Cocotte

I always buy pork from Isumi when possible, for it is really tender and soft. My preference: pork belly (豚バラ – butabara) for the taste (but I only eat it when it’s ultra cooked and the fat has melted, and it’s all crispy) and pork filet (ヒレ – hire) because there is no fat and it’s really tasty. With the cold weather lasting a bit too long, I’ve opted for a nice cocotte of veggies with pork filet and pork belly for two meals in one preparation. In my Staub cocotte I first put a little of olive oil, then line the slice of pork belly, then I’ve cut 8 little carrots in halves and added them, 6 big shiitake sliced thickly, a piece of lotus root sliced thinly, one yellow paprika sliced. Plenty of thyme and fresh rosemary, salt pepper and the pirk filet. I cooked under cover for 45min and stirred every 15min. I served only the veggies and the pork belly for lunch, and kept the filet for an other meal. I kept the whole cocotte as such because I wanted to keep the juice for some pasta also (I just boiled some anneli siciliani that I rolled in the juice and keep to serve with the filet).

March 24, 2016

One plate lunch

Despite being officially spring, this weekend has been rather cloudy and chilly so I wanted to prepare a warm dish for lunch, I first boiled some green lentils, added with a few coral lentils too hoping the color will sustain, but it vanished in the green (learn your lesson, better boil them separately). Then I prepared some ashitaba (angelica) rolls with pork meat. I find that ashitaba goes very well with potatoes and pork, and also eggs (see my post on ashitaba here).
It’s very simple, you need some fresh ashitaba, thin slices of pork cutlet, one egg battered, bread crumbs. Roll a little bundle of ashitaba into a slice of pork, then pass it into the egg and finish with the bread crumbs. I fixed with a little toothpick and then cook them in a fry-pan with a bit of oil until golden.
For the vegetarian version (the one on the top of the plate in the picture), cut the the ashitaba roughly, mix with the egg and the bread crumbs and make some patties that you cook in the fry-pan too. I served it with the warm lentils and a few tomatoes. Bon appetite!

March 22, 2016

Donburi

Ashitaba are in season and this little green is delicious with grilled pork, and nothing easier then puttibg the mix on top of rice and add some sesame. I just cut in little pieces thin slices of pork cutlet from which I remove all the fat. Then add the ashitaba chopped. Cook everything in a pan under cover and serve on top of freshly cooked rice. Simple & delicious as usual!!

February 23, 2016

Miso-parsley-pork meat balls

Nothing better than a one-bowl meal for a perfect lunch. Donburi are really easy to prepare in endless seasonal variations, with meat, fish or vegan, with white rice, brown rice, a mox of grains…

For this one I used plain white rice, seasonal veggies: turnips, carrots and shiitake, and prepare miso meat balls. For that I used pork meat, about 100g, 1 egg, 2 or 3 branches of parsley, 2 table spoons of panko, and 2 table spoons of miso (of your choice). I mix all together and cook the balls in a frypan until golden. The mix miso-parsley is really delicious!

January 11, 2016

Ravioli testing

Too happy to have found the cooking gears I was looking for in Rome and the super Sicilian flours, I couldn’t wait to try them so I decided to make ravioli of course. For the filling since we arrived late on 31st I didn’t have so many options left for shopping, so I decided it’d be pork filet and shiitake. For the pasta I used my usual recipe (1 egg for 100g of flour), but used the “semolina di grano duro” instead of regular flour. The pasta is much drier and easy to roll, and the taste is perfect. I used the ravioli rack, but my filling was not smooth enough to cut the ravioli properly, so I finished them with the roller. Both are super easy to use and I was very satisfied with the result for a first try, I don’t how I was making ravioli before! It’s so much better. It makes them perfectly regular, and the taste and size were perfect. Now I need to work a little more on my filling to have it smooth so that it’s easier to fill the ravioli, but without loosing the taste and without cheese for my husband… Many trials to come!!!

January 3, 2016

Week end lunch

Funny because I don’t often cook soba on week days, but on week end I realized we eat some quite often! I love to cook them in a simple manner, neither in soup nor cold with tsuyu, but rather just boiled with a few drops of soya sauce, accompanied with some vegetables and often meat balls. This time it’s simply Japanese pickles (carrot, cucumbee, turnip), and the meat balls are just pork with garden parsley, salt and pepper.

September 27, 2015

One-bowl lunch

I love bulgur and it’s very handy because it takes little time to cook it compared to rice for example. So I find it very convenient when I want to fix something for lunch after playing tennis. And this time the fix was really quick: pork and parsley balls, mini tomatoes, cucumber and bulgur. For the balls I roughly chopped parsley, mix it with an egg and grinded pork and cook then until golden in a pan. Ready in a very short time, full of energy, proteins and colorful! Yummy!

June 13, 2015

Cold buckwheat noodles salad

Soba is the Japanese word for buckwheat and by extension buckwheat noodles. You can find soba-ya: restaurants serving soba pretty much everywhere and there are several places accross the country famous for the production of soba that it makes them something really common. I wanted badly to mske my own noodles but on that day I realized I had no buckwheat flour, and couldn’t find some around. So I bought dried soba noodles, which are basically like dried pasta. And I prepared a cold buckwheat noodles salad with seasonal vegetables: snap peas, green peas and cucumber and served with some pork meat balls.

I just boiled the noodles, quickly boiled the peas, sliced the cucumber.

For the additional balls it can be made out of tofu or okara for a vegan dish. This time I promised some meaty dish to my husband, so I mixed some pork meat with and egg and bread crust, salt pepper and then cooked them in a frying pan under cover until golden.

For the overall seasoning I mixed a little of ponzu and sunflower oil.

May 12, 2015

Pork and vegetables in cocotte

I have a beautiful Staub cocotte that I use not often enough. It’s a pity because I love vegetables cooked in the cocotte, when the juice and extracts mix together. So today I decided to use it and prepare a Japanese style pork filet in cocotte with new onions and carrots.

In the cocotte I put a little of sunflower oil, 2 new onions cut roughly, 2 little taro potatoes and one carrot, then I lay a large pork filet on top, salt, pepper, laurel and cooked for 30-40min. (In my case the vegetables were perfect for two, but I served only half of the filet)

Once finished, I opened the cocotte and added a little of soya sauce to dilute the extracts, which gave a dark beautiful and delicious glazing, almost tasting like miso. Served with rice with soya beans and fresh pickled vegetables.

Ready to eat!

March 23, 2015