Tag: sweet potato

Hand making

I’ve always loved making things with my hands… whether it’s been cooking, or small crafts, or drawing, but with a grand mother professional knitter, a mother and elder sister that know sewing, as the smallest one I didn’t really get a chance to learn any on these. Knitting I would probably be able to catch up, I did a little knitting when I was a child, but sewing… except for making squared pillow cases and the like, I really know nothing, and cutting is even worse, ask A. about my attempt of making a cylindrical pillow case… so when my old neighbor asked me if I wanted to learn how to make a traditional Japanese quilted jacket, I knew it would please her to spend some time with me chitchatting, I just couldn’t say no! I love learning new things to do with my hands. She told me what to buy and I prepared everything to be ready when the making day would come. She told me: “you’ll see it’s very easy” I understood “it will take one afternoon or one evening and you’ll have a new overcoat”… it was underestimating the skills needed and my total lack of them!!! It took me one evening just to cut and prepare the basic shape and she was guiding me all along, one other evening to add the filling and do the preparation sewing, and one evening to finally finish the hand sewing! But I did it!!! I am very proud of my first real piece of clothing! Hand sewing is yes time consuming but the cutting and mounting part were really interesting to learn!!! Learning how to make the best of the piece of fabric you have, how to avoid useless cutting and sewing, and how to optimize ease of mounting the whole thing together was really eye opening on knowhow and craftsmanship. I will definitely try again. The thing I found the best of all was that rather than watching an online tutorials I found that having someone experienced to show me was crucial in succeeding and in making the whole experience engaging and fun. Because not only did I learned how to make the jacket but also how to make small consistent knots, to use a supporter to make straight and regular stitches… and one million other things about Japan 70 years ago!!!

That said, you can understand that I had fewer time for cooking, so it was always simple. And with the chilly evenings, a warm soup was always welcome. I made a sweet potato and cauliflower soup. It’s so easy and requires so little work that it was perfect for me.

Sweet potato and cauliflower soup (2 large servings)

– 1 small cauliflower

– 2 small Japanese sweet potatoes (or 1/2 if it’s only big ones you can find)

– 200ml of milk

– salt and pepper

Boil the vegetables after washing/peeling and cutting them. When tender, move the vegetables in a blender, add the milk salt and pepper and mix. If too thick add a bit of the cooking water. Serve immediately and eat hot!

Autumn…

November has arrived in a flash… and with it the first chilly evenings that make you want to roll yourself under a plaid with the cat and drink hot yuzu with honey. It’s also the perfect time for long walks to the beach, gardening and receiving guests. This time guests were my sister, her husband and my nephew. In order to have plenty of time to go to the beach I prepared a very simple grilled vegetables with mustard dish inspired by a photo I saw on IG (recipe below) and because my nephew wanted to eat some tonkatsu I ordered a few pieces of filet-katsu at our favorite local meat shop Genji.

Walking to the beach we could enjoy seeing the persimmons on the trees and those prepared for drying already. Something I want to try to prepare once, but this year there was only a few fruits only on our tree… maybe next year…

Autumn vegetables grilled with mustard

– 1 sweet potato

– 1 lotus root

– 1/2 burdock

– 1 carrot

– 1/4 kabocha

– 4 shiitake

– a bit of mizuna

– 2tbs of seeded mustard

– 1tbs of olive oil

Wash, peal when necessary the vegetables, and cut them as you wish, except the kabocha, slice it. In a large pan heated add the olive oil and the carrot, the lotus root, the burdock. Cook at high or medium heat and stir often. Add then the sweet potato, the shiitake, cook at high or medium heat to roast the vegetables add the mustard and stir well yet gently not to break the vegetables. In a pan or in the oven roast the kabocha slices. In a serving bowl add the vegetables then the kabocha slices and top with the mizuna. 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!

I know… last week I was already writing about butternut squash and as said, I bought a new one again this weekend in the countryside. One butternut squash a week when in season is a good pace for us. Combined with other vegetables it last the whole week. This time, after some classics, I am experimenting a little bit more with new ideas of recipes or preparations. After browsing my past post on butternut squash I realized it deserved a proper “week” as shiitake, zucchini , eggplant… had. So I have decided to go for a butternut squash week this week with 4 of 5 recipes using butternut squash that are new to me. For the past published recipes please look here (many of the pictures have disappeared during our migration, I am slowly working on fixing that).

First recipe coming tomorrow!!!!

Soup or so

After the snow last week, the snow again this week. The weather in Tokyo was gloomy all of Thursday and Friday and I wanted some simple warm food. One thing I really love in winter is Japanese cabbages. They are perfect steamed with olive oil, thyme and salt, raw with miso, but not only. With carrots, sweet potatoes (or potatoes) they make a perfect rich soup. Soups are an alternative for one plate in winter. And since A. was complaining about the little animal protein we had recently I just added chicken to the basic vegetables soup. Here is my super simple recipe, and very very healthy.

Cabbage soup (for 2 people) 

– 1/2 cabbage

– 2 carrots

– 1 leek

– 1 sweet potato  

– mizuna

– alfalfa  

– 1 chicken breast (optional)

I just wash and chop the vegetables, and put them in a large pan full of water. I cook at high heat until it boils, then lower the heat to low. Chop the chicken breast, add it. Cook for 15min. In the mean time wash some mizuna and cut in 4cm long.

Serve with not too much bouillon, top with the mizuna, and top again with alfalfa. Add a bit of salt, pepper and turmeric if you like. 

 

Whaou!

Quite a week, and it’s only Thursday!!!  So let’s get back to when I left you last Saturday… Sunday evening we had 4 guests (mix of French and Japanese) for dinner at home in Tokyo so I cooked some of my half new recipes: creamy cauliflower soup with curried croutons (recipe below), pork cutlet with roasted roots: lotus, taro, sweet potatoes, turnips, deglazed in soya sauce, and for dessert hasaku with spices syrup (ginger, cinnamon and cardamom) served with sesame and kinako biscuits. A. picked many Japanese and French wines to accompany my food. Oh… and I also made some plain and olive fougasse, with the olives from the garden in Aix that my mother prepared! But that was Sunday and it seems ages already!!!

And then Monday it had snowed, quite a lot actually, so I came back home earlier than usual to avoid being stucked with train problems. And I was happy to work from home eating left over sesame-kinako cookies with a hot chaï late. And having nothing to prepare or so for dinner since I hade made too many roasted vegetables! I like to recycle leftovers and do new things with them. So I added fukinoto and topped with sprouts for a perfectly balanced dinner. It was a great flavor experience! Fukinoto bring so much!! They are also the taste of coming spring with plum blossoms! And then there was this workshop I co-organized at the French Embassy. Everything went great, I met amazing people, now I can think about what’s next (and there’s plenty) and go back to the work routine for a short while!!

How is your week doing? 

Cauliflower soup with curried croutons (6 servings as starter)

– 1 cauliflower

– 1 potato

– 150ml of cream

– 4 slices of bread (I used half rye bread I made) 

– 2tsp of curry

– oil for the frying the croutons

– salt, pepper  

In a large pan I boil the cauliflower washed and chopped and the potato, peeled and chopped too. When they are very soft I blend everything. Add water if it’s too thick. Then add the cream.

In a fry pan add oil and the curry, cut the bread in cubes and fry them while turning them regularly. When golden take them out and keep them on cooking paper. When serving heat the soup, add salt and pepper if you lile, serve and top with the croutons. I added a sprinkle of tumeric for adding a bit of color.

Friday already!

The week has been incredibly busy with many various things going on at work: the book I was mentioning, the organization of a workshop in January, classes, experiments… drinks with friends, party and MarioKarting with the lab, skipping lunch for tennis… and without even noticing it is the last night before the departure, it’s getting winter cold and days are at their shortest! So now I need to shop for some presents to bring to family and friends and pack everything!!! And I also need to cook!!! These days, as often before traveling, I have cooked a lot of very simple and light meals, with pasta, tortellini or risotto, but for the last night it can only be Japanese of course! So I’m thinking of rice, umeboshi, and some colorful vegetables (broccoli?) and may be some half dried salmon. Which reminded me of that excellent simple dinner I cooked last weekend with some roasted vegetables, pork cutlet from Isumi, plenty of pickles and rice. It was colorful with the fancy pink pickled daikon, the roasted carrots and the pure white of the rice. It was tasty with the sour salty umeboshi, the sweetness of the sweet potato and the carrots, and the caramelized pork… It was one perfect dinner for a cold evening!

Next time I’ll write I will be in Florence, hopefully with some Italian surprises! Have a beautiful weekend!

Simply simpler

No time to fix dinner? Don’t worry, I’ve just found a new preparation for sweet potatoes, and it’s so simple and delicious that it surprised myself. This is a sweet potato soup. But usually sweet potato soup means, that first you cook the potatoes, then blend them, add some cream or whatever and then eat. Last night I didn’t want a soupy soup, but rather something with a mix of textures. So here is what I did and turned superb! 

Sweet potato rough soup   2 servings

– 2 sweet potatoes

– black pepper

– parmegiano (optional) 

I washed 2 sweet potatoes and sliced them. Then in a pan I started to cook them, with just a bit of water to cover. I cooked them at high heat under cover without touching them once until all the water had disappeared and the potatoes started caramelizing in their own juice. Only then I stirred well and started to break them with a wooden spoon. Finally added water again to cover them, and bring to a boil. Add some black pepper, and served. Topped with parmigiano slices.

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.

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