In the summer it is nice to enjoy refreshing pickled vegetables. After many attempts of different methods to make pickles there are a few that I find particularly not adapted to our life style, and some others that require too much equipment. But there are two that I really like and that are very simple, can be done everywhere, require little ingredients or equipment and work in a few hours. Today I want to introduce the simplest and most efficient way, that works with many of the green summer vegetables such as cucumber, uri, or togan, but also with radishes and daikon. It is called shiozuke 塩漬け in Japanese, and as the name suggested it is a method of pickling vegetables in salt. As a matter of fact it is the same method as making umeboshi or pickled Chinese cabbage… expect that with summer vegetables it takes only a few hours instead of several days or weeks! Today I present the recipe with uri 瓜 a kind of melon/cucumber that is very popular in summer in Japan and that just made its entry in the glossary.
Shiozuke summer vegetables
1/2 uri or 1 Japanese cucumber
1/2 tsp of salt
a little piece of konbu (optional)
Wash and cut the vegetable. It is not really necessary to peel them. Slice them thinly. Cut the konbu in thin pieces. in a bowl large enough, add the sliced uri, the konbu, sprinkle the salt on top. Use a piece of wrap to top and set a weight the size of the inside of the bowl (I used a honey pot filled with water) on top to press the mix. Wait for a few hours before enjoying, and keep in the fridge in the liquid for a few days.
Beware that the liquid when pressing may overflow the bowl, so set the bowl in in a tray or the sink, or use a rather large bowl compared to the amount of vegetable that can receive all the liquid. Another option is to make them in a sealed plastic bag (ziploc…), but I don’t use such plastic bags…
I am amazed by my lack of culture when it comes to greens… every month or so I am discovering something new… something I can’t remember having seen before or tried before… This time it is water spinach or 空芯菜 kushinsai. Actually I even grow some in my garden that I received as a sprout from a friend, devotedly planted but as I didn’t know what it was I just let it grow quietly when the other day, at the farmers market I found them on the shelf… Well… I just got some and tested them… The leaves resemble a lot that of Japanese spinach, smaller and thinner, and the stem is wider and hollow. When cooked it indeed resembles spinach in texture and flavour, without the tartness that spinaches often have, bonus, it grows in the summer, making it a good new summer friend to add to the collection with moroheya and tsurumurasaki. I first cooked it in a Japanese version to top rice. Simply blanched and then deglazed in soya sauce. It is always a good way to test a new local green. Most Japanese people will tell you they eat them like this, so I don’t bother asking anymore!!!!
Kushinsai, tomatoes, pork filet in soya sauce topping plain rice
Once this test passed, I use the vegetable in more European ways, with pasta and olive oil, that is the second test. And the vegetable is adopted in my list of easy-daily vegetable. If it doesn’t pass both test it stays in the list of once in a while vegetable, that requires special treatment or attention, like uri (you’ll see it soon), togan, takenoko…
Water spinach passed both tests easily is now adopted in my everyday routine. Good with bacon, good with pork filet, good with pasta, turmeric and parmigiano… basically as you would used spinach… next test probably will be the quiche, but I already know it will pass easily that one too!
Bacon, egg, kushinsai on spaghetti
I could also try some more south Asian recipes, but I barely cook Chinese and Taiwanese… if you have good recipes to use my new friend in cooking let me know and I’ll be happy to test them!
Turmeric, kushinsai, tagliatelle… top with parmigiano for the perfect finish
There’s always something new to discover or to learn… that is true in any discipline, but even more in cooking!!! The quantity of potential ingredients is really enormous, and the variety depends so much on customs and climate that I am far from having explored a hundredth of what exists. Even in after 16 years in Japan, there are still some surprises. Products that are not necessarily Japanese but made their way a few decades or century ago. That’s the case of the yard-long bean or in Japanese jūrokusasage 十六ササゲ. Something I had never seen before, that attracted me at the farmers market, and so I tried it and it made its entry in the glossary. I really like how farmers manage to grow locally so many different vegetables in such a beautiful way! I wish I could one day…
As the name promised, it’s a double long long green bean like vegetable, but the flavor is more subtle and more grassy. As I wasn’t sure how to prepare it first, I decided to blanched them and serve with soya sauce, grilled thick fried tofu atsusge 厚揚げ and that was perfect and top with katsuobushi.
As you already know, I am a great fan of greens and even more in the form of beans: green beans, fava beans and of course the famous Japanese edamame. You have seen this year already my edamame ravioli, and many years ago edamame rice, but there is so much more to do with edamame!!!
I tested the gyoza version of the ravioli: pasta without egg and fried in a pan instead of boiled and that was scrumptious. But that’s not all!!
One thing that was on my to-do list with edamame was a soup, like that with fava beans or green beans, so I was more than happy when my IG friend Junkikat posted a recipe of edamame soup inspired from Korean soy beans and noodles: Kong-guksu. I am not familiar with Korean cuisine very much, but I was very much attracted by the simplicity of her recipe. I adapted further to my liking and pantry and ended with a delicious recipe that was extremely simple. In a sense it reminded me ramichelles, even though it has nothing much in common but the thin noodles that are so delicious in summer!!!
Edamame soup and noodles (2 servings)
75g of dry somen or vermicelli
1 handful of boiled and shelled edamame (about 3 handfuls of edamame in pods)
Water
Katsuobushi thin flakes (furikake style)
If your edamame are not boiled boil them, it’s ok to overcook them a bit. Remove the pods and skin. In a mortar, puree them. Add water little by little to obtain a very creamy paste. Once the creamy paste has been obtained, add further water to obtain a thick liquid. Boil the noodles and drain under cold water to cool them.
In a bowl serve half of the soup, add the noodles, top with katsuobushi flakes. Eat at room temperature or refrigerated.
For those that have been to Japan they know that potato salad ポテトサラダ is a quite important dish in Japanese cuisine. It is probably one of this japanized version of western food that is so popular it looks like genuine Japanese food!! You can find potato salad on the table at every party and it is so common that it can be found in combini as well. While the idea of a potatoes base salad with vegetables all creamy and mushy is very nice, just like the kabocha salad. But the problem with most potato salad is the abundance of mayonnaise that just makes it fatty and taste like mayonnaise, nothing else. I do like fresh homemade mayonnaise once in a while but I am not such a fan to bother making some in particular if I have no plan for the egg white. But I love homemade potato salad, so I just replace the mayonnaise with a simple soft boiled egg with olive oil. That’s it! It’s faster, more digest and none the less tasty! Because fast is an important condition for preparing lunch when we are back from the ocean.
So here is my potato salad recipe with all ingredients from Isumi except the olive oil from Tuscany and the salt and pepper.
Potato salad (2 servings)
3 mid size potatoes that becomes mushy when boiled
1 Japanese cucumber
5 Japanese sausages
1 egg
1tbs of olive oil
Salt and pepper
In a pan boil some water. In the meantime peel and cut the potatoes. Add to the boiling water, add the sausages, and later the egg. Boil until the potatoes are soft. The egg shouldn’t be boiled longer than 5min to keep the yolk creamy. Cut the cucumber in thin slices. Drain the potatoes and the sausages. In a bowl, set the cucumber, the potatoes. Cut the sausages in 1cm long pieces, add to the bowl, stir. The potatoes should start mushing and mix well with all the other ingredients. Add the olive oil, salt and pepper. Finally, add the egg cut roughly. Stir well again. Eat right away or later!
Every week, I am hoping for a more quieter week and every week day is getting busier and I end up with very very little time to cook… for example today my lunch was some raw carrots, a piece of Comte cheese and some nuts… as I rushed between meetings and things to do. It is also often a bowl of rice topped with something rapidly cooked (more coming about that soon). So when I manage to have just a little more time to cook I jump on the occasion and I cook some more fancy things. “Fancy” being almost exaggerated!! The season for edamame is starting now and I got some from the farmers market, which I was thinking I would just boil for a quick use in salad or with rice but then I had this little window of time for cooking and I was all set for making edamame gyoza, but then thought that as delicious it seems, it would be almost too conventional in traditional Japanese flavors, so I decided to opt for the Italian version: ravioli!!!
While making ravioli takes a little bit more time, it is so rewarding and we love them so much that it is always worth eating a bit late!!! For this edamame ravioli, I mixed in the filling the edamame and some pork meat and I dressed them simply with olive oil, salt and pepper. Here is my recipe.
Edamame ravioli
100g of flour (I used whole wheat here)
1 egg
a bit of water
100g of ground pork meat
200g of edamame
Salt, pepper olive oil
Prepare the pasta by mixing, as usual, the flour, the egg and a bit of water. Knead well and keep for 30min.
Boil the edamame. Once cooled down, shell them and remove the skin as much as possible. In a mortar puree them roughly (as on the above picture). In a frypan cook the pork meat then mix with the edamame. Add salt and pepper. Keep the frypan as it is.
Roll the pasta. Fill the ravioli and close them. Boil a large pan of water and boil the ravioli. When they float move them to the frypan with half a ladle of cooking water. Add olive oil a bit and cook 2min before serving and enjoying immediately.
Ohoh! Exploring new possibilities with edamame will last the whole season!!! This recipe of fougasse came naturally to my mind as I love to bale fougasse for summer evenings drinks or summer lunches when I need something quick.
In Japanese bread shops you can sometimes find edamame and gouda breads, and I like them very much, but the idea of a simpler version (without the gouda for A.) and with olive oil and salt tempted me a lot, that the last batch of edamame I had was used to that purpose.
The result is really nice but my recipe needs a little improvements to emphasize more the edamame. So I am sharing with you the improved version but not tested yet… but I am sure it will be delicious.
Edamame fougasse (makes 1 bread)
200g of flour
3g of yeast
7g of salt
Water
Olive oil
A handful of boiled, shelled and peeled edamame
I only use fresh edamame, so the recipe starts by boiling the pods in salted water. Once boiled and cool, shell and peel them. Add a bit of salt.
Prepare the dough of the fougasse: mix the flour, 5g of salt, the yeast, add 2tbs of olive oil, and water to obtain a soft, silky and smooth dough. Add the edamame and knead a bit. Let rest for it to rise. Once is has started to rise you can work it in the shape of the fougasse, and let rest about 30-60min depending on your room temperature.
Bake at 230deg until golden. When out of the oven spread a thin layer of olive oil and sprinkle a bit of salt. That’s it!!!
In the late spring and early summer, back then when we lived in France, my mother would often cook a potatoes salad with green beans or broad beans and new onion. Or she would prepare broad beans with tomatoes. Broad beans, or Morocco ingen モロッコインゲン, are very easy to find in Japan. In Isumi they seems to be growing quite easily, it’s on the farmers market stall from early June. (Oh! By the way, it seems that the name “ingen” comes from the name of a monk that imported green beans to Japan a few centuries ago!!)
Like my mother, I like to prepare broad beans, and a potato salad is always handy because it can be prepared ahead of time and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. Perfect lunch for a busy day. Though I live the dressing my mother prepare for this salad – her classic recipe is here – I wanted to test the new katsuo flakes from Katsuura I bought recently and I am also trying to finish the last umeboshi from last uear to make space for the new ones that will be arriving in a few weeks. The dressing for my potatoes and broad beans salad was all set. The mixture of flavors, familiar yet newly combined made this recipe really super easy and delicious. So here it is.
Japanese flavors potatoesand broad beans salad (serves 2)
150g of new potatoes
200g of broad beans
1 large umeboshi
A handful of katsuo flakes
1tbs of soya sauce
1tbs of olive oil
Boil the potatoes and broad beans. Do not over cook the broad beans. Drain. In a bowl add the vegetables, extract the flesh of the plum, scatter it on the vegetables. Add the olive oil, the soya sauce, top with the katsuobushi. Serve at room temperature or cold.
I never thought I would… until we moved to our new apartment where the kitchen doesn’t have an oven yet and we are still not sure about the renovations we want to do and given the circumstances we prefer to wait a bit… I don’t see myself stopping telework, I’ve always loved it… and always hated train commute. Nor spending the whole week in the country, it would be too tempting to go surfing and work in the garden instead during the day… and I would start working at night…
So, no oven… I’ve tried to bake bigger breads on Sunday but they are so good that they barely last until Wednesday morning in the best of the best scenario… the rest of the week, I make pancakes… but I get board of plain pancakes, and nothing is better than bread (but croissants and pains au chocolat… but honestly they are just air and they feed us enough to not starve 2h later… and lunch is usually more 4 or 5h later…
Bread is the only option and I remember seeing recipe of breads in crockpot, in cocotte… so I was tempted to try. In Tokyo I have neither crockpot nor cocotte. I have a pan with a more less fitting cover… more less because my pan once felt and since then it is more an ovaloid than a perfect circle!!!!
The bread making and kneading is just the same as usual. The rest time also for the first rise. For the second I read that it can be done while the pot is heating, and I tested the first time, but for me it didn’t work, so I just shaped my bread as a ball, laid it on kitchen paper in the pan and waited 1h. Then turn on the gaz rather high and covered and cooked until the bottom was golden. Then I flipped the bread and cooked on the other side. It avoids the thick crusty bottom and the risk of heart of bread not well cooked, and that’s what made my second pan bread perfect.
Cooking bread in a pot may not seems straightforward but it works very well… and I was surprised about it!!!
