is very humid usually and it doesn’t dry the top of the dough.

Personally option 2 and 3 are my favorite options and they work 100% of the time. I tried many others that I found in cook books and on internet but they were not as good: drying too much the dough, not very efficient, wasting too much unnecessary energy…

So back to the extravagant bread, after a beautiful rise, I shaped it as a ring. Indeed, I find that the ring is a more extravagant shape than the classic shapes, it gives a good balance between crust and crumbs and it bakes evenly. So ring it was! And A. was satisfied with the result!

While the bread was finishing to bake I just went in the garden to pick some tangerines (we have plenty this year) and breakfast was ready!

Have a good Sunday!!!

Oh! And the bread shape was perfect to make sandwiches to go for our picnic on the beach after surfing!!! I just prepared an omelet with plenty of greens and a bit of grilled pork.

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