Fresh home-made food every day
A donburi in Japan is basically a rice bowl topped with something, anything. I really like the concept and you’ve seen a few of my original recipes yet. With each time changing in what I top it with depending on the market and time available.
This time it’s a 100% green topping with avocado, cucumber, cresson and lettuce. A bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds and lunch is ready in just the time to cook the rice!
Yuzu is one of Japan most famous Citrus fruit, but actually there exist several varieties of yuzu: green yuzu with a thin skin, orange yuzu with a thick skin, all used at different seasons and for different recipes. The peels of orange yuzu are particularly delicious and candied it’s one of my weak points! It’s not always easy to find some natural ones, recently at the local shop in Koganei and in Isumi they have some, so I couldn’t resist. And I made a chocolate chips and yuzu cake for breakfast using the basic recipe of the pound cake, replacing the sultanas by the chocolate chips and the candied yuzu peel. A perfect start for the week! Have a good week!
A few years ago while I was trying new recipes I was taking notes of any good finding for future use. Of course, after changing job and apartment, I stop making notes, and forgot about it. Recently, I was browsing trough this note book, and it reminded me receipe trials with bamboo shoots and when I came out with this funny mix: Bamboo shoot salad with smoked salmon, capers, and a yogurt sauce.
Now is just the season for bamboo shoots, and I got a few in Ohara. So while preparing them I was wondering which variation I would opt for (with what is available in Ohara: forget about wild or organic smoked salmon, so forget about it!) and I found that just served with capers and salty sakura flowers that would be a perfect seasonal match. Indeed! Salty sakura flowers are a typical ingredient in spring and are used to decorate mochi, to season chazuke, or to make sakura tea. It’s just just fresh flowers preserved in salt. A bit like small roses preserved in sugar. With a very specific taste of sakura. It may be surprising at first, but it’s really delicious!
Every one knows wasabi, this green paste very hot eaten usually with sushi. Actually wasabi is a plant and the green paste is obtained from the stem, peeled and grated. In spring, the leaves of wasabi can be eaten. It’s a delicate vibrant green leaf that is better slightly steamed or boiled and that accomodates very well rice and Japanese dishes.
I cooked it in a vegan version of a Japanese meal, with miso and sesame eggplants, pickled vegetables, rice with cereals and the wasabi leaves just steamed and served with ponzu.
A few years ago we went to visit Hachijojima, an island down south of Tokyo in the Pacific that belongs to Tokyo actually. Besides being a lovely place, famous for their handwoven beautiful fabric used to make kimonos, their is one typical product from there: angelica, or ashitaba (明日葉).
Ashitaba is a green leaf that doesn’t smell much but once cooked as a very typical taste. Something that once you have tried you want to eat again! In France it is use to make sweets (the green slighly discusting sticks Of candied fruit on gateau des rois for example). While we were in Hachijojima we had ashitaba tempura, ashitaba sherbet and a few other variations. Completly enfatuated with this taste I bought a cooking book of ashitaba there, which presents a great variety of recipes, from rice with ashitaba to green smoothies, so not just typically Japanese recipes. They grow some ashitaba in Chiba prefecture, so when spring comes I easily can buy some in Ohara. In Tokyo, department stores and Yoshiike definitely have some. I tried a few recipes from the book at home to get used to processing ashitaba and came out with a few simple recipes on my own now. My super favorite is ashitaba-mashed potatoes. It makes a perfect combination, and it is really a great match with scrambled eggs, grilled pork…
An other nice combiniation is to use ashitaba as a substitute for basil. With tomatoes and olive oil, perfect to top with some pasta.
I’m still trying new recipes while the season of ashitaba goes on, so you may from it again!
As I was telling you earlier, spring means a lot of fresh wild vegetables. After the fukinoto the bamboo shoot is probably the next to be found in Isumi area. In particular, the area close to Ohtaki is particularly great for delicious takenoko (bamboo shoot in Japanese). It’s also a great fun to go and pick them. This variety of bamboo shoot is the large one (8 to 15cm diameter), there exists a small one (1 to 3cm) that arrives later and that is even much more fun to pick.
Preparing fresh bamboo shoot is really easy, though a bit time consuming. First of all you need to peel the hard and hairy skin. It peels like a artichoke, so it’s really easy.
Then you need to boil it in something that would remove the bitterness of the wild shoot. In supermarket they often sells nuka (what is used for the pickles) and I was using that until I learn from an old lady at the local farmers cooperative that the first wash of rice was perfectly efficient. Since then I’ve usjng that, and believe me it’s much easier to clean than nuka. You need to boil for 30 to 60min, until soft (you can pick a toothpick easily in). Once cold you can cut and then boil in dashi for 15min. I used katsuo dashi. You can eat now, or add to rice for a “takenoko gohan”. For this I start cooking the rice as usual, then at mid cookjng time I add the bamboo shoot sliced vertically and a little of soya sauce. Delicious to accompany red snapper or bonito.
Ideally you would serve takenokoto with leaves of “ki no me” the leaves of the mountain pepper tree (sansho), mine in the garden is not yet ready…
Though it is slowly getting warmer it’s still not yet spring. A warm soup for dinner is still very much welcome!
For the scrambled eggs I just put a little of olive oil in a frypan, added washed and cut na no hana, then eggs, and finally soya sauce.
Nabe is a traditional Japanese soup with vegetables (Chinese cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, leeks…), tofu (here we have yuzu tofu), shitaki (white Japanese konyaku pasta) and fish cut in small peaces (or meat, as you like).
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.
