Tag: vegan

Half risotto

In Japan people born from one Japanese parent and one foreign parent are called “half” (ハーフ) by Japanese people. Using the same idea I use like to use this word for my cooking recipes. Some would use different words such as ethnic food, fusion food or any other that means nothing to me. But “half” really captures my way of cooking. Whether it is French-Japanese or Italian-Japanese, it’s cooking “half” to me. When I make a Japanese quiche, or foie-gras suigyoza… This time, it’s a risotto I prepared, that is perfectly half, in ingredients and inspiration. Half Japanese and half Italian. The rice: 1/2 brown Koshihikari 1/2 Carnaroli; the vegetables: 2 small leeks for the base, then fresh shiitake and some olive oil preserved Italian purple artichokes (you can use fresh one if you can find some… but really in Tokyo it’s not easy…). I topped my risotto with some freshly gratted Parmigiano but it’s optional, A. prefers his risotto straight!

Half risotto (for 2 servings) :

– 60g of Carnaroli rice (or any risotto rice of your choice)

– 60g of brown Japanese rice  (I use Koshihikari from Isumi, but it’s up to you to use the brown rice you like)

– 1 or 2 leeks depending on size

– 4-10 shiitake depending on size (I prefer smaller ones)

– 10 small purple artichokes  (I used olive oil preserved ones)

– olive oil, salt, pepper, Parmigiano…

First chop the leek and cook in a large pan at low heat in a bit of olive oil, stir regularly so that they don’t change color. Wash and cut the shiitake. Prepare the artichokes if fresh and cut in halves unless very small and tender, if in olive oil drain them. Add the rices in the pan and a bit of olive oil. Increase the heat and stir often. When the rice becomes translucent add about 600ml of water (I don’t use broth because the leeks and mushrooms are alrrady bringing enough flavor), salt, pepper, the mushrooms and the fresh artichokes (if in olive oil, wait until the end). Cook under cover at medium-low heat until the liquid has almost disappeared. Add now the artichokes if they were in olive oil. Stir and serve rapidly. Add gratted Parmigiano if you like!

Vegan pie

You know how much I love to make quiches and tarts, there are so many examples already posted, and there will be this year many more. But when like me you love making dough, kneading and having flour on your hands, better than quiches and tarts, there are pies, for which you need twice more pie crust and I won’t complain about that!!! Pies are also great when you don’t want to use an egg base, and simply use vegetables and some tofu or some miso etc… I also love them in winter because they seems to be much warming, keeping the vegetables in their heat and steam and preventing them fir getting dry. I plan to make more pies this year and to try new recipes, I have already ideas flowing in my head, so maybe something like a pie a week or will be a good rythm, let’s try what I can do!!!

This first pie is a pure vegan delight with an olive oil base pie crust, with half flour half oat bran, and a filling of spinach, radish tops blanched and silky tofu. Everything is said! Bake for 30-40min and enjoy!!!!

Life in Florence

So, it’s been four days we’ve been in Florence, except for Sunday that we spent walking around the city as described here, it’s been a rather studious time. A. leaves early in the morning while it’s all dark and comes back late at night, and this gives me more than plenty of time to work, write and spend a little hour or two outside walking around the city in the cold and shopping for lunches and dinners.

I’ve now explored both the San’Ambroggio market and the San Lorenzo market, got to see everything twice or thrice to decide what to buy choosing between all the delicious cheeses, fresh pasta and all the fruits and vegetables that are alien to Japan. I must say that I passed on fish, not being fully satisfied with the stands and on meat as there was too many options and I am not good with meat too much… but I guess that I will have to try some for A.. For the moment I’m sticking to speck and San Daniele and it’s been perfect. I also got my tea from La Via del Te as recommended by Giula from the beautiful Juls’ kitchen. And really I am more than happy with my little kitchen and the simple cooking I can do!

So far the things I have really been enjoying are the greens: I packed on lamb’s lettuce, rucola, zucchini, fennel and artichokes and I have been using them in many various preparation. My best being this delicious dish of pasta with olive oil roasted fennels and zucchini and topped with rucola. It is so simple and so fresh, and so easy to make, that here is my recipe:

Pasta with zucchini, fennel and rucola (for 2)

– 125g of pasta

– 1 zucchini

– 1/2 fennel

-1 handful of rucola

– olive oil, salt and pepper

– additionally some fresh parmigiano or some other cheese

Boil the water for the pasta and the pasta. In the mean time, wash and cut the fennel and the zucchini, and in an olive oil greased frypan cook them, but not overcook them! Add the drained pasta, salt, pepper, and olive oil, top with rucola and stir, serve immediately. Add cheese if you like!

And have a great Wednesday! 

Polenta “pizza”

Maybe it’s because we’re going to Italy soon, maybe just because I love it, but there are two things I am craving for: Italian food and Japanese food. So I alternate Italian inspirations and Japanese ones, and sometimes mix the two. When you need a rapid base for dinner polenta is much better than rice. It cokks in no time and it is very versatile and fun to arrange with many vegetables. One of the things I like to prepare it with are mushrooms and tomatoes. Somehow very classic. But you can give it a twist and prepare it like a pizza (vegan, gluten free). Here is my recipe!

Polenta pizza (4 servings)

– 100g of polenta (more or less depending on the size of your pie dish, the thickness of the polenta you want etc…)

– 2 large shiitake or 5 small

– a bundle of rucola

– a hanful of cherry tomatoes

– a branch of rosemary

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

First cook the polenta, you want it slightly dry to hold when it is cold but not undercooked.  Then pour the hot polenta in your olive-oil greased pie dish to obtain an even layer. Since I’m making a “pizza” I don’t want it to be thick, but neither too thin. 5-8mm is the right thing for me. Let it chill. Wash the vegetables and cut them. Add a bit of olive oil on top of the polenta, rosemary, salt and pepper. Then add the tomatoes and shiitake. Pre-heat the oven 30min before serving to 180deg. and cook the polenta and vegetables. Finally when done, just before serving add the rucola. That’s it!

Double almond pancakes

The last weekend we spend in the country before traveling for a few weeks in Europe: Italy and France, and it is perfectly cold and sunny, just how like the mornings it this season. To warm us up before going outside play tennis and garden, a rich breakfast is now needed and this morning I chose to make rich pancakes, but not muesli pancakes, since A. is not a big fan of muesli. But almond in cakes he likes very much. The recipe is really simple, they are fluffy, warm and nourishing.  The recipe is vegan, but you can add eggs if you want them even richer. So here is my recipe with proportions that are about, adjust slighty if needed! Enjoy the weekend!

Double almond pancakes  

– 200g of flour

– 1 glass of almond milk

– 80g of almond powder

– 1tsp of baking powder, and a pinch of salt

– 2tbs of sugar (optional) 

– 1/2 vanilla bean

In a large bowl, add the flour, the baking powder, the salt the sugar. Stir and add the almond milk. Then the almond powder and the vanilla. The dough must be creamy thick. If it is too hard add a bit of almond milk or water, if it is too wet add a little bit more almond powder or flour.

Heat a anti-adhesive fry pan, don’t grease it. Cook the pancakes on both sides for a few minutes. Eat warm!

Vegan gnocchi

When we travel to Sicily last Xmas I bough a small gnocchi board, and curiously enough I haven’t made gnocchi since I have had it. It was time to change that! And the other day with D. and C. at home we discussed about vegan gnocchi, and I was rather tempted to try. The main reason for me was that I usually prepare gnocchi for two, and one egg in the preparation is way to much moisture. And without egg it work actually very well. I also used semolina instead of regular flour and that was really great. I didn’t measure anything, but they were very soft. What is great also without the egg, is that you can dey your gnocchi or at least keep them longer if you don’t eat them all at once!!!

As for accompanying them, for the first batch I only used olive oil and pepper. For the second, cherry tomatoes, broccoli and sausage. 

Shiitake week! Day 2!

When suddenly the weather is chilly in the country, that it’s late and I want some confort food, I usually prepare a hot pasta soup with a clear vegetable bouillon. Leek and carrots are the two main ingredients for the bouillon, but alone they do not provide enough, so I like to add something else. This something else being more than often shiitake. Mushrooms in general are great to prepare when in a rush. They just need to be washed and are really easy to cut: slices, quarters, dice… they are quick to cook too… some are also good raw, but not really shiitake. In my warm soup I added a bit of parsley, and for the pasta I chose some pretty stelline.

You can finish with a bit of gratted parmigiano. Keep warm!

Shiitake week! Day 1!

After weeks trying to get this new rythm, I think we’ve almost got it… and a weekend in the country with tennis, gardening and cooking, plus the cat and a bit of work was the perfect way to completely get it right. My muscles hacking from the tennis and the gardening: trimming a Japanese pine is quite a demanding task, and I didn’t even manage to get it done… For the cooking I have been enjoying a lot the autumn vegetables, in particular most of my recipes included shiitake lately, I put them every where. So this week is a shiitake recipe week! But if you don’t have shiitake you can replace them by porcini or simple mushrooms. 

Let’s start with this very nice marcrobiotic French Japanese style recipe of Persillade. Traditional persillade is made with garlic, parsley, oil etc… except that I don’t like garlic (one reason why I never use it, despite all the health benefits it may have), so I have invented this new recipe that ressembles persillade but is much more fun and goes perfectly with shiitake! Here is my recipe!

My ginger persillade (for 2) 

– 1 cup of brown rice

– 2 carrot

– 6 shiitake

– 1/2 burdock root

– parsley

– fresh ginger

Cook the rice in a pot, Japanese style, or in a rice cooker. Brown rice requires a little bit more water than white rice. 

Peel the burdock, cut in bites and wash abundantly, same with the carrots. Wash the shiitake and slice them thinly. In a heated pan add a bit of olive oil, then the burdock, later the carrots and finish with the shiitake. Stir once in a while. 

Peel the ginger, cut in thin slices and then dice in 1mm side. Wash the parsley and chop it. Add the ginger and the parsley in the pan, stir regularly. Add a bit of olive oil if necessary. That’s it!  

Serve the rice, the vegetables and enjoy your meal!!! 

New rythm

Pfou… it’s not easy to find a mew rythm when days at work are 13h and one day you start early, the other you finish late… even less easy when A. has meetings until quite late… Cooking dinner past 22:30 when lunch is that far away and you’re starving requires food that can be prepared quite rapidly… but I still want to eat fresh, seasonal, local food. There are a few tricks to do that:

– trick No 1: stock on daikon radish, carrots and miso. It takes 2minutes to peel and cut daikon sticks (even faster than carrots!!) and 3minutes for a carrot or two. Dipped in miso they are the perfect snack!

– trick No 2: pack on food that can be prepared in hot simple pot and don’t need to much time to prepare (no peeling…): kabocha, sweet potatoes, carrots… in 10min they can be cooked and preparing them is simple: wash & cut! 

– trick No 3: prepare your rice cooker in the morning and schedule cooking or cook rice in a thick pan on gaz directly (it reduces cooking time to a mere 20min)

And while you eat you veggies with miso and you smell the veggies roasting and the rice boiling you can open your mail, chat about your day and admire the result of your first experience of making pottery on a wheel!

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑

Verified by MonsterInsights