Bonito

Not far away from our house is Katsuura 勝浦, a city on the ocean with a fishing harbor, a fish market, a few nice street to browse and a sea front further south where we paddle surf (or least try to!!).

Katsuura is quite famous as a bonito fishing harbor in the area and they indeed have delicious fresh bonito in season, which is basically from spring to mid summer. We’ve eating quite a bit of bonito, and one of my classic way of preparing it is either pan grilled or in a sort of ragù with vegetables. But after a few times eating it that way always, I wanted a new recipe.

Inspired by the pies and other yummy pictures I saw on IG, I decided to try making a bonito pie. The shape of the filet is perfect to fit in a cake dish and with the season of bell peppers starting, I had a perfect combination. The pie cooking is quite interesting as all the juices and flavors are trapped in the pie and reveals when you cut it, guaranteeing a very interesting tasting experience. Though I could have worked a bit more on how to shape and plate it (as usual), the taste was amazing. Definitely a recipe that will go to my favorite recipes of the moment.

Bonito pie (2-3 servings)

For the pie crust

– 200g of flour (I used whole wheat)

– 4tbs of olive oil

– water

– a pinch of salt

For the filling

– 1 bonito filet (for sashimi)

– 2-3 bell peppers red, yellow, orange… you name it

– 2 leaves of laurel

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Prepared the pue crust. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and olive oil. Add water little by little and knead until you have a smooth dough. Roll it in a rectangular shape to fit your cake dish, yet twice bigger.

Set it in the cake dish. Add the laurel leaves in the bottom of the pie, then add the bonito on top. Wash and slice the bell peppers. Arrange them around and on top of the bonito. Add salt, pepper and a bit of olive oil. Close the pie with the dough. Make a small hole on the top and make a small chimney with baking paper. Bake at 180deg for 40min. Or until golden.

July 10, 2019

Travel… I’m back

I was away for one week for work, in Krakow, Poland, with a very very intense schedule that gave me little time to do anything else but work. Hopefully, with the jet lag I woke up early enough to have breakfast out before work and test a few cafes (see instagram about that!). Now I an back in rainy Japan, and to my beloved kitchens. But no time to take a break with a mountain of work to do before Monday… so the rain is more than welcome… Kion (barking deers) are taking care of the garden, eating the fallen strawberry tree fruits, and the grass. The rest will have to wait for better days.

The first thing I did when I arrived in Tokyo was a quick refill of the fridge and to prepare myself something go eat (I usually don’t eat in the plane or very little). I was craving for a toast with emmental cheese, and an egg, and when I went shopping and saw this beautifully ripped mangos coming from Taiwan (which is much more “local” than those coming from Philippines or Mexico) I couldn’t help but starting to crave for a mango “lassi”, or rather a mango latte. I first discovered mango lassi 20years ago when we were in Berlin, eating at a Thai restaurant, and since then, I’ve prepared. Not proper ones, rather my way. The best recipe is super simple, 3 ingredients only, no added sugar and is the following.

Mango lassi (one large glass)

– 1/2 mango very ripe

– 4tbs of yogurt

– 100ml of milk

Peel the half mango without the seed, put all the ingredients in a blender, blend until smooth and serve!!!

If that is not simple!!!

Enjoy the rainy season…

July 6, 2019

Korinky creamy summer pasta

Creamy and summer don’t necessarily get along well together I reckon, but it’s not like we’re in Europe and temperatures are very high for the moment in Japan. It’s still the rainy season and the “real” summer will only start in 2 weeks (hopefully not later!!). While in the meantime the summer vegetables and fruits are not to be seen everywhere: tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, melons, peaches, apricots… So how resisting in preparing some summer dishes?

Two years ago I felt in love with malabar spinach and really starting preparing many last year. So when I started seeing some at the farmers market I was really happy. This year, at the Blind Donkey, I discovered korinky コリンキー, this summer pumpkin also called サラダカボチャ which can be eaten raw. I tested it in the potatoes and cucumber salad I served to my guests last Friday. But with still quite a bit to eat I decided to cook it and mash it roughly, to eat with pasta. And because once in a while I like to eat light creamy pasta, I added cream and malabar spinach to obtain a delicious topping. Below follows my recipe.

Enjoy the rainy season if your in Japan!

Korinky creamy pasta (for 2 servings)

– 1/2 korinky

– 4 branches of malabar spinach

– 150ml of cream 45

– salt and pepper

– 125g of pasta of your preference or gnocchi

While boiling pasta. Peel the korinky and remove the seeds. Steam. When sift enough mash roughly in a pan with a fork or a wooden spoon. Add cream, salt and pepper and mash again. Cook at low heat for five minutes. Wash the malabar spinach and chop roughly. Add to the mixture. Cook an other 5 minutes. The cream should reduce by half. Add the pasta drained to the mixture and stir well. Serve and eat immediately or wait until it has cooled down and eat at room temperature.

June 29, 2019

Garden greens

After one week cooking potatoes in many different ways, we started missing pasta. So it was time for a change to cook some. I love all sort of pasta and often forget how delicious spaghetti are, in particular when well dressed. So with the garden producing a little more than potatoes, though I must admit we had quite a bit of failures… I harvested more peas, celery, and basil, and decided to prepare some pesto with a touch of celery and serve it with blanched peas to top my spaghetti. And it was damn good!

Well now the week is not yet over and it’s been a bit crazy with some traveling for the upcoming days, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to post as often as I would like… we’ll see!

June 27, 2019

Brandade

Probably the last recipe of this potatoes week. I could have talked about gnocchi (but I have so many times done already), about hachis parmentier, or oven grilled potatoes, and I may some other times. But it’s true that with new potatoes I love simple recipes when they are steam or pan fried. Yet there was one recipe I had never tried before and I wanted to for quite a bit now: brandade. It’s a traditional recipe from Provence and Occitanie and I grew up eating some quite often. Like many traditional dishes it is rather simple to prepare, and it requires very few ingredients: salted cod, potatoes, milk, olive oil. It just requires to prepare in advance the salted cod that needs to bath in water for 12-24h or so. I made a very light version on brandade, and we ate it as a dip for steam vegetables. It can be used further in a few recipes too: with bread toasts, potatoes, tomatoes… But without further delay here is the recipe. I hope you’ll enjoy it!!

Brandade

– a piece of salted cod

– one mid size potato

– olive oil

– milk

– pepper

12 to 24h before eating bath the cod in water. Change the water once in a while. If you use Japanese salted cod, the quantity of salt is much less than in Europe so I only had mine bathing for 6h.

Now that the cod is soft and almost unsalted, boil it in a large pan and boil the potato to without peeling it. When cooked, remove the bones of the cod and peel the potato.

I used my blender but you can do it in a bowl too and do it manually. Put the cod and the potato and purée the mixture, add a tablespoon of milk and one of olive oil each time it’s needed to smoothen the mixture. Repeat until you have a creamy dry texture. It should not be liquid so be careful when adding the liquid, not to add to many. Add pepper and your brandade is ready!!

June 24, 2019

Potatoes and green beans

If there is one combination I love it’s potatoes and greens: green peas, green beans, broad beans… usually I would prepare them with new onions blanched and olive oil. Today I decided to try for new sauce, a lazy mayonnaise. Mayonnaise requires that you emulsion the oil, the egg yolk and the mustard together. It requires a lot of beating, and a lot of oil. A lighter and lazier option actually exists, and plus you use a whole egg so no wondering what to do with the remaining white. Here is my recipe. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Oh! We’ve also eaten up all the potatoes I’ve harvested last week. I’ll harvest some more tomorrow if the weather is not as bad as today… so there’s gonna be potatoes recipe coming again very likely…

Potatoes, green beans and lazy mayonnaise

– 3 new potatoes (billiard ball size) per person if a main dish, less if a side

– a handful of green beans

– 1 egg

– 2tsp of mustard

– olive oil

– pepper

Wash the vegetables. Boil the potatoes until just soft. Boil the egg for 6min. Blanche the green beans. Peel the egg.

In a bowl, crush the egg, the mustard and the oil until the mixture is creamy. It’s ok if the white is roughly crushed. Dressing is ready!

Cut the potatoes in four, cut the bean in two if they are long. Add the dressing, stir well and it’s all ready. It warm, at room temperature or refrigerated.

June 22, 2019

Sautéed new potatoes and green sweet peppers

That is not much of a recipe I reckon!!! Who needs a cook book to make sautéed new potatoes honestly??? But in the meantime, as I cook to enjoy the ingredients I have around me and to sustain our bodies, not just to make pictures on instagram, I believed it was cheating not to mention sautéed new potatoes as they are one of my favorite ways of eating new potatoes, even though I prefer them tiny tiny, but I failed in growing my potatoes properly for that.

To twist them just a bit I added green sweet pepper or shishito -シシトウ in Japanese. And because I didn’t have much, I served them with scrambled eggs. It could be breakfast, lunch or dinner, you have the choice!

Tonight we have guests at home so I not sure I’ll have a new recipe for you, but I’ll for sure serve some of my kitchen garden potatoes!!!

Have a good day!

June 21, 2019

Purple potatoes soup

Continuing the week with a recipe that this time uses only purple ratte potatoes, that is simple, delicious and beautiful: a cold creamy soup.

All you need is a few purple potatoes, some fresh cream or milk, salt and pepper. Yes! That’s the only ingredients in my recipe.

Cold potatoes soup

– 3 purple ratte potatoes (vitellote)

– 150ml of cream or cream

– salt and pepper

Wash the potatoes and boil them until very soft (actually if you do it a couple of hours before it is even better as the potatoes will cool down naturally and you won’t have to cool them under excessive water or in the fridge!).

Blend the potatoes with 300ml the cooking water, or just water, add the cream or milk, blend again. If too thick add a bit of water and blend again. Repeat until it has a creamy texture. Serve, top with salt and pepper.

That’s it!!

June 20, 2019

Potatoes Japanese style

Day 2 for this week of freshly harvested potatoes. Today it’s a Japanese simple recipe that can be made everywhere, every time. Of course it is much tastier with new potatoes but it can work with old ones too. It has all the distinguishable flavors of Japanese cuisine: the cooked sake, the soya sauce, the sweetness, and the katsuobushi, well the umami as it’s called and as it’s all over cooking and gourmet magazines.

Simmered potatoes Japanese style

– a few (new) potatoes. Pick 3 midsize (billiard ball size) new potatoes per person for a main dish, 2 for a side.

– 3tbs of soya sauce

– 3tbs of sake

– 2tbs of brown sugar

– some katsuobushi, optimally ultra-thin cut (see below)

Wash the potatoes and cut them in four. In a pan, set the potatoes and cover with water. Start boiling under cover. When the potatoes are almost done, add the soya sauce, the sake and the brown sugar. Simmer a little and turn the pan so that all the sauce will pass over all the potatoes. Do not stir!! You may break the potatoes and end up with a purée!!

Cook at high heat will turning the pan once in a while. When the sauce is almost gone move in serving plates or a bowl. Top with ultra thin cut katsuobushi (itogiri katsuobushi – 糸切り鰹節). Eat right away or after it has cooled down. Enjoy!!!

June 19, 2019