Tag: summer

One more salad, or bulgur donburi

In my search of the perfect summer salad I’m making a lot of trials, never twice the same. Of course as I was writing in my earlier post all have in common a cereal or carb base: bulgur, rice, pasta, couscous… Tons of fresh vegetables: mainly tomatoes, ocra, cucumbers, a very light or non existing dressing. My salad today ressemble more a donburi for two, with Japanese style accomodation. I boiled some fresh edamame, added some sliced ocra and a perfectly rippen avocado, and a finish with grilled chirimen (very tiny half dried and a bit salty fishes). A perfect combination of softness and crispiness, of sweetness and saltiness. A really delicious mix and a great variation from regular rice donburi.

Nashi – 梨

This fruit is always considered as an awkward thing by foreigners in Japan because the nashi has the shape and size of an apple with the skin of a pear and the flesh of something like a pear but munch more crunchy and juicy, with a mild and fresh taste. So basically nothing to compare really neither to apple nor pear. Nashi is the utmost fruit of summer with watermelon. When eaten cool it is so fresh and juicy that it is the perfect snack for hot summer days. It is also a good match for busy breakfast because it is so easy to peel and prepare. Well, you’ve understood I simply love nashi! And I’m awfully lucky because Isumi is a great region for nashi, with a lot of nashi orchards and tons available at the farmers market and local farmers cooperative.

In the past I did some trials such as nashi tart, nashi compote… It was good, nashi supports well being cooked but the taste which is originally very mild due to the high quantity of water doesn’t reveal much in cooking as apple or pear do. So now my recommendation is to eat it just raw, accomodated with other summer fruits, or just alone. So perfectly simple and so delicious!

Salad, salad & salad

With the heat in Tokyo it’s hard to spend to much time in the kitchen in front of the stove or with the oven on. So recently I’ve just been preparing a lot of fresh vegetables salads with all sorts of accomodation. I usually bake some rice, bulgur, pasta, cheak peas for two meals to reduce the heat up of the kitchen, and then accomodate in a different manner each time. I will introduce a few this week.

Today is a simple chick peas and bulgur base with tomatoes, cucumbers and ocras, all with a bit of olive oil and a mix of north african spices. 

Simple summer lunch

When the temperature exceeds 30deg day and night I only can eat very simple food. Japanese rice is really delicious when it’s hot, and it suits very well simple preparations, without any fat nor dressing. Donburi is always a good and simple way to prepare a rice based perfect meal. This time you can’t imagine something simpler: plain white Japanese rice, fresh cucumber, grilled chicken breast chopped, and a lot of shiso leaves finelly cut, a few sesame seeds for perfection. Served with a glass of cold green tea. How do you cook when it’s hot?

Summer fruits crumble

Peach-plum-blueberries  
Peach-plum-blueberries  

It is rare that I cook desserts, unless we have guests, because we usually snack around 17h and dine around 21h, so I prefer to fix us something good for our five o’clock snack: small cakes, tarts, crepes, always with fresh ingredients, seasonal fruits etc… and skip the dessert. But with the heat recently, we’ve just snacked on fresh fruits and I decided to prepare something that I don’t often cook: fruits crumble. It’s strange enough that I always forgot about crumbles and bake tarts often. Maybe because it always ends up with no shape and it’s not as elegant as a tart or a clafouti where the fruits are perfectly aligned (control freak!). Well tonight I’ve made one and I wish I could share with you the delicious smell of my kitchen!

I used a random recipe (without really caring for the quantity but more the texture) for the crumbs mixing flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, butter and vanilla. For the fruits I used fresh blueberries, peaches and plums. Cut the fruits in bite size, make a layer of fruits in a pie dish and then add the crumbs on top. Baked 30min at 190deg. And it’s ready to eat after it has cooled down.

Summer?

I talk about summer vegetables and fruits a lot, and use many in my cooking every day (I love summer fruits for breakfast) but to tell you the truth though we are in July, the weather is quite tricky these days and summer may be in my plates but not outside. So after a whole week of rainy days and quite cool evenings, I wanted to eat a warm soup. So I went for a simple combination: leek, celery and zucchini in a vegetable consommé that I cooked 10min to keep the celery and the zucchini firm enough. I added a few little pasta at the same time (for the energy after a tough day) and a bit of olive oil. A delicious mix for dinner perfectly balanced in taste and texture. You can also add some gratted Parmegianno. 

Farro penne salada

Recently there’s been a lot of green beans and broad beans, it is just the pick season here in Japan and I can’t resist buying some several times a week, so our dinner have been based on these greens quite often. Recently I also found okra from Okinawa (usually they come from the Philippines), but not yet local okra. I find the one from Okinawa particularly delicious. It’s funny because I never ate okra before coming to Japan, at first I found it was a strange vegetable, but little by little I started to really enjoy them. When eaten raw they are a bit slimy which might be discussing for some people, but as soon as you boil them for a few seconds they’re not slimy anymore and they keep this beautiful intense green color.
This time I prepared for dinner a farro penne salada. I boiled  the pasta al-dente, and boil the broad beans and green beans together, in the last 30seconds I just added the okra.
I served that with olive oil, salt and pepper, as usual, and added some wild smoked salmon (I don’t why I mention “wild”, because I only eat wild fish from specific areas, like all the vegetables I use are either organic or locally grown without chemicals).
And dinner was ready in less than 15min! Perfect after a long day at work!

Potatoes and green beans salad

My mother does this very simple classic salad as a starter: green beans or broad beans, potatoes, new onion, olive oil and mustard. I love when the potatoes have marinated in the oil and when the green beans water is mixing in an indiscriptibly delicious juice. This time I mimicked her recipe but made it even simpler: remove the mustard and replaced the onion by some momendofu (hard tofu) crumbles and served it as a main dish for dinner. To enjoy the delicious juice I recommend to prepare the salad one hour before serving and with new potatoes I don’t peel them, just brush them under water.

Apricot tartelets

Well, I had in mind to finish this zucchini week with a vegan zucchini tart but the weather has been playing against me, it’s the rainy season here in Japan and this year we had very few rain until this week. It’s been raining or rather pouring for the last 5 days so I have trouble finding vegetables at my local shops. On top of that we’ve decided to spend the week-end in Tokyo (museum frenzy and shopping spree) so no local farmers product from Isumi neither. All this to say that I’ve ran out of zucchini without even noticing! So instead of zucchini tart it’s gonna be apricot tart (luckily found some beautiful apricots from Nagano prefecture).

A simple homemade sable dough, an almond puree and vanilla custard, topped with fresh apricots, and blackberry all baked in the oven for 20min. Et voila!

For the zucchini tart, I hope next week I’ll find all I need to prepare it and give you my recipe! Have a nice Sunday!

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