3 types of cabbage tart

At the local farmers market the other day I found beautiful cauliflower, romanesco and broccoli. Having all them together I couldn’t help but cook something mixing it. I love the idea of having ingredients close in shape but different in taste and color, and the first idea that I had was to make a tart with a piece of each. And becauseI really love the idea of mixing Japanese flavors with western ones I decided to add in the base some katsuobushi flakes. For the dough, I opted for a classic sable dough. A perfect balance.

January 12, 2016

Donburi

The donburi or one rice bowl is a very convenient alternative to one-plate, and I like the rice base lunch because it provides tons of good energy necessary to stay outside all day long, now that it’s gotten colder.

For this donburi I cooked plain white Japanese rice that I topped with sautéed purple sweet potato, carrot brocoli, and finished with some proteins croquettes: I mixed rice flour with a mix of seeds, an egg and dome chicken meat. The egg and meat can be replaced by tofu for a vegan option.

November 28, 2015

Energy macrobiotic lunch

With chillier days we try to play tennis not in the morning anymore but in the afternoon, so before we go we need a good lunch full of energy. Inspired by the book of macrobiotic recipes, I came up with a nice one-bowl recipe using a base of brown rice, some seasonal sautéed veggies: kabocha, purple sweet potato, turnip in sesame oil, and a piece of Koya-dofu diced in the veggies. I topped the whole with fresh purple mizuna.

Simple, light and full of good energy before our game!

November 22, 2015

Okonomiyaki-お好み焼き

The okonomiyaki is a preparation from the Kansai area. A straightforward translation of the work means “grill what you like”, and it is well rendered with the profusion of recipes and variations. In the Kanto area the equivalent would be Monja-yaki, but what I prefer with okonomiyaki is the consistence of the crepe rather then a kind of weird porridge! Okonomiyaki includes a base of Chinese cabbage (hakusai 白菜), some grinded pork meat, a preparation of flour, water and egg like a crepe, then a toping of mayonnaise and Bulldog sauce, finished with katsuobushi. Any addition of veggies, meat, seafood etc is possible, just as you like it!!!

Mine is the simplest. Chop on small Chinese cabbage or 1/4 of a large one. In a frypan put a little of oil and the cabbage, stir often untill soft; add some grinded pork meat (150g), and continue to stir. In a batter prepare a mix with flour and 2 eggs to obtain a thick dough, add a bit of water to liquefy (it should be slightly more liquid than pancake dough). Add in the fry pan, cover and cook at low heat, then flip and cook again a lityle more. Serve and top with what you like: usually bulldog sauce, mayonnaise, and katsuobushi but I removed the mayonnaise and bulldog sauce topping, just the katsuobushi remained in my version (I reckon that the white mayo and the dark bulldog sauce make a much prettier finish). You can make individual cute okonomiyaki or large one that you cut to serve. Tonight I was a bit running out if time so I went for the second option.

There is one extraordinary strange thing I love with katsuobushi toping on hot food, it’s when it’s moving like if it were alive, though of course it’s just dry flakes!!!

November 19, 2015

A dinner with guests

The other night we had some guests at home, and when we do I need to be super-well organized to squeeze one hour to prepare dinner in my schedule, this usually my target time. So I need to think carefully the menu, the ingredients and once I enter the kitchen I know exactly what I’m doing. Usually I have some extra time or a few ideas on the fly, so that it turns I always improvise something. This time was no exception!

For the dinner it was simple: grilled delicious wild snapper with a little of sesame oil, rice with katsuobushi, white and pink turnip tofu salad with pumpkin seeds (similar recipe with the persimmon salad, but I replaced the persimmon with a little cucumber and the walnuts by kabocha seeds) and some pickled sweet ginger.

Then I realized that we didn’t have too much to snack while drinking so I decided to make a little extra, because it’s nice when you have dinner after work with friends to hang out and chat, to release the oressure of a long day at work. Well, with what I had in the fridge the best option was to make some kabocha chips, so I thinly sliced half a kobocha and cooked it in a bit of oil. Add some salt and served. That was a hit! Everyone loved it!

November 6, 2015

Persimmmon and turnip salad

We harvested some more persimmons today and I really have a lot!! So I’m trying a few recipes with persimmons, after the not too conclusive jam experiment. Back when I was going to cha-kaiseki classes there was a really nice autumn recipe of persimmon in salad. Later I found other recipes that inspired me, and today I would like to present you my original recipe of persimmon, turnip and tofu.

The recipe is ultra simple. For 4 servings, 1 still hard persimmon, 2 turnips or a piece of daikon, 1/2 block of hard tofu, sesame seeds, a few walnuts, salt. Start by draining the tofu, since it takes some time. Then peel the turnips and cut them in small sticks (thin slices can also work); set them in a bit of salt to remove the water. Peel the persimmon, and cut similarly to the turnips. In a bowl, roughly squeeze a tea spoon of sesame seeds and the walnuts. Once the tofu is drained, press it in a clean clothe to remove the additional water and once quite dry mix it with the sesame and the walnuts. Drain the turnips and add ghem to the tofu, add the persimmon. And serve.

October 31, 2015

Autumn meal

I love when I get back to work a bit late (which is to be honest pretty much every day) to open my veggie drawer in the fridge and to find a whole set of fresh things just waiting to be prepared. What and how just naturally flow from my mind and in less than 15min the dinner is almost ready or at least all decided!

This time my fridge had a wide choice of autumn veggies, no surprise there. And I prepared a little mix to accommodate a simple bowl of rice and some pickles. So I just just a red onion, a piece of lotus root, a carrot, a piece of kabocha, some shimeji and a few green pepper. I cooked them in a bit of oil at high heat for a few minutes then under cover at low heat for an other few minutes, finally add a little of soya sauce and serve.

October 29, 2015

More deal!!!

Remember, last week our little old neighbor gave us some of her special ginger and goya preparation.

Since I harvested to many persimmons (and there are still plenty to come) and I don’t know what to do with all these, I gave her a few and then she came back with more of her special pickles and preparations. So this week I managed to deal with her to teach me how to prepare the goya and the ginger, so hopefully I’ll share with you that very soon. She also gave us umeboshi and pickled myoga. Super delicious with plain rice! And plum jam. I’m looking forward to June, the harvest season for plums! This time I want to try to make umeboshi too!!!

Thanks a lot Obasan!!!

By the way, if you live in Tokyo and want persimmons, let me know before the birds have them all!!

October 28, 2015

Ochanomizu-Akihabara revival

The west of Tokyo with it’s big centers like Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shimokitazawa… has been for long the most lively and trendy places of Tokyo, while the east was mere old areas attracting old people, sometimes falling appart or for the tourists: Asakusa, Ueno, Akihabara, Nihonbashi, Ginza… The area between Ochanomizu ad Akihabara, and the one between Asakusa and Nihonbashi (right where we live), have changed slowly in the past 5 years with a lot of cafes and craft shops opening here and there. The trend was confirmed by two big initiatives using the under-track space of the Yamanote line in Okachimachi and the Sobu line in Manseibashi: aki-oka artisan 2k540 and Maach ecute. If I knew about both for some time and have been to aki-oka quite often, I’ve never really had the chance to go to Maach which opened more recently, until yesterday. Since it is an “ecute”, the usual name for stations shopping mall I was expecting to see the same fashion and accessories brands as in every ecute, but it was a completely different thing. Under the arcades of the tracks there is a path and shop, or rather stalls continuously span, without knowing exactly what brand it is. The space is very beautiful, and since I went there around 20:30 it was extremely quiet. The majority of shops are interior and natural clothing shops, which is again the typical new image of Tokyo east side, with similar trends in Marunouchi, in Nihonbashi… There are also a number of cafes and restaurants. I went to Fukumori, because I like their food from the north of Honshu and their simple concept very much, and have been often to their other shop in Bakurocho, but there are several others cafe I’d like to try. I’ll keep you updated!

I didn’t regret paying a visit there, and I think that’d be one of my hide away for rainy days!

October 27, 2015