Tag: homemade

Chestnut risotto

Last winter I trimmed our chestnut tree to try to improve its production, because we usually have very few chestnuts, despite it being a rather large tree. And it work perfectly, we had plenty of chestnuts, I could enjoy seeing them growing slowly, and I was already thinking about all I would do with them, and give away. But in early August with the drought (since July 10 it’s been 32deg at least every day and it rained may be twice or thrice just a little), most of the beautiful chestnuts felt when they were still small. In the end I only collected 10 chestnuts 🌰…. Basically the same amount as usual… just enough for one or two meals.

Instead of the classic Japanese kuri gohan, I prepared a western version with Carnaroli rice, olive oil, and a bit of kale. I replaced the Parmigiano by fresh grated comté cheese. Super easy, and very delicious! Here is my recipe.

Chestnuts risotto (2 servings main dish)

  • 10 fresh raw chestnuts
  • 1 go of carnaroli rice, or other risotto rice you like
  • 2 leaves of kale (tender is better)
  • 1tbs of olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • Comté cheese (optional)
  • Water

Boil the chestnuts for 50min. Let cool and peel them.

In a large pan heat the olive oil, add the rice and stir until the rice is translucent. Cover amply with water, add salt and pepper and the chestnuts roughly broken into bite size. Let cook under cover for 15min. Wash and chop the kale, removing the hard parts. Add to the pan. The liquid must have almost all reduced, and the rice should be almost cooked. If that’s not the case: if the rice doesn’t seem cooked yet and there is no liquid anymore, add a bit of water and cook under cover. If there us still too much liquid and the rice seems cooked, remove the cover, and slightly increase the heat.

In the end, the rice should start grilling in the bottom of the pan. That’s when you want to serve, with just a bit of crisp in the bottom.

Serve, add grater comté cheese if you like and enjoy.

Goes well also with prosciutto or better with Speck. Unfortunately recently Japan has a ban on Italian cured meat so that’s not an option…

Home alone experiments

While A. is on business trip while my days at work are super busy, I’m oscillating between experimenting new recipes and easy to prepare but very satisfying food such as cheesy toasts and ochazuke… In my experiments, the sweet potatoes gnocchi with a 100% sesame pairing was definitely a huge hit! It mixes perfectly a traditional Italian recipe with Japanese flavors. A must try if you love sweet potatoes and sesame. Bonus, it is one of the easiest recipe ever… and here it is!!!

Sweet potato gnocchi and sesame (two servings)

  • 1 large sweet potato
  • Flour
  • 1tbs of sesame seeds
  • 1tbs os sesame oil
  • Salt and pepper

Steam the sweet potato. When tender let it cool down. Peel it and mash it. Add flour little by little to obtain an almost non sticky dough. Shape the gnocchi. In a pan boil 1-2L of water and poach the gnocchi. Drain and serve in plates, top with a bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds, add salt and pepper. Eat immediately.

A little magic with pasta leftovers

Every morning A. goes to work on site I prepare him a lunch box. I like to cook lunch early because then I know that my portion is also ready and I can eat any time, even when my schedule is super tight, which is more than often the case recently. When it comes to preparing our lunches and it includes pasta, I love to use fresh pasta because they cook very rapidly. The issue is that the brand of fresh pasta I like most has portions that are too big for one and too small for two… so today was one of this day, where I put 2/3 of the portion to A. lunch box, and I ended up with a sort of leftover size of pasta… not enough to feed me until dinner which would be late (again) today. Luckily I had gyoza skin in the fridge (for dinner) so I decided to pick 4 pieces and add these to pasta… but how???

I realized that Asian food often mix dumplings and noodles in soups, so I decided to go for something like that except that it wouldn’t be Asian, but rather Italian like for me, with fresh mozzarella dumplings. And this is how the most delicious thing I have cooked in a bit was born. Too delicious not to share with you my recipe! I used the leftover pasta and the gyoza skin I love most, but you can use fresh pasta and make your own gyoza skin, it is super easy… I was cooking while on a meeting, so I used minimal time.

Dumplings and noodle soup (1 serving)

  • 50g of leftover noodles or the equivalent to cook
  • 4 gyoza skins (you can make your own, it is super easy and rapid too)
  • 1/2 fresh mozzarella
  • 1 leek
  • a few mushrooms ( I used shimeji)
  • thyme
  • salt and pepper
  • olive oil

Cut the leek in the size/shape you like, same with the mushrooms.
Cut the mozzarella in 4. In each gyoza skin, put a piece of mozzarella, a bit of thyme and pepper. Wrap.
In a pan add 500ml of water, the leek, the mushrooms and cook for 5minutes after it boils. Add the noodles, the dumplings and cook for another 5minutes. Serve, add thyme and olive oil and eat while it is hot!

Starting afresh the sourdough adventure

It has been two years since I made Lois, my sourdough, and even though we had our ups and downs, overall, Lois was a great fun to use and taught me a lot. It even survived quietly our absence during our trip to France. So what happened? Why did suddenly things got strange… a few weeks ago my bread started to not rise as much as it would. I naively thought that my rising time was not adequate… and then last week when I was about to feed Lois it was all strange, and I spotted mold on the side of the bottle. I did a rescue operation, which seemed to work. Baked a beautiful brioche, and hopeful that everything was back to normal. But then, Lois died. I didn’t even think that would happen. All a sudden it became liquid, stinky and covered in a white… it was over.

So I had no other choice but start a new one. So here I am back at it… starting again.

But maybe it’s the two years with Lois, the perfect weather, it’s been working like magic and Baden is born in no time, smelling divine. Very active compared to Lois, who has never been a super active kind, and which smell was so so. And after 3 days I made my first bread with it. Smooth and easy!

  • Day 1
  • Day 2
  • Day 3
  • Day 4
  • Day 5

I hope Baden will be living for a long time and we will have many breads together!!!

Do you know the millasson cake? I did not…

Well there are so many things I don’t know about… that I am never surprised to discover a new name or a new recipe. As simple as it can be.

A. had a bottle of Balthus 2019 to drink (we could have kept it though… but why wait…) and after a short search, it seemed that chocolate would be a good pairing. Fine… but what chocolate patisserie could I prepare… so I browsed a little bit more searching for recipes that use cocoa powder, as it is the only thing I had. And I came across the “millasson”, a name I’ve never heard of before and a recipe I had never seen before. But its simplicity and the few ingredients needed immediately attracted me. It is basically something in between a flan and a clafoutis, but with egg whites beaten to get fluffiness (but honestly I wonder if that is really necessary).

So all you need is flour, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs and milk. And I can even guess that it could be baked in a pan if you don’t have an oven.

My millasson was good, rich in cocoa flavor, as I like, but I think I slightly overcook it, so I think I’ll try again this weekend, just be sure I have it right!!! 😋 and because it is really good!!!

I topped my millasson with cocoa powder and cocoa nibs.

The mysterious drink you can make at home

OK… after a little time struggling with WordPress I’m back!!!

When I was living with my parents, a long long time ago, my mother always had some kind of homemade preparations such as yogurts, that I was very reluctant to try, and I am still for some reasons not to much tempted by. But when we were at my parents’ place last month, I had a chance to try my mother water kefir. At first I was just wondering what this drink may taste like, and when she told me she only put water, lemon and dry figs in it, and has been drinking every morning for the past few years… I was thinking that I may not die from trying and nothing in it could justify I don’t try. And to be honest I really loved it, and even A. did. So instead of packing tones of tasty cheeses from France I packed a bin of water kefir grains that I smuggled in Japan. (Honestly I don’t know if this is a prohibited product or not… information about water kefir grains are just as scarce as mystic…)

And since we came back, I have been making some every two day or so and we’ve been drinking some every day. I follow strictly my mother recipe but the process of making water kefir is still new to me, and I have been having a lot of questions about it that have been mainly unanswered. This is incredible really to see that such an ancient practice is so little documented, and even the scientific research papers on it are just too little.

The first question that popped to my mind when I was making my first batch was what happens if by mistake I release a kefir grain in the drain and it goes to the river that goes to the ocean… would there be at some point (and kefir grows really quickly) a giant kefir blob on the beach? Am I going to create inadvertently an ecological catastrophe like many have been created. Don’t you know about the terrible taxifolia algae in the Mediterranean sea, escaped from the Monaco aquarium? Or some kind of strange animal like ninja turtles… apparently my mother asked herself the same thing… we couldn’t find any answer… but assuming that water kefir exists for a very long time, if that were to happen, wouldn’t it had happened already?

The second question was, what happens if I drink the liquid and the fermentation is not over. Would that be poisonous? And if by mistake I ingest a grain? Same here, I couldn’t find a clear answer.

But one thing that I learned trying to find information about water kefir according to one paper, is that making water kefir drink industrially seems very difficult. So water kefir can only be made on small batches! Isn’t that amazing?
And the other thing is that the kefir grain composition varies from one place to another. Not totally surprising but interesting… which means probably, like with sourdough, that each one produces a drink with a signature taste!

Mine is very mild and I like it’s refreshing taste and very slightly sparkling. I do not store it in an hermetic bottle to make it more sparkling, nor add any other flavoring such as fruits during the second phase. We just drink it like it is, after the first phase I just filter it. And I prepare it solely with dry fig and lemon, and a bit of sugar, but not too much either, may be that’s why the sparkling is very subtle.

I’m still learning and searching for solid info on kefir, so if you have good resources…

Making kefir: dry figs, lemon slices, a bit of brown sugar, kefir grains

The minimal kitchen

When on travel, eating out for every meal has always been a problem for me. Too much food, too rich, too many ingredients, too much preparation, too far… not enough simple food, not enough traceability… there are so many reasons why I love homemade food… I have been used now for a long long time to making my own food even with the simplest ustensiles and in the most rudimentary kitchens, but for long stays cooking with a kettle, a plate and a knife used for eating, that would be a little too constraining. So when we decided to travel to Paris I had one strong requirement: our hotel room should have a kitchen. We found a place that checked all the boxes finally: the Majestic hotel. The kitchen wasn’t even tiny, with a great opening on the terrace, but minimally equipped: a frypan and a pan. I bought a kitchen knife, a wooden spoon and a bottle of olive oil, and I was ready to cook for 10 days. I need nothing more than that.

The farmers market down the street on President Wilson Avenue on Wednesdays and Saturdays provided us with all the basic, local and seasonal ingredients we would need. The fish mongers, the cheeses and the organic stalls are really great. For breads there is also a nice stall. You can also find there beautiful flowers, kitchen knives, and a few Italian food stalls, perfect for ravioli and others stuffed pasta. We didn’t test the meat stalls, as I barely cook meat, but there are a few with a nice selection.

May in France is the season for strawberries, the very first cherries, green peas, asparagus, artichokes, new potatoes, new carrots etc… I focused my shopping on products I would usually not eat in Japan. Artichokes and white asparagus definitely were on the top of my list.

Nearby you can also find one of the trending patissier-boulanger shop: Cyril Lignac, which is the first one to open in the area: 7:00AM. With the jet-lag it’s almost too late, but we could manage to postpone breakfast until then and eat fresh pastries for breakfast. I would particularly recommend their pain aux raisins. Extremely delicious.

As a result, I tested some classic recipes and also created a super simple white asparagus recipe that I’d like to share with you.

White asparagus in tomato sauce

  • 5 white asparagus/person
  • 2 ripe and large tomatoes/person
  • 1tbs of olive oil
  • A pinch of salt and pepper

Wash and peel the asparagus. Cut in 3cm long chunks. Blanche them. Drain, let cool down and pat dry. In a pan add the olive oil and the diced tomatoes. Cook until it has reduced enough and it becomes a thick tomato sauce. add the cooked asparagus. Stir well and serve. That’s it!!!

Colorful as a Swiss chard

Three Swiss chard and new onion new ideas of recipe

In France we have chards and they are green, with beautiful leafy greens and rather stiff whites. Both are delicious and I have always liked when my mother was making some. Compared to spinach they have a distinctive earthy flavor that I love. It took me a long long time to find chards in Japan. I only found some once we started to shop at local farmers’ markets in Isumi or once in a while at Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi. I think not because of the location but because they are just becoming more popular now and are not originally a green from Asia (we have so many already there…).

What surprised me the most was that instead of being the classic white and green vegetables I knew, they came in various bright and beautiful colors. Vibrant pinks, bright yellows… and the colors stay rather well even after cooking. The other funny fact is that the fibery white part (now colorful part) is a lot less fibery and stiff.

Actually growing some is also not too difficult so we had a try at it last year, and we enjoyed the very young ones not even cooked, just row and they make beautiful salads!

Last weekend on our way to visit some plots of land, we stopped at a local farmer that was selling some. And he gave us a real lot of colorful Swiss chards, and some new onions too. So Swiss chards and new onions have been on our plates pretty much every day. First with some simple pasta and olive oil, then I started to think about other possible recipes. My top 3 of the things I cooked with New onions and Swiss chards is as follow:
1. Steamed buns
2. With coconut milk and cashew nuts, served with spicy Basmati rice
3. With paprika and served with buckwheat pancakes

So here are my recipes. They are all vegan and super easy to make. I hope you’ll enjoy them!

Steamed buns with Swiss chards and new onions (makes 4 large ones)

  • a bundle of Swiss chard
  • 2 new onions
  • a pinch of cumin
  • salt and pepper
  • 1tbs of olive sesame oil
  • 200g of flour
  • 1tsp of baking soda
  • a pinch of salt
  • water

In a bowl mix the flour, baking soda and salt, add water little by little and knead until the dough is soft and smooth. (If you have time, replace the baking soda by sourdough and wait 12h after kneading).

Wash and chop the chards, peal and chop the onion. In a frypan, put the sesame oil, and the chopped vegetables and cook at medium-low heat until they are soft. Add the cumin and salt and pepper and stir well.

Cut the dough in 4, make balls, and roll them into an 18cm disc. Split the filling into 4 portions and put in each disc. Form the buns and steam for 20min. Enjoy with a bit of soya sauce or without!

Swiss chards in coconut milk with super fragrant rice (2 servings)

  • a bundle of Swiss chard
  • 2 new onions
  • 200ml of coconut cream or coconut
  • 1 handful of cashew nuts (shelled)
  • salt and pepper
  • 100g of Basmati rice
  • a pinch of cinnamon, of cardamom and coriander, 2 star anises
  • A bit of butter if you don’t mind

First, steam the rice with the spices, and the butter if you use some. Then, while it is cooking, wash and cut in chunks the onions and chards. In a pan put the vegetables, the coconut milk and the cashew nuts roughly broken. Cook for 10minutes at medium heat, while stirring once in a while. Then serve with the warm rice and enjoy.

Buckwheat pancakes and Swiss chards and new onion stew (2 servings)

  • a bundle of Swiss chard
  • 2 new onions
  • 1tsp of olive oil
  • 1tsp of paprika
  • a pinch of turmeric
  • salt and paper
  • 120g of buckwheat flour
  • 1tsp of baking powder
  • water
  • a bit of oil for cooking the pancakes

In a bowl, mix the buckwheat flour, the baking soda a pinch of salt and add water until the dough is creamy, but not liquid.

Wash and chop the vegetables and cook them in a pan with olive oil while stirring once in a while. Add the turmeric and paprika, salt and pepper and stir again.

In a greased pan cook the pancakes (size is up to you) on both sides. Serve with the vegetables and enjoy.

Et voila, three really easy and delicious recipes with Swiss chard and new onions!

Always the same, never the same

Since we’ve been working from home, I cook three to four meals a day (we wouldn’t miss a good tea time!) and a whole new routine of recipes slowly replaced old habits. More meals to cook = more chances to explore. I cook more quiche as we spend more time in Ohara, I also cook more steam buns and gyoza, also one dish that has been an almost weekly thing is brown rice and spicy vegetables. As much I love Japanese brown rice, it takes too much time to cook it after coming back from work and have it ready for dinner (about 2 to 3h) so I would almost never make any. Working from home as this perk that starting a recipe is really simple, squeezed between two meetings.

For some reason Thursday is the day we most often have brown rice. And one thing I really love is to have it with some seasonal vegetables and a light spicy sauce. Versions are endless. And with the spring coming and the new vegetables I prepared a very simple and ultra full of flavors version. A few chick peas remaining from the hummus I made the other day, a bit of coconut cream, and a lot of new and fresh onions that our friends gave us. Add some super ripe tomatoes and, because winter is still not completely gone, a sweet potato, you have a great base. Normally I would have added curry to the mixture, but curry powder is on my shopping list and I didn’t have time to go grocery shopping this week. And actually it was good that way. It forced me to explore other spice combination and I realize that curry is not necessary. So if you want a very mild and very tasty recipe for your new onions and your brown rice, just read below and enjoy!

New onions with spice and coconut milk

  • 2-3 new onions
  • 1 sweet potato (one carrot could do, nothing could do too)
  • 1 large and ripe tomato (if you can’t find one just do without)
  • 200ml of coconut cream or coconut milk
  • 1 cup of chick peas, boiled and drained
  • 1tsp of ground cardamom
  • 1tsp of turmeric
  • 1/2tsp of all spice
  • 1/2tsp of ground cumin
  • 1/2tsp of salt
  • ground black pepper

Remove one layer of onion skin and cut them in 8. Wash and cut the vegetables in bite size.
In a greased pan, on medium heat, put all the vegetables, and the chick peas, and cook for 10min while stirring regularly.
Add the coconut cream, the spices and stir well. Cook under cover for 5min. And that’s ready. Serve with brown rice, but I bet it is also a killer with flat breads or basmati rice.

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