Tag: shiitake

Shiitake week! Day 5!

And here is the last recipe of this shiitake week! I could have added many more like shiitake quiche, shiitake soup… But weekend is for new creative cooking… we’ll see tomorrow what the farmers market will inspire us… though I am craving for homemade gnocchi, rich quiche and more takikomi gohan… and I have a new cookbook to browse and some older to look at again (I thinking about my Sicilian cookbook and Shojin cuisine cookbook in particular and some older Japanese cookbooks I haven’t touch in years…) . So this last shiitake recipe is basically using shiitake as substitute for porcini. Of course they have a very different taste but in some preparations they can have a very similar texture. And since there is no porcini in Japan, that finding really delicious matsutake that actually come from Japan (they are usually from Canada, US, Korea or China) has become a challenge, regardless of the price you are eager to pay them, using shiitake is a very straightforwardly simple option. I used them with tomato, to serve with polenta and grilled marlin. I simply sliced them, cooked them in olive oil and add the tomatoes. Cooked until it’s all soft and almost dry. Served with the fish sliced and grilled in a pan, and some polenta. That’s it, and it was delicious! 

Have a good weekend! 

Shiitake week! Day 4!

Some time ago I was writing about my worst culinary failure ever when I made my first miso eggplants. The recipe came from the very Japanese cooking book I bought. And this book has been very precious for us when we started to live in Tokyo. “Simple & delicious Japanese cooking” by Keiko Hayashi has been my Japanese cooking bible for almost one year. And the very first recipe I tried was a shiitake recipe: takikomi gohan, it was also the very first recipe I shared on our blog back in 2004, one that everyone can make, everywhere there are shiitake. And if 13 years ago you could only find them in asian supermarkets, now they are much easier to find. 

Today I have prepared a new version of the classic recipe that is in the book to share with new. It uses all the basic ingredients for takikomi gohan, and the same technique. It is very simple to prepare and it cooks unattended during 50min in the rice cooker, giving plenty of time for doing something else. Here is my recipe (the original recipe)

Shiitake takikomi gohan (for 2 people) 

– 6 shiitake

– 1 cup of rice

– 1 cup of dashi

– 1tbs of soya sauce  

– 1tbs of sake

– 4 slices of bacon (150g of chicken meat) 

– 10 gingko nuts peeled (4 steamed or boiled chestnuts) 

Wash and slice the shiitake. Cut the bacon and grill it in a pan until crispy. In the rice cooker add the rice, wash it, add the dashi, the shoyu, the sake, the shiitake, the meat the gingko nuts. Start cooking in normal mode. That’s it!!! Enjoy!

Shiitake week! Day 3!

It’ been quite sometime I didn’t make ravioli right?! And I couldn’t wait any longer to train again… in prevision of my visit to Tuscany next month… And with beautiful shiitake, kabocha season and delicious Isumi pork, it was easy to decide what the fillingwould be: it will be all or nothing!  Indeed kabocha and shiitake are a great match, the pork is optional but it had really the perfect balance: sweet and savory! So the recipe is rather simple:

Kabocha and shiitake ravioli:

– 1/4 of kabocha

– 6 shiitake

– 100g of ground pork meat

– 1 egg

– 150g of flour

– olive oil

– water

– salt and pepper  

Steam the kabocha and puréed it. Dice the shiitake and roast them in a very little bit of olive oil or nothing. Add them to the kabocha purée. For the pork meat, just cook it in a pan until golden, and add to the mix. Salt, pepper and that’s it. For the pasta I used 150g of flour and 1egg, a little of olive oil and water. It made about 35 large ravioli. I also prepared a little mix of olive oil and parsley to top them and it was really de-li-cious… I’m really crazy about Italian food! And when it is mixed with Japanese… 

Shiitake week! Day 2!

When suddenly the weather is chilly in the country, that it’s late and I want some confort food, I usually prepare a hot pasta soup with a clear vegetable bouillon. Leek and carrots are the two main ingredients for the bouillon, but alone they do not provide enough, so I like to add something else. This something else being more than often shiitake. Mushrooms in general are great to prepare when in a rush. They just need to be washed and are really easy to cut: slices, quarters, dice… they are quick to cook too… some are also good raw, but not really shiitake. In my warm soup I added a bit of parsley, and for the pasta I chose some pretty stelline.

You can finish with a bit of gratted parmigiano. Keep warm!

Shiitake week! Day 1!

After weeks trying to get this new rythm, I think we’ve almost got it… and a weekend in the country with tennis, gardening and cooking, plus the cat and a bit of work was the perfect way to completely get it right. My muscles hacking from the tennis and the gardening: trimming a Japanese pine is quite a demanding task, and I didn’t even manage to get it done… For the cooking I have been enjoying a lot the autumn vegetables, in particular most of my recipes included shiitake lately, I put them every where. So this week is a shiitake recipe week! But if you don’t have shiitake you can replace them by porcini or simple mushrooms. 

Let’s start with this very nice marcrobiotic French Japanese style recipe of Persillade. Traditional persillade is made with garlic, parsley, oil etc… except that I don’t like garlic (one reason why I never use it, despite all the health benefits it may have), so I have invented this new recipe that ressembles persillade but is much more fun and goes perfectly with shiitake! Here is my recipe!

My ginger persillade (for 2) 

– 1 cup of brown rice

– 2 carrot

– 6 shiitake

– 1/2 burdock root

– parsley

– fresh ginger

Cook the rice in a pot, Japanese style, or in a rice cooker. Brown rice requires a little bit more water than white rice. 

Peel the burdock, cut in bites and wash abundantly, same with the carrots. Wash the shiitake and slice them thinly. In a heated pan add a bit of olive oil, then the burdock, later the carrots and finish with the shiitake. Stir once in a while. 

Peel the ginger, cut in thin slices and then dice in 1mm side. Wash the parsley and chop it. Add the ginger and the parsley in the pan, stir regularly. Add a bit of olive oil if necessary. That’s it!  

Serve the rice, the vegetables and enjoy your meal!!! 

Simple food

There is one thing that I always think about cooking when in a rush to prepare our meals and want to eat some Japanese food, it’s simple seasonal vegetables sautéed, deglazed in a bit of soya sauce, served with rice and pickles. It is so very simple and yet so delicious that it beats any other recipe. It requires no thinking, a very short preparation for the vegetables and then everything in a pan with a few drops of oil, under cover, just stir once in a while. Which frees the hands to do something else! Perfect when the week is super busy with many deadline at work, friends and family visiting, a weekend away in preparation and A. leaving for Europe for 10 very long days…

Autumn version of sautéed vegetables (one plate dish for 2 people)

– 1 Japanese sweet potato

– 3 shiitake

– 2 little turnips (long or round) 

– any other seasonal vegetables: a little piece of kabocha, a few green beans, gingko nuts, shishito, eringi…

– 2tbs of soya sauce

– some vinegared pickles: I love rakkyo (Chinese onions) which are served with curry.

– 1 cup of Japanese rice

Star cooking the rice. Wash and cut the vegetables. In a pan greased with a bit of oil add all the vegetables (except if some have very short cooking time like green beans) cook at high heat for two minutes and stir. Lower the heat and cover. Cook for 12min and stir once in a while. Add the soya sauce, and stir for one minute. Serve all together.

Vegetarian quiche

We love quiches and I think I don’t cook some too often! There are so many variations that I can’t do twice the same one! Recently I’ve been using a lot of wheat bran in my breads, cakes, pancakes and quiche or tart doughs. It gives a fibery texture that I really love on top of being rich in nutrients. I simply add two large table spoon of wheat bran to the dough when kneading. For this very simple quiche with lotus root and shiitake I used also tried using okara in the egg base instead of tofu, which is also rich in fibers and protein and it gives a drier texture, a bit that of a fish cake that I really loved. So simple and delicious!

Shiitake and spinach quiche

This is the end of winter, but it is still chilly and though the spring greens are quite attractive, sometimes a good all winter quiche with spinach and shiitake is a perfect dinner. And because I find that a short movie is easier to understand the technique than long sentences I am trying again to make videos of the cooking process. Tell me how you like it. I’m craving to know your opinion to improve from your feedbacks! 

Spinach and shiitake quiche: 

For the quiche crust

– 160g of flour

– 20g of wheat bran

– a pinch of salt

– 1 egg

– 40g of butter

– a bit of water eventually  

In a bowl mix all the ingredients and knead until the dough is soft. Add water or a bit of flour to adjust the hydration level. In a floured top roll the dough to the size of your pie dish. 

For the filling

– 3 eggs

– 20cl of milk

– spinach to your liking 

– shiitake to your liking

– salt, pepper

Wash and blanche the spinach. In a bowl beat the egg, the milk and yhe salt and pepper. Set in the dough. Wash and slice the shiitake. Add the spinach and shiitake.

Bake at 170deg for 30min (the cooking time depends on the depth of the filling) or until golden.

Have a nice week!!!! 

No-name recipe

It’s neither a clafoutis nor a quiche nor a cake. It has the fluffiness of a cake, the moisture of a quiche and the edges of a clafoutis. This is simply what I have cooked last night for dinner. With my parents at home I try to come back earlier from work and t gives me the opportunity to cook food that I usually don’t cook because it takes too much baking time. I wanted to prepare a cake with plenty of vegetables but what I often don’t like in cakes is that they are too dry and so not too pleasant to eat. But clafoutis have no pretty shape. And a quiche for 4 won’t fit in my little oven in Tokyo. So I opted for a new option that fixes all the problems, and the result was awesomely delicious!!! The base is that of a cake with flour, baking powder and eggs, in which I have added a huge piece of silky tofu and olive oil. It gives this unique texture to the cake that make it moist and soft. I added some vegetables: 2 tomatoes diced, 1 new onion sliced, a handful of shiitake sliced, and for those who like, some grilled bacon. Except for the tomatoes, I grilled the vegetables in a little of olive oil to soften them. Add all to the mix, plus salt and pepper and bake for 30-40min or until all golden. I served it with a little green salad and sprouts.

Have a nice end of the week!!! 

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