Tag: Japanese garden

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!

Gingko nuts – 銀杏

So, we have a gingko tree in our garden. The first few years it didn’t give fruits and we thought we won’t have the pleasure to eat fresh gingko nuts but also not the nuisance of the horrible smell. But then… it started to bear fruits and we started to harvest them, or sometimes it was more just to clean and limit the smell in the garden!!!! So the season has arrived again to collect fallen gingko nuts (about a bucket every day!), and to give away many (most) of them to our neighbors, but this year we also prepared some for ourselves with an enhanced technique! I remember having the nauseous smell in my nose for days after preparing them last time. So we came better equipped: masks with a drop of tea-tree essential oil. Then to remove the small bits of skins we used stones in a bucket and water and it was really easy. And dried them in the sun rather than the oven. Finally it was a bit long but not at all as terrible as I remember it was!!! Next is the cooking, but for that I know for sure we’ll have rice with gingko nuts, grilled gingko nuts, and probably vegetables stew!

Gingko nuts drying in the sun
Gingko nuts drying in the sun

The gingko tree in the garden, covered with fruits yet to harvest  
The gingko tree in the garden, covered with fruits yet to harvest  

Plum trees start to bloom

It’s been a few weeks that the red plum trees in the garden were boiling to bloom, now it’s official plum flower season has started. Even some if the white plum trees have started to bloom too. It is one of my favorite moment in the year. It is still cold but spring is already showing up. I like the beautiful little flowers against the crisp blue sky.  So using the plum as a base I prepared a one-plate lunch with pink small radishes for the color, plain white rice shaped in plum flower (I made 5 little balls that I then compacted together using a piece of cooking wrap), an umeboshi on top. Then scrambled eggs with nori and grilled shiitake with sesame and a drop of sesame oil and soya sauce. And everything ready in 20min (when in a rush cooking rice in a pan is much faster than the rice cooker). And shaping the rice took me the most time because I had no clue how to do it, but I’m quite proud I managed! Happy Setsubun!!!

An unexpected finding

Rainy Saturday calls for a drive to some antiques and old stuff shop or kottoyasan (骨董屋さん) in Japanese. There are not too many but the one from the country are usually much better than in the city and much cheaper. We usually go to one we like in Otaki and where I’ve found many treasures, this time we decided to find new ones, and drove to Kimitsu (west coast of Chiba peninsula). To find a really amazing one. Tons of outdoor stuff (finally found a little (=that fits in our trunk) lantern for the garden), music instruments, paintings and as usual potteries, plates, bowls…  As in any of such places it’s never heated nor lit and so cluttered that you need a flash light to see things. Moving around also is an art since passages are really narrow! But still I love these places and could stay hours, looking at all the pieces of life and history that has accumulated there. A perfect occupation for a rainy day.

And because today was unexpectedly sunny we could spend the day outside trimming trees and trying a setting for the lantern. 

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑

Verified by MonsterInsights