Tag: original

Autumn ravioli

Last Friday a strong windy typhoon passed nearby, and we had a few things to fix in the garden Saturday when we went on our usual inspection. The wind chopped a palm tree in two, many dried branches felt and a bit of cleaning was more than necessary. While doing so, A. found a few chestnuts fallen from our tree that animals haven’t had time to touch yet. A few meaning exactly 5.

But that was perfect. With the butternut squash I had and the dried porcini I just bought at an Italian grocery store newly found in Tokyo, dinner was all decided. It would be ravioli. And that came to a more satisfying recipe for A. when I told him I could use some local sausages too. We were so hungry and happy with ravioli for dinner that I didn’t even take 1min to take a picture!!! The only I had taken was the ravioli before cooking them.

So here is my recipe, simple as usual and very very tasty! I opted for super jumbo ravioli to enjoy the filling, but you can make smaller ones too.

Autumn ravioli (2 servings)

  • Same as usual for the pasta: 100g of flour, 1 egg, water
  • 5 chestnuts
  • 200g of raw pumpkin, butternut squash…
  • Dry of fresh porcini (10 pieces dry, 2 mushrooms fresh)
  • optional: fresh sausage (I use local sausage)
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper

Start by boiling the chestnuts. While they gently do, prepare the dough for the pasta, and let it rest while you prepare the rest. Which is to peel and chop the butternut and boil it with very little water or best steam it, until soft. Return the dry porcini in tepid water, or if you use fresh ones, wash and slice them. By then the chestnuts should be ready, and after cooling down a bit peel them. If you use sausage, remove the skin if the sausage. Then in a pan mix together he butternut, the chestnuts chopped, the sausage, salt and pepper, cook at low heat while stirring, mashing to obtain a rather puréed filling.

Roll your dough, and make the ravioli.

Boil enough water for the ravioli (if you used dried porcini add the water used to returning them in there too). In the meantime in a large pan sautéed in olive oil the porcini, add salt and pepper. Boil the ravioli and add to the pan. Stir gently and serve in the plates for immediate enjoyment!!!! Et voila!!!

Wafu pasta 和風パスタ

If you’ve been following me for a bit you are no stranger to the fact that I LOVE pasta. All kind!!!

Wafu pasta are a common thing on our table, even if for Italian people I reckon this is a terrible thing. But honestly… it is delicious, and since it mainly involves spaghetti or capellini, one could almost consider them as noodles… sorry if I make a big leap here!!!

Wafu pasta to me are a mix of Japanese vegetables, soya sauce, sesame oil, sesame or nori topping etc… this time my recipe is super simple and really tasty: leek, mizuna, sesame oil, sesame seeds and a good doze of soya sauce, with half whole wheat spaghetti. That’s how much simple lunch can be!!

How do you like your wafu pasta???

Pan fried ravioli

In an attempt to practice my gyoza dough making and rolling I decided to make some pan fried ravioli using a vegan dough recipe which is only water and flour, and therefore the recipe of gyoza skin, and filled with Japanese salted salmon, spinach and ricotta. So I found it hard to know how to call them… these are not strictly speaking ravioli, nor gyoza either… but a kind of mixture of both. Well what is important is that they were really delicious and it doesn’t take much time to make them and it was a good rehearsal for making gyoza soon. Indeed, ravioli are made from a flat sheet of pasta, but for gyoza they are rolled one by one, so I needed a bit of practice to remind myself how much dough is needed to roll one skin. All you need is just a nice top well dusted to roll them quickly. So here is my recipe…

Pan fried ravioli (for 16-20 pieces)

For the dough:

– 100g of flour

– water

– a pinch of salt

– more flour for dusting

In a bowl mix the flour and salt, add water bit by bit while kneading. Stop when the dough is soft and smooth. Leave to rest for an hour if you have time.

Filling:

Choose what pleases you, I used Japanese salted salmon, spinach and ricotta. I boiled and drained very well the spinach. Add the salmon, and a bit of ricotta. As the salmon is already quite salty, I used nothing but a bit of black pepper.

Ok, then! Now the fun can start!!!

You need a clean top or a wide wooden cutting board. Dust it generously. Pick a 1cm diameter ball of dough and roll it with a rolling pin to the thinness and diameter you like. I like thin, but not too thin as filling is then a pain. So I rolled to about 8cm diameter. Then filled and closed the ravioli. When I made enough pieces to fill a frypan I heated it, and greased it with olive oil. Then throw the ravioli. I cooked at medium heat until golden, flipping them regularly. That’s it!

Why I love Instagram… inspiration…

There are few social media I really like or use… I joined facebook a longtime ago to try and as an alternative to my first blog, but never get too convinced except that my professional community is very active there and it helps to get the hot news quickly… Twitter never attracted me, and I only created an account when forced at work as part of my role of publicity committee member… this account is now closed… Pinterest was great when we were refurbishing our house to make idea boards… until the next house (maybe sooner than I think!) I probably won’t use it anymore… The rest… not even tried… my bad… but only Instagram won my heart and I have a steady instagrammer for now a little more than 7 years. Posting 1 picture a day has been my routine since I opened my account. But more than sharing my daily life and food recipes, it has been a tremendous source of inspiration. I love to browse the pictures of seasonal food that echoed to what I have in my fridge or in the garden; from the picture to guess how it could prepared, or plated and how I could recreate or adjust it to our liking… sometimes it just creates a craving… seeing 3 or 4 pictures in a row of beautifully golden quiche, or replete ravioli and dinner is all decided! Sometimes it takes more time to mature and after I thought it over for a few days I test something… That’s how I tested handkerchief pasta, stuffed bread etc…

Yesterday while going to work, after my usual morning post I was scrolling down my IG feed and got captured by a sweet potato and coconut milk soup (don’t ask me which account… I can’t remember :()… and miracle, I just had a large sweet potato waiting to be cooked in the very bottom of my fridge and bought coconut cream the day before… stars were aligned! So what did I do when I came home last night????

I prepared a fragrant sweet potato soup, and here is the recipe, perfect for a cold day like we have right now in Tokyo.

Sweet potato & coconut fragrant soup (for two, as main dish)

– a large sweet potato

– 200ml of coconut cream

– a large pinch of salt

– 1tsp of turmeric

– 1/2tsp of chili powder

– 1/2tsp of ground black pepper

Peel and boil until very mushy the sweet potato in enough water. Add salt. In a blender add the potato and cover with the cooking water. Blend. Add the coconut cream and blend. If too thick add more of the cooking water. Move to a large pan, heat again and add the spices. Serve very very warm.

How do you get your inspiration for your new recipes? Does a picture only inspires you like me? Or do you prefer a full story/recipe?

Has anyone tested Feedpost or is a user??? I just realized and was surprised they ranked In Gentiane’s kitchen in their ranking of top 100 home cooking blogs!!! And I was wondering if I should also use it for further inspiration…

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!!!

Stuffed bread

This all started with a picture that I saw on my IG feed one morning from Jul’s kitchen. I’ve been following her for quite some time now. Her recipes always make me want to be in Tuscany and when two years ago (whoa… It seems like ages ago!!!) we actually were thinking about moving to Florence and went there repeatedly I asked her recommendations about places to shop delicious things in Florence and they were gold. Well, just to say that her blog makes me dream of Tuscany… so… back to that picture I saw very likely on my way to work, last winter I guess… it was a savory stuffed pastry… it looked wonderful and I thought about doing some for a long time, but every strictly new recipe requires to mature in my head and to find the proper timing of ingredients and preparation. It’s only the other day that the winter vegetables started to be back in particular the cabbages, the spinaches and that I bought some pork ribs.

All was finally there to make the stuffed bread. But instead of a pastry dough or a brioche I decided to go with some straight white flour bread dough. The result was a very very delicious and warm meal, perfect for a rainy evening like today. Here is my recipe.

Stuffed bread (2 generous portions)

– 150g of flour

– 10g of salt

– 5 g of yeast

– water

– 1/2 small Chinese cabbage or 1/4 large

– a bundle of spinach

– 150 of pork ribs thinly sliced (豚バラ)

– pepper

– sesame seeds

Prepare the bread dough 1 or 2h before hand: mix the flour, the salt, the yeast, add water little by little and knead until the dough is soft and smooth. Leave to rest in a warm place under a moist cloth for 1 or 2 hours.

In the meantime, in a frypan cook the meat until golden. Wash and pat dry the vegetables.

Roll the dough with a pin, set the meat in the middle, top with the vegetables. Add some pepper. Fold the dough and close it. Flip the bread to have it upside down. Top with sesame seeds. Leave for proving about 30min and then bake at 230deg for 18min. Serve hot!

Autumn days

With the sudden change in weather, my inspiration is back! Though I’m still tired of the rainy weekends and sunny week days (when at work… when I’d rather be in my garden…), I’ve been busy with some sewing projects, perfect for the weather. A. has challenged me to make a cover for his surfboard, and I think I did something quite great, that needs just the final touch. In the meantime, my neighbor came to me last week with some cotton fabric to make a yukata for A. and I’ve taken up the challenge!! I’ve completed it!!

Cooking-wise, with the almost cool evenings, it’s been really agreeable to cook and knead. And I’ve come up with a new ravioli recipe (coming later this week), salmon croquettes and other delights for the palate!!!

Let’s start today with the salmon croquettes! This is the season for autumn salmon 秋鮭 and I really like it. It goes well with fresh ginger which is also in season. I bought half a salmon and we ate it grilled first, but with so much I could definitely do another meal! So here is my recipe:

Salmon and coriander croquettes

– 150-200g of fresh salmon, better if grilled and leftover

– a handful of fresh coriander leaves

– 1tbs of panko

– 1 egg

Remove the skin and bones of the fish (if not grilled then grill it first). Crumble it in a bowl. Add the egg and panko. Wash and chop the coriander. Add and stir well. In a greased heated pan make small balls with the mix and cook until golden on each side. Serve with grated ginger and with whatever you like!

Lack of inspiration

I don’t know if it’s the super hot and humid weather, the hard time we’ve had with jetlag (it took almost two weeks to recover with a permanent impression of being tired, feverish, and to have a cold), or the impression that the summer is over and somebody (Mr. bad weather) still it from me… as it was way too short… but I have difficulties in finding inspirations to cook. For I don’t know how many days our meals have consisted of pasta and vegetables. Not that I don’t like them… but still… or of rice and umeboshi… But even if I have time to cook I don’t have the energy or the inspiration… because nothing attracts me anymore. I reject the autumn vegetables, too early!, and I am not enthused with the late summer ones anymore…

So last night I decided to cook something I don’t cook often but we love: a potato salad with fresh greens, a rich yogurt dressing and herbs plenty. And this morning, the first autumn day was here! Temperature under 30 and a nice breeze… so now I will start cooking a lot more butternut squash, kabocha, shiitake and other mushrooms! But still, here is the potato salad recipe, because what is good is good!!!

End of summer potato salad

– 3 or 4 potatoes

– 1/2 branch of celery

– 1 cucumber

– fresh coriander leaves

– fresh sprouts: broccoli, soya…

– 1/2 cup of greek or nordic yogurt, drained

– olive oil, salt, pepper

Boil the potatoes and peel them. Slice them. Wash and cut in thin slices the cucumber. Cut in 5mm cubes the celery. Wash the sprouts and the coriander.

In a bowl, put the potatoes, the yogurt and the olive oil, salt and pepper, stir well. It doesn’t matter if you crush the potatoes. Add the vegetables, stir again, the sprouts, stir and serve! That’s it!

Ugly yummy ravioli

I must say that I hesitated a lot before posting the picture of these ravioli but then remembering them each time I watched them in my photo list, how delicious they were, I couldn’t not share them with you. And anyway you know that plating is not something I am very good at, probably because we are always starving by the time food is ready as I always start thinking about preparing something to eat once I am hungry and A. is stomping in the kitchen asking when food will be ready… and when he will be able to eat… so at some point efficiency enters the equation and things get ugly… yet delicious…

And that exactly the story of these ravioli made with the leftovers of the bouillabaisse my way fish and fresh edamame. Instead of eating the fish with rice in a Japanese way I wanted to make pasta… and make fish ravioli. When all set about fish ravioli and I got started with the flour I realized I put all the remaining eggs in the brioche for breakfast (and since we are traveling to Europe soon I keep my fridge minimally occupied)… whatever… I thought, I made vegan ravioli in the past in a kitchen take over and could do without the egg. Then I realize that once the bones removed the piece of fish I had wouldn’t fill many ravioli, so I browsed my fridge and hesitated between butternut squash or edamame… but really we’re just mid august and I don’t want the summer to end yet so I opted for edamame. And here is the full recipe of these ugly yummy ravioli!!

Edamame and fish ravioli

– 100g of flour

– 2tbs olive oil

– a bit of water

Mix the flour and olive oil, add water until you obtain a hard ball. Knead well until soft. Add a bit of water if necessary. Your vegan dough is ready.

– a piece of white meat fish cooked: steam, court-bouillon, grilled… I used the olive flounder from the bouillabaisse.

– a handful of edamame

Boil the edamame and peel them. Remove the bones of the fish. In a bowl mix them together crushing the edamame. When you obtain a crumbly purée it is good enough.

Now just roll the dough and make the ravioli as usual. Finally boil them, dress them with olive oil, salt and pepper and a few more edamame… or find a much nicer way to dress them and tell me what you did!!!

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

Up ↑

Verified by MonsterInsights