Mediterranean Penne

I had a few left-over green beans that started to get bad and I wondered what to do with. There aren't so many things that can be done with green beans, when you thing about it.

Start by cooking the green beans. At the same time, fry thin slices of veal in olive oil & garlic, then set aside. In the same pan, fry square-cut onions until golden-brown, add diced tomatoes and herbes de provence, then cover and cook until tomatoes are melted. Add the veal, the beans and just a bit of the beans' cooking juice, then leave a few minutes under low heat so that flavors mix. Serve on Penne.

Ragout d'agneau à la coriande fraîche

This is loosely based on a very good goat stew I ate in a restaurant from La Réunion.

Nothing special in the preparation. Just like any stew.

Berbère-Rigatoni

Next dish with my new ethiopian-berbère spice mix. I came up with this dish trying to picture how I would like my meal to look like. This time I was very happy with the result. Like I said because, it doesn't always end up good when I invent dish :)



Start by 'reviving' dried wild mushrooms, placing them in a bamboo-steamer for 30mn. Meanwhile, grill thin slices of lamb in olive oil and set aside. Then fry large-cut green pepper pieces together with the mushrooms, in the same pan as the lamb, in a mix of butter & olive oil. Set aside when done. Again in the same pan, fry onions until golden then add tomato-dices and a good amount of ethiopian-berbère spice mix. Cook under medium heat until tomatoes melt. Add everything that was set aside and let the flavors mix under low heat for 5-10mn.

Ethiopian couscous

Alright, after moving twice across an ocean, back into cooking.
One of my favorite restaurant is an Erythrean restaurant in Karlsruhe, where they make fabulous erythrean couscous. That's a taste I'll never be able to top. Neverthless, I gave it a try, with moderate results. Visually it turned out nice though. The idea came to me after buying an "ethiopian berbere" spice mix and wondering what to do with it.



When one likes cooking, nothing beats a kitchen island. I love it.



Poisson éthiopien

I moved out of Japan, so there won't be any updates for a while, until I settle into a new kitchen. In the same year, I will have moved from Germany to France, from France to Japan, from Japan to France and from France to Canada..!
This dish I made a while ago, before I started this blog. I had only one african dish in my repertoire, and I was looking for a new one. The is where I invented the african ratatouille that I previously posted.

How do you like the fish-that-looks-at-you-when-you-eat ? I like the 'raw' feeling of the dish, that reminds us that the fish we eat is really a fish :-)
Season the inside of the fish with dekus ethiopian spice mix and bake in the oven. Cut small pieces of igname/manioc or japanese ko-imo and grill in a pan until golden. For the african ratatouille part, refer to the previous post.

Okinawan-style Clams

I haven't made a post in a while... with 紅葉 time going on (colored autumn leaves), the city is crowded and I've been working 7 days a week for a short while, so no time to cook at home. I've been to Okinawa recently, and at the last Ryokan I stayed at, there were two other guests that were there for fishing. The evening, they gave the day's catch to the owner and she cooked it for our dinner! She cooked the fish with okinawan herbs I had never seen before, that tastes similar to dill. See the picture below. I've forgot the name, so if you happen to know what it is, please tell me! I've also bought pineapple wine, I though that's probably the only chance to try this so why not. Not so good it turns out, though. But I thought it might be ok for cooking something like clams. So I used it together with the herbs I got from the Ryokan owner (she insisted that I take some home!)

 I call the dish 'okinawan-style', but it's really my definition of it :-)

Preparation is the same as with my other clams post. The result is not bad at all!

Asian-style Wok

A somewhat classical dish, I kind of forgot about this one, even though it's quite appropriate while I'm here in Japan. Too healthy for my current caloric needs, thus the portion size :-)

Fry thin beef slices in sesame oil, then set aside. Then onions and shiitake, set aside. Then shortly fry carrots, broccoli and snow peas under high heat, set aside. Shortly fry wok noodles, add everything that was set aside, as well as some water, soy sauce and sesame oil. Let cook for just a few minutes.