Tribute to our grand mother’s mironton

Our grand mother was doing magic with left overs of meat, in particular porc filet. It would be used in the filling for stuffed vegetables, in cannelloni, or hachis parmentier for exemple. But she would also use them for “mironton”. Her mironton was just simple: onion, potatoes and chuncks of pork meat fried in oil and butter. It was definitely something I loved very much!!! Now her version may have been a little too rich for us now, so I kept the idea but slightly changed the recipe, but the main attributes remain. I replaced the onion by some Japanese mushrooms, and used only a little of olive oil. I cut in rough pieces the left over of the filet mignon and the potatoes (with the skin), and then simply cook them in a heated and olive oil greased pan until golden. The key is to cook until it’s almost burned, and then stir and repeat. It should for kind of blocks, golden and crispy, but soft inside. Add a bit of salt and pepper when serving.

Cocotte

I always buy pork from Isumi when possible, for it is really tender and soft. My preference: pork belly (豚バラ – butabara) for the taste (but I only eat it when it’s ultra cooked and the fat has melted, and it’s all crispy) and pork filet (ヒレ – hire) because there is no fat and it’s really tasty. With the cold weather lasting a bit too long, I’ve opted for a nice cocotte of veggies with pork filet and pork belly for two meals in one preparation. In my Staub cocotte I first put a little of olive oil, then line the slice of pork belly, then I’ve cut 8 little carrots in halves and added them, 6 big shiitake sliced thickly, a piece of lotus root sliced thinly, one yellow paprika sliced. Plenty of thyme and fresh rosemary, salt pepper and the pirk filet. I cooked under cover for 45min and stirred every 15min. I served only the veggies and the pork belly for lunch, and kept the filet for an other meal. I kept the whole cocotte as such because I wanted to keep the juice for some pasta also (I just boiled some anneli siciliani that I rolled in the juice and keep to serve with the filet).

Apple, vanilla and cinnamon cookies

I love to eat freshly baked and still warm bread, pancakes, brioche or whatever for breakfast, but it is unfortunately not possible every morning. So sometimes I bake in the evening so that we have something ready in the morning. And for that tarts, cakes and cookies are the best. I love the classic mix apple-vanilla-cinnamon, so i made some kind of thick cookies with fresh apples on top for our breakfast. The trick is to have them not too sweet for breakfast, so I mixed the flour with oat bran and just a little of sugar and a little of butter, I added one egg and a little of baking powder, plenty of cinnamon powder and vanilla beans. I then roll the dough to 3mm thick and cut the shapes of the cookies. I peeled the apples and cut the shape too a little smaller and topped the cookies with it. Baked them at 170deg for 20min. And added a little of vanilla on top. Simple and perfect anytime of the day actually!

One plate lunch

Despite being officially spring, this weekend has been rather cloudy and chilly so I wanted to prepare a warm dish for lunch,  I first boiled some green lentils, added with a few coral lentils too hoping the color will sustain, but it vanished in the green (learn your lesson, better boil them separately). Then I prepared some ashitaba (angelica) rolls with pork meat. I find that ashitaba goes very well with potatoes and pork, and also eggs (see my post on ashitaba here).
It’s very simple, you need some fresh ashitaba, thin slices of pork cutlet, one egg battered, bread crumbs. Roll a little bundle of ashitaba into a slice of pork, then pass it into the egg and finish with the bread crumbs. I fixed with a little toothpick and then cook them in a fry-pan with a bit of oil until golden.
For the vegetarian version (the one on the top of the plate in the picture), cut the the ashitaba roughly, mix with the egg and the bread crumbs and make some patties that you cook in the fry-pan too. I served it with the warm lentils and a few tomatoes. Bon appetite!

Quinoa soup

What if suddenly the temperature drops again and it feels like winter again?
Nothing as simple as a making a quinoa soup! I’ve spotted the recipe the very first time I was browsing my vegetarian cookbook received for Xmas, and didn’t had a chance to make it before: no quinoa, not the proper veggies, to warm… But last night was perfect. The recipe is extremely simple, and it takes very little time to prepare because quinoa cooks really quick, so that makes a perfect option for days at work. Of course I slightly changed the original recipe because I didn’t have potatoes and i found anyway that potatoes+quinoa was a little to much, so I replaced the potatoes by lotus root. 
For this quinoa soup for a full dinner for 2 you need: 90g of quinoa; 1 tomato; 1 little leek or half onion; a handful of fresh spinach; 2 potatoes or the equivalent of lotus root; salt, pepper.
In a pan heat a bit of oil, chop the onion or the leek and throw them in the pan, add the tomato diced, then the spinach washed and roughly cut and finally the potato or lotus root, cut in big chunks. Finish with the quinoa. add water to cover the whole ingredients and add an other 2cm. Add a bit of salt and pepper, and cook for 20min under cover.
Serve while hot. I thought about adding an egg at the end of the cooking, but then realized that it was already well enough energetic, so finally didn’t.

Cooking and baking, yes!

Finally the weekend, almost done with my administrative duties at the university, and also done with two crazy weeks of dining out. So the first thing we did when we arrived in Ohara was to rush to the local farmers market to shop fresh food, then I started baking and cooking!! Hurray!!  

Baking a big bread for our breakfast tomorrow; and cooking our dinner, something simple but fresh: plain white rice with fresh shiso leaves chopped; lotus root cooked in sardines dashi and then slightly fried; and bonito, just cooked in a hot pan. Back to simple and delicious homemade food, back to the country with our stray cats, back to spring with the frogs now in the rice paddies!

No cooking or so little

This week I ‘ve had only one dinner home, all the other nights I’ve had business related dinners, and when it’s the case I always try to prepare something for A.. Something he likes and that can prepared in advance. A. likes sausages which are not really a favorite of mine, so I cooked some new onion, shiitake and new potatoes stew with sausages for him. It super quick to prepare, it cooks while I get myself ready to work, and A. is happy when he comes back alone to have a nice dinner ready!!! 

Still playing winter-spring

After a gloomy week of rain and cold weather, now the sun is back for a few days and the temperature gently increases during the day, spring veggies and wild sprouts are more and more present on the market, while classic veggies like mushrooms and spring cabbages are also taking a large part of the show. I wanted to cook some risotto primavera but couldn’t find all the proper ingredients so I decided to change it to a green peas-eringi-bacon version. Simply delicious with the softness of the rice, the chewiness of the eringi and the sweetness and crispiness of the peas. I didn’t use any broth because I use the bacon as a base. Then add the eringi, finish just one minute before serving with the peas to keep them just a little hard.

Saturday alone in Tokyo = soup day

A. had a company outing so I spent part of the week end alone in Tokyo. A cold and grey weekend so I went only for a long walk, did some shopping and took the opportunity to prepare our apartment for the arrival of a new sofa in our living room, just the third one!!! I also add a party with students and former students, but usually I just have one drink a these kind of parties and don’t touch the food. I found it was a perfect time to have a little monodiet for the day and made some super simple fresh veggies soup with one leek and three little carrots diced thinely and only boiled in water (no stock, no broth, nothing) to which I added, for the energy, a few little Sicilian pasta. Just added a bit of thyme and a drop of olive oil. It was both lunch and dinner and After eating out so often it was perfect!!!

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