Salsola – okahijiki

Trying new vegetables is always fun! In particular when you can easily imagine how to prepare them! So when we went to the farmers market and I found okahijiki-おかひじき  I simply couldn’t wait to cook them. And with the super hot weather I thought of a simple Japanese meal again with rice, grilled fish and umeboshi, and I wanted to have some miso soup with red miso (the one more appropriate for the summer). And to make it more country-like I didn’t use katsuo bushi but rather niboshi from sardines -鰯 for the soup base. I simply added the okahijiki after washing them and removing the hardest parts to the broth and cooked them 2min. I added the red miso as usual in the end, just before serving.

Have a beautiful week!!! 

Two way meal

Or two recipes with the same ingredients. One the original version and the second a leftover version. Both delicious and easy to prepare.  The original recipe is a Japanese one: rice with green peas and red miso grilled cod. This recipe is made with simple and easy to find fresh ingredients. You need fresh cod filet, red miso (work with other miso if you can’t find red one), Japanese rice, a handful of green peas. Additionally I served also horse beans and green beans just blanched, but optional. Cook the rice in a rice cooker or in a regular pan. Add the green peas about 7min before the end of cooking. With a flexible knife spread 1tbsp of miso evenly on the fish (opposite to skin side). In a heated pan or in the oven grill the miso side of the fish. Serve when cooked to your liking. I served the fish on top of the horse beans and the green beans on the side.

With the leftovers of rice and fish I decided to make some rice croquettes, something between arancini and accras. I mixed the rice with green peas with the fish, added one egg, a little of flour and pan fry them until golden. Served with a fresh lettuce and tomatoes salad.

Have a great weekend! 

Japanese one plate

It looks
a lot like a French dish or an anywhere dish: seasonal vegetables slightly
sautéed and oven grilled cod. But I gave it a Japanese twist by glazing the
vegetables in soya sauce, a bit of sugar and mirin, and by covering the fresh
cod with a thin layer of red miso. It doesn’t take more time to prepare and it
definitely change from the olive oil sautéed. In particular the taste of red
miso is perfect with all the vegetables. How to cook Japanese without cooking
Japanese!!!

Red miso – 赤味噌

When the weather gets warmer the delicious little cucumbers are back and they are the perfect food to snack while waiting for dinner. I usually just wash them and cut them in sticks, but when I want a little extra I like to prepare a miso paste. There are different types of miso of course and all of them with different taste and features: granulous vs smooth, white vs red etc… Depending on what they are made from and how long they have fermented. At the cha kaiseki class I learned that white miso is used in winter and red in summer, because red miso has fermented longer, it is stronger in taste and saltier, which accomodates perfectly with summer veggies and fishes. So for my little snack paste I use 1 tbsp of red miso that I stir with 1tsp of vegetal (neutral) oil and 1 or 2tsp of water (depending on the consitency you expect: sticky or creamy). I stir until homogenous and serve with my little cucumber sticks. It actually is also delicious with carrots sticks and daikon sticks!

Bamboo shoot in red miso soup

Spring means greens, but also fresh bamboo shoots. Fresh bamboo is so delicious that I never miss the season and always prepare some. This year I have several ideas of recipe I wanted to try with bamboo shoots, so there might be a dew posts using bamboo shoots. The first one is a red miso soup with simply boiled bamboo shoot sliced and mitsuba. For the dashi I used only katsuobushi. It’s a very simple delicious dish that accomadtes perfectly rice and grilled chicken or grilled fish. 

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