Saturday, February 28, 2015

Sunday morning's English scones

Yesterday I've been busy cooking for dinner so I didn't have time to prepare some bread for this morning. Usually when this happens I either cook crepes, pancake or English scones in the morning and in 30min we have a ready to eat breakfast.
This morning it was plain English scones. The recipe for a dozen 4cm scones is simple (based on recipe from BBC of course!!): 175g of flour, 1/2 tsp of baking powder, a bit of salt, 40g of soft butter, 80ml of milk or equivalent, 2tbsp of brown sugar, vanilla (I use exclusively fresh one, no extract, much tastier and love the black dots!!). After mixing all the ingredients and obtaining a nice dough I roll it in sticks of 4 cm diameter and cut thick slices of 1cm or more and line them on cooking paper. Bake in the oven for about 15min  (depending on thickness) at 180deg. And ready to eat!! With butter, jam, marmalade... 
This morning I served an apple-strawberry salad to complete the breakfast.


Friday, February 27, 2015

Simple lunch

I like to use leftovers to cook myself something for lunch. Yesterday evening I cook some veggies ragu (pink radish, sweet potato, leek, na no hana), and one big spoon was left over. So for lunch I added a carrot, linen seeds, pine nuts and an egg on the side, and I got a perfect lunch.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Kappabashi dori - 河童橋通り

If you like cooking and tableware, Kappabashi dori is a must go when visiting Tokyo. This street between Ueno and Asakusa is the home of many shops selling cooking gear and tableware for professionals. Most of the shops sell also to individuals (but it's better to ask before being disappointed). There, you can find pretty much anything from metal sakura shapes to amazing laqueware bowls. Crazy knives and delicates bamboo baskets. With Prunellia we spent a few hours there the other day, and got plenty of new things to cook with!

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Burdock soup, grilled mochi and na no hana scrambled eggs

Though it is slowly getting warmer it's still not yet spring. A warm soup for dinner is still very much welcome!
This time I made for the first time gobo (burdock) soup with some grilled mochi (rice cake) and accompanied it with a little na no hana scrambled eggs. 
Gobo are long thin roots with a taste close to artichokes but slightly more bitter and are supposed to be rich in potassium.
For the soup after peeling the burdocks I let them dip into fresh water for 15min, then boiled them 30 min after changing the water (it removes the bitterness). I then remove the water and add fresh water again. Blend well until liquid. Finally when eating the soup I added some vegetable consommé, and pepper. Grilled a rice cake in the oven and serve together.
For the scrambled eggs I just put a little of olive oil in a frypan, added washed and cut na no hana, then eggs, and finally soya sauce.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Nabe four hands

After a cold day walking accross rice paddies, nothing better than a good nabe, home made of course. 
Nabe is a traditional Japanese soup with vegetables (Chinese cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, leeks...), tofu (here we have yuzu tofu), shitaki (white Japanese konyaku pasta) and fish cut in small peaces (or meat, as you like).
In a big pot, on a fire in the center of the table, add the vegetables to the konbu and katsuo dashi bouillon. 
Then, add tofu, pasta and fish (and if you like small shells). You can also go for a 100% vegan version, delicious too.

When it's cooked, everyone can help himself directly in the big pot. Add a drop of ponzu sauce, if you like you can add grilled mochi, rice to put inside and Bon appetite!
Made together by Prunellia and Gentiane!








Monday, February 23, 2015

Stamped butter cookies

For my birthday, my best friend offered me a very nice present: a customizable cookie stamp. I've used it a few time already for tea and we ate the cookies right of the oven so didn't had a chance to take a pic!!! This time I made some for dessert and I could keep them long enough to take a picture!! These are plain butter cookies, a bit like Britany's specialty.
The recipe is really simple: 100g of butter,  150g of flour, 40g of sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla. Of course you can make any variation of your choice!
After baking the cookies until golden at 180 degrees I kept them in a cool dry place before eating them.


Sunday, February 22, 2015

Breakfast with twisted orange bread, whole grain bread and smoothie

With Prunellia and Aurore visiting us I'm preparing a few samples of what we like to eat. The rice bowl with salad-acocado-tuna topping (see Prunellia's post), nabe, cookies, smoothie, breads...
For breakfast I asked them to pick one bread they wanted to eat and they decided for a twisted orange bread. Excellent pick for breakfast!
This bread is a little sweet, with orange peels and orange blossom water. (250g of flour; 155g of water; 12g of dry sourdough; 2g of yeast; 20g of sugar; 5g of salt; 12g of butter; 12g of orange blossom water; 45g sugared orange peels. Mix everything together, until smooth, then prepare like regular bread, only in the end you twist the dough and bake in a buttered pan with a lid for 30min at 220deg.)

I also made a whole grain bread too (see previous post), and a green melon-pineapple-strawberry smoothie.

We ate the breads just out from the oven with homemade marmalade and butter. Deliciously warming on a rainy Sunday morning! 



Saturday, February 21, 2015

Rice with surprising top

Very good, nice, healthy and almost quick meal that Gentiane prepared for us. In a large bowl, put some cooked Japanese rice, then add avocado, roquette salad, and tuna fish just quickly grilled in a wok. And sesame seeds and sesame oil.
It's ready. It's delicious. 

Friday, February 20, 2015

Lunch at home

With Prunellia at home it means a lot of going out for dinner, little sleep, and busier than usual so for lunch I need my dose of cereals, fresh vegetables and home cooking. Today I prepare a mixture of cereals, with one egg and cheese that I bake in a frypan in circles, accompanied by grilled leek, shiitake and tomatoes, a little of olive oil and laurel. A power balanced lunch to get a lot of work done this afternoon!

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Steamed whole cabbage

In winter, when it's cold and dark I really love to eat cabbage based recipes. One of my favorite yet simplest is steamed cabbage. Basically I steam a whole cabbage so that the inside is still a little crunchy while the outside melts in the mouth. I usually accomodate it with only a fruity olive oil, thyme from Aix garden and salt. Today on the plate I've added a few slices of crunchy grilled bacon, but it's optional.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Plum - 梅 - Prune

In February the first trees to bloom in Japan are the plum trees. They're not as famous as the Japanese cherry tree, but I like them much more for the vibrant colors of their flowers from white to dark pink and for their beautiful round petals and because people are much less silly than when the cherry trees start blossoming.
Plum tree blooming in our garden
In Japan plums are used in many ways. The most two famous are probably umeshu (plum wine) and umeboshi (kind of pickled plum) made out of the fruits harvested in June. But they are also used to make some sweets, mainly jelly that I love!
Sweet plum and red shiso jelly
The plum flower is also largely used for decoration for Hina-matsuri, the dolls festival literally, or festival for the girls on March 3d.
Hina-matsuri sweets decorated with plum flowers

Let's talk umeboshi! The season for making some is far ahead, but since it is a preserve method they are eaten all year round, and known to be good against fatigue among other virtues. For many non Japanese people it's an infamous sour thing that is often found in lunch boxes: small and hard, or in onigiri (rice balls 🍙): soft and juicy. I personally find it extremely delicious when home-made or of very good quality, but I wouldn't recommend any of the cheap things from conbini. My favourite are the large and soft ones with a lot of juicy meat. It is often prepared with red shiso and is delicious eaten with plain white rice, with grilled chicken breast or with canned tuna (my lunch plate today).
Oh! And Prunellia arrives tonight in Tokyo!!!
My umeboshi favorite lunch plate







Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Fukinoto - ふきのとう

Fukinoto growing in our garden
As a lot if places, Japan is full if wild plants that are edible. A lot of them come as a set called 山菜 (pronounce that sansai, literaly the "mountains vegetables"). It includes kogomi, tara no me, warabi and fukinoto. Most of them are great fun to pick, just like mushrooms. Depending on places they are more or less abundant and they grow at different times. For example fuki no to grow in January-February in Chiba prefecture, while in the Niigata mountains they are snow piercer and grow in May.
The first time we ate fukinoto, we actually went to pick them in Tsunan machi area with some friends connoisseurs. Later, I realize that we have some in the garden!! Fukinoto are delicious, with quite a strong taste easy to identify. They are better eaten while still at the bud stage (not as opened as the picture show them). They are often prepared in tempura (I skip this since I don't deep fry at home), in a mixture with miso: fukinoto-miso which allows to preserve them longer, and in miso soup.
Today I tried the miso soup with tofu!

For that you need a good katsuo dashi, or konbu dashi for a vegan experience (I promise to prepare something about dashi soon), some miso (I prefer white or light colored miso for miso soup, which is also what is used for winter miso soup in cha-kaiseki), a piece of silky tofu, and some fresh fukinoto. Once you've prepared the dashi, mix in a spoon of miso per person. In the bowls put a few dices of tofu (after draining it), top with the finely chopped fukinoto (for a softer taste of fukinoto you can boil them once chopped in a net for 30s) and finally add the miso soup. Et voila!
Plain rice and fukinoto miso soup

Monday, February 16, 2015

Even faster fix for dinner: tomato-carrot-chick pea raggu

This is the end of the year at the university and it is a busy time for both professor and students. Recently, I'm coming back home later and later in particular because this no excuse not to go to the gym. Last night after my pilates class I needed a very quick fix for dinner so that it allowed me to have some time to prepare the apartment for my sister's visit later this week (yes! Prunellia is flying to Tokyo very soon!).
Chick peas are really handy when it comes to prepare something in 5 minutes! Dinner menu tonight: tomato & chick peas raggu with carrots.
I first roughly cut tomatoes and cooked them in olive oil, add laurel, ginger, carvi seeds, salt and pepper and small carrots halved. 
I left it on low heat, time to do the other tasks I had to do. Then once ready to eat I added a can of drained chick peas and served with baby leaf salad, olive oil and linen seeds. Delicious, warm and slightly spicy!



Sunday, February 15, 2015

Sweet potato crust tart

Probably the last time I talk about purple sweet poratoes this year! There seems to be no more at the cooperative shop.
The other day I spotted on Instagram a really nice idea: instead of making the dough of the tart with flour, @acvb3 used thin slices of sweet potato.

I wanted to try badly but needed my mandolin that is in the country house. So finally, yesterday I could try.
I sliced finely one large purple sweet potato, olive-oiled them and lined them in a pie dish. I pre-baked them a little and then added a mixture of egg, silky tofu, sliced shiitake, na-no-hana. It's better for the mixture not to be too liquid because the potato crust might leak here and there so the tofu is really helping a lot here. Then I just baked it normally. It was really delicious!

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Coconut meringues

So, what do you do with an egg white once you've used the yolk for chocolate truffles?
Meringues of course! Of course? Well it was my first time!!
Making meringues is surprisingly easy but you need to be sure to jave time ahead because the baking takes more than one hour! Unexpectedly I used a bbc recipe again (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue) and divided all the quantities by 4, having one egg. I also prefer to make small quantities anyway.
I don't have an electric whisk at the country house so I just beat manually and it worked perfectly. At the end I just added a bit of grated coconut.

And more than one hour later beautiful meringues ready to eat!


Sunday breakfast

For Sunday morning breakfast I like to eat homemade freshly baked bread, pancakes, crumpets, or anything alike, and fresh fruits in salad or smoothie. It's a good start before spending the day out.
This weekend I prepared sugar bread, the recipe comes from Erik Kayser's book, my reference for bread making (in French). 

It's basically bread base in which a little sugar has been added, and the final shaping is slightly different. After baking it it is also finished with sugar sirup.
Perfect with butter, jam or just nothing.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Quick entrée

The other night we add friends over for dinner, but since I was busy at work I needed things that could be ready quite rapidly. Because my may dish was vegetarian I cooked the entree with egg and bacon. I made a batter of eggs, milk, salt and pepper like an omelette and cooked it in my new metal rings that I start to use pretty much every day!!! I grilled some bacon and prepare a leek fondue in olive oil. I used the circles again to prepare the plates and set a layer of leek under the egg and topped with the bacon. For a colour touch I added some fresh leaves of spinach and other leaves.
Delicious!

Japanese Valentine

In Japan Valentine is not celebrated as in Europe or North America. In Japan, on Valentine day girls are supposed to offer chocolates to boys. It can extend to nonlovers  too: offering chocolate to your colleagues  etc... Not to say that the chocolate business is at its climax and prices are skyrocketing. So a lot of people make their own chocolates and you can find all the necessary goodies in any supermarket. 
Since I have a chocolate addict husband I can assure you the Japanese Valentine pleases him very much, and if we've never celebrated Valentine before we were in Japan, now I always try to prepare something. Usually it's chocolate truffles, and this year again that's what I'm preparing.
The recipe is simple and there is no possible way to make it wrong: melt 125g of dark chocolate with 40g of butter, then add 1 egg yolk, 40g of ice sugar, vanilla, stir well and keep refrigirated for 1h or 2h. Once the ganache is hard ise a spoon and roll some in yours hand then in cacao. You adjust the size to your taste.

Now I'm supposed to wait for White day (March 14th) for the  counterpart present when boys are supposed to offer something to girls...
Happy Valentine!

Thursday, February 12, 2015

La vie en rose

As I was telling you, I'm completely in love with these purple sweet potatoes. They are so nice with other colorful vegetables such as carrots, cabbage, bricoli etc... And they have a powerful coloring effect: remember my u no hana that I stirred a little too well?
Using this powerful coloring effect I decided to make "pink gnocchi". It is often that gnocchi are colored: spinach fir green, tomato for red, pumpkin for orange... Now pink with purple sweet potato. It was really intuitively easy. I boiled two potatoes with their peal and a 1/3 of a purple sweet potato. Then I pealed them and mixed them together in a bowl. The mixture was a perfect pink!!
Then it's just like making regular gnocchi. Adding flour little by little until you can shape the dough. Honestly I don't like gnocchi that taste flour so my dough is always on the sticky side rather than the firm one, which make it a little more complicated to shape.
Then just before eating I boiled them. And I served them with a piece of thyme-grilled breadt chicken and some olive oil. I believe cream could make a more beautiful effect, but we don't eat cream.., I leave it to you to show me yours!



Wednesday, February 11, 2015

u no hana - うの花

I really love okara. It's basically the pulp of soya beans remaining after the fabrication of tofu and soya milk. It's full of proteins and it as a very mild taste. It is easily found in supermarket in Japan (together with tofu, nato and yuba) and also very easy to use in several recipes. The most famous okara recipe in Japan is probably u no hana (うの花). A mixture of okara and cooked vegetables.
Since I found nice okara, I wanted to make u no hana, but as always I twist the recipe. Usual u no hana is often very mild in taste and in color, and recently I like colorful plates for dinner (see my recent post). So instead of the classical ingredients I used carrots, purple sweet potato (again!), shiitake and na-no-hana (rapeseed).
I cut in small stick all the vegetables and cook them in the above order in a bit of oil and finally added soya sauce, a little of sugar, a little of sake (the original recipe has mirin in it, but recently I don't use mirin anymore, for it's too strong taste that covers the taste of the other ingredients).
Finally I added the okara and stirred (a little too well so that the purple color of the potato transferred to the white okara:( ).
A delicious colorful vegan dish, served with rice and ume-boshi.  




Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Stuffed cabbage

It's cold outside, time for a winter dinner again. Today I made stuffed cabbage. It's not that difficult.
I prepared a farce with veal, carrot, cabbage, onion and bread with milk. I kept big leafs of the cabbage and bleach them in hot water. 
Them I put the farce in the leafs and rolled them. I cooked the stuffed cabbage in a big pot with olive oil, when they're golden, added bouillon and waited for 20 minutes. It's ready. 






Monday, February 9, 2015

Technicolor dinner

I'm in love with this purple sweet potatoes (murasaki imo). They make every plate instantly look so much different, so much illuminated!!! 
Here for dinner, sliced with just some cabbage and carrots, and cooked simply with a bit of olive oil. You can eat it as a main dish (what I usually do) or as a side.
I also come with the idea that a bit of consomme with it will make a great soup, or with some Carnerolli rice or Arborio rice that'd make an awesome risotto. So I tried the risotto, except that I was running out of cabbage, so replaced it by brocoli and diced the carrots and sweet potatoes instead of slicing them. Taste wise it was delicious, but I admit that pictures of risotto never look too good!!!
(Hint to keep the rice white: cook separately the sweet potatoes and add them in the end, if not the purple color will transfer to the rice)

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Italian saltimbocca

I made those very good saltimbocca with slice of veal, Parma ham and mozzarella inside. Cooked in olive oil and fresh  thyme (from Aix garden). It can be serve with polenta. Such a delicious meal.