Tag: home-cooking

Getting old…

Tomorrow I’ll turn one year up… now I know that I didn’t achieve my main goal for this year, despite trying hard for the past few years, but I realized I actually don’t care much because it doesn’t depend on me actually but on appreciation of others, and being alien in a conservative country doesn’t make things easy. Discrimination, racism, are things I face every day but I live with it because I chose to live in Japan. And finally I prefer that than living in a sad country where I could fit in. Our trip to France last weekend was quite eye opening again. The city was so sad and gloomy that I didn’t enjoy it much. Our hotel was right in the middle of two main riots spots, police cars everywhere, shops closing instantly to avoid being savagely deteriorated, security staff in front of the hotel, with main doors closed and all trying to keep a low profile… There is no way I can regret one second having left that sick self-destructing country.

I ate the idea of getting old… but the good thing with my birthday is that in Japan it is often holiday, as it is the first day of the long new year break. This year is particularly long since we will have 6 days!!! So I decided to go packing on flours, fresh yeast and other baking staples to be sure I am fully equipped to bake everyday. In particular because in my birthday presents bundle (in the gigantic amount of presents I brung back from Paris) I know there is a baking book and I can’t wait to open it!!! Since I went shopping at Cuoca in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi I also bought a few vegetables and some fresh fish from Chiba, and cooked simple pasta too. Here is my recipe.

Flounder with Brussels sprouts and spinach (2 servings)

– 1 piece of flounder

– 10 Brussels sprouts

– 1 bundle of fresh spinach

– 125g of pasta of your choice

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Boil water and cook the pasta. Wash the vegetables. Chop the spinach, and halve the Brussels sprouts. In a large pan greased with olive oil and heated start by cooking the Brussels sprouts, then add the spinach and the fish. Stir the vegetables, be careful not to break the fish. Remove fish when cooked, add a little bit more olive oil, the pasta, salt and pepper, and stir while cooking at high heat. When all is well mixed, serve in the plates, top with the fish and enjoy right away!

Have a great day today, last working day before next Friday!!!!!

Muesli pancakes

Since A. is away, I was thinking of having muesli and fruits for breakfast, so I stopped by the supermarket last night to buy some nuts muesli and some soya milk. But then this morning I was up at 6:15 and decided that after a bit of workout I would rather eat pancakes. So basically I prepared my muesli in a large bowl, covered it with soya milk, added a mix powder of black sesame, almond and kinako (grilled soya beans), add 2tbs of flour, a bit of baking powder and stirred well. Then cooked on both sides in a frypan. Finished with my uncle’s honey, added a kiwi sliced and I got a delicious breakfast, or rather two! Because I prepared a bit too much… I so much used to cook for two people… it’s hard to be alone!

Lotus root sushi – 蓮根寿司

When we were in Fuefukigawa, our ryokan had a very nice library where we enjoyed spending some time. It’s very nice to go to someone else library because you can discover many things through others books. That’s how I discovered a little cook book with some inspiring recipes. And I tried one of the inspiration as soon as we got back home. It was a recipe of lotus root sushi. So basically vinegared rice and vinegared lotus roots, served with ginger and sesame.  It’s been many years I haven’t made sushi rice so I was happy to prepare some again. Since it was served with the vinegared lotus root I didn’t make it too sour, and I served it with some ginger-pork sautéed.

So here is the lotus-root sushi recipe. It is quite simple if you can find fresh lotus roots (which in Japan is obviously very easy) and it has a very Japanese flair. 

Lotus-root sushi: 

– 1 cup of Japanese rice (I always use Koshihikari but choose your favorite one) 

– 1 large lotus root, fresh

– a bulb of fresh ginger, not too big

– 2 or 3 myoga

– 3 tbs of golden sesame

– 3 tbs of white vinegar

– 1 tbs of natural sugar

– 1 tsp of salt

– 2 tbs of sake (optional) 

First wash the rice, and cover with 1cup of water, the sake and cook as usual. While the rice is cooking, peel and wash carefully the lotus root. Cut in very thin slices (I used the mandolin for that). Set in a bowl, add some water to almost cover, but don’t put too much. Add most of the sugar, the salt and 2tbs of white vinegar. Stir with the hands, and let rest. Stir once in a while. Peel and cut thinely the ginger and the myoga. In a frypan roast the sesame until it starts to smell. Once the rice is cooked and has cooled down a bit add the remaining 1tbs of vinegar and the remaining sugar, stir well. Add the ginger, the sesame to the rice, stir; add the lotus root drained. Add the myoga. That’s it!!!

Socca lunch

Once in a while I like to prepare traditional socca as a base for a lunch one plates. It’s very quick to prepare and easy to serve with fresh vegetables. Since I’ve found huge eggplants at the farmers market I decided to make some basil (I have plenty in my herb garden) eggplant caviar and I made a big batch. I used very little olive oil in so that it can be eaten endlessly! I found it matches very well the socca and was a good dip. So I simply dresses the plates adding a few pan fried eggplant slices, some tomato and okra.

Eggplant caviar: 

For a big bowl. 

– 3 eggplants (not the small Japanese ones, the big ones! Otherwise you may make a small bowl!) 

– a bit of olive oil

– salt, pepper

– fresh basil leaves, or carvi seeds, or sesame seeds… 

Preheat the oven to 200. Set the eggplants on a cooking paper shit and put in the oven. Bake until it feels soft inside. Let them cool. Then peel them. Remove the extra water if any by just squeezing them.  Put all the peeled eggplants in the bowl of a blender, add salt and pepper, a bit of olive oil and blend to a smooth purée. Add the chopped basil, or the carvi seeds or the sesame seeds. Ready to eat, with bread, in a dish…

The recipe fir the socca is available here 

Colorful salad

Sometimes a very simple meal is welcome, but something different than usual. And for no specific reason I don’t cook potato salad very often, even though it’s super easy and delicious. I don’t mean mayonnaise base potato salad that is very common here in Japan, but rather olive oil base. Something with plenty of fresh vegetables. This time I had red cabbage and celery, so I simple shredded the cabbage, cut the celery, boiled and peeled the potatoes. Added some black sesame, a dressing with olive oil and white miso. And here was my vegan salad. For those who like, you can add pan grilled bonito to it. Super delicious. Have a great week!!!

Stuffed zucchini

Summer = zucchini plenty! Of course there are many ways to prepare them (see the zucchini recipe week from 2 years ago!). One of my favorite is stuffed zucchini. Classic meat stuffing would be my grand mother recipe, cheese stuffing would be my mother recipe. But yesterday night I invented a new recipe with some fresh local ingredients plus a bit of quinoq for texture. So here is my new recipe, and I loved it!!!

Cod and quinoa stuffed zucchini

– 2 large zucchini  

– a piece of cod filet

– a block of tofu (silk or hard, both work) 

– 2/3 of quinoa (I had tricolor one)

– 2-3 eggs

– salt, pepper olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200deg.  Drain the tofu. In a pan grill the cod briefly then add the quinoa and cover with water. Add salt and pepper. When the quinoa is cooked and it’s dry stir well to mix the fish with the quinoa. Add the tofu and stir again well to obtain a rather creamy paste. Add the eggs. Wash the zucchini and cut them in 3-4cm trunks. Carve them to remove a bit of the center part to add the filling. Fill them. Set in an oven proof dish add some olive oil and bake until golden (30min or so). That’s it!!!

 

Horse beans cold soup

Spring vegetables are getting close to the end of the season and we’re moving towards summer vegetables: zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants, melons… but before it ends, I wanted to eat a little bit more of these greens! I love so much green peas and horse beans. With the horse beans I prepared a cold soup with some croutons. It is a very simple recipe, but really delicious. Of course peeling the horse beans can be a bit of time consuming but personally I love this kind of tasks. Once it is peeled simply blend with a bit of water, add salt and pepper, if you like a spoon of yogurt, and top with freshly made fried croutons (recipe is available here). Isn’t that simple?

Have a beautiful week! 

Two way meal

Or two recipes with the same ingredients. One the original version and the second a leftover version. Both delicious and easy to prepare.  The original recipe is a Japanese one: rice with green peas and red miso grilled cod. This recipe is made with simple and easy to find fresh ingredients. You need fresh cod filet, red miso (work with other miso if you can’t find red one), Japanese rice, a handful of green peas. Additionally I served also horse beans and green beans just blanched, but optional. Cook the rice in a rice cooker or in a regular pan. Add the green peas about 7min before the end of cooking. With a flexible knife spread 1tbsp of miso evenly on the fish (opposite to skin side). In a heated pan or in the oven grill the miso side of the fish. Serve when cooked to your liking. I served the fish on top of the horse beans and the green beans on the side.

With the leftovers of rice and fish I decided to make some rice croquettes, something between arancini and accras. I mixed the rice with green peas with the fish, added one egg, a little of flour and pan fry them until golden. Served with a fresh lettuce and tomatoes salad.

Have a great weekend! 

Quiche

Now that work is getting back to normally busy I have more time to cook for dinner. And sometimes things turn out better than expected, may be because I haven’t cooked for a while. A quiche is very easy to make and always delicious but sometimes it turns out even better than that. Yesterday night that’s exactly what happened to me. While I was preparing it I had a good feedback but after tasting it it was so much over the top that I couldn’t understand why. For the pie crust I made a dough with a mix of buckwheat flour, rice flour, regular flour, 2 eggs, a bit of vegetal oil and water. I rolled it thick because I wanted to make a large quiche with plenty of vegetables and tofu. The tofu was amazing. I have tried a new hard tofu and it was crazily delicious with crumbs like goat cheese or feta cheese, but a much softer taste of course. I used also my new favorite organic soya milk that since now available in most supermarkets. And for the vegetables I chose asparagus and zucchini, and twisted the taste with some green shiso (perilla) leaves. I baked the whole thing for 30 minutes. And then it was magic!!!

I am so glad we didn’t eat the whole thing and I have my lunch all set!

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