Pork fillet in cocotte

I have a beautiful Staub cocotte that I use  not often enough. It's a pity because I love vegetables cooked in the cocotte, when the juice and extracts mix together.

So today I decided to use it and prepare a Japanese style pork filet in cocotte with new onions and carrots.

 In the cocotte I put a little of sunflower oil, 2 new onions cut roughly, 2 little taro potatoes and one carrot, then I lay a large pork filet on top, salt, pepper, laurel and cooked for 30-40min. (In my case the vegetables were perfect for two, but I seeved only half of the filet)

Once finished, I opened the cocotte and added a little of soya sauce to dilute the extracts, which gave a dark beautiful and delicious glazing, almost tasting like miso.

Served with rice with soya beans and fresh pickled vegetables.

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Sesame cake

Today I decided to make a sesame cake. I didn't have a recipe so I decided to fix one based on a classic cake one.

I mixed 150g butter, 150g brow sugar, 100g rice flour, 100g tahini, 3 eggs and a drop of balking powder. 

Then I put sesame seeds on the top and baked it for 20-30 minutes in a hot oven. 

To perfect the degustation I made a black (grey) chantilly with black sesame paste and liquid cream and a spoon of sugar. 

Here we are. Enjoy!

Colorful plate

I love vegetable sauté and all the possible combinations.

I tried a new one, with sticks instead of slices. I cut the carrots, sweet potatoe with a mandolin, cook them in a bit of olive oil under cover, then added na-no-hana, and served with scrambled eggs.
Perfect brunch plate for a Saturday!

Flan patissier

I love this thick and rich dessert called "flan patissier", which basically is a milk pudding on a dough. It's been years I haven't eaten any, and recently I've been thinking about making some. Chance was on my side with a special issue of "cuisine actuelle" on homemade cooking, and a lot of classical French recipes, and the one of the flan patissier!!!

It is really easy to make and a delicious dessert or a perfect breakfast served with fruits.

The dough is a "pate brisee", so just flour, butter and water. The pudding part is vanila flavoured milk, eggs and sugar like for a regular pudding. And it is baked 45min in an oven at 180.

Delicious!!!

Chia pudding

I found this really quick and simple recipe to "cook" chia seeds. The result is like tapioca with milk but here it's really more easier.

Just add 20g of chia seeds with 250ml of almond milk (or rice milk, or whatever you like), wait for one or two hours. 

It's ready to eat. 

One-bowl lunch

This is definitely the end of winter! But the spring greens and veggies are not yet ready, we'll have to wait a few weeks, so in between, mizuna, brocolli, spinach, na no hana are the best options!

I find that mizuna really goes well with plain Japanese rice, so I prepared it on a rice bowl with some steamed brocolli, and I made some pork-okara-curry bites.

For the mizuna just wash it in clear water, the brocolli I steamed them on top of thd rice for 2 min, the bites, I mixed pork meat with 2 large spoons of okara, one egg, a spoon of curry powder, salt, pepper and cooked then golden. Served all in one bowl, topped with some sesame seeds.

I believed that the pork can be removed and replaced by a little of panko for a veggan experience.

Angel cake

One of my favorite cake is the angel cake. Last week I tried the delicious one at Ciel patisserie in Paris, very sophisticated and very good, especially the matcha one. And the Sakura, just made for few days for hanami.

But at home I just made a regular one, with a drop of vanilla, rice flour, and rice milk (totally gluten free). 

And I had it with a spoon of cream and apple marmalade. It was a success, everyone liked it. 

Coconut-strawberry tart

Coconut ad strawberry tart with a bit of coconut and ice sugar for the decor

I love strawberry tart and I love to make some! Usually the best time starts end of March in Japan, but this year we've started to have delicious strawberry for a few weeks already, so I couldn't wait!

I love to make variations with the dough, with the custard. This year I added some grated coconut in the dough and made the custard with soya milk and a lot of vanilla. I also wanted to try making the dough in circles and just top it with custard and strawberries. I need a little more practice but the result was not bad at all!

For the dough I used flour, brown sugar, one egg, butter, and added some coconut (I always make the dough without measuring anything, I like to "feel" it).

For the custard I used 2 egg yolks, a little can of soya milk, vanilla, a spoon of flour and brown sugar.

No-time-dinner and almost empty fridge

It is often that around Thursday the fridge starts to be empty because I shop mainly my fresh fruits and vegetables in the country on weekends. Adding a few dinners out for work and a busy schedule, I couldn't refill at the local shops in Koganei, so I must say that it happens that I arrive home with pretty much nothing to eat and the only option is the little supermarket round the corner. Not too bad but not too great either. It ended up in cooking a tomatoes andbasil  pilaf. Boiled some rice, then in a frypan with olive oil add some roughtly cut tomatoes and basil leaves, salt, pepper, in a circle in a plate, and ready!!! If you have leftover of rice it's even faster! If you want to top it with some parmegiano perfect!

Sticky millet croquettes

I discovered just recently while on a trip to Nagano prefecture that in Japan they grow some sticky millet. It looks very much like millet but once cooked it is much stickier.

I found this consistency perfect for vegan croquettes. So I mixed some boiled sticky millet with some vegetables sautéed I had in the fridge: a leek, half new onion, 2 small carrots gratted, one egg and a few linen seeds, and made croquettes that I cooked in olive oil in a frypan.

I also made a version with cheese but taste-wise without was really delicious and if the cheese makes the croquettes creamy and more golden, I don't think it is a must.

Meat ball Japanese style

It's really easy and simple to make a Japanese style diner. I made meat balls with porc (or veal), add ginger, soya sauce and potato starch.

Mix all the ingredients, make balls and fry them. 

Serve them with soya sauce, and sesame seeds. 

Gomadofu

During my last stay in Tokyo I tried, in a very nice restaurant in Asakusabashi, gomadofu: a tofu with sesame inside. It was so delicious.

Back in Paris, I cannot find it at the Japanese grocery so I decided to make it myself. I found a recipe, and it was very easy to make it. 

45g of kuzu (found in naturalia), 30g of tahini, 2 spoons of sushi vinegar, 2 spoons of agave syrup, 400ml of soya milk. Just melt the kuzu with the milk, add all the other ingredients and warm during one minute. Put in a mould and wait until it's cold. 

That's it. 

Chai butter cookies

Nothing better after a day outside than hot tea and treats. Butter cookies are so delicious, easy to make and bake that they are a great pick!

Recently I am trying to look for the perfect Chai to drink and I think I found a very good one in Cape Town, unfortunately it's a bit difficult for refill. After trying Starbucks (too blend), Pukka (too much cinnamon), Marks & Spencer... I think my favorite is M&S! I'm also trying to make my own Chai with soya milk and spices, not bad but needs some more research.

All this to say that since I have all the spices on the shelf I made some Chai butter cookies. Using the recipe in last week post, I added grinded cinnamon, fresh grinded ginger, cardamom seeds to the dough. And as the plum blossom season is at its peak I shaped the dough in plum flowers with a shape bought in Kappabashi dori.

Radish soup and miso grilled sea-bass

This litlle radish (little compared to giant Japanese daikon), or this big turnip, was so beautiful that I couldn't help buying it at th coop shop.

I didn't how to prepare it and what to do with it at first, but suddenly the idea of using it for a soup was obvious. So I peeled it and boiled it in consome and with a little piece of leek. Once soft enough I blended i into a creamy soup. I served the soup with a piece of local wild sea-bass that I grilled after rolling it in a mixture made with miso, oil and soya  sauce. Simply delicious!

For a 100％ vegan experience you can replace the fish by a piece of mochi (rice cake)

New onion vegetable sauté and seeds

Spring is in the air!!! Sunny days are getting a little warmer, in a week daffodils have sprouted everywhere in the garden and new vegetables start slowly to appear. It starts first with onions. They are so sweet and with a taste that is so much the annunciation of warmer days that I love them!!!

This morning there were plenty of new onions at the coop and I bought several and decided to prepare some vegetables sauté with some seeds.

In a wok I put a little of olive oil, peeled and cut in big chucks one new onion, add one carrot cut in sticks, later I added brocoli, small tomatoes cut in halves, sunflower seeds, salt and pepper. Separately I boiled a mix made of some lentils, barley etc...

Once cooked I mix everything in the wok with a little more olive oil, just before serving.

Hazelnut cake for weekday's breakfast

Cakes are great for weekday's breakfast because they last 2 or 3 days, are much more delicious than industrial breads and you can make any variation that pleases you depending on ingredients and season!
I bake a hazelnut simple cake this week. It's a simple recipe base on yogurt cake but without yogurt. I use almond milk instead.
I mixed some flour, a little brown caster sugar, baking powder, salt, hazelnut powder, 2 eggs, a little of almond milk and a little of oil (sunflower).I mix the whole thing and put in a cake pan for 30minutes at 160deg in the oven. Can't wait for tomorrow morning!!!

Spinach and tomato tart with chick pea dough

Chick pea flour is really easy to use. Mixed with some water and fried, you make soca, a little bit thicker you can make panisse. I love pies because they can prepared in advance and are handy when work is really busy. Today I wanted to try a pie dough with chick pea flour. I mixed chick pea flour, water, olive oil, salt and pepper to obtain a soft dough. I roughly shape it to my pie dish with ghe fingers. Then I've cut tomatoes and lined them on the bottom, cover with finely cut spinach, snd a batter of tofu and eggs season with cumin, and finish with a few tomato slices. Bake for 30 minutes and it smells so good... can't wait to try it!!!

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.

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.

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!