Tag: simple

SUP on the Isumi river

Three years ago we went to visit surfer friends in Chigasaki and took us paddle boarding on the ocean. It was great experience and I really enjoyed it. What I loved is that you can surf waves if any, otherwise you can just explore places and move around basically like on a canoe. Since then we’ve been thinking of buying a paddle board but given the space we have and the car we have, it has never been further then looking at a few websites… we then start looking for places where to paddle in Isumi and found the little SUP club and their initiative to clean the Isumi river. Once a month they organize a SUP cleaning cruise so we finally registered for the October one. Honestly, rivers in Japan are not looking too clean: I have serious concerns about the chemical quality of the water and I don’t think that there is an actual check and I would not swim in any except for mountain streams. I may be wrong, and hope I am. Nonetheless my target was not to fall in the water at all. The Isumi river is a beautiful winding river in a quite deep gorge sometimes with no real accessibility, so boat, canoe and paddle board are the only way to discover its surroundings and it’s really nice to have a different perspective. Just after the rain has stopped we gathered at the SUP club and we headed to the river bank all equipped. 7 people, 3 boards and a canoe. The trash along the river is just infinite and the cleaning we’ve done is a drop in the ocean. And they clean every month… cleaning properly would take forever and many more people… yet it was fun and interesting to join that event which I highly recommend and I think we will definitely go again. The people at the SUP club were really nice and it was a great fun.

After that we felt quite hungry and tired and skip our tennis practice for once, but we didn’t skip the 5 o’clock tea with a little reinvigorating snack: crepes. Crepes are the easiest and fastest snack to prepare and it is easy to make just a few. Here is my recipe.

Crepes (makes 4 25cm crepes)

– 70g of flour

– 1tbs of sugar

– 1 egg

– 1/3l to 1/2l of milk or whatever liquid you want (water works too)

– butter to grease the pan

– filling of your choice: chocolate, sugar, butter, jam, lemon juice, honey…

In a bowl mix the flour, sugar and egg, then add the milk little by little to obtain a rather liquid and smooth texture. If not enough liquid add a little more (this will depend on the size of the egg).

Heat the pan and grease it with butter. When hot pour a thin layer over the all pan. Cook at medium to high heat, flip once, add the filling and fold, serve and eat. Repeat.

Chickpeas flour

Chickpeas flour is a very typical staple in the south east of France, in Provence we use it for panisses, more east on the Cote d’Azur for socca, and it is always delicious!!!

I always have chickpeas flour in my pantry, I use it to prepare socca and panisses for sure but not only! I use it for making pasta and pie crust. For this quiche recipe, with shiitake and spinach, I wanted an oriental flair so I added cumin powder. Here is my super simple recipe:

Chickpeas flour, shiitake and spinach quiche

For the pie crust (vegan)

– 80g of chickpeas flour

– 80g of regular flour

– 1/3 cup of olive oil

– water

– 2tbs of cumin powder

In a bowl mix the two flours, add the olive oil, stir. Add a bit of water at the time while kneading to obtain a smooth dough. Add the cumin powder and knead a little more. Roll and set in the pie dish. Bake at 180deg for 7min.

For the filling

– 4 fresh shiitake

– a bundle of spinach

– 3 eggs

– 1/3 cup of milk (I used almond milk)

Wash and dice the shiitake, wash and chop the spinach. Cook quickly in their own water in a large pan to soften the vegetables. In a bowl mix the eggs and the milk, add the cooked vegetables. Pour in the pie crust and bake for 30min.

Butternut squash week day 6

And here is the final recipe for this week of butternut squash!

I have opted for a last Japanese style item after the gyoza and the ae. A Japanese classic: croquettes or コロッケ kolokke. Because it should involve deep fry I don’t do much of it, and mine are actually pan fried. I like the contrast between the creamy melting purée inside and the crispy outside of the panko. I served them with ginger and shallots chicken mini meat balls on skewers and a large pickled plum I made last July.

Butternut squash croquettes

For the filling I actually used the same as the gyoza (to be honest, the leftover)

– 100-150g of butternut squash boiled and puréed

– green shallot 小ねぎ

– fresh ginger grated or diced

– panko

– oil for frying

I mix the boiled and puréed butternut squash with the ginger and the green shallot to obtain a thick rather dry homogeneous mixture. In a plate I put the panko and with a spoon I take some purée, make a cylinder, roll in the panko. The number of croquettes you can make and panko you need will depend on the size of the pieces of purée and the moisture in the purée. Heat a fry pan with a few mm of oil in it or a deep fryer. Then put the pieces in one by one. Cook until golden every where. Turn gently if pan frying. Serve and enjoy while hot!

Butternut squash week day 5

Ok… the weekend is here and I’m still cooking butternut squash!!!

Using it again today in a recipe that is the pure product of my imagination: vegan gyoza. I don’t know why The other day, on my way to the station I had this vision of simple gyoza, filled with a butternut and green shallots and served hot with soya sauce and ra-yu (you know the slightly vinegared and spicy oil that you mix with soya sauce when eating gyoza). So on my way back from work I stopped to buy the shallots, the ra-yu, and gyoza dough because it was already 21:00 I didn’t have boiled my butternut squash yet and making the dough meant eating too late. Making the dough is very simple, just water and flour, but you need to wait 30 to 60min before making small balls and rolling them. So it was out of the question. Luckily it is rather easy to find fresh prepared gyoza “skin” in Japan that has only the basic ingredients. All good supermarkets have some. Here is my recipe below the picture.

Butternut squash gyoza for 20 pieces

– 100g of butternut squash pealed and boiled

– a pack of gyoza skin

– shallots greens 小ねぎ

– soya sauce and ra-yu

– optional: fresh ginger grated

If your butternut squash is not yet pealed and boiled like it was the case for me, start with that. You don’t want to have a filling that is too hot because it makes the forming of the gyoza more difficult: the skin breaks more easily, in particular when hand made.

Drain the butter well and purée it. Wash and chop the shallots green, grat the ginger if you want to use some. Add to the butternut squash purée and stir well. Take a round gyoza skin in the left hand, deep your right index in water and moist the outskirt of the skin. With a spoon set a bit of filling in the middle. Fold in two and start making small pleats to close the gyoza (see the movie below). Then once they are all ready, in a heated pan with a bit of oil and water cook at medium to high heat and flip once until golden on both sides. Serve with greens (I served simple boiled komatsuna) and the soya sauce and ra-yu.

http://gentianeetantoine.com/igk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/img_7761.mov

Butternut squash week day 4

All these pumpkin and butternut squash muffins in magazines and on instagram were just looking too good not to try something. I wanted something for dinner that could be eaten with simple greens like a fresh salad. Indeed the autumn vegetables may be coming one after the other, in Tokyo fall only arrives in mid November or later… so while it’s still 25 degrees outside it is hard to go for warm soups and rich recipes. My butternut squash savory cake had to be fluffy and refreshing somehow!!! I achieved that by using a lot butternut squash both puréed in the mix and whole pieces also here and there like in an apple cake. And to give it a little crispness I topped it with grilled bacon and served it with a simple rucola and spinach leaves salad, and a bit of olive oil.

So here is my recipe:

Butternut squash cake

– 150g of flour

– 1tsp of baking powder

– 1 pinch of salt

– 3 eggs

– 1/2 of oil

– 200g of boiled butternut squash cut in chunks

– 3 slices of bacon

In a bowl mix the flour, the baking powder, the salt and the eggs. Then add the oil, 2/3 of the butternut squash and stir well to purée the butternut squash. Pre-heat the oven to 160deg. In a greased pie dish or cake dish pour the mix, add the remaining pieces of butternut squash.

Cut the bacon and grill it rapidly in a pan, top the cake with it and bake for about 30min or until a knife comes out clean and the top is golden.

Butternut squash week day 3

Most of the butternut squash recipe I make are not really Japanese style. Indeed, butternut squash is not really a traditional food in Japan, it’s little cousin the kabocha is more common, with a green skin and a typical taste it is used in many places from traditional cuisine to more contemporary recipes. But butternut squash could also replace kabocha in some more traditional recipes. One recipe idea I like with kabocha is kabocha salad, but it often contains too much mayonnaise. Taking inspiration from a classic Japanese recipe based on tofu I prepared a new butternut squash salad that could also be called butternut squash ae. This recipe uses only 3 ingredients and is very simple while having a great Japanese flair. It is perfect as a side or as a starter, eaten in one plate meal too. Here is my recipe:

Butternut squash ae:

– 125g of butternut squash peeled and boiled

– 3 fresh shiitake

– 100g of spinach

it’s so simple you’ll be impressed!!!

Wash and slice the shiitake, wash and chop the spinach. In a pan cook the spinach and the shiitake until they are soft and just a little moisture remains. Stop heating. Add the butternut squash and purée it while stirring with the other vegetables to obtain an homogeneous texture. Serve and enjoy!!!

Butternut squash week day 2

For this second day of the butternut squash week, I have chosen a new recipe that I had in mind for a while but never tried. I am a big fan of coconut milk but I use very few in fact because I don’t use much packed food from places I don’t go… As you may have noticed I used local products of the places I am and those I take back with me as much as possible. Anyway once in a while experimenting with other products is fun! This recipe is again very simple and perfect for the fall using not only butternut squash but also sweet potatoes and an autumn fresh fish: cod from Miyagi, a little north of Chiba.

Coconut milk ragout

– 125g of butternut squash peeled

– 125g of sweet potatoes (a large one)

– 2 portions of fresh cod (I like the tail part)

– 200ml coconut milk (I use Kara classic coconut milk because I like the creaminess but not sur it’s a sustainable choice)

– salt, pepper, a spoon of oil, 1/2 cup of water

I simply cut in bites the butternut squash and wash and cut also the sweet potatoes in bites, and the cod. In a large pan I heat the oil a bit and trough all the vegetables at once and cook at high heat for a few minutes, then I add the fish on top and finish with the coconut milk, the salt and the pepper. Compared to other recipes I add slightly more salt to enhance the coconut taste while taking some of the sweetness. I then add the water (adjust eventually depending on the coconut milk texture, some are very creamy, some very liquid) and cook without stirring for 10min, or until it is just right creamy and the ingredients are well cooked. You may need to add a bit more water, but you don’t want it to be too liquid when done, or overcooked to reduce the liquid. Then serve and enjoy!

Plating such ragout was not super easy for me but the taste was amazing!!!

Butternut squash week day 1

Let’s start this week with a very easy and stunning butternut squash recipe that takes only 12min to make if you use already made pasta. If you want to roll your pasta, depending on how quick you are add that time too. I chose spaghetti for that recipe because I wanted al dente pasta rather than too soft pasta like tagliatelle or parpadelle. I am also inclined to think that long pasta brings a better balance…

Butternut squash and hazelnut pasta (2 servings)

– 120g of long pasta (spaghetti…)

– 120g-150g of butternut squash pealed

– a handful of hazelnuts

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

In a small pan boil some water and boil the pealed butternut cut in large chunks under cover until soft. In the mean time boil a large pan of water for the pasta and start boiling the pasta. In a small frypan roast the hazelnuts. When the butternut is soft, remove the water and with a wooden spoon, spatula or a fork purée the butternut squash, add olive oil, salt and pepper. By then the hazelnuts should be roasted, crunch roughly in a mortar with a pestle. Add half of the hazelnuts to the butternut squash purée. Keep the rest for plating. When the pasta are cooked al dente, drain. In the plates, serve the butternut squash purée, add the pasta on top, a but of olive oil, salt and pepper and then top with some hazelnuts. Enjoy right away!

Myoga

Now is the season for harvesting myoga, this little very fragrant plant, delicious eaten with silky tofu and soya sauce or in miso soup. Two weeks ago when I met with our old neighbor she told me that their used to be plenty of myoga in our garden, but I never found any. So after identifying the leaves I went and browsed the garden and found indeed quite a few spots with similar leaves, but nothing like the edible part of the myoga, though I dug around. I was quite disappointed… So when she came again this morning I asked her to show me how to pick myoga. And what I discovered is that myoga plants are gendered and in our garden now we have mainly only male plants… so we found only one myoga with an edible part. The part that is edible is actually the flower, or rather the bud or the stem of the flower. But it doesn’t grow on the plant, it grows independently on the ground about 15cm away from the leafy part. And it has a lovely flower with very thin petals.

Myoga has a very typical flavor that is one of the important flavor in Japanese food. I love eating it in miso soup or with tofu, but also pickled and in vegetables mixes. That’s what it has served for today. A pot of autumn veggies roasted in a pan and with a bit of white soya sauce and thin slice of aburage, and served with rice. Here onigiri filled with red shiso miso.

Really simple and very tasty!

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