Japanese style pasta

In Japan there are plenty of Italian restaurants but many serve not a genuine Italian company cuisine, but rather pasta, or more spaghetti, with a strong Japanese touch. The much classic would be mentaiko – 明太子, some kind of poutargue, or spucy fish eggs, with nori. But it goes much beyond that. At first it is a bit strange to eat spaghetti with Japanese flavours, but there are some really nice combinations. In particular, I find that the nori goes very well with pasta. So I prepared some Japanese style pasta for lunch. I didn’t have spaghetti, so I used penne. And because I had some pickled Chinese cabbage to finish, I prepared some tomato sauce and serve the whole thing together. Deliciously confusing!

Penne Japanese style:

– 200 of penne

– 3 tomatoes very ripe

– 1/8 of pickled Chinese cabbage, if not pickled, you will need a little of white vinegar of your choice in addition, and a pinch of salt

– 1tbs of rice oil, or vegetal snd neutral oil

– 1 handfull of thinly cut nori

– black pepper

Boil water for the pasta, in the meantime in a saucer set the tomatoes diced. Cook at medium heat until it reduces. Cut the cabbage in bite size and add to the tomatoes. If you are using non-pickled Chinese cabbage do the same but add 1tsp oc vinegar and a pinch of salt. Add the ground black pepper to your liking. Once the penne are cooked, deain and serve in the plates. Add the tomatoes-cabbage sauce and complete with a topping of nori. Serve immediately.

February 20, 2017

Back to the kitchen!!!

After a break away from my kitchen and obviously from Tokyo-Paris sisters, I’m pleased to be back and cook for A. and me. I hope you have enjoyed Prunellia’s posts while I was away and the website renewal just before I left (we’re still open to hear what you think!). I’m starting back in the kitchen with a very simple classic leek and Japanese mushrooms quiche. Nothing difficult, a classic I could say, just added a twist of fresh lemon juice with the mushrooms, and thought afterwards that I should have added a lemon zest in the piecrust sablé dough. So I’m going to give you this recipe without having tried it for resl myself but I’m sure it is delicious since the lemon would fit perfectly the sablé dough and the olive oil. I wish you a happy continuation for this week!

Leek and Japanese quiche with a lemon twist:

a recipe for 2 as a single main dish or for 4 as a starter

– 200g of flour of your choice

– 4 eggs

– 3tbs of olive oil

– 1/2 lemon

– salt, pepper

– 3 leeks

– oyster mushrooms, shimeji…

Pie crust: in a bowl mix the flour, 1 egg, the olive olive oil, salt pepper, and the zest of the 1/2 lemon. Knead until smooth, with the olive oil it shouldn’t take long. Roll to the size or your pie dish. It’s nice to have it a bit thick and that the pie dish is a bit high.

Filling: wash and cut the leeks in little half or quarter trunks and set in the dough an homogeneous layer. Beat the 3 eggs with salt, pepper and the juice of the 1/2 lemon. Add on top of the leeks. Wash and cut the mushrooms and set on top. Bake for 25min at 180deg, or until just golden. Serve and eat write away!

Tip: it is never easy to cut leeks cleanly so think of how many pieces you’re going to cut and arrnage them to avoid cuts as much as possible.

February 15, 2017

御年賀 – o nenga

It is a tradition in Japan to exchange small presents at the beginning of the year (these mist be inexpensive presents of about 500yens), and these small presents are usually food. It is of a great variety and most department stores or food shop offer to prepare such items. They must be wrapped and have the proper 御年賀 paper on them. Only paper, no ribbon or other decoration, and eventually the name of the person offering it written (to make it easier to identify from whom it comes from and return the gift). Yesterday at the yearly shamisen’s concert we have exchanged many 御年賀 and it is always fun and nice to discover what we have received. Classic gifts are rice crackers, dry fish, taukudani (seaweed or small fishes cooked in soya sauce), sweets of all kind… I really love this custom, finding what to offer and opening all our presents and thinking about how to eat them. It’s a good occasion to discover products we don’t usually eat since I don’t usually buy prepared food, and then to learn how to cook them!!!

January 10, 2017

7 herbs – 七草

Every year in Japan, on January 7th it is a custom to eat 7 herbs rice porridge おかゆ. Since I am not a huge fan of rice porridge I develop a new recipe every year (other recipes). Last year I prepared a 7 herbs rice omelet. This year I prepared it with grilled cod. I cooked some plain white rice. I grilled some fresh Hokkaido cod cut in pieces, and the turnip, then I simply washed the herbs and chopped them roughly and add both the cod and the herbs to the rice. Simple, tasty and delicious! How do you eat your 7 herbs???

January 9, 2017

Multigrain risotto with burdock

As I was telling you, I really love the mix fresh parsley and burdock. May be because it makes the burdock taste even more artichoky, a vegetable I love but that is not common in Japan (though I’ve spotted some lovely artichokes plants in my neighbor’s potager garden!). As we will be traveling to Sicily, I know I’ll have opportunities to eat plenty of delicious artichokes very soon! Yet, I prepared burdock with parsley in an Italian manner with a mix of grains for Italian soup (from last year Italian holidays!) and carnaroli rice, prepared like a risotto. I cooked in a bit of olive oil the burdock peeled and sliced, then add the rice and the grains, finally cover with water. Cooked until the liquid has vanished, add generously some fresh ciseled parsley, serve immediately. Perfect with freshly grated parmegiano if you like.

December 13, 2016

Kabuki-za

A few years ago one of the main kabuki theater in Tokyo, the Kabuki-za in Ginza closed, was demolished and rebuilt. It reopened a year ago and since then we’ve been a few times to see performances. The theater completely renewed still has a very old style flair, the outside being almost untouched (expect for a tall tower on top of the old-style theater. The inside has been improved a lot but is still very traditional. The performances have also been dramatically improved, probably thanks to the renewal and the media covering of the Nakamura family, one of the kabuki actors group at Kabuki-za, with more attractive plays and even new compositions, more beautiful costumes and makeups that refer directly to Edo era period. This time we went for one of favorite plays: renjishi, or the lion dance. It is always a beautiful play, with a lot of shamisen playing and a very energetic dance, beautiful costumes. Since pictures are forbidden during performances I can only recommend you check by yourself. As usual there are 3 or 4 different plays in one session and all are really very interesting and different in style, acting and purpose. If you are not a Kabuki amateur you may be tempted to buy cheap tickets with poor view, if you do so be sure to bring some binoculars. Kabuki is not just about the music or the overall performance, it’s about facial expressions and costumes. Details matter, so to enjoy the performance you want to see them. That’s why I would actually invest in some better seating, even for a first time, the experience is all the more interesting. Finally, with all these renovations at Kabuki-za, they implemented a system of personal subtitles device. Contrarily to opera their was no subtitles in kabuki. These devices can berented fir 1.000yens, and are really worth. Much better than the audio system they do not impede with the enjoyment and they provide much more than the subtitles, they explain context, history if the play, characters and cultural features.

November 10, 2016

Want a Japanese twist for your pasta salad?

Since I have bought some different types of miso at the miso shop in Kichijoji (see Saturday’s post), I am using quite extensively. Mainly with raw veggies as a dip but finally last night I decided to try an original mix: a pasta salad with a white miso dressing. And it was a real nice experience! And super simple to prepare. I boiled some farfalle, then cut some okra, tomato and cucumber in small dices and add them to the pasta. And for the dressing I used 2 tsp of white miso, 2 tsp of olive oil and 1 tsp of sesame seeds, stir well and add it on top of the salad, add a little more sesame seeds for the decoration. The white miso mixed with olive oil is perfectly creamy and almost cheesy and suits perfectly the vegetables in the salad and the farfalle! A very good wa-yo taste and texture!

October 18, 2016

Miso, miso, miso

Miso is usually sold in large containers in Japan (it is with rice one of the rare ingredients that comes in large packaging compared to Western countries). It is a real pity because I love different types of miso depending on what I am cooking and I usually don’t keep several sorts because I don’t use it every day. In summer I like red miso, in winter white miso, but I also love miso with grains inside, and miso made of barley or of soy beans… So you can imagine how much happy I was when last night with D. we found a little place in Kichijoji that is both a restaurant and a miso shop where you can by miso by 100g units. Let’s first talk about miso, then about the restaurant.
The shop is ran by a single person (土平哲生さん), the elder son and 4th generation of miso makers, that does everything. His shop has a collection of miso coming from different places in Japan and made of the different ingredients, is has also some spicy miso and other fancy ones. It covers all the possible different tastes: very salty to very sweet, creamy to crumbly. And of course you can try all of them before deciding which ones you want to buy. I decided to go with miso made of 100% barley with a crumbly texture, and for a creamy but not too sweet white miso. I am now looking forward to cooking with these new miso.
The restaurant is a bare 10 seats place, with a little kitchen. Since D. is alergic to dairies and doesn’t eat meat at all we asked him if he could prepare something for us that would accommodate us, and he just prepared on the spot some dishes for us. I really like the idea that he could basically cook whatever we wanted with the ingredients he had, it reminded me of “深夜食堂”, a Japanese TV drama where “master” cooks whatever people want in is tiny restaurant. So we first asked for raw cabbage with different types of miso to try some of the different options, then he prepared for us some simmered eggplant with white miso, onigiri with vegetables pickled in miso (I found that not only his miso is delicious, his rice was also amazing!), and we finished with a salad of tofu, fried eggplant, tomato, green beans, with a miso dressing of course! Everything was simple and delicious and so simply prepared that it tasted like home!

Soy Bean Fram – ソイビーンファーム
Open everyday from 11:30 to 22:00
5min walk from Kichijoji JR station, north exit
Tokyo Musashino-shi Kichijoji Honmachi 2-15-2
東京都武蔵野市吉祥寺本町2-15-2

October 14, 2016

Yellow everything

Sometimes things are just like that: in the fridge there is a yellow zucchini a yellow capsicum, new carrots and eggs and the first things that comes to mind with this chilly grey weather is curry-rice. In the end it gives a all yellow everything plate. Simply delicious and tasty, but very well presented I reckon!!! I need to work on my plating again… How do you do your plating for everyday’s food that has no real shape like curry-rice?

June 29, 2016