Tag: Japanese food

Some new greens

Every season brings a new kind of greens to the table, not just seasonal but also things I have never seen or cooked before. That’s what is fun with shopping at local farmers markets. Each one has some different products. When I shop in Ohara, I don’t find the same things than when I shop in Kuniyoshi, 10km inland or in Ohtaki, just a little further inland. There is always something I have never seen, or something rare in Ohara. For example cresson cannot be found easily in Ohara but inland yes!!! This time I’ve found a new type of green with beautiful thick and shiny green leaves and hollow stems. I used them like spinach somehow but it has a more grassy taste. And with the heat settling in Tokyo I prepared a simple dish with French green lentils, this new green blanched with okra, olive oil and curcuma.

Stay cool!

My lovely neighbors

The fun part of living in the countryside and having a great garden that produces plenty of things independently is to exchange crops with neighbors, friends and colleagues and these past few days we’ve been exchanging a lot! It all started with plums… like last year I harvested about 20kg of plums and left the rest on the trees. I pickled 2kg, made syrup with an other 3 and gave away the rest, to our pottery teacher, to friends, to my secretary and other colleagues at the university. I also harvested fuki, Japanese plums or sumomo (スモモ) and strawberry tree fruits today and gave away plenty around too. When you give away crops, usually you receive other crops or the result of what you have given after a preparation. It’s a kind of barter. So we received plenty of fruits and vegetables. Plenty of potatoes… and my favorite neighbor knows how much I love them tiny, so she kept me the smallest ones just like my grandfather would do. She also gave me cucumbers, parsley and flowers to plant that were growing rogue in her garden.

From some other neighbors we received jam and fresh fruits, which I used to make a version of the almond sable with jam in large version (picture) and in tiny bites. A real treat!!!

We also received big potatoes from another neighbor… I’m thinking of making gnocchi with these ones or just mash them, you’ll see soon enough. And finally we received pickled plums and pickled ginger from my colleagues. Super delicious with rice!!!

I really love this! It makes the effort to harvest more, give away around very fun and entertaining, without any expectations… but then sometimes you receive something unexpected, sometimes nothing but that’s fine also since it’s giving away… it just makes people happy!

Sansho

One of the first thing I planted in the garden 6 years ago was herbs: rosemary, mint, sage, parsley, basil and a sansho shrub. I wanted to be able to go down the garden when I was cooking and puck whatever herb I needed. The rosemary and mint did really well, and they are still there, growing and spreading! The basil and the parsley never survive the winter so I replant some every year. The sage survives the the mild winters but not the cold ones. The sansho? It grows at a pace I didn’t imagine! Actually after a while I realized there was already a sansho shrub in the garden but at a very inconvenient place so I took it and gave it to our neighbor. Sansho is great because you can use both the fruits and the leaves.

After trying a few recipes of simmered sansho with konbu… I decided to prepare them in a manner that will allow to keep them longer and eat them all year round. Indeed, the shrub is growing and the number of fruits too, but it is difficult eating more than four of five grains at the time because it is really very fragrant. I found a recipe of saumure for sansho so I have decided to try it. It was awfully simple to prepare but it needs to be kept 3 months before eating… so we’ll see in September…

Summer teaser

Last weekend and today were really giving a taste of summer. Harvesting from the garden: locats, plums, herbs, sansho, eating in the garden at night, playing tennis and going swimming or bodyboarding right after in the chilly water of the ocean to cool down the body… and now a typhon is coming, it rains and it is cold. It was just a teaser for the coming summer… I didn’t harvest enough locats to make more than fruit salad. But I harvested again about 15kg of plums this weekend and it’s a great time to do some plum job: ume jam, umeboshi, ume syrup…

I like particularly ume jam because it can be eaten right away. All the other you have to wait between one week and one year… and ume jam is perfect with a batch of English scones!!!

The recipe is really simple. The same base as plum jelly except that you don’t use agar agar but instead I put the seeds of 2 apples in a tea bag and cook further, before pouring into boiled glass bins and closing.

Another quiche…

There’s nothing like a good quiche for dinner! I was missing not preparing some for a while, so I had to fix that. With the summer vegetables starting I bought plenty of zucchini at the farmers market because we love them and ones need to enjoy them when they are in season (the season in Japan is rather short and starts early). Zucchini are perfect for summer style quiche. I prepared them with okahijiki (salsola), this little plant I discovered last year. And I used miso in the egg mix to add a bit of texture and flavor. The result was a great one. Oh… and for the dough I went with a bit different recipe, something close to pasta dough, thin and crispy… Indeed while I was kneading the flour with an egg I realized it was the same start as making pasta dough (it crossed my mind to do lasagna for a second then…) but I finally added olive oil little by little to obtain a smooth dough but slightly oily compared to pasta. Something I’ll do again for sure!

Salsola and zucchini quiche

For the filling:

– 1 or 2 zucchini

– a handful of salsola

– 2tbs of miso

– 2 eggs

– some milk (or soya milk)

For the dough:

– 100g of flour

– 1egg

– olive oil

Mix the flour and the egg, add olive oil little by little and knead well. The dough must be smooth, shiny and feel a little greasy but not perspire oil!

Roll the dough into a thin circle and set on the pie dish (I used a low and large one).

Wash the vegetables, slice the zucchini and set them in the dough. In a bowl bit the eggs with the miso and the milk, add the salsola. Pour onto the zucchini.

Bake at 180deg for 30min or until golden.

I served it with some yogurt with herbs in.

Attention: miso is usually very salty so do not add salt in any of the mixes.

Rainy season?

Just back from Australia to Tokyo, and I find that the rainy season is getting near. The air is already quite humid and temperatures are mildly warm or hot. Soon it will be time to harvest the plums in the garden, even hopping it is not too late already… It’s been 3 weeks we haven’t go to the country house… I can easily imagine how green and lush the garden is and the hydrangeas will be all ready to bloom soon.

One thing I like to prepare with plums, other than ume-shu, ume-syrup and umeboshi is plum jam and plum jelly, something that you can enjoy right away and doesn’t have to sit for weeks or months. I am not very good at making jams and preserves but I keep trying. Jelly or yokan (ようかん) is much easier for me… but it uses only a little bit of fruits compared to all we have…

Japanese plum jelly – ume yokan

I used about twenty green large plums, sugar to your liking, agar-agar, and about 2/3L of water.

First wash and remove the stems of the plums, boil the water and add the plums, cook under cover at low heat until the plums are soft and the skin and flesh detach easily. Then add the sugar and the agar-agar (quantity will depend on how hard you like the jelly and how much liquid remains in your pan. Cook at medium heat for 5-10min and then pour in a dish. Wait until it cools down to refrigerate. After 2-3h you can serve, by cutting blocks out of the jelly. That’s it!

Fava beans and wakame

I’m a great great fam of greens such as asparagus, green peas, green beans, snap peas eda mame and fava beans. I could eat them all the time! Unfortunately the season for each is rather short but luckily they follow each other and overlap a bit so from March to August there are always some nice greens to eat!!!

Now is the season for fava beans and green peas and I cook them quite often. A classic Japanese preparation of fava beans in Shojin cuisine is with wakame, and I really like the association of the melting soft bean with the more slimy and crunchy seaweed. In the books normal recipe the fava beans and the wakame are simmered with soya sauce and sake. I chose a lighter version in taste and I prepared them as a sauce for soba noodles and added also some green peas. It’s almost a classic for me since I often cook something similar at that season! Here is my recipe:

Fava bean and wakame soba

– a handful of fava beans

– a handful of green peas

– a bit of wakame (I used new wakame)

– soba noodles

– olive oil and salt (or soya sauce)

Shell the peas and the beans. Peel the beans (I realized recently that it is no need to blanch the beans to peel them, raw they are easy to peel too). Boil water in a small pan to blanch them. Add the wakame cut in small pieces and then drain and reserve. In a large pan boil water for the soba. Cook as instructed. Then rinse in fresh water and drain very well. In a bowl put the soba, pour some olive oil, add salt or soya sauce, then the vegetables. Stir gently and serve.

Brown rice and curry double-tap

With all the fresh spring vegetables now available, in particular carrots, lotus roots, snap peas… and the weather changing quickly from sunny and warm to windy and chilly, a warm curry is always nice, accompanied with brown rice.

And with friends around I cook always much more than we can eat so I often have left over and brown rice makes a great base for a crunchy pie crust. So here are my recipes.

Spring coconut milk vegan curry:

– carrots

– lotus roots

– snap peas

– new onion

– red bell pepper

– coconut milk

– curry powder

– salt

– brown rice

Cook the brown rice in a rice cooker or in a pan at low heat under cover with twice more water than usual.

Was and peel the vegetables and cut them as pleases you. In a large fry pan or wok start by cooking the onion at low heat to soften them a bit, then add the lotus root, the carrots, the coconut milk and a tsp of curry powder, a pinch of salt. Cook at low heat for 10min. Add the red bell pepper and finally the snap peas. I like my vegetables crunchy so I try to avoid over cooking. Serve the rice and the curry together.

Brown rice quiche:

The base of this recipe is the left over from the previous, but you can start from the scratch.

– cooked brown rice

– flour

– vegetal oil

– sesame oil

– new onion, snap peas, and any other vegetables of your choice

– tofu

– eggs

For the pie crust, in a bowl mix the brown rice, flour and add a bit of water and vegetal oil and sesame oil to obtain a very granulated dough. Roll it on cooking paper to a thin layer the size of your pie dish, plus the sides.

Drain the tofu. Wash and cut the veggies (if using the leftover then it’s all set). Mix the tofu with the eggs, the vegetables and pour everything in the pie crust. Cook at 180deg for about 25 min. If you didn’t use the leftover you can still add coconut milk and curry to the tofu-egg batter.

Have a great week!!!

Stuffed lotus root

There is one thing that I don’t cook often but I love, is stuffed lotus root. It is not always easy ro find big, clean or still untouched lotus roots, but when I do, I definitely try to make some stuffed lotus root, changing recipes depending on the available ingredients and the mood of the moment. This weekend I found huge lotus roots that were untouched and perfectly cleaned. And I tried a filling made with chicken meat and curry spices. The result was a crispy melty spicy combo that I served with simple fresh salad and radishes and a bowl of plain rice.

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