Tag: seasonal food

Chestnut risotto

Last winter I trimmed our chestnut tree to try to improve its production, because we usually have very few chestnuts, despite it being a rather large tree. And it work perfectly, we had plenty of chestnuts, I could enjoy seeing them growing slowly, and I was already thinking about all I would do with them, and give away. But in early August with the drought (since July 10 it’s been 32deg at least every day and it rained may be twice or thrice just a little), most of the beautiful chestnuts felt when they were still small. In the end I only collected 10 chestnuts 🌰…. Basically the same amount as usual… just enough for one or two meals.

Instead of the classic Japanese kuri gohan, I prepared a western version with Carnaroli rice, olive oil, and a bit of kale. I replaced the Parmigiano by fresh grated comté cheese. Super easy, and very delicious! Here is my recipe.

Chestnuts risotto (2 servings main dish)

  • 10 fresh raw chestnuts
  • 1 go of carnaroli rice, or other risotto rice you like
  • 2 leaves of kale (tender is better)
  • 1tbs of olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • Comté cheese (optional)
  • Water

Boil the chestnuts for 50min. Let cool and peel them.

In a large pan heat the olive oil, add the rice and stir until the rice is translucent. Cover amply with water, add salt and pepper and the chestnuts roughly broken into bite size. Let cook under cover for 15min. Wash and chop the kale, removing the hard parts. Add to the pan. The liquid must have almost all reduced, and the rice should be almost cooked. If that’s not the case: if the rice doesn’t seem cooked yet and there is no liquid anymore, add a bit of water and cook under cover. If there us still too much liquid and the rice seems cooked, remove the cover, and slightly increase the heat.

In the end, the rice should start grilling in the bottom of the pan. That’s when you want to serve, with just a bit of crisp in the bottom.

Serve, add grater comté cheese if you like and enjoy.

Goes well also with prosciutto or better with Speck. Unfortunately recently Japan has a ban on Italian cured meat so that’s not an option…

Have you ever heard of propagule?

So…if you have read my previous post you may have read that in Kanazawa I bought some mysterious food (I don’t know if we can call it fruit or vegetable…): propagule-ムカゴ-mukago. It looks like a tiny potato with a darker skin. It’s the “fruit” of the Japanese mountain yam-山芋-yamaimo. It wasn’t the first time I saw some but never ventured in trying cooking them before and they are local in Kanazawa, so it made sense for me to try there.

As many of the food in Japan, the first recipe that comes to mind is to cook with rice. Mukago are no exception. I was recommended to cook them with rice and a piece of bacon. That seemed simple enough to try right away. However, recently I have been having a hard time finding good local bacon, the pork is usually imported-輸入-yunyu, and that I don’t buy… so instead I decided to buy fresh pork belly, and cook it with salt and pepper, not exactly the same thing as bacon but close enough and at least it is easy to find local fresh pork.

Mukago rice was a huge hit with A., much more than I expected!! Actually mukago are amazingly delicious. They have a very nice complex texture, a very subtle flavor with violet and flowery notes, very sophisticated. I instantly loved them!

I need some thinking and testing to understand in what kind of preparation they could be good. I tried in vegetables stew, but found that their flavors was suffocated by the other vegetables. It could be that rice is their best friend!! I’ll more investigations… in the meantime here is the mukago rice recipe. Enjoy!

Mukago rice ムカゴご飯 (4 servings)

  • 300g (2合-gou)of Japanese rice (I exclusively use Koshihikari from Isumi or Onjuku, but any Japanese rice is ok)
  • 200g of bacon (slice or block)
  • 1cup of mukago

Rinse the mukago.

Wash the rice.

In a large and thick pan or in a rice cooker bowl put all the ingredients. Add 400ml of water and cook. If you use a rice cooker chose the takikomi-炊き込み option if you have one. If you cook in a pan, start at medium heat until the first boil. Then cover and cook at low heat for 30min (check eventually that it’s not too quick nor too slow, and adjust timing, but don’t stir…) then stop heating but let rest for 5more minutes before serving.

Et voila!

A short trip to Kanazawa

After the heat of the summer and before the crowds of international tourists flock the country again we decided to go for a short trip to Kanazawa. Our last visit was more than 10 years ago, before the Hokuriku shinkansen opened… we drove there and stopped to visit friends and Shirakawa-go at the time and stayed 3-4 days in Kanazawa. But I had a rather fresh memory of the city, the many places we visited already, the atmosphere of a rather rich and refined city. So this time we decided for a rather different program:

1. We rented a house not far from the main market to be able to enjoy all the local and fresh food Kanazawa and Noto offer.

2. We moved by bicycle around the city to expand the explorable territories and just enjoy riding in new surroundings, see further than the stuck in time places, where people actively live and work.

3. We put more focus on the contemporary scene visiting craft galleries and the beautiful 21st century museum for the Yves Klein exhibition chiefly (we skipped the permanent exhibits), since we already visited all the historical sights during our previous visit. And visited also the National craft gallery that moved from Tokyo to Kanazawa a few years ago.

At gallery Kiku & Sayuu we incidentally found the same metal craftwork artists Yuichi Takemata, that we loved the first time we visited and where we had bought order-made spoons. This time we came back with sets of forks and knives. Also discovered Rei Camoy’s work, a great surprise and a new fancy.

Additionally we toured bakeries and cafes, and found the most exquisite bagels to-go and cookies for our breakfast at Hug mitten Works, up north of the city, a fairly uninteresting ride to a typical suburban area, but damn… the bagels were so good that it is my target ideal bagel next time I bake some.

The market was a great fun, local green grocers too, with local products, fresh fish and vegetables. The region is famous for certain greens, such that gynura bicolor – 金時草 – kinjiso, lotus roots – 蓮根 – rencon, and propagule – ムカゴ – mukago (recipe coming soon). And of course, a few local Japanese sweets… we couldn’t resist to have gold leaf covered castella in the city famous for its gold leaf fabrication.

The Indian summer, the figs and three recipes

After a very tough week for me starting literally with a lower back pain that was so excruciating that A. had to drove me to the doc as I couldn’t even walk. Seating was a torture and lying was not better, I was happy I survived it and could finally walk, bend and move almost normally. But the doc said that my muscles needed a good week of rest so I followed the orders. No tennis, no bodyboarding and no gardening. I only allowed myself a 30min ocean swim on Saturday and Sunday. That left me with a loooooot of time… to cook of course!

And with the summer slowly going towards the Indian summer, there is a slow change on fruits and vegetables available. Plenty of fruits with grape, nashi, passion fruits and figs. Yes! Figs! I love figs and usually would cook them in sweet recipes as A. is not a huge fan of sweet and savory mixes.

I baked honey fig tarts to start with. And because our friend Y. also had a lower back pain I made extra for them and replace half of the wheat flour in the dough by rice flour. And then the magic of IG worked its charms… A friend who grows figs in a large fig plantation at the foot of mount Fuji saw the picture of the tarts and sent me a big parcel full of figs of different varieties, all with distinct texture, color and flavor.

Having so many figs at once to eat I decided that I could do a few savory recipes too, though to be honest they were so good, I didn’t want to make complex things, and eating them just like that for breakfast was so perfect!

So I browse a bit the internet, but no recipe satisfied me. Most had goat cheese, a total no go for A. and anyway finding good goat cheese in Japan is still not easy…

So I came up with too recipes, the first is a total improvisation, the second is inspired by Israeli cuisine, from one of Yossam Ottolenghi’s book.

So three recipes today, all with figs. One sweet, one savory and one up to you!! Enjoy!!

Fig tartelettes (4~6 servings)

  • 6-8 large fresh figs
  • 100g of rice flour
  • 100g of wheat flour
  • 50g of butter or olive oil
  • 4tsp of honey
  • A bit of water

In a bowl mix the flours, the butter (or olive oil), add water little by little while kneading until obtaining a smooth dough.

Pre-heat your oven to 200deg. Roll the dough and put it in a pie dish (I used individual ones). Peel the figs and slice them, arrange them nicely, add the honey. Bake for about 20min, or until the crust is baked.

Chickpea pancakes with figs (2 servings)

  • 8-10 fresh figs
  • 100g of chickpea flour
  • 1tsp of baking powder
  • 1tbs of cottage cheese (optional)
  • Water or milk
  • Salt and pepper or honey (savory or sweet)
  • Olive oil

In a bowl mix the chickpea flour, the baking powder, the cottage cheese (if you use some), and the water and/or milk until obtaining a pancake dough (not too liquid, but not hard).

In a greased pan cook the pancakes. I used a 15cm pan to have one large and fluffy pancake per person.

While the pancakes are cooking, peel the figs and slice them. When the pancakes are ready top with the figs, a drizzle of olive oil salt and pepper, or honey. Ready!!

Sweet potatoes and figs (2 servings)

  • 1 sweet potato
  • 6-8 fresh figs
  • 1tsp of oil
  • 1/2tsp of vinegar
  • Salt and pepper
  • 3 slices of prosciutto (optional)

Wash the sweet potato and cut it in bite size. In s pan greased with the oil cook the sweet potato at medium heat until soft.

Peel the figs and cut in quarters. Serve the sweet potato in the plates, add the vinegar, salt and pepper, the figs and the prosciutto. That’s it!Really simple isn’t it?

My summer favorite: edamame paste and pasta

The summer is slowly reaching its end and the end of summer vegetables start to arrive such as butternut squash and kabocha, but before the summer ends for real, let’s enjoy a little more the summer vegetables: eggplants, cucumber, edamame and jute mallow…

Never tired of bamboo shoots

The season for bamboo shoots in Chiba has started just a few weeks ago… juggling between bad weather, and cold days, we went once to search for some with our neighbors but were not lucky enough to find any. Too early for that side of the area. Probably a few wild boar were also quick enough to come before us and dig to pick their own. But it doesn’t matter, we have friends who have friends who have bamboo shoots. And so I ended up with 2 beautiful shoots. I didn’t have time to prepare them in The country, so I took them with us to Tokyo. What a mess to prepare them in my pocket kitchen! But what a reward to eat them!!! I never regret!

This year, after a classic bamboo shoots rice, back then when my parents were visiting, I decided to go with a few different and more creative recipes. I prepared two different recipes. One is a simple sautéed version. So delicious I had to do a second batch! The second is a recipe of steamed buns. Last year I made eagle fern and bamboos shoot ones, but as I am getting better at making buns, I felt it is worth sharing this one!

Both recipes assume that you have a parboiled bamboo shoot. For picking and parboiling look at my earlier post here.

Sautéed bamboo shoots

  • 1 bamboo shoot fresh and parboiled
  • 1tsp of cooking oil
  • salt and pepper as you like

Cut the bamboo shoot in 4 vertically. Slice each quarter. In a fry pan heat the oil. The add the shoots sliced. Cook until golden, flip on the other side, cook until golden. Sprinkle salt and ground pepper and serve immediately.

Steamed buns (make 8 small, perfect for 2 people as main)

  • 150g of flour
  • 1tsp of baking soda
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • Water
  • 1/2 bamboo shoot
  • 100g of pork fillet (leftover are perfect)
  • Soya sauce
  • Mustard

First prepare the dough by mixing the flour, baking soda, salt and add water little by little until obtaining a smooth dough. Put under a wet cloth and let it rest at least 30min. More is better.

Cook the pork filet if not yet cooked. Simply, in a pan with pepper. Then chop finely.

Chop the bamboo shoot in coarse manner. You want chunks to remain as it will bring the contrast between the smooth dough and meat and the crunchy bamboo. However, if too coarse, filling the buns will be hell. So 3-8mm is a good target.

In a bowl mix the chopped bamboo shoot, the pork, add 1tsp of soya sauce and stir well.

Back to the dough now. Cut in 8 pieces. Make balls and roll with a rolling pin into 12-15cm diameter circle. Put a large spoon if filling in and close the dough. I don’t have a very good technique, but it works well when I first fold in two then fold in the orthogonal direction, then I add fold in each quadrant. For this specific recipe instead of cooking them folds up, I flipped them to hold the folds under. Then steam for 15min. Serve with soya sauce and mustard and enjoy!

Dough ball
In the steamer

Always the same, never the same

Since we’ve been working from home, I cook three to four meals a day (we wouldn’t miss a good tea time!) and a whole new routine of recipes slowly replaced old habits. More meals to cook = more chances to explore. I cook more quiche as we spend more time in Ohara, I also cook more steam buns and gyoza, also one dish that has been an almost weekly thing is brown rice and spicy vegetables. As much I love Japanese brown rice, it takes too much time to cook it after coming back from work and have it ready for dinner (about 2 to 3h) so I would almost never make any. Working from home as this perk that starting a recipe is really simple, squeezed between two meetings.

For some reason Thursday is the day we most often have brown rice. And one thing I really love is to have it with some seasonal vegetables and a light spicy sauce. Versions are endless. And with the spring coming and the new vegetables I prepared a very simple and ultra full of flavors version. A few chick peas remaining from the hummus I made the other day, a bit of coconut cream, and a lot of new and fresh onions that our friends gave us. Add some super ripe tomatoes and, because winter is still not completely gone, a sweet potato, you have a great base. Normally I would have added curry to the mixture, but curry powder is on my shopping list and I didn’t have time to go grocery shopping this week. And actually it was good that way. It forced me to explore other spice combination and I realize that curry is not necessary. So if you want a very mild and very tasty recipe for your new onions and your brown rice, just read below and enjoy!

New onions with spice and coconut milk

  • 2-3 new onions
  • 1 sweet potato (one carrot could do, nothing could do too)
  • 1 large and ripe tomato (if you can’t find one just do without)
  • 200ml of coconut cream or coconut milk
  • 1 cup of chick peas, boiled and drained
  • 1tsp of ground cardamom
  • 1tsp of turmeric
  • 1/2tsp of all spice
  • 1/2tsp of ground cumin
  • 1/2tsp of salt
  • ground black pepper

Remove one layer of onion skin and cut them in 8. Wash and cut the vegetables in bite size.
In a greased pan, on medium heat, put all the vegetables, and the chick peas, and cook for 10min while stirring regularly.
Add the coconut cream, the spices and stir well. Cook under cover for 5min. And that’s ready. Serve with brown rice, but I bet it is also a killer with flat breads or basmati rice.

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