Tag: homemade

Fluffy tofu omelet

I am extremely picky on the quality of the food we eat and I find it ridiculous to want to eat absolutely meat or fish at every meals or everyday. I’m more inclined to cook a really fresh and delicious piece when I find one and skip it the rest of the time. Lot’s of people curiously worry about proteines intake but not about vitamins or other as much important nutrients. I care about none because I know that what I cook is perfectly healthy. I’m a vegetarian that eat sometimes a bit of cooked white meat or fish. And I’m an egg lover!

Eggs are perfect from breakfast to dinner, they can be prepared and combined in so many ways that I could cook them differently pretty much everyday!! So when I found myself with a bloc of momendofu in my fridge, immediately I though about a delicious fluffy omelet for dinner. The tofu always needs to be drained for a better taste so never skip that part. In a bowl I put the tofu and 3 big eggs, a little of salt and pepy and I mixed until it took some volume up and started to foam. In a large frypan I heared s bit of vegetal oil and cooked on both sude the omelet. Then cut and serve with steam veggies.

A little veggies medley

Broccoli, turnips, potato, shiitake for a good meal after work, there’s nothing better. Add a little of pork filet diced if you like it, sautéed in a pan with olive oil!

Ravioli testing

The making of ravioli
The making of ravioli

Too happy to have found the cooking gears I was looking for in Rome and the super Sicilian flours, I couldn’t wait to try them so I decided to make ravioli of course. For the filling since we arrived late on 31st I didn’t have so many options left for shopping, so I decided it’d be pork filet and shiitake. For the pasta I used my usual recipe (1 egg for 100g of flour), but used the “semolina di grano duro” instead of regular flour. The pasta is much drier and easy to roll, and the taste is perfect. I used the ravioli rack, but my filling was not smooth enough to cut the ravioli properly, so I finished them with the roller. Both are super easy to use and I was very satisfied with the result for a first try, I don’t how I was making ravioli before! It’s so much better. It makes them perfectly regular, and the taste and size were perfect.  Now I need to work a little more on my filling to have it smooth so that it’s easier to fill the ravioli, but without loosing the taste and without cheese for my husband… Many trials to come!!!

First bread of the year

When we left Japan in December it was still the end of autumn, in our garden the Japanese mapple trees were all red, the gingko had just lost all its leaves, the camelias were starting to bloom. 15 days later, the mapple leaves have all fallen, at first sight only the camelias haven’t changed, but with a closer look, the daffodils are blooming, the magnolias  and the plum trees are full of buds already big, and the garden is metamorphosing slowly towards spring. From now on it’s going to be the coldest days, but the garden needs a lot of attention to get ready for spring: tree treaming, weed removing, cutting, grooming, planting… So we spend a lot of time outside in the cold, and there’s nothing better to start such days with a warm energizing rustic bread for breakfast. My recipe is simple: 50g of rye flour, 200g of white flour, 170g of water, 14g of sordough, 4g of natural dry yeast, 6g of salt. 20min cooking at 230deg, plus 5min in the oven cooling down. Perfect with jam, honey, butter or whatever pleases you!!!

Best wishes for 2016 + TPS 1st anniversary

On January 1st last year I started Tokyo-Paris sisters. The idea came for several reasons:

  1. the need to revive the cooking and life-style part of gentianeetantoine.com, a website I started when we moved to Japan in 2004 and where pretty much everyday during 7 years I shared our discovery of Japan and our trips in Japan and abroad. The cooking part was a public space mainly dedicated to our friends and family where I shared Japanese recipes I was trying and French recipes I was preparing.
  2. I needed a cooking diary to remember year after year what I am cooking and how because, as you may have noticed I cook without books and got inspiration on the moment, and forget as quickly as the idea came, and a picture is often better than notes.
  3. I wanted to do something with my sister.

Now that we’ve been on for a year I realized it’s a lot more fun than I expected and I really like this moment I spend, mostly in the train, writing something about what I’ve cooked, or reading what Prune has been writing, I also realized that most of the posts are about food which at first was not intentional, though I wanted a cooking diary, I thought about mixing it with many more things that I am excited about or Prune is excited about, but for some reason I restrained myself and Prune may have too. Anyway, TPS is going on and starting fresh in 2016 with many more recipes, some travel and hopefully home decor and life style. Everyday brings something different, let’s enjoy that!

Best wishes for 2016!! 

Brandade

This recipe is one of our mother recipe and is a traditional Provencal recipe using the leftovers of salted cod . After the cod has been unsalted and washed, just boiled it, then add milk and stir until the milk has been all absorbed by the fish. Add pepper and olive oil, stir again.  This mixture, called “brandade” is delicious on toasted bread, with boiled potatoes, as a spread or to stuff veggies. It’s good eaten either warm or cold. Here is a preparation of stuffed cherry tomatoes, perfect for a buffet or finger food.

Kingfish with fennels, olives and capers

Making of the bouillon
Making of the bouillon

A Sicilian stay wouldn’t be complete without a recipe involving capers and olives. The delicious Mediterranean olives and Sicilian cappers are perfect for many recipes. The market has decided for us that it will be a fish recipe: December is great for kingfish. So we first prepared a bouillon with one onion and two fennels (remember we’re still cooking for our whole family!). The onion and fennels are chopped finely and golden in a bit of olive oil, then covered in water, where we add three large spooned of pruned olives in salt anc vinegar (made by our maid and really delicious), and one table spoon of large Sicilian capers. Then the fish is slighlty grilled in a frypan before being added to the bouillon and cooked under cover. We served it inlayees with the veggies of the bouillon, the fish and with some fresh tagliatelle and a touch of spinaches. 

Artichokes

In Sicily it’s easy to find delicious artichokes in December and fields covered with artichokes can be seen everywhere. They are little purple artichokes perfect for raggu and hot pot preparations. Delicious with onions, tomatoes…

They are really easy to prepare, you just need to remove the outer leaves, cut the leaves at mid height or more (until tender), cut then the artichokes in halves or quarters, add a bit of lemon juice in water to prevent the oxydation. In a large pan, heat some olive oil, add a chopped onion, then the artichokes. Cover in water and cook until completely soft. Serve warm or cold. Perfect as a side dish. Variations include adding a peeled large tomato, white wine, bacon, salty cod…

Fennel soup

Still enjoying some local Sicilian products, the fennels are, just like the cauliflowers a must of the season. Fennels are also found everywhere and are beautiful. For me in particular it’s a feast because in Japan it’s not easy to find fennels and they are usually small and not too good eaten raw. So I’m really enjoying eating plenty, raw, cooked, braised… And since soups are a big favorite for dinner in our family, the fennel soup we prepared with our mother was a big success. For 8 people we used 2 onions, 2 little tomatoes, 2 big fennels, olive oil, salt and pepper. First we cut the onions, the tomatoes, and the fennels and slightly cook them in olive oil (no need to say, Sicilian olive oil is amazing) . Then cover with water and cook for 40min. Blend and add some olive oil and serve. Simple and so delicious, perfect before the Christmas feast! 

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