Cocotte cooking

I really love to cook with my Staub cocotte. It suits a lot of ingredients but I’m still a novice so I learn little by little how it works. I am always very happy with the result. It’s very tasty and delicious, but I find that it makes plating really hard because all the ingredients tend to mix and color the same. So I need to work on that a lot. My basic recipe is plenty of veggies and a little of meat, pork usually. For today’s recipe I used lotus roots, carrots and sato imo, and for the base leeks. Olive oil and rosemary. That’s it! How do you use your cocotte? Tell us about your recipes!!!

January 30, 2017

Canola with miso

It is nice to change shopping place once in a while because different markets have different products and it opens up to new opportunity for trying new recipes or new combinations. So this weekend instead of shopping in Ohara I shopped in Kuniyoshi, a small village 10km away. I love their coop shop because they have many different products in particular for fish and meat. So I got a beautiful sashimi of sabre fish and prepared it very simply with white rice, canola boiled in dashi and served with miso (one classic use of canola in Japanese cuisine), and I pan fried some tiny lotus roots and the fish. That’s it!

Canola with miso – 味噌和え菜の花

– 1 bundle of canola

– 1 small handful of katsuobushi

– 1 tbsp of miso of your choice

Wash quickly the canola under running water, remove the hardest parts if any. In a pan boil 1/3L of water, add the katsuobushi in a dashi bag. Bring to a boil. Add the canola and cook for 5min. Drain and rince with cold water. Squeeze them gently to remove all the water. Cut in 3 or 4 the whole bundle. Serve woth miso on top. (You can also mix the miso with it but it might break the leaves and flowers, so I prefer not to)

January 29, 2017

Empty fridge cooking

Or what to do with 3 old branches of celery… because when the weekend comes I usually start to run out of fresh vegetables, waiting for the weekend in the countryside to refill. So last night my fridge was looking really sad with a few old branches of celery, a piece or parmigiano and a pack of gnocchi. But that was just enough and perfect for a late dinner. Boiling the celery and blending it to a thick cream, adding olive oil, salt and pepper. And serving with gnocchi and gratted parmegiano. Have a beautiful weekend!

January 28, 2017

Some more green & pasta!

When I look at my food pictures these days it’s a lot of green that I see! Most of my recent preparations included leek, canola, spinach, celery, ice plant, sprouts, lettuce… Even though it’s winter we don’t get bored eating only cabbage and potatoes! Luckily Chiba has a mild weather and many different veggies grow all year round. I remember cooking a lot of pink/purple food last year at this time of the year because I could find red cabbages, but this winter I haven’t found any yet. Anyway, green is delicious, and I prepared a kind of dry veggies and pasta soup with 1 leek, 3 branches of celery, and some little spinach. As usual, I start by cooking the leek and celery in a bit of olive oil, then cover with water and pasta for soup, once all the water has disappeared I add the spinach for one or two minutes and serve. I added some freshly gratted parmegiano. An other way to cook and eat pasta!

January 27, 2017

Barley risotto style

I love barley but I don’t cook some too often. An other curiosity of what happens in a kitchen! May be it’s because I have the impression it is only good for soup or that it takes too much time too cook. But actually it is not and in risotto style with veggies, or in salad it it really delicious and changes from classic recipes. And in the middle of winter, with winter veggies it is a delicious meal.

Barley risotto style with fresh veggies: 100g of barley, 1 leek, 1/3 cauliflower, 1 hand full of little spinach, olive oil, salt and pepper. In a pan heat the olive oil; cut the leek and add it to the oil, strir at low heat until soft. Add the barley and cover to twice the height with water. Cook under cover 15min at medium heat or until almost all the water is gone. Add salt pepper, the cauliflower washed and cut, the spinach washed and cut. Cook 3min and serve immediately.

January 24, 2017

Sicilian inspired pasta

After browsing my Sicilian cuisine cookbook I had a lot of new inspirations and ideas, and a crave for pasta. I love so much pasta and Italian cuisine that sometimes I wish I could live in Italy or travel there more than once a year! So for the inspiration it was on using pistachios, something I really barely use, may because I prefer them salted and usually they would be used in sweet or dessert recipes. And since I bought a big bundle of fresh celery at the farmers market, I made a very simple vegan spaghetti dish. I boiled spaghetti. In a small pan I hested olive oil, chopped 2-3 tbs of pistachios (I did it with a knife but you can use an electric chopper). Add them to the pan and stir regularly. Chopped 3 celery branches with a bit of the leaves but not too many, add to the pistachios and continue stirring. Drained the pasta, and served, top with the celery-pistachios mix. And have a nice week!

January 23, 2017

Grilled miso onigiri – 味噌焼きおにぎり

The other day while browsing my IG feed, I saw the beautiful picture of grilled onigiri (rice balls) from my IG friend Junko @junkikat. And instantly I wanted to eat some. I love grilled miso onigiri, but for some obscure reason I never make some… Junko nicely gave me her recipe and I slightly adapted it to what I had in my fridge and my pantry. So here is what I did: first cook some Japanese rice. While it was cooking I prepare a mix of miso, I had only rustic granulous miso, so I used that one, 2 tsp. Then instead of the mirin I used a little bit of rice oil and vinegar, just a few drops. Vinegar can be replaced by a few drops of sake. And then added 1/2 tsp of sugar. Stir well to obtain a homogeneous mixture. Make the rice balls by taking 1/2 of rice in wet hand and shape them as you like with one flat surface for the miso. Spread the miso on the flat surface and then grill them in the oven or in a fry pan. I used the pan because I have a huge oven and I found that silly to turn it on just for that. So I flipped the onigiri miso side on the heated pan (grease it a bit if it is not anti-adhesive) and wait a few minutes until the miso starts to golden. Serve with what you like. For this time it was scrambled eggs and a simple salad with tomato, carrot and ice plant.

January 22, 2017

Vegan burger

A. is always asking for burgers so I prepared him a special vegan burger with homemade vegan patties, avocado spread and plenty of salad, really plenty, as he lives salad a lot. I guess what he really wants when he says burger is a bloody steack and fries… but I tried to be inventivd and to have a very tasty combination and if worked cery very well. Beware, contrarily to most of the recipes I post this one takes a bit more time, but is very simple. I used what I had in the fridge for that so yoocan adjust easily with yours!

For the patties, inspired by Prunellia’s recipe of pancake seeds:

1 cup of quinoa, mind was black, but red or white works well, can be replaced by bulgur, red beans, rice…
a handfull of pumpkin seeds
a handfull of sunflower seeds
1/2 cup of flax seeds, here I used brown, but blond work too,
2 large sato/taro imo, can be replaced by boiled chickpeas, boiled red beans…

For the filling:

1 ripe avocado
lemon juice
salt and pepper
green beans sprouts or any other sprouts: brocoli, alfalfa…
a lettuce

First grill the sato/taro imo in the oven with the skin until soft and creamy inside. In the mean time boil the quinoa until slightly softer than usual and drain if needed. Peel the sato/taro imo and cut in pieces, add to the quinoa. Add all the seeds, stir well to obtain a thick paste. In a frypan greased with olive oil make 1-1.5cm thick patties of about 8-10cm diameter and cook them until golden on both side. I prepared 2 per person. They are good cold or warm. You can rheat them in the oven if needed. Manipulate with care because they can break easily.

Chop the lettuce, smash the avocado and add lemon juice, salt and pepper. Wash the sprouts. Now you are ready to make the burgers. I used half of the avocado spread per person. I spread a thick layer on on patty, added the sprouts and flipped over the other patty. Served on top of the lettuce, finish with a little of olive oil. Et voila!!!

The sato/taro imo give a very good texture to the patties and help them to keep their shape, the creamy avocado it perfect with the crunchy patties, and the sprouts add freshness. I’ll do it again!!!!

January 20, 2017

Canola – 菜の花

The season has come already for canola – 菜の花 – nanohana. They mark that we are now heading towards the coldest times of the year and slightly more gloomy. January is marked by beautiful weather and it moves slowly into more rainy days. The bright green of the leaves and yellow of the flowers are illuminating these cold days and given a very first taste of spring. They also offer a good green option to spinach and cabbage! They can be cooked in many different ways and are part of Japanese traditional preparation of the season. I’ve already presented a few different, not very classic, recipes with canola: a quiche, an omelet…

Today I tried a new preparation and used the canola as I would use broccoli or cauliflower. I prepared it with chickpeas (boiled before) and with carrots. I first cooked the carrots in a bit of olive oil, then added the chickpeas, a tsp of cumin powder, salt, pepper, then added the washed and cut canola, and cooked under cover for s few minutes until the green leaves become very bright. Then I just added a little of olive oil, stirred and served. That’s all!

January 19, 2017