Fresh home-made food every day
Since spring has decided to go away and winter is back, I wanted to eat a warm and thick mushrooms tart. I made the dough with buckwheat flour and olive oil (not an easy one to shape) and for the rest a mix of fresh shiitake, fresh sort of shimeji, a big block of silky tofu, 2 eggs and thyme. I put everything in a deep pie dish to obtain a thick tart, about 3cm high. All in the oven for 30min and ready to eat just out from the oven. Nothing too innovative but always a warming choice.
I love pizza, all kind of dough, and simple toppings. So I’ve decided to make some, with a baker dough, slightly thick. The dough recipe is from my bakery book and was super easy to do, and for the topping I used the same tomato sauce as for the sardines, less spicy, fresh mushrooms and cheese for me, ham and fresh mushrooms for my husband who doesn’t like cheese!! Eaten just warm after the whole morning gardening!!
We don’t celebrate Easter much since we live in Japan, but we always receive treats from France to remind us that Easter has come. Besides the chocolates that are not available in Japan because Easter is not a traditional event, Easter means also “spring”, often sakura blossom, colorful plates and colorful table decorations. But this year it is a very cold and rainy Easter, a lot of the new vegetables are not yet available and I only found a limited choice of greens at the local farmers cooperative. Basically snap peas and asparagus. And of course the delicious ashitaba. So my Easter lunch menu was rather simple. Some sauteed new vegetables and ashitaba gnocchi. I told you I make gnocchi of everything and I will show you some more recipes with ashitaba. Truly ashitaba suits very well dishes with potatoes, so I assumed that it would work well for gnocchi, and it did. It is supper simple, just adding blended ashitaba leaf to the potatoes, and prepare the gnocchi as usual. I served them with a fruity olive oil and a little of ashitaba-tomato sauce. For the legumes sauteed I roughly cut one new onion, added some snap peas and finally some asparagus in a bit of olive oil in a wok. For the chocolate eggs, we received more than enough from France, I decided to do nothing special! What did you cook for your Easter lunch?
A great day starts with a great breakfast. For this morning I prepared chocolate and walnuts little breads, just out from the oven. And a fresh smoothie with pineapple, cantaloupe melon and strawberries. How about you? How do you start your day?
When in a hurry, pasta are quite handy to fix a dinner. But pasta without sauce… So This time I made a rapid topping with one new onion, half paprika and a piece of thick fried tofu (aburage). All cut in small pieces, cooked brieftly in olive oil and seasoned with oregano and laurel, salt and pepper. Delicious with pasta, but also gnocchi and risotto.
Every one knows wasabi, this green paste very hot eaten usually with sushi. Actually wasabi is a plant and the green paste is obtained from the stem, peeled and grated. In spring, the leaves of wasabi can be eaten. It’s a delicate vibrant green leaf that is better slightly steamed or boiled and that accomodates very well rice and Japanese dishes.
I cooked it in a vegan version of a Japanese meal, with miso and sesame eggplants, pickled vegetables, rice with cereals and the wasabi leaves just steamed and served with ponzu.
A few years ago we went to visit Hachijojima, an island down south of Tokyo in the Pacific that belongs to Tokyo actually. Besides being a lovely place, famous for their handwoven beautiful fabric used to make kimonos, their is one typical product from there: angelica, or ashitaba (明日葉).
Ashitaba is a green leaf that doesn’t smell much but once cooked as a very typical taste. Something that once you have tried you want to eat again! In France it is use to make sweets (the green slighly discusting sticks Of candied fruit on gateau des rois for example). While we were in Hachijojima we had ashitaba tempura, ashitaba sherbet and a few other variations. Completly enfatuated with this taste I bought a cooking book of ashitaba there, which presents a great variety of recipes, from rice with ashitaba to green smoothies, so not just typically Japanese recipes. They grow some ashitaba in Chiba prefecture, so when spring comes I easily can buy some in Ohara. In Tokyo, department stores and Yoshiike definitely have some. I tried a few recipes from the book at home to get used to processing ashitaba and came out with a few simple recipes on my own now. My super favorite is ashitaba-mashed potatoes. It makes a perfect combination, and it is really a great match with scrambled eggs, grilled pork…
An other nice combiniation is to use ashitaba as a substitute for basil. With tomatoes and olive oil, perfect to top with some pasta.
I’m still trying new recipes while the season of ashitaba goes on, so you may from it again!
A quick recipe for a power lunch: buckwheat flour, 2 eggs, some cheese, a few spinach. Mixed altogether and cooked as a thick galette. Prepared in 1 min, cooked in 7 min, perfectly delicious and full of energy for busy afternoon.
As I was telling you earlier, spring means a lot of fresh wild vegetables. After the fukinoto the bamboo shoot is probably the next to be found in Isumi area. In particular, the area close to Ohtaki is particularly great for delicious takenoko (bamboo shoot in Japanese). It’s also a great fun to go and pick them. This variety of bamboo shoot is the large one (8 to 15cm diameter), there exists a small one (1 to 3cm) that arrives later and that is even much more fun to pick.
Preparing fresh bamboo shoot is really easy, though a bit time consuming. First of all you need to peel the hard and hairy skin. It peels like a artichoke, so it’s really easy.
Then you need to boil it in something that would remove the bitterness of the wild shoot. In supermarket they often sells nuka (what is used for the pickles) and I was using that until I learn from an old lady at the local farmers cooperative that the first wash of rice was perfectly efficient. Since then I’ve usjng that, and believe me it’s much easier to clean than nuka. You need to boil for 30 to 60min, until soft (you can pick a toothpick easily in). Once cold you can cut and then boil in dashi for 15min. I used katsuo dashi. You can eat now, or add to rice for a “takenoko gohan”. For this I start cooking the rice as usual, then at mid cookjng time I add the bamboo shoot sliced vertically and a little of soya sauce. Delicious to accompany red snapper or bonito.
Ideally you would serve takenokoto with leaves of “ki no me” the leaves of the mountain pepper tree (sansho), mine in the garden is not yet ready…
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