Tag: homemade

Plum works

A story of great success and massive failures…

Like every year in June I did my share of plum works. With a garden that produces a lot more fruits that I can handle, I actually spend more time picking fruits to give away rather then cooking them. This year I prepared umeboshi like every year, one for Tokyo and one for Isumi, one plain, one with red shiso. Things were looking really good with both until 3 days ago when I discovered that my preparation in Tokyo was covered with mold. And way too much of it to attempt any rescue operation. Everything went down the thrash… Hopefully the one in Isumi seems to have been doing well and with the beautiful hot weather this weekend it was the perfect day to take them out to dry.

One other thing I made this year was plum and red shiso syrup. Usually I prepare plain syrup, but this year I had some extra shiso so I decided to use it in the syrup. Plum syrup is delicious with cold or hot water and with sparkling water too. With the shiso I find it is much better cold. I gives a beautiful color to the drink too. A nice pink.

Finally, there was one thing I didn’t tested before but I have heard so much about is ume-su 梅酢, not to mistake with ume-shu 梅酒. Ume-su is the liquid you obtain when pressing the plums with salt and in which umeboshi bath until drying. It is basically a mix of fermented plum juice and salt. Ume-su is well known to combat summer heat and because of the salt and mineral it makes the perfect recovery drink. It is used like syrup diluted in water. The salty and plum flavors are super delicious, the one with shiso also. Now that I have tested it I love it and often use it together with syrup to have a good balance of sweet and salty flavor, a perfect drink to use after long time gardening in the heat or playing tennis!

The ume-su can be used to pickle vegetables: cucumber in plain ume-su, daikon, turnips, myoga… in the the shiso one. It will color the vegetables in pink so it’s better to use white vegetables. The ume-su can be kept indefinitely in the fridge for further use, so don’t trash it! If you didn’t have a chance to pickle plums this year, you buy ume-su only at JA shops and local coop shops.

Umeboshi, after 2days sun drying

Pizza!!!

I don’t know why, but quiche and pizza are two things I could eat anytime. Winter, summer, with fresh seasonal vegetables, it’s always happiness in my plate!!!

Recently I haven’t kneaded much… week days are all too busy and weekends none the less but with different activities and more to come as our construction is almost finished and now I will have fun thinking about the new garden. 24h is way too short to do all I want to do!

I love to prepare pizza with the local products from Isumi, with all the cheese farms around making mozzarella, the local tomatoes and the variety of fresh vegetables, there is always something to put on your pizza to make it fancy. In the full summer heat now, okra are a nice option and they are particularly good when baked. Adding some fresh radish tops as the rucola season is over and you have a perfect summer pizza.

For the dough I always use the recipe from the Kayser bread book. But now that I know that I can speed up the kneading without affecting too much the result, I cam prepare pizza dough in no time. It’s simple, never fails and with the room temperature at 27-28 now it rises in 45min, so no need to plan too long ahead… so there will be more pizza coming soon I’m pretty sure!

What do you like on your pizza??

Salsola

This little herb okahijiki オカヒジキthat I discovered only 2 years ago is definitely one of my summer favorite. I was surprised to see on IG that it is also an Italian classic, though salsola is much of a spring herb there than in Japan where it rather a summer plant. Anyway, one more way to link my love for both Italian and Japanese cooking in one recipe! Though this one is definitely on the western side! Salsola have a very distinctive texture and bring to dishes a beautiful English green color. Yet the flavor is extremely subtle. So I decided to mix them with another vegetable that has a distinctive flavor but less texture, and that would bring in some new color, while keeping the tone. I used yellow bell pepper. But to be sure that they won’t overrule the salsola I cut them quite thinly. The result, with or without parmigiano was really delicious. So here is my recipe.

Salsola and bell pepper pasta

– 1 yellow bell pepper

– 1 large handful of salsola

– 125g of whole wheat spaghetti

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

Boil the pasta. In the meantime wash the vegetables. Cut thinly the bell pepper, cut in 5cm long pieces the salsola. In a pan with olive oil heated low, add the bell pepper, and stir once in a while until they soften. Add the salsola and stir once in a while too for about 5min. Add the cooked pasta, stir. Add salt and pepper, and serve. You can top with grated parmegiano or not…

Yukata

A summer classic in Japan is to wear yukata to go to a summer festival – natsu matsuri – 夏祭り. Both boys and girls can wear yukata, and besides the obi they quite comfortable to wear and it’s much easier to wear it than a “full” kimono. I was lucky enough to have learned how to wear kimono the very first year we lived in Japan and since then to practice once or twice a year. But I have less opportunities to wear yukata as we often went to matsuri after work and I didn’t have time to change.

Last year with some friends from Isumi we all decided to wear yukata and go to Brownsfield matsuri and bon odori. I guess my neighbor caught me on my way there and remember, she decided to teach me how to sew a yukata. Because I was unsure of the result I picked a simple local cotton fabric. The whole sewing took me a lot more time than I thought it would and my neighbor was probably desperate by my slowness and poor sewing skills, she who would sew 3 yukata in one night!!! But hey! I managed to have it ready for the summer and I was very excited to wear it. I choose the Ohara Hanabi Beach matsuri for that: bon odori, minyo live and of course fireworks, on the beach. A very lovely and casual evening… in my new yukata!

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/img_0462.mov http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/img_0473.mov

I will try to make a memo of the fabrication of the yukata, but I think I need a lot more practice, so if you are interested in having a hand sewed yukata made just for you, let me know! I’ll be happy to make you one!!!

Hum…

I’m not the kind of person who complains about the weather. I take it as it is and enjoy each day as it comes… I don’t mind the extreme heat, nor the cold, neither the snow, the wind nor the rain… as long as the weather changes regularly… but I think I have had enough of rainy weekends now… honestly since the beginning of June there as not been a single day without rain at some point, and every single weekend has been rainy if not heavily rainy… And usually on rainy weekends we do stupid things (that we never regret! Don’t get me wrong!). 7 years ago we started browsing internet and ended up buying our country house in a flash… sometimes we spend rainy weekends at an arcade and batting center, and last month we browsed internet again and bought a new car…

Oh yes… a car to go to the beach… well now I just wonder when we will go as a typhoon is coming just for the weekend of course. If I had an outdoor job I wouldn’t mind rainy weekends, but my job gets me stuck indoor 12h/day so I miss the rare sunshine…

What else do I do when it rains?

I cook… sweets… of course… to compensate for the lack of activity!!!

I bake and bake and bake… and this time it was coconut milk and white chocolate scones… which were perfect for both breakfast and tea-time! Simple recipes give often the best results: flour, sugar, baking powder, and then coconut milk, coconut oil, and white chocolate chips… that’s it… all mixed together, and baked…

I wish you a happy weekend, stay dry if you are in Japan…

today glimpse of blue sky and sun on my way to work…

Nimono – 煮物

There are things that I love but never cook. I only have them in restaurants or cooked by someone else. One in particular is nimono – 煮物 a simmered Japanese preparation, often used for vegetables and fishes, or at least for those I eat. The base for the simmering is almost always the same: sake, mirin, sugar, soya sauce. As I don’t use mirin I replace it by a mix of rice vinegar and rice oil. This preparation is a classic in most fish restaurants and more particularly on the sea side. Kakui – かくい, near Katsuura was a very good place for that, but there are plenty everywhere they have fresh local fish. The simmered preparation suits many fishes, best when they have skin and bones. You can make a whole fish or large cuts. So when A. told me to buy this beautiful cut olive flounder (ヒラメ) and we ended with it in the fridge as I was at first a bit annoyed with the cutting and how to prepare it… To be frank, I don’t like cutting and preparing fish too much or rather I don’t mind doing it but then I don’t like eating it anymore so I didn’t want to touch the raw fish too much. A. was suggesting to cook it with soya sauce, so I thought grill… but then we both agreed on simmering. I think that’s what A. had in mind from the beginning but he just didn’t know the term… and I never do it because I thought I took much time than it actually does, so it didn’t come to my mind. So here I am preparing my flounder. And because simmered fish goes well with greens, I added some summer vegetables: okahijiki and green bell peppers. Served with or without rice, but honestly the sauce with rice is just divine, and I’ll do it again and again!

So here is my recipe. Ginger is optional but I highly recommend it.

Simmered fish and greens (for 2 servings)

– a fish or a large piece. I used olive flounder.

– some greens: I used okajiki (salsola), green bell pepper, but okra are also a common pairing

For the sauce

– 3tbs of soya sauce

– 3tbs of sake

– 1tsp of rice vinegar

– 1tsp of rice oil

– 1tsp of sugar (optional)

– finely cut fresh ginger (optional)

In a fry pan mix all the ingredients for the sauce, add the fish and cook at low heat under tight cover. After 8min add the vegetables washed and adequately cut. Cook under cover for 5min. Remove the cover and cook at high heat if there is too much liquid until a bit only is left. Serve with a bowl of rice.

Blueberries and blackberries vegan tart

In the summer… yes yes it is supposed to be the summer, even if you haven’t felt the summer heat nor got this beautiful summer tan… I love to bake simple fruits tart: apricots, peaches, plums, berries… so when I bought these blueberries and this blackberries at the farmers market, I knew what I would use them for!

The difference from the past years? The pie crust. As I was using up all my butter to an other trial of croissants (pathetic result… you can read about it here). I decided to save the butter for the croissants and simply replaced it by almond butter our friend Y. bring us from Portland. I am not used to almond butter so I wasn’t sure how to use it, but in replacement of butter in pastries dough it seems perfect. Of course it changes the texture and taste but I find it very well suited for fruits tarts. However because it is drier then normal butter I found it was necessary to add a bit of water to the dough to obtain a suitable texture. As for the rest, I just put it in a pie dish, top with the fruits and a but of sugar and bake.

In the oven you can see some chocolate chips sablés, and mini white chocolate and blueberries tarts made in financier cups.

Have a good day… I can’t wait for the sun to come but I wonder if that will ever happen… it’s been 20days of non stop rain and grey skies…

Handkerchief pasta…

The other day on my instagram feed I got surprised by a beautiful pasta. The art of plating IG feed had this “handkerchief pasta” picture of flowers rolled between two layers of lasagna. The result was for sure beautiful. And since it’s been some time I didn’t roll pasta it was a good time to try. Though fresh flowers surely make a very colorful and elegant plate, usually I find that the flavor is very thin or inexistant, except for chrysanthemums and a few other few flowers. So I wasn’t going to try flowers. Rather leaves. Indeed, I had a bit of jute mallow and I was thinking of making lasagna or cannelloni. I opted for cannelloni as I could use different filling for mine and A.’s. The filling for A’s was jute mallow and grilled salmon, mine had an addition of cream cheese.

But let’s get back to this handkerchief pasta… it all starts like a normal pasta or lasagna, that I rolled with my mercato to the thinest level: 9. I washed the jute mallow, removed the hardest and thickest parts, then set the leaves on on a piece of lasagna, cover with another one and roll two size thicker: 7. The result is quite interesting! The leaves rolled in the pasta machine and trapped between the lasagna extend significantly! The result was really nice, but I made a few mistakes:

  1. I rolled the pasta too thin, 8 would have been better, to have a stronger pasta
  2. Rolling 3 size down rather than 2 would have avoid to stretch the leaves so much and to have the pasta cut along the hardest parts of the leaves.
  3. Put a lot more leaves, and much smaller ones.
  • Otherwise it was quite easy and straightforward to make and the result was really beautiful. I think the lasagna would have been a better choice in the end.
  • Jute mallow and salmon, dressed with olive oil was a great combo!!
  • I’ll try again for sure rolling lasagna with decorations!!
    • Close up on the leaves enclosed in the pasta, and the cut from rolling to thin…

  • Tofu ae – 豆腐和え

    This recipe is a classic from Japanese cuisine and Japanese cha kaiseki cuisine. I’ve eaten it many times when going to typical Japanese restaurants and I learned how to make it properly when I was taking cha kaiseki lessons. I use the same base in a persimmon recipe I created and it’s called tofu ae. It’s a sort of vegan creamy tofu dressing in a sense, that you can accommodate with many different vegetables all year round. In the fall with persimmons, winter with spinach, in the spring with green peas, and now with green beans, edamame… A full version of the recipe would include a bit of dashi, but I prepared a simpler version with only tofu and sesame, and a bit of salt. Here it is

    Tofu ae

    – a piece of hard tofu

    – 4tbs of sesame, white or black depending of color effet wanted

    – a pinch of salt

    Drain the tofu with a weight on top. Once well drained, squeeze in a clothe to remove more water and obtain a paste. Grind the sesame (if you don’t have sesame, or the tools to grind it, just use gomasio)

    Mix the tofu and the sesame, add a pinch of salt.

    Boil a vegetable of your choice: green beans, edamame, broad beans… and mix with the tofu dressing.

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