Tag: vegetarian

Another quiche…

There’s nothing like a good quiche for dinner! I was missing not preparing some for a while, so I had to fix that. With the summer vegetables starting I bought plenty of zucchini at the farmers market because we love them and ones need to enjoy them when they are in season (the season in Japan is rather short and starts early). Zucchini are perfect for summer style quiche. I prepared them with okahijiki (salsola), this little plant I discovered last year. And I used miso in the egg mix to add a bit of texture and flavor. The result was a great one. Oh… and for the dough I went with a bit different recipe, something close to pasta dough, thin and crispy… Indeed while I was kneading the flour with an egg I realized it was the same start as making pasta dough (it crossed my mind to do lasagna for a second then…) but I finally added olive oil little by little to obtain a smooth dough but slightly oily compared to pasta. Something I’ll do again for sure!

Salsola and zucchini quiche

For the filling:

– 1 or 2 zucchini

– a handful of salsola

– 2tbs of miso

– 2 eggs

– some milk (or soya milk)

For the dough:

– 100g of flour

– 1egg

– olive oil

Mix the flour and the egg, add olive oil little by little and knead well. The dough must be smooth, shiny and feel a little greasy but not perspire oil!

Roll the dough into a thin circle and set on the pie dish (I used a low and large one).

Wash the vegetables, slice the zucchini and set them in the dough. In a bowl bit the eggs with the miso and the milk, add the salsola. Pour onto the zucchini.

Bake at 180deg for 30min or until golden.

I served it with some yogurt with herbs in.

Attention: miso is usually very salty so do not add salt in any of the mixes.

Cherries

When I was a child, every year for mother day, which in France is at the end of May, we would go to my grandparents country house in Le Castelet to have a family lunch. From those lunches I remember catching tadpoles in the small stream that was running down the garden and picking cherries in the giant cherry trees near that stream. The trees were so old and big that we could spend the whole day in the trees picking and eating cherries, there would still be so many left. For me, cherries are great eaten from the tree, big, ripe and juicy Burlat or from the market stand. I love to keep one seed in my mouth for hours and work it like the sea would work a pebble. Since we’ve been in Japan it’s been quite hard to find cherries, and cherries by kilos like you see them in the south of France or in Italy… the only cherries you can find are from the US, or the local ones are from Yamagata and are sold by the handful, not more. They have different varieties of cherries from dark burgundy to almost white, large or small. I still love them large and almost black! I don’t buy cherry often but when I do I usually prepare them in clafoutis, and when I don’t have enough for one clafoutis I mix them with other seasonal fruits.

I find that clafoutis are the perfect option for breakfast on a rush as they combine both fruits, carbs and protein, and they are easy to eat when not yet really awake when we wake up early. They are also easy to eat on the go because there easy to wrap. Perfect for breakfast on the beach after a morning swim or a bodyboarding session.

I wish you a great week and love to hear how you like your cherries!

Bagels!

Last weekend. I thought it was a real long time I haven’t cook bagel and it’s been a while I wanted to come some… then I checked out my recipe online and realized it was actually 3 years since I cooked any… so it was indeed a really long long time!!! I used the same recipe, and since I was preparing them for breakfast I used very simple toppings: plain, brown sugar, sesame seeds, and mixed seeds. Actually I used half of the ingredients of the recipe and since I didn’t have sourdough I used 7g of yeast; and made 7 bagels, so I guess the recipe makes more 14 than 10 bagels, unless you like giant bagels!!!

Again I was surprised how simple it is and it seems quite impossible not to succeed. I poached them on the evening and baked them in the morning because there’s nothing like eating freshly baked bread in the morning!

It was the perfect start for a Sunday before spending time in the garden cleaning and taking weeds.

Cauliflower milkshake

It’s funny how what was supposed to be a simple warming and comforting cauliflower soup turned into something much more than average. That’s what I live with cooking and that’s why I started this blog… to keep track of the magic and make it happen again!!! And it is not necessarily complicated, all is required is good products and a bit of inspiration… This milkshake started with a chilly evening, the craving for something light and warm, a beautiful cauliflower and a bottle of milk. Just after came the salt and pepper and that’s it!

After eating a lot of cauliflower-curry-crouton during the winter, I was looking for some different to do with my cauliflower (strangely they had plenty at the farmers market in the past week, they are big and firm, great for raw and cooked recipes). So I first started by steaming it. Then in the blender I crush it, they puréed it while still warm, and in the end I added some milk and a pinch of salt and blended at mid then high speed. I obtained a kind of mousse that was really like a milkshake, I decided to serve it like that without further delay to avoid the mousse to vanish, it was at the perfect temperature (the hot cauliflower with the cold milk) and I topped with freshly grounded black pepper.

More seaweed

Wakame is one of the multitude of seaweed used in Japanese cuisine. The two other very much used are konbu and nori. They all come in different shapes and level of preparation. Konbu is probably most famous for making broth and nori for maki sushi, but there are a multitude of other way to use them in their different variations. Today I’ve used some nori in my quiche. Not exactly the nori for maki sushi though. Something a little less processed 素焼のり or “unglazed nori”. And I made a quiche with it, spinach and zucchini. Something simple and fresh. Here is my recipe.

Nori quiche

– flour, olive oil and water for the pie crust dough

– 1 block of tofu

– 3 eggs

– a bundle of fresh spinach

– 2 handful of unglazed nori (you can try with regular maki nori cut in bites)

– 1/2 zucchini

In a pan cook the washed spinach in their water, add the chopped zucchini and finish with the nori. Cook at medium heat until the mix is not too much moistened anymore. Prepare the dough and roll. In a pie dish set the dough. Add the eggs and the drained tofu to the mix vegetables. Pour in the dough. Cook at 180deg for 30min. Enjoy as a main or a side with some grilled fish for example.

Poached eggs and spring vegetables

When I have guests at home for dinner I usually serve fish, and if I cannot find fish that pleases me, I would serve pork or chicken. I love eggs, and cook them often for breakfast or when we are just the two of us, but I often forget that eggs are amazing and that they can actually be quite impressive when perfectly cooked and dressed. The “Cuisine and vins de France” issue for Easter has reminded me that, and I remembered that back then in Paris I was serving our guests some delicious spinaches and sprouts salad with poached eggs. For our guests last night I decided to make poached eggs back on the menu! This time for a spring version. Eggs are great to eat with some carbs, the make a great combo, and when cooked perfectly creamy, with some dry ones: bread, pasta, potatoes, rice… I opted for a mix of Italian faro perlato and black Tuscan rice. And the vegetables, simple: radishes, carrots, snap peas and green peas sautéed in a bit of olive oil.

Poaching eggs is ultra simple and impossible to mess. Simply take the eggs out of the fridge a little ahead of cooking them. Boil some water, add a tablespoon of white vinegar in the water. Break the eggs in the water, one by one. Wait 3-4min and drain. Serve.

Yuzu-choco cookies

Sudden rainy and chilly days, after some really warm and sunny weeks call for some sweetness… and since we’ve recently planted a yuzu (and also a lemon) tree in the garden, to broaden our range of homemade citrus fruits, I’ve started to harvest a few yuzu fruits. It’s late for the yuzu season but they are none the less delicious and juicy. That’s how the idea of making yuzu cookies came from. The recipe I used for my cookies is rater simple, and you can add whatever pleases you inside.

So here is my yuzu-cholate cookies recipe. If you cannot find fresh yuzu, you can replace by dry yuzu peels rehydrated, or orange.

Yuzu-chocolate cookies

– 110g of butter (at room temperature)

– 150g of flour

– 40g of sugar

– 1 tea spoon of baking powder

– the juice of 1/2 yuzu and the peel of 1/4 yuzu

– 50g of dark cooking chocolate

– a pinch of salt

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, add the butter and knead well. Add the yuzu juice, cut the peel in tiny pieces and add. Knead a little more. With a knife cut roughly the chocolate in chunks, add and knead. Keep refrigerated for 20min (or 10min in the freezer). Preheat the oven to 180deg. Make small balls of dough and squeeze them flat on baking paper. Bake until golden or hard enough. Cooking time should ne around 10min but it depends on the actual size and thickness of the cookies.

After baking the cookies until golden at 180 degrees I kept them in a cool dry place before eating them.

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.

Cresson soup

Cresson, or watercress is this little green that is harvested in spring or in autumn, and is delicious in many various preparations. It is for some unclear reasons not so easy to find watercress easily at the market so when I find some I just buy plenty and use it in many various recipes. You’ll find in the next days the recipes I have tries this time. Some classic one and some more exploratory. I hope you’ll enjoy them and it will convince you to try this little plant in your next recipe!!

To start with, a simple watercress soup, light and green, with only 3 ingredients: watercress, milk and water. I added a bit of pink pepper for the picture. No salt, nothing added, I found it was tasteful enough. Of course you can add salt of spices, but the simple preparation reveals the real nature of the watercress.

Watercress soup

– a bundle of watercress

– 1/2L of water

– 1/3L of milk at room temperature

Wash the watercress and remove the bottom hard part if any. Boil in the water until soft. Blend, add the milk, serve. That’s it.

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