Tag: homemade

Japanese simple dinner

Cooking Japanese is not necessarily difficult and it can be really quick. In winter I love daikon cooked in konbu (kelp) dashi and served with white miso, but this is not a whole meal so I prepared also in the same dashi some warm thick fried tofu served with little raw spinach and for the energy a bowl of rice mixed with 16 types of beans and seeds.

Prepare a konbu dashi with a piece of konbu in 1l of water, bring to boil and keep under cover. Cut 2-3cm high slices of daikon, one pr person is usually good, and cook them in the dashi. Check with a toothpick and remove them when soft.  Serve in a bowl with one tsp of white miso on top. In the dashi still heated, add the thick fried tofu (atsu-age 厚揚げ) and cook for 5min, it washes away the oil from the deep fry. If you cannot find thick deep fried tofu you can warm momen (hard) tofu. When warm serve with baby spinach and a bit of soya sauce or a bit of ponzu sauce, or just a bit of the warm dashi. For the rice, I use a mix of seeds and beans that can be found in any organic supermarket or similar (if you cannot find some leave a comment I can help providing with some). That’s it. Keep warm and have a good weekend!

Speck and shimeji ravioli

When Japan meets Italy and Gentiane is cooking, it gives a new recipe of ravioli. Now well equipped with my new ravioli rack for large pieces I can prepare ravioli with more granulous and rough filling. The first thing I tried back in Japan was speck and shimeji. Shimeji are a very Japanese type of mushrooms with a typical taste, speck brings in a salty-smoky note. I prepare the filling first and always wait until it has cooled down to make the ravioli, otherwise the pasta dough melts with the heat and moisture and the ravioli break. I chopped thinly a bundle of shimeji and a little piece of speck, and cooked them in a heated frypan. Add salt and pepper to your taste. No need to add fat, you want the filling to be rather dry. Once it is well cooked, let cool down. In the mean time I prepared the pasta dough with my classic recipe (100g of flour, 1egg, a pinch of salt, a litlle of olive oil), rolled it. If the air is dry, like in Japan in winter, you can moist it a bit, otherwise by the time you’ve rolled it, it is dry and cracks. Then I made the ravioli. Finally, when diner time has come I boiled them and served with freshly grated parmegiano, olive oil and grilled shimeji.

Tagliatelle

Being in Italy we eat fresh pasta quite often. And being with our mother we cook all together. This time it’s a recipe that our mother created. Very simple, taking advantage of the seasonal products and that can easily be prepared ahead and for large tables. This is tagliatelle with radicchio, spinach, speck and pine nuts. Served with fresh parmegiano. You need one radicchio, a few bundles of spinach, a few slices of speck, a handful of pine nuts, olive oil, fresh parmegiano. In a large pan, heat some olive oil, wash and cut in bite size the vegetables, cut in bite size the speck. Add all in the pan and stir until soft but still colorful. In a small pan, grill the pine nuts, when golden roughly crush them, add to the vegetables. Boil the tagliatelle (homemade, fresh or dry), when al dente, drain them and add them to the vegetables mix, add olive oil, stir well and serve. Top with parmegiano. 

Xmas ravioli

Celebrating Xmas with our families in Sicily I prepared an Italian x French ravioli to be served in a little herbs bouillon prepard by my mother. Cooking together we come up with mew odeas snd new tastes. The ravioli are foie-gras ravioli for everyone but me, mine are ricotta. For that it is really easy. I used my classic pasta recipe: 100g of flour, 1 egg, a pinch of salt and olive oil. I don’t have a pasta machine, so I rolled the dough manually. For the filling: fresh foie-gras made by my mother (she is very good at preparing fresh foie-gras). But you can use some foie-gras you buy. You need one dice of 1cm height for one ravioli. For my ravioli, just fresh sicilian ricotta. I bought in Catania a new ravioli rack for large ravioli and used it. For the bouillon it’s super simple. We used some greens of fresh onion, but you can use the green of a leek, some fresh parsley, a slice of orange peel, and a bit of the foie-gras fat. In a large pan, heat a little bit of the foie-gras fat, cut in thin filaments the fresh onion/leek green, add it in the pan, stir in the fat at low heat until soften, add water, add the parsley, the orange peel. Boil for 10min. Keep to serve. Boil the ravioli and serve together.

Experiment

I was in the mood for a little cooking experiment: something in between an okonomiyaki and a galette, with plenty of veggies. Vegan, gluten/free, delicious and colorful. I used plenty of the veggies I had in the fridge: sweet potato, sato imo, lotus root, and carrot. I peeled and cut them then grilled them in a pan. In the mean time, I mixed buckwheat flour, rice flour and water with a bit of baking powder to obtain a quite thick dough. Then in a smaller pan I layed the vegetables covered them with dough and cooked at very low heat under cover then flipped it. And served. Use bulldog sauce like for okonomiyaki if you like.

Last week…

Yes! This is the last week before we take a few holidays for the end of the year. So much to do at work before then that days will be really too short and I already expect getting back home late and having little time to cook properly. So my shopping basket at the farmers market was full of easy to prepare and versatile seasonal products. A lot if simple Japanese food ahead with the lotus roots, the carrots, the sweet potatoes and the sato imo. But before that, I prepared a spinach and tofu quiche with a whole wheat flour and wheat bran dough. I used olive oil for the dough rather than butter, and soya milk, drained moendofu and fresh spinach for the filling. With eggs it gets firmer, but they are not necessary. I didn’t steam the the spinach before using them, but steaming them would make them softer. I personally like when they’re a bit crispy. Have a very good week!

Sunday in the garden

There is quite a bit of work in the garden to get ready for spring. The plum trees are all cvered in buds and I can’t wait to see them bloom again soon! So with the beautiful weather, it was a good occasion to trim, clean again, and since days are so short now I didn’t want to stop until it got chilly. We ended up having lunch really late, so I needed something quite quick to prepare: rice with wakame, and frypan cooked vegetables: carrot, lotus root, sweet potato and salted salmon. Salted salmon is a little like salted cod, but much less salty, really delicious, probably better after a short time in water but I like it like than when while cooking the salt makes a kind of crust.

Have a good week ahead!! 

Hazelnut and spices cake

It is not often that I make vegan cakes but sometimes there is no choice. I really wanted to make a cake, start mixing flour, baking powder, sugar, and when it cake to the eggs, I realized I didn’t had any. And I didn’t feel like buying cheap eggs from the kombini (not because they are cheap, but because they come from I don’t know where, and how). But since the cake was on its way I just added a reasonable amount of hazelnut powder, and a bit of vegetal oil and soya milk to moisten the dough until I obtained a normal consistency for the dough. Then I added some anise seeds, cinnamon, cardamom in a large amount. And baked at 150 degrees for 30min. The result was a delicious fluffy cake, perfectly balanced in taste between the hazelnut and the spices. Something to try again for sure!!!!

Have a nice weekend! 

One-plate lunch

What best when it’s getting chilly outside than a bowl of hot and steamy white rice? And to complete the lunch, a plate with angelic (ashitaba-明日葉) omelette, grilled pork, grilled cherry tomatoes and turnips with miso. Very quick to prepare, tasty and warming! 

I am also very pleased to use my new Arita yaki bowls! 

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