Tag: miso

Shiso fruits in miso

Shiso or perilla, is this little green plant which vibrant green leave you usually would see served with sashimi. In Japan it is used in many more than that and it’s not just about the leaves, it’s also about the flowers and the fruits. It is not a small tiny plant too, it can be the size of a small bush and it grows like weed, you have one or two the first year and by the next it already triples, and soon you will have to remove half of it!!! Shiso grows easily in the garden but you can also grow it in a planter on your balcony. Leaves are good raw chopped in salads, in omelette, with rice… in tempura too. The flowers are purple and great to decorate and are edible. And the fruits then?

They look like very very tiny fresh hazelnuts and grow on the branch after the flowers. They are in season in September and the best ways to eat them are either tempura, omelette just like the leaves, or in miso (by far my favorite). It is very very easy to prepare. But you won’t be able to eat your preparation until January of the following year!

Shiso in miso:

– shiso in branch with fruits (probably not on sales anywhere so you may need to grow your own shiso)

– regular natural miso

In terms of proportion you need in volume a ratio of 2/1 for shiso fruits and miso.

Pull the fruits from the branch (use gloves otherwise you’ll have brown fingers hard to wash out!!). Wash them and dry them with a kitchen clothe. In a bowl stir the miso and the fruit well to obtain an homogeneous paste. Put in a jar, close the lid and keep refrigerated until January, then you can eat! Perfect to eat with plain onigiri, daikon sticks… to bring a bit of the warm taste in the cold winter!!

Another quiche…

There’s nothing like a good quiche for dinner! I was missing not preparing some for a while, so I had to fix that. With the summer vegetables starting I bought plenty of zucchini at the farmers market because we love them and ones need to enjoy them when they are in season (the season in Japan is rather short and starts early). Zucchini are perfect for summer style quiche. I prepared them with okahijiki (salsola), this little plant I discovered last year. And I used miso in the egg mix to add a bit of texture and flavor. The result was a great one. Oh… and for the dough I went with a bit different recipe, something close to pasta dough, thin and crispy… Indeed while I was kneading the flour with an egg I realized it was the same start as making pasta dough (it crossed my mind to do lasagna for a second then…) but I finally added olive oil little by little to obtain a smooth dough but slightly oily compared to pasta. Something I’ll do again for sure!

Salsola and zucchini quiche

For the filling:

– 1 or 2 zucchini

– a handful of salsola

– 2tbs of miso

– 2 eggs

– some milk (or soya milk)

For the dough:

– 100g of flour

– 1egg

– olive oil

Mix the flour and the egg, add olive oil little by little and knead well. The dough must be smooth, shiny and feel a little greasy but not perspire oil!

Roll the dough into a thin circle and set on the pie dish (I used a low and large one).

Wash the vegetables, slice the zucchini and set them in the dough. In a bowl bit the eggs with the miso and the milk, add the salsola. Pour onto the zucchini.

Bake at 180deg for 30min or until golden.

I served it with some yogurt with herbs in.

Attention: miso is usually very salty so do not add salt in any of the mixes.

Spring vegetables

March/April is a busy time of the year, this is the end of the fiscal and academic year and the beginning of the new one. It is usually busy at work, with graduation ceremony, budget closing, preparation of the lectures, and new students arrival. It is also A.’s birthday and the time when cherry trees are blooming. The season also to say goodbye to winter and to mushrooms, cabbage, leek and sweet potatoes and welcome all the new spring vegetables. Last week we also had the visit of friends from Germany and Though I was busy I wanted to cook something Japanese and seasonal. Luckily I found some udo, and I remembered a nice recipe with white miso. And since I has some dried hijiki I added them to the preparation (wakame is also great, but I preferred hijiki for the black & white effect. It is a very simple recipe, delicious with very typical Japanese flavors.

Udo with white miso dressing

– 1 udo

– 20g of dried hijiki, or wakame (optional)

– 2tbs of white miso

– 1tbs of sake

– 1tsp of brown sugar

– 1tbs of white vinegar (for removing the bitterness of the udo)

Cut the udo in 4cm pieces. Peel them and slice them finely. If the udo is really large cutting them in half is better. In a large bowl put 500ml of water and the vinegar, add the udo and once in a while give a turn.

In a bowl of tepid water add the hijiki or the wakame to rehydrate them.

In a small pan add the white miso the sugar and the sake and cook at low medium heat while stirring until creamy liquid.

Drain the udo, the hijiki, put in a bowl and stir well, add the miso dressing, stir again and serve.

Miso spring quiche

The last weekend had a real taste of spring, beautiful weather, warm air, flowers in the garden, pollen allergy e tutti quanti! And at the farmers market na no hana of course but also new potatoes and new onions with green, something in between leek and new onions somehow, and grown in Kujukuri, a few kilometers north of Isumi. To test this newly arrived vegetables, as soon as I saw them I decided to bake a quiche, with miso, tofu and na no hana. The recipe is quite aimple and straight forward. First prepare some dough for the pie crust. I used some whole wheat flour and olive oil. Roll and set in a pie dish. Then in a bowl beat 3 eggs, 3 table spoon of miso and add a piece of momendofu (hard tofu). Beat well, and pour in the pie crust. Wash the vegetables and add more or less elegantly in the mixture. Bake at 180deg for 40min. Et voilà!

Spinach and miso

Last week I had a food shopping spree at Wakuwaku in Otaki, and I bought different types of miso. I love miso, in soup of course, but also as a dip, or in many recipes as an ingredient. This time I used it in two spinach recipes. White miso with spinach and chrysanthemum and regular granulous miso in the egg base of a spinach and ham quiche. It’s the season for chrysanthemums and I like to use them for tr bright yellow and the very distinctive taste they have. They are perfect in a chutney with onions, as an addition to roasted vegetables or here with spinach. So here are my two recipes, both very simple, but if like me you love miso and spinach, they should make you happy.

Spinach and miso quiche:

– a bundle of spinach,

– 3bs of miso (white or regular)

– 3 eggs

– a bit of ham diced (optional)

– flour, butter or olive oil, water for the pie crust

Prepare the pue crust as you like it. I used spelt and whole wheat flour. Roll it to the size of your pie dish. And set it. Wash and chop the spinach, in a bowl beat the eggs with the miso, add the spinach, and the ham, set in the pie crust. Bake at 180deg for 25min. Longer if your pie dish is deep. No need to add salt since the miso is already salty enough.

Spinach and white miso:

– 1 bundle of spinach

– 1 cup of dashi

– 2 flowers of chrysanthemum

– 1tbs of white miso

Wash the spinach a boil them in dashi. In the last minute add the petals of the chrysanthemum flowers. Drain them well, add the miso and stir with the hands. Serve and enjoy with a Japanese meal: rice, grilled fish…

Have a great Sunday!!

Two simple Japanese recipes

With some guests from France at home this weekend I cooked some simple Japanese recipes that they could reproduce back home. And because the weather was really terrible I could take all the time needed to chop thinly the vegetables and prepare recipes I usually don’t.

The two recipes I prepared were daikon and miso, and some kinpira gobo (without the red pepper). 

Daikon and miso: 

– 1/2 daikon

– 2 tbs of miso of your choice

– 1/2L of dashi of your choice: konbu, katsuo, niboshi… 

Cut the daikon in 3cm slices, peel them. Prepare the dashi and when boiling cook the daikon. It is ready when a toothpick enters smoothly. In a small bowl put the miso, add 2 or 3 tbs of dashi and stir to obtain a creamy paste. At this stage you can add yuzu peels… for a slightly enhanced version of the recipe. One the daikon is cooked, drain and top with the miso preparation. Eat while still warm.

Kinpira gobo :

 – 1 burdock

– 1 carrot

– a small piece of lotus root (optional) 

– 300ml of dashi of your choice

– 1tbs of soya sauce

– 1tbs of sake

– 1tsp of sugar

– 1 red pepper  

Peel the vegetables. Cut the burdock and gobo in thin matches sticks. Cut the lotus root and the red pepper in thin slices. In a pan boil the vegetables in the dashi. When reduced, add the sake, the red pepper, the sugar, and the soya sauce. Cook until almost dry. Add a few sesame seeds to decorate eventually.

Where is the Japanese autumn?

One thing that is really beautiful in Japan is the autumn sunny days called akibare-秋晴れ. They are usually warm and the blue of the sky contrasts vividly with the changing colors of the nature. This period usually streches until mid-November even December sometimes. This year, after the rainy summer we had, I was longing for this period, enjoying gardening and walks in the nature. But after just a very few days, we’ve entered a series of rainy days that seem simply endless. And any time I watch the weather forecast it seems it is stuck with the rain mark… but not only does it rain, it is also chilly. So nothing better to warm up than a little soup and some brown rice. For the soup I chose a cauliflower. Simply blanched it until just tender, not over cooked otherwise the taste changes. They blended it with the water and added some soya milk. Finished with salt, pepper and curcuma. The cauliflower just cooked as above, and well blended is creamy enough and doesn’t need further addition of cream or whatsoever ingredient. The brown rice, I took the time to cook it in the rice cooker, on the brown rice menu. It takes about 2h30 but it is worth doing so because it becomes very soft. Then I made rice balls, topped them with a small table spoon of miso just to cover them thinely and grilled them in a fry pan miso face down. You can also grill them in a grill or an oven. That’s it!!

Have a beautiful week! And don’t forget your umbrella if you’re in Tokyo!! 

Where is “home”?

It’s a bit of a weird week, with travel, changes, so I’m getting a bit lost!

We went to Shanghai for two days, where A. was working, abd I took this opportunity as a writing retreat when I was not disturbed abd could focus on my work. It was very productive, the weather very helpful to forced me inside with almost constant pouring rain. Just 30min of swimming in the morning and a rapid tour of the food corner of the nearby department store where it was funny to see so many Japanese products as luxury ones! We came back to Tokyo last night, this morning we received the keys of our new apartment and we are moving tomorrow within Tokyo and Sunday to Ohara. I also have quite some work to do at the lab with the students preparing some key presentations for their graduation. But, nothing’s better than a home cooked meal to get plenty of good energy and I prepared some very simple Japanese things: multigrain mixed with rice, eggplant and miso, scrambled eggs, and jumbo umeboshi. A good reason to take a little break!

staple food of grains and beans at Shanghai department store's food corner
staple food of grains and beans at Shanghai department store’s food corner

Japanese spikenard – 山ウド

Japanese spikenard – 山ウド is one of the mountain wild vegetables that sprout in spring together with fukinoto, kinome, taranome, kogomi (fiddlehead fern) etc… it is very tasty and ressembles artichokes, chards or cardoons. I find it really delicious eaten cold with a miso and vinegar mix. So here is my recipe.

Japanese spikenard with sour miso and kumquat: 

– 1 Japanese spikenard (like on the picture)

– 2tbs of miso of your choice

– 1tsp of sugar  

– 1tsp of vinegar (white wine…)

– 2 kumquats

Peal the spikenard and cut it in 4cm long pieces, then cut them in the height in 2mm thick pieces. Blanche once, then change the water and blanch again. Then drain and wash in cold water. In a bowl mix the miso, the vinegar and the sugar. Add the juice and a bit of zest of the kumquats (zest is hard to get!). Mix and add the spikenard. It’s ready!!! 

I served it with some tofu, pickled vegetables and white rice.

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