Tag: tofu

Japanese spikenard – 山ウド

Japanese spikenard – 山ウド is one of the mountain wild vegetables that sprout in spring together with fukinoto, kinome, taranome, kogomi (fiddlehead fern) etc… it is very tasty and ressembles artichokes, chards or cardoons. I find it really delicious eaten cold with a miso and vinegar mix. So here is my recipe.

Japanese spikenard with sour miso and kumquat: 

– 1 Japanese spikenard (like on the picture)

– 2tbs of miso of your choice

– 1tsp of sugar  

– 1tsp of vinegar (white wine…)

– 2 kumquats

Peal the spikenard and cut it in 4cm long pieces, then cut them in the height in 2mm thick pieces. Blanche once, then change the water and blanch again. Then drain and wash in cold water. In a bowl mix the miso, the vinegar and the sugar. Add the juice and a bit of zest of the kumquats (zest is hard to get!). Mix and add the spikenard. It’s ready!!! 

I served it with some tofu, pickled vegetables and white rice.

Treasures from Nagano & soba recipe

One of the thing I love in traveling is to find new products or locally produced natural products that are not easy to find otherwise. Shinshu – 信州, the region of Nagano, is quite well known for the production of apricots, apple and buckwheat. So after our weekend in Hakuba I could not come back without some of these local products, bought on the way between Nagano and Hakuba (that’s when it comes handy to rent a car!). Of course the season for apples and apricots is way past but I found some dried fruits, which are perfect for breakfast or snacks and will perfectly accompany my Sicilian almonds. I also found some natural honey and some wheat meal. 

Soba (buckwheat noodles) are something I really love but finding good soba is not always easy, so I barely cook some. And I haven’t tried to make some yet. But in Nagano, it is quite easy to find hand made noodles. And since spring is in the air these days I cooked them in a very simple fresh and green manner.

Soba with tofu and spinach: 

– 180g of dried buckwheat noodles

– 1 small bundle of fresh spinach

– 1 pack of baby spinach salad

– 1 block of thick fried tofu – 厚揚げ 

– some broccoli sprouts or some pumpkin or sunflower seeds

– 1/4 of lemon juice

– 1tbs of soya sauce

In a large pan boil water. Wash the bundle of spinach and cut them in 2cm pieces. Add to the boiling water, add the noodles. Cook them until al  dente or as you like them. Drain them.

While the noodles are boiling, cut the tofu and wash the baby spinach. Set the baby spinach in the plates. Heat the tofu in a fry pan for a few minutes at medium heat. Serve the noodles mixed with the spinach, add the lemon juice, the soya sauce, the tofu. Finish with the broccoli sprouts or the seeds.

And have a beautiful Friday! 

Vegan pasta

What better than a pasta plate for dinner when in a rush? And to accomodate it: spinach and tofu simply cooked in olive oil. So simply delicious now with the pick of the spinach season, they are so soft and sweet. 

Boil the pasta of your choice and drain them. 

In the meantime, start draining a puece of tofu (hard or soft, both are good), wash the spinach and cut them in 4-5cm long pieces. In a large heated pan, add olive oil and the spinach, then the tofu in crumbles. Stir well. Add the boiled pasta, stir and add a bit more olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve and eat immediately.

Japanese simple dinner

Cooking Japanese is not necessarily difficult and it can be really quick. In winter I love daikon cooked in konbu (kelp) dashi and served with white miso, but this is not a whole meal so I prepared also in the same dashi some warm thick fried tofu served with little raw spinach and for the energy a bowl of rice mixed with 16 types of beans and seeds.

Prepare a konbu dashi with a piece of konbu in 1l of water, bring to boil and keep under cover. Cut 2-3cm high slices of daikon, one pr person is usually good, and cook them in the dashi. Check with a toothpick and remove them when soft.  Serve in a bowl with one tsp of white miso on top. In the dashi still heated, add the thick fried tofu (atsu-age 厚揚げ) and cook for 5min, it washes away the oil from the deep fry. If you cannot find thick deep fried tofu you can warm momen (hard) tofu. When warm serve with baby spinach and a bit of soya sauce or a bit of ponzu sauce, or just a bit of the warm dashi. For the rice, I use a mix of seeds and beans that can be found in any organic supermarket or similar (if you cannot find some leave a comment I can help providing with some). That’s it. Keep warm and have a good weekend!

Last week…

Yes! This is the last week before we take a few holidays for the end of the year. So much to do at work before then that days will be really too short and I already expect getting back home late and having little time to cook properly. So my shopping basket at the farmers market was full of easy to prepare and versatile seasonal products. A lot if simple Japanese food ahead with the lotus roots, the carrots, the sweet potatoes and the sato imo. But before that, I prepared a spinach and tofu quiche with a whole wheat flour and wheat bran dough. I used olive oil for the dough rather than butter, and soya milk, drained moendofu and fresh spinach for the filling. With eggs it gets firmer, but they are not necessary. I didn’t steam the the spinach before using them, but steaming them would make them softer. I personally like when they’re a bit crispy. Have a very good week!

Rehabilitation cooking

Since we came back from Canada I’ve this impression that I have forgotten how to cook and that I am in a transitional phase of rehabilitation. After such a long time not really cooking much and seeing so many ingredients that I can’t find easily in Japan and that gave me so msny ideas it’s tough for me. Though I’m very happy with the Japanese cooking I wish I had a little more time to prepare our dinner. I’ve came back exhausted and starved from work every evening because of the effects of the jetlag. Maybe also it’s the pressure of the approaching cooking contest… Yes, it’s tomorrow… I wonder if I will still be able to cook that quiche!!! So everything I have cooked this week was pure simplicity and it’s so simple I ask myself if that is actually cooking!!!!

Tofu and ginger, shishito, rice
Tofu and ginger, shishito, rice

And a last one!

Yup! I’m done with this grant application and with many other things that were bothering me and keeping me too busy at work. So here is the last one-plate of this series, the last just before finishing the grant things. From tomorrow I will be back to some more elaborate cooking and trsting new products that I have on the shelf for a while but wasn’t decided to try yet. 

So on the plate today: raw radish and cucumber, bamboo shoots, fried tofu, rice with sesame and grilled carrots. 

Improvised dinner for friends

Our friends visiting from Germany spent the weekend with us in Tokyo with daytime busy visiting the city, museums, flea markets, and kabuki, trying some nice cafes too, and evening at home, I’ve cooked for them Japanese as much as possible but not only, in particular for an improvised late dinner at home after a long day out and a fridge almost empty. So I opted for a potatoes and baby spinach salad with tofu and poached egg and topped with sunflower seds and flax seeds. Simple, ready in 10min and delicious!!

One-plate salad

This morning the farmers market showed me once again that it is not clear which season we’re in!!! The transition seems to take an unusually long time and daikon and cabbages were lined together with strawberries and new wasabi leaves. It gave me the idea to prepare us a warm/cold salad with warm green lentils from France and thick fried tofu, fresh tomatoes and wasabi leaves, with an olive oil and soya sauce dressing and finished with a few sesame seeds!

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