Steamed gyoza – 水餃子

As I was saying in my previous post, I’m a big fan of dumplings of all kind. But recently I have a crush for sui gyoza-水餃子 which are simply steamed gyoza. And because I want to make some more often, last time we went to Kappabashi (to buy bowls for my sister xmas present) A. offered me a set of bamboo steamers: two levels, that would allow preparing dinner for two in one batch. And I have been longing to test them. It’s been three weeks now that I have been on my new schedule but as A. was traveling last week, I waited for him to come back. So finally I did make steamed gyoza, and tested my new bamboo steamer. Well, it’s super easy to use and works very well, and it gives a slightly fancier look to the table to serve the gyoza directly in. It also keeps them warm. I am not a fan of cooking goodies at all and have very very few (a blender, a pasta machine, a mandoline, and two bamboo steamers) but I must admit that those steamers are not just goodies, they are actually perfect. Not only the are made just of bamboo, but they adjust easily on a pan and work like charms. Well, of course if you make steamed food only once in a while and steam in small quantities you don’t need one and a foldable stainless steamer is surely enough, but I am planning to make a lot more often sui gyoza with all the seasonal vegetables, so it is worth the investment and the space it takes. So back to sui gyoza, I opted for sweet potato for some, and shiitake/carrot for the others. A great winter vegetables option. Here is my recipe for 20 pieces.

Vegetables sui gyoza

– 20 pieces of gyoza skin ( making your own is so much better, I’ll share this next time!)

– 1/2 sweet potato

– 4 carrots

– 1 large shiitake

– soya sauce

Steam and purée the sweet potato. Add a bit of soya sauce. Keep.

Boil the carrots and puree. Dice thinly the shiitake and add to the puree.

Fill each skin with a tea spoon of filling and close tightly.

Cut kitchen paper to the steamer inner diameter and set in the bottom of each layer. Steam for 10-15 min or until the skin is translucent. Serve.

January 25, 2020

Ochazuke – お茶漬け

Those who are familiar with Yasujiro Ozu’s movies must know “The flavor of green tea over rice” or “お茶漬けの味”, while being a cinematographic beauty and a brilliant socio-cultural representation of the the Japanese society transition of the time, it also introduces to a large audience ochazuke. Literally, as in the movie, it’s a dish that consists of pouring green tea over rice. A warm and comforting dish. While for westerners this might sounds odd, this dish, well prepared is actually delicious. It is also very simple if you have the right ingredients: rice, a hot tasty liquid, some topping eventually.

Ochazuke as you can imagine, is not supposed to be eaten with freshly cooked rice, while it is ok to do so, it is rather a recipe to use rice leftovers that have cooled down. So what I usually do is cook more rice than I need once to guarantee leftovers and then keep them for the next meal. Of course I mean Japanese rice cooked the Japanese way!!! You can use white rice or brown rice, it is equally delicious.

Then you need a hot liquid. As the name may be misleading, the liquid can be, but does not limit to green tea. Of course a nice and tasty green tea will work very well, yet my favorite recipe is with a flavor-rich dashi. A dashi made from konbu and katsuo, or from shiitake for a vegan version. The liquid must be hot enough to warm the rice if you use leftovers as it might be just at room temperature.

Finally you need a topping. Something that brings in a new texture and a new flavor. The topping is in rather low quantity, about one~two table spoon for one bowl. And as the rice and the liquid have quite a fine and light flavor you can use a topping that contrasts vividly such as umeboshi, salty salmon, mitsuba or create new combinations. Well, to be honest umeboshi is one of my favorite, and it can be used with some other toppings as well.

Why is that that I suddenly I talk so much of ochazuke when in the past 15 years I barely made one and only have them in restaurants? I think its just a matter of interesting circumstances: (1) Finding a nice dashi made from natural ingredients (dashi bars and tasting are becoming more trendy but not all dashi are made from simple natural ingredients) (2) Having leftover rice (when I was sick I would cook rice for 2 or 3 meals to have always something ready in case I would be hungry) (3) Wanting to eat a warm meal (with the temperature changing rapidly and the days becoming chilly one needs a warm, light and comforting meal…)

Here are the ochazuke I made in the past couple of weeks, top to bottom: umeboshi and pickled red chiso, umeboshi and mitsuba, 7 herbs and salmon, umeboshi grilled mushrooms and salmon.

For all the principle is the same: serve the rice in a large bowl such that it uses not more than half of it. Top with the topping of your choice. I blanched the round turnips in the 7 herbs version and slightly grilled in olive oil the long ones. Same for the mushrooms, I grilled them before. Prepare the dashi of your choice and pour while hot gently to cover the rice. Eat right away!

January 8, 2020

Cooking with A.

When I was supposed to rest, I still cooked a bit for myself. One has to eat anyway. But during the weekend, A. wanted to help a bit with the cooking. So his main responsibility was to make apples or pears compote, one thing I invariably love, sick or not. He varied all the possible cuts: thin slices, big chunks, very tiny cuts… and all were so much better than when I was making it for myself. But then on Sunday evening, I was a little bit tired and I asked him to help me prepare some steamed gyoza. For a reason that probably no one can understand, since Sunday noon I was craving for Chinese dumpling or any other steamed dumplings. And the easiest to prepare when you’re living in Tokyo are definitely steamed gyoza – 水餃子.

Of course I wasn’t interested in any of the meat filling, I was interested in the vegan version, the one where there is on the inside some mashed vegetables. And that was perfect because I had a piece of kabocha and a few sweet potatoes that our neighbor gave me. So A. helped me making these delicious dumplings. I roughly prepared the vegetables, then he steamed them, mashed them with a few drops of soya sauce and I only had to do very simple task of filling and closing the gyoza.

Steaming user is actually very simple, if you have a bamboo steamer or if you have a steel steamer like I do just late sheet of cooking paper at the bottom of the steamer put the dumplings in top of it and cover steam for about like 5 to 10 minutes until the dough is translucent and moisten. Eat right away with soya sauce. That’s how simple it is! Thank you A. for your constant support, for helping me cooking this delicious dish and let us watch a few episodes of a stupid series!

PS: For those worried about my health condition, apparently I should survive is pneumonia. ;)

I’m just a utterly bored to have to do so little and with so much to catch up with… Being sick sucks, recovery is too slow!!

December 16, 2019

Gyoza

I cannot hide that I have a thing for stuffed food, for pies and for dumplings… whether they are Italian ravioli, Japanese gyoza, French ravioles, Russian pilmini, Chinese shumai and other little stuffed breads… I simply love them, how the filling is steamed in the little poach and when opened all the captured flavors develop in the mouth. And I enjoy a lot making them with my own prepared filling. You already know how much I love making ravioli, well I also love making gyoza and I want to try other recipes from Asia and eastern Europe. From the scratch, or when I am a little too busy I use gyoza “skin” 皮 that only contains flour and water. Luckily in Japan it is easy to find some (be careful though that most gyoza skin sold in supermarket contains a lot many ingredients to be good, so, as usual look at the label, if there are more than 4 ingredients, pass).

To celebrate the beginning of the cold weather I invented a new filling recipe with seasonal vegetables and that was a very nice try, to reproduce soon.

Here is my recipe!

Early winter gyoza (makes 30 pieces)

– 30 gyoza skins

– 100g of ground pork meat

– 2 sweet potatoes (mine are 15cm long, 3cm wide)

– 2 leeks

Boil the sweet potatoes with the skin. Once very soft, peel them and crush them in a bowl, add the meat. Chop the leeks and add to filling mixture. Stir well. Now it’s time to prepare the gyoza. In a skin set 1tsp of filling and close it. Repeat until all is gone.

To cook the gyoza, grease a fry pan (I used olive oil) and put the gyoza in, add 1cm of water. Cook under cover for some time until the water is gone, flip the gyoza and when they are golden flip again. Serve hot with soya sauce in which a bit of white vinegar has been added. Enjoy!!!

November 28, 2019

Yuzu!!!

Japan has hundreds of different citrus fruits, strangely few oranges but surely many types of tangerines, lemons, natsumikan, kinkan, kabosu, sudachi, shikwasa… and of course yuzu. Yuzu 柚子 is used either non ripe in September and becomes ripe in the end of October or the beginning of November. It is used a lot in Japanese cuisine, in particular for its skin and its juice, which are both very fragrant and typical.

In our garden we have two tall and big natsumikan trees that took me some time to understand how to eat them, a fairly nice tangerine tree as well. Last year we decided to plant a yuzu tree and a lemon tree to expand our citrus fruit collection with trees that would produce fruits I love to cook. The lemon tree gave some lemons last winter, but it’s only this year that we harvested many yuzus.

I personally like to use the fresh yuzu from my garden squeezed in hot water with honey. And I really like to use the juice and the skin in savory recipes. There many options but to really enjoy the flavor simple preparations are the best. This time its some black Tuscan rice riso nero venere simply steamed, served with a grilled piece of swordfish, the whole topped with olive oil and yuzu peel chopped very thinly. A bit of salt and that’s it!!!!

How do you like to prepare your yuzu???

November 21, 2019

Persimmons

When the season for persimmons comes it means that autumn is clearly here and with shorter days, the chilly evenings will be coming soon. And here they are. Not cold enough to tuen the heater on yet, but it’s coming.

While we are not big fans of raw persimmons, like pretty much everyone in Chiba Sotoboso, we have persimmon trees in our garden, two that give sweet persimmons and one that gives bitter ones. Persimmons are like plums in June, impossible to give away!!! Most people don’t even harvest them and their leave-less branches are decorated with beautiful orange fruits. I our gardens the fruits don’t last long as birds happily eat them and that is great. Still I always harvest a few fruits for us as there is one recipe that is my total preferred way of eating persimmons: tofu ae with cucumber.

So here it is:

Persimmon, cucumber and tofu ae:

– 1 persimmon not too soft

– 1 Japanese cucumber

– 1 small block of drained tofu

– 2tbs of sesame seeds

– a bit of salt

Peel and dice the persimmon, slice the cucumber. Grind the sesame seeds, drain very well the tofu* and mix with the salt. Add the persimmon and the cucumber. Stir well and it is ready to serve.

Oh! By the way, I’m testing new mini videos to explain the recipe… checkout below and on IG!!!

* draining tofu is crucial to obtain the perfect creamy consistency. To drain tofu (hard or soft) first press it gently between two boards with a weight on top. Gravity will make it work perfectly for you after 1h. Then in a clean cloth with thin weaving press the tofu to remove the water has shown in the third video below.

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/video.mov

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/video-1.mov

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/video-2.mov

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/video-3.mov

November 11, 2019

Call it cooking… or not

But damn… this was a super delicious combination…

You remember me cooking in apron over my suit right after work? Well I was preparing dinner with the leftover veggies: kabocha and tomatoes. I also picked some fresh parsley in the garden and was thinking about what to do with them when the crave for soba noodles just came. All was decided… And that’s how this recipe of kabocha soba was born. It was so delicious that I really need to share it with you! Moreover because it’s been a while I haven’t shared a proper recipe!!

Kabocha-soba (for two regular servings)

– 125-150g of dry soba noodles (I use 100% buckwheat flour noodles)

– 1/4 kabocha

– 1 large very ripe tomato (if not the season anymore where you are use a tomato preserve without any seasoning)

– a few sprigs of fresh parsley

– 1tsp of soya sauce

– a bit of olive oil

While the water to cook the soba is heated, wash and cut in small cubes (5-10mm) the kabocha. Wash the tomato and dice. In a pan grease with a bit of olive oil, start cooking the vegetables. Add 1/4 cup of water if the tomato is not juicy enough. Cook under cover until the kabocha is soft but not too much. Add the chopped parsley and stop cooking but keep warm. The sauce shouldn’t be liquid or juicy. Just moistened a bit.

Cook the soba as detailed on the package. Serve in bowls. Top with the vegetables, add the soya sauce. Eat immediately and enjoy the perfect balance between the rustic soba flavor, the freshness of the parsley, the sweetness of the tomato and the creaminess of the kabocha, enhanced by the salty taste of the soya sauce!

October 29, 2019

Changing habits

Like pretty much every one we have our habits. Ours change with seasons and adapt to our agendas. And sometimes we pick up new ones and abandon those that don’t fit with our philosophy or ethics anymore. There has been two major changes recently, one by choice, the second forced. We used to go swimming in the ocean before breakfast on weekends, and I would do a bit of bodyboarding then, but the whole point of building a garage and workshop was to have a space for our diy activities and to buy a new car to go to the beach, one with which we could carry our boards and get in all wet and salty. Originally we thought of buying two SUP, but A. was really keen in starting surfing so we first got him a fun-board. Going surfing with an empty stomach was not an option for him. So it’s been two months now that instead of heading to the beach as soon as we woke up, we now go surfing around 11:00-12:00 for one or two hours. And sometimes we go for another session at 16:00. This has considerably changed our schedule but it’s nice, in particular now with the beautiful autumn weather (when there is no typhoon) and the very warm ocean water (no need of wetsuit!). And when there’s no wave, we just swim… This changed as meant a richer breakfast (more carbs and fruits) and also that I prepare most of the lunch before 11:00, so that when we’re back from the ocean lunch is rapidly ready.

The other change in our habits was forced, we didn’t have the choice, and it has a big impact on us. It relates with the simultaneous closing in Ohara of the local supermarket that was my supplier for local fresh fish and milk, Coconut milk, butter and some other simple things like chocolate, baking powder, soya sauce, and olive oil; the Genji butcher shop that was my Isumi pork filet and smoke ham supplier; and A.’s wine shop… we have looked around in a reasonable distance but we have found nothing that could be a good replacement, the only solution we have found so far is to drive 10min-15min to Kuniyoshi and shop at the local supermarket there where they have a different selection of products but they still have local fish, local milk and pork. I don’t see the point to drive inland that far to buy fish that comes from the harbor that is 2min from our house… I could probably have been fine without the meat and the fish (though I enjoy them once in a while), but A. is not ready to give them up. This also has started to make us think more seriously about the aging problem in Japan, how a local supermarket is crucial for elderly independent living, how it is not just a grocery store but also an important feature for the conservation of social fabric. Fancy ideas came to our minds but I don’t know if we have the guts to make them true… time only will show… that’s when our Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lifestyle shows its limitations…

What I think of every single sunny day!!!

October 11, 2019

Perilla – shiso

If you like Japanese food or have traveled to Japan you that green leaf for sure!! Perilla, or shiso 紫蘇, or ooba 大葉 grows very easily and spreads like weed in both planters and the garden. It requires very little maintenance and grows every year with more and more plants, only the caterpillars seems to like it. I never planted any in our garden but it’s been growing steadily every year. It blooms in the early autumn and the flowers are really delicious. And this year I harvested plenty of flowers so it’s time to prepare them. So far I was using them always the same way: in miso and to make some kind of tempura. I call them fake tempura because they are deep fried, but I use a simple mixture of flour and cold water just like for tempura.

This year I am also trying something new: I want to make syrup. For that my plan is to use the same recipe as the lavender syrup and replace the lavender flowers by shiso flowers. I’ll update you in a few days when it’s ready!!

In the meantime have a good week!!

September 30, 2019