Tag: sesame oil

Canola flowers – 菜の花

In a flash we went from cabbages and sweet potatoes to fukinoto and canola flowers. It’s almost spring already, and the vegetables at the farmers market let you know that! Of course it’s only the beginning, and it is nice and interesting to mix winter and early spring ingredients. Canola flowers are versatile and I am very found of them. They start at the same time plum trees start to bloom and they both are markers of our wedding anniversary. Indeed, we got married under beautiful plum trees in full bloom at Gojoten jinja on a cold and perfectly sunny day of February 2007. And for the celebration lunch Kikuya’s chef prepared among the many dishes some canola flowers that we discovered at that time.

I cook canola flowers, or rather I like to call them the Japanese way: na no hana, quite often when the season comes. They are a good alternative to broccoli and more local. I have tried a lot of different combinations and developed many recipes with na no hana, and I still continue. This time with some beautiful cod fish from Hokkaido I prepared a kind of rice bowl. Simple, healthy, tasty and colorful. Try it please!

Na no hana and cod rice (for 2 people)

– 1 cup of Japanese rice (as always Koshihikari from chiba for me)

– 200g or a small bundle of na no hana

– 200g of fresh cod

– 2cups of katsuobushi dashi

– sesame oil, sesame seeds, salt

First start to cook the rice. While it cooks prepare the rest of the ingredients. In a fry pan start grilling the cod on the skin side at medium heat. In a pan prepare the dashi then add the washed na no hana. Boil them until soft. Drain once cooked and chop. Once the rice and the fish are cooked, in a fry pan add some sesame oil, the rice, the fish in crumbles without the skin, and the na no hana. Stir well and cook at high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add salt and sesame seeds and serve. Enjoy!

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!

 

Plum trees start to bloom

It’s been a few weeks that the red plum trees in the garden were boiling to bloom, now it’s official plum flower season has started. Even some if the white plum trees have started to bloom too. It is one of my favorite moment in the year. It is still cold but spring is already showing up. I like the beautiful little flowers against the crisp blue sky.  So using the plum as a base I prepared a one-plate lunch with pink small radishes for the color, plain white rice shaped in plum flower (I made 5 little balls that I then compacted together using a piece of cooking wrap), an umeboshi on top. Then scrambled eggs with nori and grilled shiitake with sesame and a drop of sesame oil and soya sauce. And everything ready in 20min (when in a rush cooking rice in a pan is much faster than the rice cooker). And shaping the rice took me the most time because I had no clue how to do it, but I’m quite proud I managed! Happy Setsubun!!!

An all-time favorite

This simple dish with little variations is one of my favorite quickly ready Japanese dish. I cook it from autumn to early spring in a series of variations while the seasons change. Starting with plenty of mushrooms towards green peas. Sweet potatoes, burdock, kabocha are so beautiful now that I have decided to start cooking these seasonal veggies. And with some new rice, it’s a perfect match. For the pictured dish, which is about 2-3 servings, I used 2 carrots, 1 little burdock, 5 shiitake, 1 medium sweet potato, sesame oil and sesame seeds. Heat the oiled pan, wash-peel and cut the veggies, add them to the high heated pan in order of longer cooking time, stir a bit. Once golden cover and cook at low heat until the sweet potatoes are soft, add some sesame seeds and soy sauce and serve.

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