Weedrats, rotisserie-style

Just joking :-) This comes from Shrek.

Broccoli-Tofu

This is an old recipe that my mother used to do a lot. With good tofu abundant & cheap in Japan, I revived this receipe.

Mixing with rice is optional, you can also serve as-is.

In a pan, fry white onions (I used red ones because I'm out of whites), broccoli and tofu squares in sesame oil. Start with onions, shorty followed by broccoli, shorty followed by tofu. Use high heat and overall not so long frying time, so that broccoli stays a bit crunchy. Add soya sauce for the last 1mn of frying time. Sparkle with grated ginger at the end. Optionally, mix everything with rice.

African Ratatouille with Okra

I'm not working this week so lots of updates!
In search for a new african dish to add to my repertoire, I recently came up with this african-style ratatouille. The serving (together with tagliatelle) has nothing african however!

The ratatouille part is not predominant in the picture because I used more pasta than usual.
My body weight is getting critically low and I have to do something :)

Cook 4-5 okras in 1cm water for 1-2mn. Keep cooking water and set okras aside. Cook tagliatelle and at the same time, shortly fry red onion slices over high heat in a pan with olive oil. Add sliced tomatoes, the okras and the okra cooking water. Use the variety of tomato that is a bit faded (not as bright red) and a bit less sweet - I don't know the variety name. Cook under medium-low heat until the tomatoes melt. Half-way through, add a tiny spoon of north-african "Berbere" spice mix. Near the end, add a small handful of peanuts that you first ground with a fork. 1mn before the pasta is done, drain and add to the pan, cooking the last minute in the ratatouille.

Eggplant Rice

Another rice-variation.

Cook rice together with half an eggplant, cut in cubes. At the same time, grill a piece of white-meat fish of your choice (here perch) in a pan. When done take out the fish, break down with a fork and set aside. Grill square-cut green pepper and the other half of the eggplant (still cut in cubes), in the same pan. When the rice is done, drain water and add to the pan, along with the fish. Mix everything well. 

Ratatouille-Lasagna

Among summer dishes, ratatouille is a top contender. Accompanied by Côtes du Rhône red wine, it almost makes you feel like you're in south France on the Mediterranean. A classical dish, I usually serve it together with tagliatelle. But this time I'm trying something new: as lasagna. I was wondering if I should mix it with béchamel sauce like I usually do when I make lasaga, but coming back from a hike hungry, I decided to skip it. How is it ? Very good. But compared to the original ? Maybe tagliatelle fits better.

With zucchinis currently going for 400¥ apiece in Japan (4$), you've got to really want it.

First make the ratatouille. Grill finely chopped onion squares in olive oil. Quickly add 1 zucchini, cut in quarter-crescent slices, 1cm thick. Cook for 5mn. Add one eggplant, cut the same way but 2cm thick, as well as a bit more olive oil. Cook for 5-10mn. Add a bunch of halved cherry-tomatoes, 1-2 cups of water, herbes de provence, mild paprika powder, salt & pepper. Cook until the tomatoes are completely dissolved.
To make it into a lasagna, just stack up layers and sprinkle the top with grated cheese.

Shiitake-Udon

Okay, third dish of the day. While I'm in Japan I have to enjoy Udon. These thick soft rice nuddles are pretty good and hard to find outside Japan.

Fry cut shiitake mushrooms in olive oil, until well-colored. Add small slices of beef and grill until the surface turns brown. Add water, salt & pepper, a bit of soya sauce, and simmer for 1/2h or so. Add udon noodles, let cook for just a few minutes. Sprinkle with chive when serving.

Aubergines gratinées aux herbes de provence

Eggplants, together with lamb and olive oil, are some of my favorite ingredients. With a huge leftover bag of grated cheese, I have to come up with grated dishes! Let's have a break from japanese food and go back to sun-inspired south-France dishes, I thought. Now this turned out to be really good! If you like eggplant, try this.

Fry 1cm-thick eggplant slices in a pan with olive oil. Stop when they get soft and golden. At the same time, cook cut tomatoes in a saucepan, together with a bit of olive oil, sal & pepper and herbes de provence, over low heat, until juice from the tomatoes has mostly evaporated. Spread tomatoes over the eggplant slices and cover with grated cheese. Bake until the cheese turns golden brown.

Salmon Rice

Another rice-variation.

Cook rice together with tomatoes. This colors the rice and adds a nice flavor to it. At the same time, grill a piece of salmon in a pan, with pepper. When done take out the salmon, break down with a fork and set aside. Grill square-cut green pepper in the same pan, re-using the salmon fat as frying oil. When the rice is done, drain water and add to the pan, along with the salmon. Mix everything well.

Colorful Pasta

With the thermometer in the kitchen showing 31°C, summer is not over in September in Kyoto. For some reason people associate summer with colorful dishes. Here's one that fits the picture.

 

Cook pasta together with thinly slicedkabocha (japanese pumpkin). At the same time, grill red onions and square-cut tōgarashī (japanese long green peppers) in olive oil. When done add fond de veau, glace de viande, or something similar and let cook for a bit. When Pasta is just about done, drain water and finish cooking in the pan. Remove from fire and add fresh cut mini-tomatoes. Serve with chopped chive on top.

Good-old Potato Salad

I tend to forget this simple yet good recipe exists. A perfect summer lunch, especially in Kyoto's daily 30+°C.

This one is with red onions, chive, red tōgarash (japanese long green peppers turned red) and green beans.

Update

How could I forget how well pickles match potatoes..?!
Another variation: red peppers, pickles, chive, red onions, black olives, olive oil.

Maitake Rice

Rice is predominantly available in Japan, and that's where I realized it offers countless possibilities, based on this simple approach: cook rice in water together with something, fry in the pan something else, and combine both at the end. These two 'something' translate into a lot of possible combinations! This time I used flavorful maitake mushrooms. I was surprised myself how much flavor they contributed to the whole dish.
Many more variations to come.

Cook rice in water together with small pieces of red tōgarashī (japanese long red peppers), for flavor & color. At the same time, pan-fry the cut maitake mushrooms in a mix of butter and olive oil, with salt and pepper. When done add a bit of water and let cook for some minutes. When the rice is cooked, drain water, put in the pan and mix well, so that flavors mix. Serve with a simple salad to balance the lack of green.

Enoki morning bread

Today I realized I ran out of both jam and peanut butter, so left with nothing to put on my morning bread. With leftovers of enoki mushrooms and grated cheese, it came to the idea of a grated enoki bread, somehow inspired by american grill-cheese and french croque-monsieur. Very tasty!

Grill mushrooms in a mix of butter and olive oil, with salt. On partly-toasted slice-bread, spread the mushrooms and cover with grated cheese. Put in the oven at high temprature, until the cheese turns golden brown.

Tōgarashī Pasta

Coming back from a diffcult mountain path cleaning operation, I was starving and needed something quick. On the way there, I happened to buy a bunch of Tōgarashī (japanese long green peppers) from a nice old lady, in a small street shop the size of a bathroom. The lady even offered me tea on the way back! Anyway, back home, I had some mini-Shiitake remaining from a previous dish. The strong flavor of green peppers matches perfectly the strong flavor of mushrooms, so I decided to make Tōgarashī Pasta. At 15mn start-to-finish preperation time, that's exactly what I needed.

Start by cooking the pasta. Everything else is done while the pasta is cooking, and the whole preparation time is pretty much equal to the cooking time of the pasta. In a pan, grill the cut shiitake & tōgarashī in a mix of butter and olive oil. Add salt & pepper. When done, add fond de veau or fond de boeuf, along with just a bit of soya sauce. Let it cook for a few minutes, not too strong. Just a bit before the pasta is cooked, drain the water and finish cooking in the pan, so that the pasta absorbs all the juice, transferring its flavor to the pasta.