Fresh home-made food every day
An other of my simple vegan dinner, this time 100% Japanese. With a konbu dashi miso soup with tofu and myoga and a bowl of rice topped with sauteed veggies: shishito, carrots, burdock and potato. No seasonning, just the pure delicious taste of each ingredient.
Today I’m traveling to Kobe for work and most of the way from the train window iT’s just rice paddies. Actually, the season for harvesting rice has started a few weeks ago in Isumi, but not everywhere yet in Japan. The beautiful yellow-green rice paddies that undulate in the wind are one by one being cut short. The smell is also changing. When this season starts it is also the end of summer, and this year it’s pretty bad with a lot of rain. Really a lot! And it is also the season for new rice or shin-kome (新米). As new tea in spring, new rice is an important ingredient for Japanese. The taste of new rice is subtle and more refined than usual rice, but it is as much for its gustative properties than for its signification as a the mark of the beginning of autumn, which in Japan is usually long, warm and beautiful.
Almost every year I buy a bag of new rice that lasts pretty much a year in Ohara. I only buy organic rice or Eco rice (the yellow Eco mark on the right side of the bag on the picture). There are also many types of rice (kind of breeds) depending on regions, usually I like Koshihikari type (an habit I got from traveling to Tsunan where they mainly grow Koshihikari), but this time I picked a different type since it seems the Koshihikari has not been harvested yet. When still very new I use it mainly for plain white rice or little preparation, after a few months, I don’t bother anymore.
Out of the multitude of recipes and usage of katsuobushi, one thing I love is okaka. Okaka is basically a mix of katsuobushi flakes and soya sauce, sometimes a few sesame seeds. It is often used as a filling of onigiri (rice ball). Today I tried a slightly different manner to serve these onigiri. Instead of using The okaka as a filling I decided to mix it directly with the rice and they grill the balls in a fry pan (small oven or grill can do too) to make yaki-onigiri. I served them with grilled vegetables: tomatoes, okras, shiitake, and with some marinated mackerel.
I baked 1 cup of rice, added 4g of katsuobushi flakes and a tea spoon of soya sauce, stirred well. Them I prepare the balls and flattened them in patties and grilled them in a greased fry pan until golden.
As usual, after our two hours tennis game in the morning we’re just starving and we need a good source of carb and proteins. I love the Japanese combo rice and meat balls. This time sweet potato rice, chicken and soua sauce balls, and pickled myoga in plum vinegar. Perfect!
I bake the rice in a regular pot, add the potatoes sliced at mid time; mix the chicken meat with rice flour and a bit of soya sauce and cook in a fry pan with a bit of vegetal oil. Simple. I got the picled myoga from our local farmers market.
This all week has been pretty crazy. I knew I would be very busy at work and that I’ll have to go early to the lab too, but what I didn’t expect is that the train to commute would let me down so many times. Usually trains are super reliable in Japan, but once in a while there are incidents, and usually they happen all at the same moment. Spending more time to commute then usual I didn’t have so much time left to spend in my kitchen and still needed to indulged with some simple food to keep : rice with sesame seeds, and greens with soya sauce, and since I knew that wouldn’t be enough for my husband, I stopped by Saboten and added some pork filet katsu to the menu.
So, as I was mentioning before, I packed a lot of local products from Niigata prefecture and more particularly from Tsunan machi. The area is famous for its rice, a little of buckwheat and since they grow a lot of vegetables there is also delicious pickles, and to make them the 2-5-8, a preparation much easier to use then nuka, and that gives delicious salty pickles. I’ll tell you more about soon.
I also like very much the pollen and chestnut tree honey made in Akiyamago by a local producer. And while visiting some artwork we found some nice “sarunashi” (berry kiwi), a sort of wild tiny kiwi, with a taste close to rhubarb, homemade jam.
I’m in a constant quest for new food combinations and freshness, while at the same time I keep things simple and try again and again. That’s what I love about cooking: nothing exactly the same but yet not completly different. Always delicious because I cook what we love. And so many chances to try since we need to eat a little every day, right?
After loving my bulgur donburi, I decided to try a Japanese rice one-plate. I love the combination of the crispy chirimen and the creamy avocado, so I used that base, added some sesame seeds for the taste. Since rice is drier than bulgur and I don’t like to use any dressing with it (it makes it slippery abd impossible to eat with chopsticks) I just added some juicy tomatoes and fresh cucumber. An other delicious and refreshing combination!
One evening I was preparing a salad with a base of rice and I suddenly felt very nostalgic for the taste of the rice salad my mother was preparing when we were kids and that was often our picnic lunch. Something I can clearly picture tastewise but can’t remember the exact contents: of course rice, then cubes of ham, gruyere, tomatoes may be, corn, a sauce based on light mayonnaise or mustard may be… Well I reinterpretated it for a summer, cheese-free version, though it was not the raste of my childhood it was really simple and delicious.
Here is my recipe: American rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, ham cut in cubes, hard boiled eggs, olive oil, salt and a lot of pepper.
When the temperature exceeds 30deg day and night I only can eat very simple food. Japanese rice is really delicious when it’s hot, and it suits very well simple preparations, without any fat nor dressing. Donburi is always a good and simple way to prepare a rice based perfect meal. This time you can’t imagine something simpler: plain white Japanese rice, fresh cucumber, grilled chicken breast chopped, and a lot of shiso leaves finelly cut, a few sesame seeds for perfection. Served with a glass of cold green tea. How do you cook when it’s hot?
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