Tag: salmon

Autumn days

With the sudden change in weather, my inspiration is back! Though I’m still tired of the rainy weekends and sunny week days (when at work… when I’d rather be in my garden…), I’ve been busy with some sewing projects, perfect for the weather. A. has challenged me to make a cover for his surfboard, and I think I did something quite great, that needs just the final touch. In the meantime, my neighbor came to me last week with some cotton fabric to make a yukata for A. and I’ve taken up the challenge!! I’ve completed it!!

Cooking-wise, with the almost cool evenings, it’s been really agreeable to cook and knead. And I’ve come up with a new ravioli recipe (coming later this week), salmon croquettes and other delights for the palate!!!

Let’s start today with the salmon croquettes! This is the season for autumn salmon 秋鮭 and I really like it. It goes well with fresh ginger which is also in season. I bought half a salmon and we ate it grilled first, but with so much I could definitely do another meal! So here is my recipe:

Salmon and coriander croquettes

– 150-200g of fresh salmon, better if grilled and leftover

– a handful of fresh coriander leaves

– 1tbs of panko

– 1 egg

Remove the skin and bones of the fish (if not grilled then grill it first). Crumble it in a bowl. Add the egg and panko. Wash and chop the coriander. Add and stir well. In a greased heated pan make small balls with the mix and cook until golden on each side. Serve with grated ginger and with whatever you like!

Quiche

I went to pick leekswith my neighbor in her garden. She grew plenty but doesn’t seem to eat as many as she has, so she gave me plenty. I also found some fresh salmon from Miyagi, that I am quite found about, so I decided to prepare a leek and salmon quiche. I revisited this classic quiche with a very simple twist. Indeed leek and salmon quiche, like leek and bacon or spinach and salmon are ultimate classic quiche recipes. They are all delicious but they sometimes need to be revisited with something new.

The something new was really simple. I prepared a brisé dough and rolled it on black sesame. Then grilled the salmon and blanched the leek and prepared the rest as usual. The result was a crispy dough and a golden top. Delicious to finish the weekend. Have a good week!!

Radish tops and salmon ravioli

Ravioli have always been in the very top of my preferred dish ever both to eat and cook. For me to enjoy them, they have of course to be fresh and with a green and tasty filling. Ricotta spinach are of course a classic that I enjoy all the time, but seasonally filled ravioli are always something I like to prepare and enjoy. With the autumn salmon in peak season and the beautiful radishes also, I decided to use super fresh and tender radish tops, simply blanched with grilled salmon as filling. The radish tops have a nice flavor that is very different from other greens. I already tried with spinach and dill in the past. And because it is nice for the final cooking and the final plating to have a little of a sauce I prepared a butter and pink peppercorns sauce. Here is my recipe:

Radish tops and salmon ravioli

For the pasta I used my usual recipe (1 egg for 100g of flour), but I used half of “semolina di grano duro” instead of regular flour.

For the filling:

– 100g of radish tops

– 100g of fresh salmon

– pink peppercorns

– 15g of butter

– salt and pepper

I first grilled the salmon and blanched the radish tops. Then once they had cooled down I chopped the tops thinly and crumble the salmon together, stir well, add a bit of salt.

Then I make the ravioli, rolling the pasta as thin as possible. I didn’t use a ravioli rack, but cut the dough with a medium round shape and used two to make one ravioli. In your left palm hold a small round of pasta, with the right finger, moisten in a glass of water moisten the edge of the pasta. Set half or more tea spoon of filling, then take an other round of pasta and close tight removing the air as much as possible.

Then I boiled the ravioli. In the meantime in a large pan I melted the butter, added the pink peppercorns and when the ravioli were coming out to the surface I catch them and add them to the pan. It is fine if there is still some cooking water with them. At hight heat I finished cooking them in the pan and served with a little of salt and pepper added.

Orange risotto

Sometimes the weather feels like eating something warm and with vibrant colors… this weather is just now! Rainy, getting chilly and tired… a bright orange risotto was just what I needed!!!

Carrots for the crunch, butternut for the soft, salmon for the salt and kabosu for the fresh and acid taste. That’s as simple as this! I cut the vegetables in rather small pieces to obtain a good mix and balance of texture in the mouth. I used olive oil as a base and a little of pepper. Nothing else. No broth, no salt. And just the time to have a call meeting and it’s ready to eat.

Have a great Friday!

More Malabar spinach

As I was telling you in my previous post, Malabar spinach go very well with a lot of things, and in particular with salmon. This recipe is very simple to prepare and really delicious. It’s just a quiche with fresh salmon (it’s the season for salmon from Miyagi) and Malabar spinach like one would do a classic spinach and salmon quiche. For the pue crust I used whole-wheat flour and olive oil. I really find it very quick to knead with olive oil rather than butter. For the quiche filling, I did an egg and cow milk base (recently I buy locally produced milk). I grilled the salmon in a pan and then removed fishbones and skin, and cut into large bites. I chopped the washed Malabar spinach and add all to the egg base, stir well and pour into the pie crust. Bake for 30min in the oven at 190.

Enjoy!!!

Ravioli again!

After this busy week at work and several dinners out, a little bit of slow cooking was more than welcome! But it was so cold that I didn’t even dare trying to make bread. Indeed, when we arrived Saturday morning it was 2-3 degrees in the house, it slowly went up to 15-17 by the time it was bed time, and again it was 3 degrees when we woke up the next morning. These old Japanese houses are really not meant to be warmed, they are wind breakers, just to live in wearing many warm layers of clothes. And it totally works. But to make bread in such conditions is really hard (oh! Maybe that’s one reason why bread and alike are not traditional to Japan!). The bread takes forever to rise and it’s never long enough! Instead, I simply kneaded some pasta dough to make ravioli. There was some beautiful salmon from Miyagi, some baby komatsuna, and I had some dill on the verge of drying. The recipe was all set. I put the dill chopped directly in the pasta. I made filling by first grilling the salmon and blanching the komatsuna, then put the two in the blender to obtain an almost creamy texture. Rolled the dough in my pasta machine (with the dill I found it hard to roll it to extra thin) and made the ravioli. I served with some more blanched komatsuna, butter for me, olive oil for A. and it was simply delicious!

I wish a good very week, it might snow again in Tokyo!

Crazy week(s)

I knew January would be a tough and busy month and it is exactly what it is. It is the season for student graduation thesis and I have a pile of them to read before the end of the month. It is also the moment to think about final exams for the course I teach. But also national exam weekend, with some duty, and on top of that, conferences deadline, experiments, lab visits… At this point of the year it is also often that the weather is unstable, and temperatures are on day as low as 0 deg, and the next day are 15 or more… it is hard to adjust… but it is for sure not yet the end of winter, February and March are usually colder than January in my opinion, or may be it’s just because I’m getting tired of the cold, seeing the plum trees and peach trees blooming…

For these kind of times, a comforting food is always welcome. Some simple flavors and colorful meals. Orange in the plate is great when served with white: perfect mixing carrots, lotus roots and salmon. And this time I don’t let myself get disappointed by the color change due to oxydation of the lotus root. Once peeled, washed and sliced I bathed it in a bit of vinegard. Actually it added a little flavor to the final dish that I really enjoyed and countered balance the sweetness of the carrots and the salmon. Here is my recipe.

Roasted vegetables and salmon (2 people) 

– 1 leek

– 1 piece of lotus root

– 1 carrot

– 2 sliced of salted salmon (unsalted is also ok) 

– 2 tbs of sesame oil

– 1 tbs of white vinegar

Peel, wash and slice the lotus root. Put the slices in a plate and add the vinegar. Turn them so that each side has been in contact with the vinegar. This is too keep the beautiful white color of the lotus root when cooking. Cut the leek in chuncks, same for the carrot (if organic just wash, don’t peel) . In a heated pan, add the sesame oil, the leek, cook 2min at medium heat while stirring once in a while. Add the carrot. Drain the lotus roots and add them. Remove the bones and cut also the samon in bite size. Add to the pan. Cook at low heat under cover for 5-8 min. It’s now ready! Serve with a bowl of rice snd enjoy!

 

Chilly!

Autumn weather is finally coming to Tokyo, which means some beautiful weather mainly and also some rain when there is a typhoon. The temperature is also changing a lot and tonight is quite chilly and rainy, so a warm dinner was naturally my only option. This is the season for delicious Hokkaido autumn salmon 秋鮭, when the fishes come back to their original rivers. They sell it in quite large filet pieces, so I usually use it for two or three different recipes. This time I decided to prepare it in a kind of soup, very likely inspired by my nordic cooking book but with common Japanese ingredients.

Autumn salmon soup 

 – a piece of fresh autumn salmon

– 1/2 sweet potato  

– a large handful of mulukhiyah  – salt and pepper. 

First grill the salmon, in the pan in which you want to make the soup, on both sides. Then remove the skin and cut in pieces and pit back in the pan. Actually rather than cutting I simply used a spoon and broke the salmon. Cut the sweet potato in dice and in a pan. Add salt and pepper. Start cooking while stirring. Add 1/2L pf water. Cook under cover until the sweet potato is soft. Add the washed and cut mulukhiyah. Cook a few more minutes. Serve while hot.

Red quinoa

I’m on a mission to finish every single pack of rice, pasta, cereals and legumes that is opened and sitting on a shelf or in the fridge half empty. Yes! I keep pretty much everything in the fridge: flour, cereals, rice… to keep them longer (it prevents damages from high humidity and high temperatures in the summer, and low temperatures in the winter) and it allows to avoid pests since they are all organic or natural products and I am tired of food with bugs (more generally in the food that I buy in France…). I’m trying to empty my shelves as much as possible before we move to our new apartment in Tokyo, and same in the country house, just to clean my cupborads and fridge.

So I had a half pack of red quinoa to use. One thing I love to do with quinoa is some kind of croquettes. I cook the quinoa and then mix it with 2 eggs, some chopped vegetables: spinach, bell pepper, zucchini… and whatever else. This time it was some yellow bell pepper and a piece of Hokkaido salmon that was leftover from the previous day. I added some curry powder and some nutmeg, salt and pepper and cooked on both side in a greased frypan until crispy. I served them with some blanched okra, but any green is great. A light yogurt sauce with herbs can also be great.

And I was still having some extra quinoa, so for the next meal I prepared a vegan soup. Simply quinoa, sweet potato, butternut squash and shiitake, and again a bit of curry powder.  Finished with two shishito.

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