Tag: vegan

New wakame

There’s a season for everything and now is the season of new wakame apparently. This dried seaweed that is most often used in miso soup and in salad can be used in a variety of recipes I assumed and so I tried something half French half Japanese for this recipe. It all started with the finding of wild (should I mention) splendid alfonsino (kin me dai 金目鯛) that really attracted me, and some green peas (I’m a big big fan of green peas), that could complement the snap peas and new onion I had already. For the fish I simply grilled it on the skin side in a pan without any thing added, and flipped it when almost done to obtain a crispy outside. For the vegetables, that’s where the new wakame goes, I simply blanched the peas for 2min then drained them and in a pan with a bit of olive oil I grilled the onion and the added the wakame cut with scissors in small bits, and finished with the peas. Wakame, new or not is a dried seaweed, it needs a bit of moisture to return to its normal condition. The oil and the moisture from the onion and the peas is the perfect amount to keep it a little crunchy, too much moisture makes it quite chewy I find. Stir a bit and serve. No need to add salt, it’s already salty from the wakame.

Oh! I forgot! It’s the beginning of golden week in Japan! So happy golden week!!!

Cresson pasta

To continue my frenzy with watercress…

This week is the beginning of the new term, I’m back to teaching which I enjoy really and very excited with the students new research projects. Work is quite busy, but I really stocked a lot of watercress last weekend and I use it little by little. It is very easy and rapid to prepare, much faster than spinach I find, so perfect for late dinners and rapid cooking. This time I want to share my recipe to prepare the sauce for some simple fresh linguine.

Linguine with watercress

– a bundle of watercress

– olive oil

– pepper

– long pasta of your choice, I used fresh linguine

– Parmigiano (optional)

I simply washed and cut a bundle of watercress, then while still wet I through then in a pan and cook under cover at medium heat. Once soft I add olive oil and stop cooking. Then I boil the pasta, drain them and add them to the pan with the watercress, cook for 2min at high heat while stirring. Add pepper and serve. For those who like, add grated Parmigiano.

Spring savory delights

Nothing to do with the recipe I am presenting today, but the other night we went to check the newly opened Tokyo midtown Hibiya. A new building with many shops, a large Toho cinema and a terrace garden with a view on Hibiya park and the imperial palace. The place just opened so it was very crowded in apparence but the overall place was quiet and walking around was smooth and nice. Shops are for the most the same as elsewhere. Brand names, big and small, chains. Nothing really to impressive. The only thing that I found fun and interesting was the retro corner on the 3rd floor, with some craft, a barber, a book store and some sculptural clothes.

There is one trend tough that I find quite interesting. 15 years ago when we arrived in Tokyo there a few cinemas, mainly old, that little by little were closing down, until it was a real pain to find one. Recently many of the new shopping places downtown have a large dedicated cinema. Toho cinemas are really spreading and now it is really easy to find a screening in original version too. Yet movies release is still super delayed compared to other countries and we usually watch the “new” movies on the international itunes store before they are available in Japanese theaters!!! And what to eat with a good movie? Pasta or a good and simple Japanese vegan meal with rice and sautéed vegetables. To celebrate spring I really like snap peas, for the crunchy texture, the little tart and sweet taste, and the brillant green. And I also love the salted sakura flowers with rice in particular, but not only ( I made some sable last weekend and it was great!). And since I still have some lotus root (I bought a giant one!) I cooked the all thing to be served together. Sautéed in a little of oil for the lotus root, then add a little of water to steam the snap peas on top, finish with soys sauce. For the sakura, I wash the salt in water and add them to the cooked and hot rice. Serve all and eat happily while watching a movie!!

Spring vegetables

March/April is a busy time of the year, this is the end of the fiscal and academic year and the beginning of the new one. It is usually busy at work, with graduation ceremony, budget closing, preparation of the lectures, and new students arrival. It is also A.’s birthday and the time when cherry trees are blooming. The season also to say goodbye to winter and to mushrooms, cabbage, leek and sweet potatoes and welcome all the new spring vegetables. Last week we also had the visit of friends from Germany and Though I was busy I wanted to cook something Japanese and seasonal. Luckily I found some udo, and I remembered a nice recipe with white miso. And since I has some dried hijiki I added them to the preparation (wakame is also great, but I preferred hijiki for the black & white effect. It is a very simple recipe, delicious with very typical Japanese flavors.

Udo with white miso dressing

– 1 udo

– 20g of dried hijiki, or wakame (optional)

– 2tbs of white miso

– 1tbs of sake

– 1tsp of brown sugar

– 1tbs of white vinegar (for removing the bitterness of the udo)

Cut the udo in 4cm pieces. Peel them and slice them finely. If the udo is really large cutting them in half is better. In a large bowl put 500ml of water and the vinegar, add the udo and once in a while give a turn.

In a bowl of tepid water add the hijiki or the wakame to rehydrate them.

In a small pan add the white miso the sugar and the sake and cook at low medium heat while stirring until creamy liquid.

Drain the udo, the hijiki, put in a bowl and stir well, add the miso dressing, stir again and serve.

Your kitchen is mine!

Kitchen take-over in Waterloo.

I’ve been in Canada for 10 days now and I really missed cooking, so when D. and C. offered me to take-over there kitchen I couldn’t resist and I had to say Yes!!!!! Please let me cook!!! So all set, on our way back from work D. and I stopped grocery shopping. Given the season (temperatures vary basically between -10 and 2) there is not a lot of local products available but we managed to find a few simple ingredients: spinach, mushrooms, potatoes, pears. The menu was all decided: I would cook vegan for D., some spinach and mushrooms ravioli. And for dessert she wanted spicy pears. So then I went to there place and while we were chatting I took their kitchen and prepared the promised menu. It was so nice and relaxing to be in a kitchen, to touch the food, the knives and to cook for dear friends. We after that sat for a nice dinner, my last one, tomorrow I’m flying back to Tokyo!

Haru kiku – 春菊

I’ve seen these beautiful green leaves for a while now but never cooked any before. Cooking is quite a big word for something that is perfect just washed and chopped like lettuce etc… In fact the trigger for trying was a recipe I found in browsing one of my macrobiotic cookbook and I totally loved the recipe at first, not because of the haru kiku but because of the hijiki. Some time ago I bought a little bag of dried hijiki made locally in Isumi. I made a few things with them but I find myself very limited, or I didn’t try enough, so this recipe was saving me. And it is just the season for haru kiku, so of course I found some right away at the local farmers market and I was more than happy to try them!

The original recipe is simply hijiki, haru kiku, olive oil and balsamic vinegar (a little weird for a macrobiotic recipe though…). My recipe goes like this:

Haru kiku and hijiki salad (for 2 as a side dish)

– a handful of haru kiku

– 20g of dried hijiki

– 2 slices of whole wheat or so bread

– 2 tbs of olive oil for frying the bread

– 1 tbs of olive oil for the dressing

– 1 tsp of white vinegar (I used rakkasu)

First rehydrate the hijiki in a bit of water. In the mean time dice the bread and fry it in the olive oil. Wash the haru kiku and cut the leaves from the stalk with the fingers, keep the leaves, trash the stalks. Then brake or cut the leaves in three. Drain the hijiki, add them to the haru kiku in a bowl, add the olive oil and vinegar and stir well, finally add the croutons and stir again. Enjoy as a side dish!

Pancakes best-of

10 years ago I was baking pancakes twice a year or so… I would often use pancake mix and was never fully happy by the taste and usually had to eat them completely soaked with maple syrup. That was until we travelled to Boston in 2009 and I found a great organic pancake mix at a fancy grocery store. I remember coming back to Tokyo, and waking up very early with the jetlag, the sun was already shining and I decided to take the time to treat us with pancakes made with this newly brought pancake mix before going to work. And it was a revelation, pancakes can actually be really delicious, and they don’t need to be soaked in maple syrup!!! Of course I could never find the pancake mix again, but I didn’t care. What was in the mix taught me that it was really easy to make pancakes from the scratch: any kind flour, baking powder, a bit of sugar or salt, milk (of any kind, or water) and an egg or not (actually now I prefer without, I found the pancakes more fluffy). Since then I have declined all possible ideas: changing the flour: plain, whole, soya, buckwheat, spelt… the milk: cow, almond, soya, coconut, water (when I have nothing in the fridge!), adding muesli, oatmeal, coconut, almond powder, spices, fresh fruits, grated lemon (picture)… making them for breakfast or dinner.., and they are always delicious, different and reslly easy to make. So I roughly cook pancakes once or teice a week when there is nothing else. But here is my ultimate top 3 for the moment:

1. Coconut pancakes: plain flour-coconut milk-grated coconut for a tropical breakfast, perfect with passion fruit jam;

2. Chai pancakes: plain or whole flour-cardamom-cinnamon-ginger for a cold winter morning, great with honey;

3. Muesli pancakes: whatever pancake base with muesli (nuts, cereals and dried fruits) added, anytime an extra energy is needed, I love these ones with butter.

But I must say that the lemon pancakes I cooked recently were amazing and could be in the top 3 together with muesli . Unfortunately I find it hard to get organic or non-chemical/wax lemons so it is not a recipe I can often prepare. Though last weekend I bought about 20lemons at a local organic market in Isumi, so I will use more lemon in the next weeks (after I’m back from Italy and France).

Lemon pancakes 

– 150g of flour

– 1tsp of baking powder, a pinch of salt

– 1tbs of brown sugar

– the zest of 1 lemon

– 200ml of soya milk

– a bit of water

– a bit of vanilla  

Mix all the ingredients to obtain a creamy dough not too liquid. 

Heat a large fry pan (anti-adhesive) pour 3 or 4 rounds of dough (depending on the size of the frypan and of the pancakes) cook at medium Heat until the top is almost dry, flip and cook on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Serve with honey or yuzu jam!

 

 

 

Plating

We say in French “les jours (les semaines, les annees…) se suivent mais ne se ressemblent pas”  (days (weeks, years…) follow each other but are never alike) and this is so very true these days for me! Not that I complain about it, but there is very little routine. One day it snows, the next is warm; one day I have intense discussions at work with many different experts, the next I spend in paperwork and administrative tasks; one day I spent writing and reading articles, the next listening to students presentations; one day I run errands and meetings in the city, the next I’m seated 12h in my office… and one day I’m in Tokyo, the next in Italy or in France… It’s a captivating work I do and I’m grateful for all it brings, even a short interview in a French peridocal! But honestly this is not making me better at plating, this is a constant observation. Regardless how my recipes are yummy-easy-healthy. The problem is that I seriously don’t know how to improve it. When I look at my IG feed I feel sorry but I use only my best shots… but when I look at my picture album, I see all these delicious tests I made that I will never dare sharing… For example this amazing plate I made with wild hijiki, grilled swordfish, tomato and caper sauce… deliciously half indeed but the pictures are so bad: lighting, plate, plating… all wrong… Or this broccoli and fukinoto bulgur dish (this one is borderline so I decided to share it… but honestly I hesitated a lot before showing it… but fukinoto are seasonal and the season is right now, and the mix with the broccoli was really great… so at some point I wanted to share it.. because there are so many ways to eat local and seasonal staples that change from the traditional ones. For example fukinoto is mainly eaten in tempura, in miso soup or pickled in miso… but in kind of risotto like this recipe it is also really great! You’ll find the recipe below. And if you have plating advices for daily life food, pleeeeaaaaase let me know!!

Bulgur risotto with fukinoto  (for 2 people)

– 100g of bulgur (I use fine one for it cooks slightly faster) 

– 8 fukinoto of medium size. If they are large 4 or 6 is enough

– a piece of broccoli

– water

– olive oil, salt and pepper  

In a pan grease with olive oil and heated pour the bulgur, start cooking at high heat while stirring for 2 min. Lower the heat, cover the bulgur with water and add about 50% more in volume than the bulgur. Wash the broccoli, the fukinoto. Cut them (if the fukinoto are small don’t cut them). When the water in the bulgur as decreased and is no longer visible add the broccoli and cover, 2min later add the fukinoto and cover for 3 more minutes. Add salt, pepper, olive oil and stir before serving.

Late night dinner

There are days (quite many recently) like that… when I start cooking past 23:00 for our dinner. We’re obviously starving after a long day at work, but nonetheless we want something fresh and tasty. I found that’s often when I get the most creative, in particular when the ingredients are limited as in winter (in summer tomato-eggplant-zucchini would just work fine…), I focus on herbs and flavors. Pasta would often be the base, while they boil I would of course prepare the topping. Last night I add a great inspiration and the result was sooooo great that I really want to share my recipe with you!

Celery pasta  (for 2 people)

– 125g of pasta (I used whole wheat penne)

– 3 branches of celery

– 1 or 2 mizuna bundles

– 3 branches of fresh dill

– olive oil, salt and pepper  

Boil water for the pasta and boil them while you prepare the vegetables. Wash and chop the celery, up to the leaves. Wash and chop the mizuna, same for the dill. In a heated pan add some olive oil, toss the celery, and stir  a bit. Then add the dill and finally the mizuna, salt and pepper. The vegetables don’t actually need to be cooked, so the time they spend in the pan shouldn’t exceed 7-8 minutes. They need to be just warm and rolled over in olive oil. Drain the pasta when cooked and serve. Top with the vegetables. Add a final olive oil touch, and ground pepper. Actually you can add some gratted Parmigiano, it is the perfect final touch!

How do you like your pasta?? I’ll be happy to try new ideas and recipes!

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