Horse beans cold soup

Spring vegetables are getting close to the end of the season and we’re moving towards summer vegetables: zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants, melons… but before it ends, I wanted to eat a little bit more of these greens! I love so much green peas and horse beans. With the horse beans I prepared a cold soup with some croutons. It is a very simple recipe, but really delicious. Of course peeling the horse beans can be a bit of time consuming but personally I love this kind of tasks. Once it is peeled simply blend with a bit of water, add salt and pepper, if you like a spoon of yogurt, and top with freshly made fried croutons (recipe is available here). Isn’t that simple?

Have a beautiful week!

June 4, 2017

Quiche

Now that work is getting back to normally busy I have more time to cook for dinner. And sometimes things turn out better than expected, may be because I haven’t cooked for a while. A quiche is very easy to make and always delicious but sometimes it turns out even better than that. Yesterday night that’s exactly what happened to me. While I was preparing it I had a good feedback but after tasting it it was so much over the top that I couldn’t understand why. For the pie crust I made a dough with a mix of buckwheat flour, rice flour, regular flour, 2 eggs, a bit of vegetal oil and water. I rolled it thick because I wanted to make a large quiche with plenty of vegetables and tofu. The tofu was amazing. I have tried a new hard tofu and it was crazily delicious with crumbs like goat cheese or feta cheese, but a much softer taste of course. I used also my new favorite organic soya milk that since now available in most supermarkets. And for the vegetables I chose asparagus and zucchini, and twisted the taste with some green shiso (perilla) leaves. I baked the whole thing for 30 minutes. And then it was magic!!!

I am so glad we didn’t eat the whole thing and I have my lunch all set!

June 1, 2017

Weekend cooking

Beautiful weekend with our normal activities… it seems like it hasn’t happened in such a long time… probably two months or even more with all the traveling in March and April and the visitors in May, plus some bad weather… it means playing tennis, gardening, going to the seaside, and it also means some nice cooking, bread making and pasta. I made two breads: a large muesli and rye bread for breakfast, with a little addition of sugar to obtain a very savory bread, and a classic focaccia, always a success. With the temperatures rising it is so much easier to prepare bread. The risong is do much easier than in the winter. This time for the pasta, instead of making ravioli I made lasagna with my classic pasta recipe, rolled with my pasta machine, some salmon (it’s not often that there is some nice Hokkaido salmon! But recently I found some) and some fresh baby spinach, just add a bit of cream, bake and it’s ready. Really simpler than making the ravioli because you don’t have to dry the filling and wait for it to cool down and it is super delicious.

I wish you a great week ahead!

May 21, 2017

Rolled asparagus

I discovered this very simple preparation of asparagus in Japan, I don’t know if it is anywhere else as popular as it is here, but it is for sure an extremely simple recipe that goes very well for barbecue or for very quick dinner fix. It consists in rolling green asparagus in thin slice of pork. In Japan it is simple there are 4 main pieces of pork at the butcher: filet mignon, thick boneless cutlet, thinely sliced boneless cutlet, and boneless ribs or belly. For this recipe usually a fatty meat such as ribs or belly (豚バラ) is used but I prefer a less fatty meat so I use thinely sliced cutlet. You just need to wash the asparagus, I remive the hardest part, then roll them in the meat (from which I remove the fat if I don’t have time to cook them for a long time) and then grill in a pan without any grease. I serve that with rice, it is good too to had umeboshi. It it is so simple and so delicious!

May 16, 2017

Barley risotto

I’m a big fan of all kind of cereals and leguminous plants. I like to use them in many recipes. In Japan there exists many, such as adlay and millet and of course all the beans (豆) families: edamame, azuki, black beans… I also like the European or Asian ones too, barley, lentil, chickpea… that are less common. In particular barley is really nice to cook as a substitute of rice. I use it to make risotto (here is a winter recipe). It is more crunchy than rice and the texture goes very well with all kind of vegetables. This time I used in in a risotto primavera, with fresh green peas, fresh new onions, fresh green beans and fresh basil. I added some bacon for A. It is very simple to prepare. First in a. It olive oil cook the baconand the new onion. Then add the barley and rost it. Finally add water, and the vegetables. It cooks under cover for 20min and then it’s ready to eat! Don’t forget to add the vegetables in order of longer cooking time to avoid over cooking them.

May 11, 2017

Last day of GW

Here it is… the golden week is going to end soon… it’s going to be hard to leave our stray cat, the garden and the big kitchen. I have baked a dozen of breads, tarts, quiches, I have made ravioli and all sort of things. DIYed with A. and gardened quite a lot. We’ve had 10 friends visiting, went for walks in the woods, meet snakes we didn’t know about… In short, country life.

So to conclude this golden week, I would like to introduce a new recipe, inspired loosely from Pierre in Osaka: a cold new onion soup. My recipe is probably much simpler than that at Pierre, but the result was amazing. New onions are in season and I can only recommend you try!

Cold new onion soup, for 4 people as a starter

– 3 large new onion

– 15cl of fresh cream

– salt and pepper

Peel off the first skin of the onion, cut them in four, set in a pan and cover with water, add a bit of salt. Boil them until soft. Blend them with the remaining water (if not too much), add the cream. Keep at room temperature or refrigerate before serving. When serving add black pepper.

Our stray cat Holly and sleepy I enjoying some early morning quiet time

May 7, 2017

Quick pizza

Finding some fresh rucolla at the farmers market suddenly triggered my craving for a vegan fresh pizza. Nothing more simple, with the delicious little new onions and the small very ripe tomatoes I had already. Making pizza dough for the crust is really simple, and with the warm weather the rising time and proving time are really short. This time I almost didn’t let if proof and the crust was thin and crusty, delicious.

Pizza dough

– 170g of flour

– 6g of fresh yeast

– 80g of water

– 15g of olive oil

– 5g of salt

– 1tbs of sugar

As for any regular dough, mix all the ingredients and knead until smooth. Let rise for 1h in a warm place. Work the dough on a flat surface and roll it to the size and shape you want.

Now you can top it with whatever you want and preheat the oven at 200deg. For the topping I used small tomatoes halves and small new onion first, with a few drops of olive oil. I baked for 15min. Then rose the temperature to 230deg and baked an other 5-8min. Stopped the oven, add the washed rucolla and keep 2min in the hot oven before serving.

Have a beautiful weekend

May 6, 2017

Golden week

So, here we are, right in the middle of the golden week. All our friends have left and we’re planning to spend a few days doing some DIY and gardening. Having friends at home I spent a lot of time in the kitchen to prepare them my classics: breakfast with freshly baked bread, creamy scrambled eggs, local products: ham, fresh fruits… For lunch, it is more about vegetables and salads, and for dinner, since evenings are still chilly, cocotte cooked Isumi pork filet with new potatoes and angelica. And the little bonus for dessert: fruits tarts with coconut custard. All my recipes are meant to take the best of the local ingredients with simple preparations.

So here are my recipes:

Cocotte pork filet

– 1 pork filet, the size depends on the number of persons you are cooking for

– 2 large new potatoes/person

– a bouquet of fresh angelica (ashitaba)

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

Cover the bottom of your cocotte with 1mm of olive oil. Set the pork filet and start cooking at low heat. Brush the new potatoes undr water to remove soil and dust and the thickest skin. Cut them in 4, add them in the cocotte. Cook under cover for 25min, stir regularly. Wash the ashitaba, cut the hardest part. Add to the cocotte with salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the bottom is all golden, and stir a few times while cooking at high heat. Finish with a bit of olive oil to melt all the extracts. At the moment of serving cut roughly the ashitaba with scissors.

Coconut custard fruits tart

The recipe is basically the same as here except that I added some fresh coconut in the custard, and added mangoes to the strawberries. The result was 12 superb little tarts! I now often do individual fruits tarts to avoid having to cut them and damaging there beautiful balance and aspect. I also find it easier to keep them that way.

May 4, 2017

Carrot pudding

So, as promised, here is my very probable entry recipe for the recipe and cooking contest by Soy Sauce. The same I participated in last year and was selected as a finalist and received the bronze prize. I chose a recipe with very simple ingredients, that can be served as a main or a side, and that is very easy. So here it is!

Carrot pudding Japanese style

– 2 carrots of medium, large size

– a piece of ginger, about 2x2x2cm but not strictly

– 1 large egg, or two small

– 2tbs of soya sauce

Wash and cut the carrots roughly (if they are not safe from chemicals peel them). In a pan add the carrots, cover with water and add the ginger as a block. Boil until the carrots are soft. Remove the water, the ginger, pit the carrots in a food processor or blender, puréed them, add the egg and mix again, add the soya sauce and mix again to obtain an homogeneous purée. Grease an oven dish or individual oven dishes, add the preparation to the dish. You can either bake or steam the preparation. Bake in a oven at 180deg until a knife comes out clean. Or steam it. Serve directly in the individual oven dishes, or slice and serve, or rather, like Idid this time, use shapes to cut to your liking and serve. This is a perfect main course served with salad and greens; or a side, like on my picture with a pork filet deglazed in soya sauce. Bon appetit and wish me good luck for the contest!

April 26, 2017