Tag: vegetables

Quiche

I went to pick leekswith my neighbor in her garden. She grew plenty but doesn’t seem to eat as many as she has, so she gave me plenty. I also found some fresh salmon from Miyagi, that I am quite found about, so I decided to prepare a leek and salmon quiche. I revisited this classic quiche with a very simple twist. Indeed leek and salmon quiche, like leek and bacon or spinach and salmon are ultimate classic quiche recipes. They are all delicious but they sometimes need to be revisited with something new.

The something new was really simple. I prepared a brisé dough and rolled it on black sesame. Then grilled the salmon and blanched the leek and prepared the rest as usual. The result was a crispy dough and a golden top. Delicious to finish the weekend. Have a good week!!

Shoyu pasta

There are recipe stories that are longer than others and that reflect how “agile” I manage my cooking!!! Last week I was telling you how much I love new onions and that you will see more recipes with them because I had in mind to prepare some ravioli filled with new onion. Everything was clear in my head and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Sunday late afternoon taking a break from work I went to my kitchen to prepare the pasta dough. Not the classic one, my ravioli would be infused with Japanese flavors. So I made a soya sauce pasta base. Then I started thinking of the filling and boiled a potato to smooth the filling that would consist in chopped new onion slightly cooked in a pan with katsuobushi flakes. And while the potato was boiling I went back to work and worked worked worked, with our new stray cat all cuddled on my laps… and I forgot the potato, time and preparing dinner. At almost 21:00 A. reminded me that we should actually go back to Tokyo… oups… nothing was ready and it was too late to start making ravioli. So we ate the potato, I packed my pasta dough, my new onions and we drove back to the city.

Monday night I came back home around 22:00 and it was really not a descent hour to make ravioli… I knew it… so I decided to roll my pasta manually and make tagliatelle and use the onion just as a topping. The result was so awesome that I am now thinking of making it a new entry to the Soya sauce contest…

Here is what I did:

Soya sauce pasta

– 1egg

– 120g of flour

– 3tbs of soya sauce

– 1 new onion

– 2-3 shiitake

In a bowl knead the flour, soya sauce and egg together to make the pasta dough. Keep for 1h.

Roll the pasta, and make tagliatelle.

Wash the vegetables and slice them. In a pan greased with a bit of oil, throw the vegetables and cook at low heat. Boil the pasta and drain them. Add to the vegetables, stir well, serve and eat immediately. You can add a bit of grilled pork to the vegetables…

New onions

As soon as the first new onions appear I have to cook some! The season just started and will last a few weeks, hopefully 6 or 10, and you will see a lot of new onion recipes, even maybe a whole week if work give me the time to post that often. New onions are soft, melting in the mouth, with a very sweet taste. Incomparable and inimitable. I love to cook them in spring vegetables mix, in Japanese style, in quiche… But to start simply, I used my new onions in a simply pasta sauce together with ashitaba. I simply remove the external layer, cut in quarters and cook in a bit of olive oil. Add chopped fresh ashitaba, add some more olive oil, salt and pepper and serve with pasta. Top or not with fresh Parmigiano. Wasn’t that recipe too simple?

Ashitaba gnocchi

This is far from being the first time I post about ashitaba (明日葉), or if you prefer angelica. I love this herb and the magic combination with potatoes and pork. I know I should be trying new combinations, but you have a solid recipe, it’s great to do it again and again with small variations. This new gnocchi recipe is even simpler than the previous one I posted a couple of years ago and as delicious! I served with pork filet cooked in olive oil and use the cooking juice as dressing for the gnocchi, with just salt and pepper. Of course olive oil is enough!

Ashitaba gnocchi (4 servings as side)

– 3 large potatoes

– a bouquet of ashitaba

– flour

– salt, pepper, olive oil for the dressing

As usual boil the potatoes with the skin. When the potatoes are tender, let them cool down a bit, peel them and mash them with a fork. Blanche the ashitaba and drain them very very well (as soon as they are cool enough squeeze them in your hands), then chop them finely with a knife or scissors. Add to the potatoes. The mixture should be creamy. Add flour and knead until the mix is dry enough to shape the gnocchi. As always the less flour the better, hence the need to avoid excessive moisture. When dry enough shape your gnocchi. I usually line them on a piece of cooking paper. Boil them until they float when you want to eat them. Dress with olive oil, salt and pepper or like me this time with pork filet juice.

Sakura risotto

As I was writing last time, it’s just the peak season for sakura viewing. And therefore I thought of using sakura flowers in some recipes again. The classic would be sakura rice or sakura rice balls, but since my parents are staying with us and my dad was crying for a risotto, in remembrance of the first risotto: porcini risotto, I cooked when I was still in high school… So to please him a risotto I cooked, with carrots, a few shiitake and leeks for the base, some turnip tops for the green, and a sakura broth as seen below. Given how quick the plates were wiped, I guess everyone liked it!!! So here is my recipe (below the picture)

Sakura risotto (4 servings)

– 1 cup of rice, either Japanese or Italian

– 2 or 4 new carrots depending on size, mine were big so I used 2

– 2 small leeks

– 2 shiitake

– 12 sakura flowers in dry salt

– olive oil (not too fruity)

– 10 pink pepper seeds

– a bit of ground pepper

Start with the base: wash and cut the leeks and the shiitake in small pieces. In a heated pan add some olive oil and the vegetables and stir once in a while until slightly golden.

In a cup put the sakura flowers in salt and fill the cup with water to make the broth.

Wash and dice the carrots, add to the vegetables in the pan, and add the rice, roast for some time. Add the sakura broth and cook at low heat until the water is almost gone. Add then 3-4 cups of water, the pink pepper, some ground pepper, 8 of the sakura flowers. Cook at low heat. When the water is almost gone add the turnip tops cut in 2cm long pieces. Cook and stir until all the water is gone, but the whole thing is still moist. Serve immediately and use the remaining flowers to dress the plates.

Spring!

I surprise myself with this title actually! Yes all the young leaves start to sprout and the cherry trees are blossoming, but the blossom are lasting for a rather long time just because the sunny weather keeps going on but it is actually freezing cold these days! The city has turned pink and green and with my parents visiting I couldn’t help going for a walk with them to the nearby park to see the cherry blossoms. It turns out that the closest park to our place is Chidorigafuchi 千鳥ヶ淵, one of the most famous spot to see cherry blossoms and stroll under a pink tunnel of flowers. Blossoms are going to last a few more days in Tokyo so enjoy them!

Cooking wise, things have been a little more quiet since they arrived with some of their favorite classics: buta shoga yaki, gyoza… and mum who can’t help wanting to cook for dinner while I’m at work!!!

But I wanted to go back to that recipe of somen 素麺 with vegetables I prepared because it was so simple and delicious that it is worth sharing. Somen are thin wheat noodles eaten often in the summer in Japan, but I see no reason why not to eat them in other preparations all year round. They are something just in between spaghettini and vermicelli. In the summer they are eaten with cold broth deep and cucumber etc.. but I prepare them in many different ways. This time for the beginning of spring I decided to prepare them with sautéed carrots and spinach and plenty of fresh coriander, dressed with a bit of white soya sauce. Oh!? Can you guess what is the pink thing in the plate?

Burdock – 牛蒡

There are a few vegetables that are hard to find in Japan and I really love: fennels, artichokes, salsify…

When I first ate burdock (gobo ゴボウ 牛蒡) I was quite surprised with the very peculiar taste, and I realized it was a good alternative for both salsify and artichoke at the same time. This long root looks a lot like salsify, with a lot more fiber and this plus the flavor make them close to artichokes in a sense. I love to cook them, though strangely enough I don’t very often… One of my favorite recipe is in soup, but many recipes are more accessible such as in risotto, or these two very simple recipes today: a mixed sautéed vegetables one and a vegetables soup. Both are ultra simple.

Burdock sautéed

– 1/2 burdock

– 3 shiitake

– 1 turnip top

– olive oil

Wash and peel the burdock, cut in 5cm long and keep in a mix of water and vinegar. Wash and chop the shiitake and the turnip top. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the burdock and cook at high to medium heat until slightly golden. Then add the shiitake and a few minutes later the turnip top. Stir until the turnip top are soft.

Burdock and vegetables soup

– 1/2 burdock

– 1 carrot

– 1/4 cabbage

– 1/2 cup of short pasta (optional). I used stelline.

– a bit of olive oil

Heat a pan of water. Wash, peel and slice the burdock, add immediately to the water. Cut the carrot (I don’t peel my organic carrots), add also. Chop the cabbage and add it, finish with the pasta. When they are cooked serve and enjoy!

Spring is here!

After the fukinoto and the canola which both announce the arrival of spring and the cold unstable weather that usually accompany the plum blossom end, the next step is the real arrival of spring in late March or early April with the famous cherry blossoms of course, Mole’s quince and the jonquils putting beautiful colors in the garden but also the bamboo shoots (takenoko 筍)and the other wild vegetables: fern (kogomi こごみ), horsetail (tsukushi つくし), angelica tree buds (tara no me タラの芽)…

We don’t have kogomi and tara no me in our garden, or not that I know of yet (I discover new things each year!), I found a few tsukushi in the past but never enough or at the right time to harvest them. This year I found really plenty, enough to consider cooking some. Tsukushi are a bit of a delicate plant and their pollen is not very good so it’s better to harvest them early. The one on the picture below is for example a bit too old, this can be seen by the dark color of the head: the pollen is already about to go out! The pollen of tsukushi is blue to black, and looks like mold!!! I have never seen tsukushi in supermarkets, I assume they are too delicate for transport and shelf time. Their flavor is very subtle so I like simple preparations: quickly sautéed, or simply blanched in dashi. To prepare them, simply wash them and remove the corollas parts using your thumb by simply rolling the stem with the corolla on top of your nail. Then cook them in a pan with a bit of butter or as said above blanched them in a regular dashi. Serve them right away with rice, scrambled eggs… nothing too strong.

I my case I made a simple fried takenoko rice with sesame oil, scrambled eggs season with a few drops of soya sauce. That’s it!

Canola

Every year one of the first vegetable that shows the arrival of warmer days and real spring (meaning up and downs in temperatures and unstable weather) is canola.

Not only canola is delicious, it is also beautiful in the nature, with its tall vibrant green leaves and yellow flowers. Isumi and Otaki are quite famous for its sight as they grow along the Isumi line train tracks and make very picturesque pictures for which a lot of people come. Not to say when the cherry trees start blooming, the pink trees bring some more pictural scenes and views, and gather even more people!

I enjoy very much when we ride in the country side at that time, but as you know, I love cooking canola too a lot.

This time, I used it for a very quick recipe, with soba and scrambled eggs. I simply blanched the canola washed and cut with a handful of katsuobushi. I boiled the soba, prepare the eggs, served all in a bowl, added olive oil and soya sauce, that’s it!!!

I’m now flying to Australia for a few days… bye-bye!

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