Japanese food addict

When we are in Japan I don’t think about it, I naturally cook Japanese at least once a week sometimes more. When I say Japanese I mean rice (white or brown) and something with dashi and/or miso and/or umeboshi. These tastes have been part of our daily life now almost as much as good olive oil and basil. And when traveling I miss them, after a short while and the excitement of tasting new thing. They are simple, plain and fine at the same time, they are the promise also of fresh and simply delicious ingredients (for me) just as olive oil is too. Yet it is easier to find good olive oil and cook with olive oil (and with cooking with our friends and eating at their place several times I was really lucky!) than it is with miso, dashi, umeboshi and rice. I mean real delicious ones are still hard to find. So during this two-week trip I’ve craved for the simplicity of a bowl of Koshihikari with umeboshi, and that’s the first thing I cooked when I arrived home. I also prepared some dashi to cook some eggplants and used it for flavoring scrambled eggs. It is that simple and delicious. Is that the taste of home in Japan? Or does that make a Japanese food addict? What do you crave for when away from home?

August 16, 2016

Summer vegetable soup

The summer is chilly so far and the rainy season is surprisingly not yet finished. It is very nice to eat a warm dinner at night and summer vegetables soup is always a good pick. Ready in less than 15min, full of delicious vegetables, warm and tasty with infinite variety, it is really easy to prepare. For the bouillon I use a veggie bouillon base when I don’t cook leek or onion. As for the veggies: whatever I find at the farmers market. This time green beans, flat beans and tomatoes. While the bouillon is heating up I wash and prepare the beans, cut them in small pieces and add them to the bouillon. I also add the tomato (peeled) cut in two halves. When it is boiling I add some optional little pasta (here Sicilian little soup pasta) and cook until the pasta are ready: about 11min. Serve directly and add for those who like, some gratted parmegiano. That’s it!

July 26, 2016

Simple Japanese one-plate

Well, Japanese is may be a little to much but at least it’s Japanese taste and local products! I don’t like fatty meat but I must say that pork belly is always perfect to flavor simple vegetables. It’s very easy to find thin slices of pork belly in Japan, they ressemble a lot bacon slices. They are perfect for cocotte cooking for the bottom layer. Once they are cooked and the fat has melted it is a perfect base for cooking vegetables. It goves an incredible taste. Most of the time I use it mainly as flavoring and don’t eat the meat myself (A. does) but when the fat has completely disappeared and the meat gets crunchy then I don’t mind eating it! I actually find it quite good!!! It’s nice also because it’s perfect any time with seasonal vegetables. This time I cooked capsicums and in the end of the cooking added green beans cut in 3cm bites and finally deglazed in soya sauce. Delicious with plain white rice!

July 20, 2016

Back to normal

The quick trip to France followed by a weekend in Ohara to recover from the jetlag, enjoy the fresher air in the country, see friends and celebrate Sea day with a swim in a warm and beautiful ocean, it’s time to go to the lab again, stay seated 12h in front of my computer and regret there is no outdoor pool nearby (why on earth would they shutdown the beautiful pool we had on campus just when I arrived????)… Hopefully there are the colorful one-plate full of Japanese tastes with fresh shiso, soya sauce, rice, grilled tuns and raw summer veggies! While everyone here and there will go on holiday, we will keep working and moving: next biz trip already planned and departure in 10 days!

July 19, 2016

Summer fruits tart

Crazy time of the year, one day is summer: 35 and not a single breeze, sudden thunder storm and pouring rain, the next it’s almost chilly. Yet summer fruits start ripening and are delicious. Peaches season has started as well as plums, melons and watermelons season is also well advanced. When this time comes I love to prepare poached fruits, clafoutis and simple tarts where the fruits have the leading part. This time it’s a peach and plum tart. I like the mix of the super sweet peaches and the slightly sour plums. For the dough I prepared a sable dough with oat bran to add a bit of texture. I roll the dough, cut the fruits and bake. That’s all. No added sugar, no flavoring. Just fruits.

July 6, 2016

Craving for fresh pasta al pesto

This weekend Sunday I was looking forward for swimming in the icean and body boarding. We first wanted to go really early in the morning between high and low tide but we over slept and when we woke up at 7:30 it was already to close to low tide, and there nothing more boring than low tide: the water is shallow and very little waves for body bording. So we had to wait fir the next high tide that was later in the afternoon. At 16:30 I was really excited to go but there was no wave… Well at least we could swim… But the 22deg announced on the surf report was not too accurate and it was rather a 17deg, with a little chilly wind blowing… Swimming ended up by trying up to the thights and resigning… Back home… Frustrated… Looking at magazines and suddenly craving for pasta al pesto. The problem is that A. doesn’t really like pesto: no parmegiano allowed and no pune nuts either… So the best option was to do a tomato based one and to rapidly prepare some fresh tagliatelle (yes, I know, most normal people will just open a box of dry tagliatelle…). Now that I know really how to use my pasta machine it’s really easy to make whatever pasta in a short time and without having to wash the kitchen floor to ceiling for the flour eveywhere. So I made the tagliatelle, went to cut fresh basil in the garden, and added really plenty of little cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and that’s it!!! I wish a very pkeasant week!!!

July 4, 2016

Simple Japanese dinner

A simple piece of horse mackerel marinated in soya sauce and oven grilled; dashi blanched green beans and eggplants, white rice and umeboshi make for a perfect dinner in this rainy season period. Simple, tasty and colorful. I wish you a nice end of week!

July 1, 2016

Umeboshi – 梅干し

The best way to enjoy umeboshi is with simple plain white rice in my opinion. Since I got a big pot of freshly made little shiso umeboshi from our neighbor (mine are big plums without shiso), I really wanted to try them. I prepared simple white rice, and to make it a dinner I added a little of ginger grilled pork and some little radishes grilles too.

The plum are just freshly pickled and in their juice to they are salty-sour-sweet, very tasty and melting in the mouth. Actually they are delicious without rice too and now I understand why a Japanese traditional snack for kid is umeboshi. There are so many ways to prepare them and so many ways to eat them!!

June 29, 2016

Donburi

It’s a fact rare enough to be mentioned: I’ve cooked shrimps!!! Indeed it is awfully rare that I cook shrimps: 1. Because it’s not so easy to find wild shrimps; 2. Because I prefer them without head, don’t you think too these giant eyes are kind of weird? 3. It smells quite strong after… Anyway, I found some wild shrimps prepared for sashimi: head removed. They were not giant prawns like I like best but still a lot of conditions were there to give it a try. And I decided then to prepare them with what might already the last zucchini of the season (extremely short season in Chiba) with ginger and rice. So I gratted fresh ginger and marinated the shrimps in. Then I grilled them on a hot pan. I just steamed the zucchini and added small pieces of ginger and soya sauce. Served on top of Japanese rice, decorated with black sesame seeds. That’s all!!

June 27, 2016