Tag: Japanese food

Have you ever heard of propagule?

So…if you have read my previous post you may have read that in Kanazawa I bought some mysterious food (I don’t know if we can call it fruit or vegetable…): propagule-ムカゴ-mukago. It looks like a tiny potato with a darker skin. It’s the “fruit” of the Japanese mountain yam-山芋-yamaimo. It wasn’t the first time I saw some but never ventured in trying cooking them before and they are local in Kanazawa, so it made sense for me to try there.

As many of the food in Japan, the first recipe that comes to mind is to cook with rice. Mukago are no exception. I was recommended to cook them with rice and a piece of bacon. That seemed simple enough to try right away. However, recently I have been having a hard time finding good local bacon, the pork is usually imported-輸入-yunyu, and that I don’t buy… so instead I decided to buy fresh pork belly, and cook it with salt and pepper, not exactly the same thing as bacon but close enough and at least it is easy to find local fresh pork.

Mukago rice was a huge hit with A., much more than I expected!! Actually mukago are amazingly delicious. They have a very nice complex texture, a very subtle flavor with violet and flowery notes, very sophisticated. I instantly loved them!

I need some thinking and testing to understand in what kind of preparation they could be good. I tried in vegetables stew, but found that their flavors was suffocated by the other vegetables. It could be that rice is their best friend!! I’ll more investigations… in the meantime here is the mukago rice recipe. Enjoy!

Mukago rice ムカゴご飯 (4 servings)

  • 300g (2合-gou)of Japanese rice (I exclusively use Koshihikari from Isumi or Onjuku, but any Japanese rice is ok)
  • 200g of bacon (slice or block)
  • 1cup of mukago

Rinse the mukago.

Wash the rice.

In a large and thick pan or in a rice cooker bowl put all the ingredients. Add 400ml of water and cook. If you use a rice cooker chose the takikomi-炊き込み option if you have one. If you cook in a pan, start at medium heat until the first boil. Then cover and cook at low heat for 30min (check eventually that it’s not too quick nor too slow, and adjust timing, but don’t stir…) then stop heating but let rest for 5more minutes before serving.

Et voila!

My summer favorite: edamame paste and pasta

The summer is slowly reaching its end and the end of summer vegetables start to arrive such as butternut squash and kabocha, but before the summer ends for real, let’s enjoy a little more the summer vegetables: eggplants, cucumber, edamame and jute mallow…

Never tired of bamboo shoots

The season for bamboo shoots in Chiba has started just a few weeks ago… juggling between bad weather, and cold days, we went once to search for some with our neighbors but were not lucky enough to find any. Too early for that side of the area. Probably a few wild boar were also quick enough to come before us and dig to pick their own. But it doesn’t matter, we have friends who have friends who have bamboo shoots. And so I ended up with 2 beautiful shoots. I didn’t have time to prepare them in The country, so I took them with us to Tokyo. What a mess to prepare them in my pocket kitchen! But what a reward to eat them!!! I never regret!

This year, after a classic bamboo shoots rice, back then when my parents were visiting, I decided to go with a few different and more creative recipes. I prepared two different recipes. One is a simple sautéed version. So delicious I had to do a second batch! The second is a recipe of steamed buns. Last year I made eagle fern and bamboos shoot ones, but as I am getting better at making buns, I felt it is worth sharing this one!

Both recipes assume that you have a parboiled bamboo shoot. For picking and parboiling look at my earlier post here.

Sautéed bamboo shoots

  • 1 bamboo shoot fresh and parboiled
  • 1tsp of cooking oil
  • salt and pepper as you like

Cut the bamboo shoot in 4 vertically. Slice each quarter. In a fry pan heat the oil. The add the shoots sliced. Cook until golden, flip on the other side, cook until golden. Sprinkle salt and ground pepper and serve immediately.

Steamed buns (make 8 small, perfect for 2 people as main)

  • 150g of flour
  • 1tsp of baking soda
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • Water
  • 1/2 bamboo shoot
  • 100g of pork fillet (leftover are perfect)
  • Soya sauce
  • Mustard

First prepare the dough by mixing the flour, baking soda, salt and add water little by little until obtaining a smooth dough. Put under a wet cloth and let it rest at least 30min. More is better.

Cook the pork filet if not yet cooked. Simply, in a pan with pepper. Then chop finely.

Chop the bamboo shoot in coarse manner. You want chunks to remain as it will bring the contrast between the smooth dough and meat and the crunchy bamboo. However, if too coarse, filling the buns will be hell. So 3-8mm is a good target.

In a bowl mix the chopped bamboo shoot, the pork, add 1tsp of soya sauce and stir well.

Back to the dough now. Cut in 8 pieces. Make balls and roll with a rolling pin into 12-15cm diameter circle. Put a large spoon if filling in and close the dough. I don’t have a very good technique, but it works well when I first fold in two then fold in the orthogonal direction, then I add fold in each quadrant. For this specific recipe instead of cooking them folds up, I flipped them to hold the folds under. Then steam for 15min. Serve with soya sauce and mustard and enjoy!

Dough ball
In the steamer

The disappointing fruit: akebi

Every day brings surprises, those you’ve worked hard for, those you were dreaming of and those that the cherry on the top, but also its share of disappointments. For example, after almost 3 years since our stray cat Holly disappeared and the little Ephy very brief passage, what a surprise to see that stray cats are back and we have three coming now. They are very shy and still scared of us, but one now arrives when hearing us parking home for the weekend and waits to be fed… It took us 6 months to be able to approach and touch Pablo, so I am expecting not less for these ones too… though Pablo was more interested by company than food… time will tell us…

Other surprises are often in the small things of daily routine… and when the other day at a local products store I found a fruit I never saw before but knew about and immediately identified; akebi あけび, chocolate vine. I couldn’t help remembering Little Forest when they put so much efforts in trying to harvest akebi and then delightfully eat them (watch here!!)… so I grabbed the bag of fruits and went to the cashier, and back to A. who was waiting outside, so proud of my finding!!!

It was the first time ever to see akebi for real, so I did my homework and studied how to eat it and possibly cook it. I also searched a bit why it is bot so common in Chiba… then opened the first fruit. the skin was not too thick and the inside less white than I imagined it would. And the first fruit was really tedious to eat, so tedious that A. said he would not eat a second akebi in his life ever!!!!! I persisted and became more fluent at eating them, but the promised sweetness etc… was definitely not here. So over all it is a huge disappointing experience.

Recipe book also said that the skin is good in tempura, but looking at the one of my fruits, I lost confidence and decided I wouldn’t try further…

So overall, akebi is a beautiful fruit, but not as delicious I expected it would be, so either the fruits from Chiba are very much less good than those from Yamagata, or Someone is lying about akebi deliciousness!!!

In any case have a very good weekend!!!!

Cruising in the kitchen

Not that I have been more busy than usual, nor that I have less inspiration these days… but I’ve been cruising in the kitchen… probably because of the season sudden change and this in between moment when you don’t want to shit to the new seasonal staples too quick, but yet you have explored enough with the past season ones… eggplants, okras and cucumbers are slowly making way to pumpkins, carrots and lotus roots.

And by cruising I mean Saturday ravioli, Sunday quiche, Monday chocolate cream, Wednesday steam buns etc… etc… hopefully Sunday was rainy, so after a nice bodyboarding session in a rough ocean I spent the afternoon browsing some of my very old cookbooks that were left in Paris 20years ago, and that I just received with our cargo…

The Reboul, a must for Provencal cooking, the first edition dating back to the 19th century, that I have been using to check basic recipes when my grandmother or mother were not available… I read it with a new eye and learned many many things!

Les recettes faciles, also plenty of basic ressources that help a lot for remembering how to make a good roux, or a creamy sauce… it’s nice to go back to the basics again once in a while.

Les recettes de la table franc-comtoise is probably the most alien to me. It was a gift from A. grand mother who was from Franche-Comte, a place in France I have never stepped foot, and where cooking is based on cream… but there are some great recipes and inspirations to gather from there too and the food A. grand mother would prepare for us!

In the meantime, Japanese seasonal cooking has never been more attractive to me and I have been thinking about how to level up… while I don’t feel like going to in-person cooking class yet, I still think about Shojin cuisine…

I tested new ways of using Koyadofu, I mean new may not be the right word, but at least without any cookbook nor guidelines and made this soya sauce based stew of vegetables and koyadofu that was just a hit! The recipe yet needs a bit of polishing before I can share it with you.

The other big hit this week was my classic persimmon and cucumber tofuae. A. often complains about all these persimmons we have in our garden… and doesn’t seem too happy when I serve one for dessert, but with the less ripe ones when I make this simple dish I learned at my Chakaiseki classes, he surprisingly always asks for more!!!

I’m hopping to be able to share a few new recipes in the coming days/weeks and in the meantime I’ll continue to cruise in the kitchen with all the classic recipes and the new ones that’ll pop in my head!

See you soon!

Oh no! The pantry is empty!!!

Welcome September!!! Honestly, I don’t remember there was a month of August this year… and September starts in quite a gloomy mood… bye bye summer vegetables and welcome autumn!!! With the first butternut squash in and no more korinki… rain and chilly wind.

But while when I open my fridge it is, somehow, always easy to think about something to cook… my pantry recently has been rather empty. I was so much waiting for the new rice to arrive, and for my favorite flour too, that I completely forgot that we were running out of everything: no more pasta, no more regular flour, very little olive oil… 🤭

Our bread are now whole wheat bread as this is the only flour I have left. And so our our pancakes and crepes! Not that I dislike it, but A. sometimes prefers a mix of flours.

And last night when it was time to cook dinner, after another long day of work, you know, when you are starving and you want something quickly ready so that you can sit back and have a nice break… the very last thing I had was a pack of dried soba… I was dreaming of pasta, but soba would be a good alternative, well the only alternative! Because there is no meal if there is no carb in our house!

The plating was made in a rush and the picture taking in a rush too, but the recipe ended up being perfectly balanced and taking advantage of the end of summer vegetables that are bell peppers and the nalta jute. So let me share my recipe with you, in case you are in a rush and have soba noodles nearby.

End of summer sautéed soba (2 servings)

  • 2 portions of soba noodles (dry, fresh, semi dry…)
  • 1 bell pepper (color of your choice)
  • 2 big handful of nalta jute
  • 1tsp of olive oil
  • 2tbs of soya sauce

Boil the soba as indicated. Rinse well after they are cooked and keep in water.

While the soba are boiling, wash and chop very thinly the bell pepper. In a large heated pan, add the oil, the bell pepper and cook at medium heat until it soften. Wash the nalta jute and add to the pan. Continue cooking at medium heat until soft too. Drain the soba and add to the pan. Stir well. Add the soya sauce and stop heating. stir again well and serve immediately.

If you manage well you should have your meal ready in 15min!

The perfect eggplants

Eggplants in Japan are really something, not just a vegetable but also a mean of transportation, together with cucumbers, for spirits that come to visit during the Obon period.

In Japanese traditional cooking they are often present and prepared in many ways with the other local and seasonal staples. I have introduced several recipe already, yet I surprise myself with new recipes every time I cook some. Recently I have been really into grilling them in the oven without any further complications, and dress them either western style with olive oil… or Japanese style with soya sauce and katsuobushi. I really love the simplicity of a dish that highlights the goodness of a few ingredients. So here is my recipe of the perfect eggplants Japanese style.

Perfect eggplants Japanese style

  • 2 Japanese eggplants per person
  • 1tsp of soya sauce per person
  • 1 large pinch of katsuobushi per person

Wash the eggplants, and cut them in half in the length. Grill them in the oven until they are soft and a bit golden on top. Take them out and let them cool down a bit. Cut each in 5-6 pieces (bite size), just before eating dress them in a plate, top with soya sauce and katsuobushi. Eat immediately.

The garden presents…

On a rainy Sunday like today we met with what would be our little hideaway and resting place. (More about how we ended up here here)

Hydrangeas in our garden

The few things that I found charming as soon as we arrived was the hydrangeas, in full bloom under the rain, with their vibrant gradation of blues and purples. The abundant plum trees covered with fruits, and the lush green of the Japanese maple trees, the gingko, the pine and the azaleas. Everything that makes a Japanese garden, Japanese. I obviously didn’t see many thing that were also there: the loquat tree, the strawberry tree… After 8 years I now know pretty much all, even if I am uncertain about the 3 or 4 different types of plums we have, and every year I harvest more fruits than we can process! In particular the plums and the strawberry tree fruits. So I give away a lot. This year 15kg of plums went to my secretaries at the university!!! And used 5kg for syrup and 3kg for umeboshi. The rest is for the birds, the worms and the ants ;).

June garden harvest: plum, loquat, potato, strawberry tree fruits

After years of struggle making umeboshi and failing, I realized umeboshi are not so difficult to make if you have the proper instruments. I use to make them with whatever I had, before investing in a proper pickle box, that is wide enough and has a lid with a spring where you can apply sufficient pressure and get rid of the heavy stone, the overflowing ume juice and the failure… largely due also to the fact that I cannot check them every day. So if you plan to make umeboshi I highly recommend you invest in the proper recipient. I use a pickle box called Picre.

Umeboshi

  • 2kg of Japanese plums (yellowish rather than greenish)
  • 360g of salt

If your plums are really hard or toi greenish, dip them in water a few hours before starting.

Wash them and pat them dry carefully. Remove the stems.

Sterilize your recipient. It should be 3-4 times the volume of your plums to avoid overflowing accidents. Set half of the salt in and create an even layer. Organize the plums on the layer in order to remove space between the fruits as much as possible. Sprinkle a bit of salt. Create a new layer on top remove space as much as possible between all fruits. Sprinkle salt and repeat until all plums are well organized in a compact manner. Sprinkle the remaining salt on top.

Sterilize the lid and set on top to gently squeeze the plums. Set a heavy weight or pressure on top. After a few days the liquid from the plum will start to be released and a brine will be created. This is umezu. A precious liquid to use for pickling, energy drinks etc… after a week, the liquid should be about the height of the plums. It will continue rising and can be 2-3 times the height of your original plums height hence why choosing a recipient big enough.

Leave that way until the end of July. And see you then for the next step!!!

Plum work: after overnight in the water, day 0, day 7

Rakkyō

If you have ever eaten curry-rice in a restaurant you surely have eaten the little white pickle served with it and then you have eaten pickled rakkyō 薤. A little vegetable that looks like a shallot a bit and is often called Chinese onion. I love the crisp and fresh taste it has and it’s hard to stop eating! A little like French cornichon, but less sour and salty!!!

The season for fresh rakkyō harvest is right now and it is fairly easy to find in coop and farmers markets. Pickling them is rather simple though washing and pealing is a bit tedious and you have recipe several options.

The easiest one is to use a prepared ready to use “rakkyō su” which is a mix of vinegar, sugar, dashi that is chiefly used for pickling rakkyō but can also be used for other preparations such as curry onion pickles. Though I am not necessarily a fan of ready to use products, they are a good way to start when you are unsure of the result and what you do and want to maximize success.

Other methods are to prepare your own brine for pickling the rakkyō. One recipe I have in an old Japanese cookbook is quite lengthy and probably the most genuine one, yet I couldn’t find a similar one anywhere, so I tempted to share it with you. My rakkyō are still in their first week of picking so I don’t yet the result… we’ll see!!!

So first the recipe for a quick sure outcome, and then the lengthy one. Choose the one you prefer!

Easy-peasy pickled rakkyō

  • 1kg of fresh rakkyō
  • 1 bottle of rakkyō su らっきょ酢

Start by washing the rakkyō and removing the first layer of skin to obtain a smooth and shiny surface. Remove the hard base and top too. Bring a large pan filled with water to a boil and throw the rakkyō in for one minute. Drain and pat dry the rakkyō.

In a sterilized bin put the dry rakkyō and cover with the rakkyō su. Close the bin with a lid. Leave to rest for 14 days. Shake the bin 2 times per day on the first 3 days. After 14 days enjoy!

Classic recipe of pickled rakkyō

Brine for pickling (used 14 days later)

  • 2 cups of rice vinegar or other white mild vinegar
  • 300g of sugar
  • 1 cup of white umezu (brine of the umeboshi unflavored with shiso), can be replaced by 1 cup of vinegar + 1tsp of salt
  • 1/2 cup of mirin or konbu dashi
  • 5 dried red pepper (optional)

Pickling step 1

  • 1kg of fresh rakkyō
  • 30g of salt
  • 4tbs of vinegar
  • 1l of water

Start by washing the rakkyō and removing the first layer of skin to obtain a smooth and shiny surface. Remove the base and top too.

In a pan, set the water, salt and vinegar and the prepared rakkyō. Bring to a boil and stop right away. Drain and pat dry and put in a bin or a pickle-pot. Cover with the brine you made or of commercial brine. If you can set a heavy lid, otherwise everyday shake the bin. Wait for two weeks.

Pickling step 2

After two weeks drain the rakkyō and set them in salted water for 3-4h. Renew 2-3 time the water. Then set to dry in the air for half a day. Ideally in the sun, but any well ventilated place will do.

Finally prepare the brine by mixing all the brine ingredients together (but the red pepper) and bring to a boil. In a sterilized bin put the rakkyō and cover with the brine. Add the red pepper if you plan to use some.

Now it’s ready. Rakkyō in brine should keep a year or so., so enjoy!

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