Tag: tomato

Shiitake week! Day 5!

And here is the last recipe of this shiitake week! I could have added many more like shiitake quiche, shiitake soup… But weekend is for new creative cooking… we’ll see tomorrow what the farmers market will inspire us… though I am craving for homemade gnocchi, rich quiche and more takikomi gohan… and I have a new cookbook to browse and some older to look at again (I thinking about my Sicilian cookbook and Shojin cuisine cookbook in particular and some older Japanese cookbooks I haven’t touch in years…) . So this last shiitake recipe is basically using shiitake as substitute for porcini. Of course they have a very different taste but in some preparations they can have a very similar texture. And since there is no porcini in Japan, that finding really delicious matsutake that actually come from Japan (they are usually from Canada, US, Korea or China) has become a challenge, regardless of the price you are eager to pay them, using shiitake is a very straightforwardly simple option. I used them with tomato, to serve with polenta and grilled marlin. I simply sliced them, cooked them in olive oil and add the tomatoes. Cooked until it’s all soft and almost dry. Served with the fish sliced and grilled in a pan, and some polenta. That’s it, and it was delicious! 

Have a good weekend! 

Fresh quinoa salad

If my weeks are busy with work my weekends are none the less busy with other activities: going swimming in the ocean in the morning and in the evening, working on some of my sewing/embroidery projects, gardening, baking, playing tennis, socializing… and when it’s hot outside I feel like eating nothing else than super fresh simple food: tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, melons… so for a boost of energy, adding red quinoa to a simple tomato/cucumber salad and making a dressing with olive oil, yogurt and  fresh basil is exactly the kind of lunch that I love. It takes 5min to prepare (and just 10min to boil the quinoa, but if you’re smart you can boil it before) and it’s fresh and light, which is perfect before 2h of tennis playing.

What is is your favorite summer food? 

Summer salad

Well well summer is really here and it’s just the beginning, temperature are going to rise even further I guess. So preparing simple fresh food is really my main cooking focus, yet each time I want to prepare something different, new, even if most of the basic ingredients are the same: new potatoes, green beans, zucchini, cucumber, okra, tomatoes… 

So for this simple salad I pan fried a few new potatoes, then added some boiled green beans, a cucumber, some beautiful tomatoes and, finished with hard boiled eggs and sesame seeds. Dressed with some olive oil and sesame oil. That’s it!!!

Today I am going to Ngoya for work where it’s going to be even hotter!

Curry soup

A few weeks ago, one day when the weather was awfully rainy, we went out for lunch in a new place we haven’t tried before: Green +. It’s a small cafe a bit remote with a chef that cooks vegan local food using tones of herbs and mild spices. The lunch menu is rather simple: curry soup, or a choice of 3 little dishes. All served with fresh salad, miso soup, brown rice and homemade pickles. Everything is delicious, but the curry soup was a real discovery. I like tasty soup but not too spicy. With the summer settling in, I thought that I won’t make any curry soup anytime soon, but last Sunday the weather was again very rainy and windy and chilly, and I was also sad and worried because our cat didn’t show up for the whole weekend. A warm spicy tasty vegetables soup was perfect for a warming dinner.

I used vegetables I just bought at the farmers market: a few baby corns, a handful of green beans, three little potatoes. one carrot, and one big ripe tomato. All in a big pot, covered woth water. I then added a tea spoon of curry powder, sprinkled a bit od cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg, added just a bit of black pepper. Cooked under cover for 30min, and served right away.

Fresh corn

Yesterday one of my students at the university brang some fresh corn he has received from his family and he gave me one. Corn for me immediately calls for Tex-Mex food, why I don’t know… and when I say Tex-Mex it is a bit of an extrapolation. It just mean tomatoes, spices and sometimes avocado and beans. So back home with my corn I first boiled it, then separated all the grains and in a pan I cooked the corn with fresh tomatoes and pork for A., added chilly pepper, all spice and salt; and for me I cooked the corn with tomatoes, hard tofu drained and cheese and the same spices. Just before serving both I added a bit of olive oil. Served with a few nacho chips just for the fun (I didn’t have corn flour to make some)

Japanese style quiche

Today we were invited at our neighbors places for a group session of Vipassana meditation and a dinner aftewards. I was busy all afternoon harvesting plums and didn’t see time flying, but absolutely wanted to prepare some food to bring rather than simply buying drinks. So in a rush, the thing I am the best at is making quiches. So I prepared a Japanese style quiche. Japanese style meaning that I used buckwheat flour, katsuo bushi flakes and soya sauce. For the topping I used tomatoes and red onions, with a egg base of soya milk and soya sauce, making it taste a bit like chawanmushi, this Japanese egg-base preparation that is steamed. It was simple to prepare and cooked in 30min in the oven, which is hand-free to continue doing what I was busy with.

As for the meditation, it was my first group meditation and I was curious to see what it was, even if I am a total novice and know very little about the different methods except for a bit of Zazen, so trying Vipassana was interesting, but I guess it requires a steady practice to feel any benefit from it and I not sure I am ready for that… we’ll see. Yet discovering it and discussing with some steady practitioners was very interesting. A great experience! 

D-9 before the opening!

As many of you may know, I’m a roboticist, cooking is just a hobby. I am the head of 20 people research lab in a national university in Tokyo. Just google me to check!! My days are pretty full with my job but I can’t help doing more than my shre and taking opportunities to do new things, to learn new things. This time, as I mentioned before, I am leading the preparation of an exhibition at our science museum where some colleagues and me will exhibit some of our research work. This keeps me even more busy: preparing the website, thinking about the layout, the exhibits… I’m hoping to make something where people entertain themselves while they learn about human and robots. And the opening is only in 9 days, or almost 8 now, and there is so much left to do!!! Obviously my cooking time has decreased significantly and it is rather simple comfy food that I prepare. I use a lot of legumes these days, because they are versatile, nourishing and easy to accommodate with vegetables. I prepared a simple warm soup with peas, lentils and barley, added a big tomato, a carrot, and finished with some fava beans. Topped with or without cheese. Dimply delicious, and ready to continue working!!!

Quick pizza

Finding some fresh rucolla at the farmers market suddenly triggered my craving for a vegan fresh pizza. Nothing more simple, with the delicious little new onions and the small very ripe tomatoes I had already. Making pizza dough for the crust is really simple, and with the warm weather the rising time and proving time are really short. This time I almost didn’t let if proof and the crust was thin and crusty, delicious.

Pizza dough

 – 170g of flour

– 6g of fresh yeast  

– 80g of water

– 15g of olive oil

– 5g of salt

– 1tbs of sugar

As for any regular dough, mix all the ingredients and knead until smooth. Let rise for 1h in a warm place. Work the dough on a flat surface and roll it to the size and shape you want.  

Now you can top it with whatever you want and preheat the oven at 200deg. For the topping I used small tomatoes halves and small new onion first, with a few drops of olive oil. I baked for 15min. Then rose the temperature to 230deg and baked an other 5-8min. Stopped the oven, add the washed rucolla and keep 2min in the hot oven before serving.

Have a beautiful weekend  

No-name recipe

It’s neither a clafoutis nor a quiche nor a cake. It has the fluffiness of a cake, the moisture of a quiche and the edges of a clafoutis. This is simply what I have cooked last night for dinner. With my parents at home I try to come back earlier from work and t gives me the opportunity to cook food that I usually don’t cook because it takes too much baking time. I wanted to prepare a cake with plenty of vegetables but what I often don’t like in cakes is that they are too dry and so not too pleasant to eat. But clafoutis have no pretty shape. And a quiche for 4 won’t fit in my little oven in Tokyo. So I opted for a new option that fixes all the problems, and the result was awesomely delicious!!! The base is that of a cake with flour, baking powder and eggs, in which I have added a huge piece of silky tofu and olive oil. It gives this unique texture to the cake that make it moist and soft. I added some vegetables: 2 tomatoes diced, 1 new onion sliced, a handful of shiitake sliced, and for those who like, some grilled bacon. Except for the tomatoes, I grilled the vegetables in a little of olive oil to soften them. Add all to the mix, plus salt and pepper and bake for 30-40min or until all golden. I served it with a little green salad and sprouts.

Have a nice end of the week!!! 

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