Category Archives: Vegetarian

Tamagoyaki/Dashimaki Tamago with Mitsuba (Japanese Rolled Omelette with Herbs)

tamagpp Dear Japanese friends and all the experienced tamagoyaki makers, please be indulgent. What you see above is only my second attempt at the delicate task of preparing the Japanese omelette. The first time I tried making it, the result was tragical, so I expected a long series of failures. Surprisingly, this second omelette didn’t fall into pieces (even when I cut it) and, in spite of its messy looks, tasted wonderful. It made me so happy, I simply had to share my joy with you.

Tamagoyaki 卵焼き/玉子焼き, also called dashimaki tamago, is different from its European counterparts, not only because it contains some soy sauce and is sweet, but, most of all, because of a different frying method. Seasoned, beaten eggs are fried in thin layers, which are rolled successively with long cooking chopsticks and end up in a – hopefully neat – cylinder. A special rectangular or square pan is the traditional utensil, but it can also be made in a simple, round pan. I have seen the tamagoyaki making process dozens of times on television and internet and it always looked extremely difficult, especially for someone who, like me, lacks patience and dexterity and who isn’t used to cook with chopsticks.

Last year I decided to brave the tamagoyaki challenge and put the special pan as an obligatory item on the shopping list for my trip to Japan. I came back with a small rectangular pan and… didn’t have the courage to use it for over eight months! I don’t remember what has triggered my sudden urge to use it, but last week I thought I was fed up seeing the pan still unpacked in my drawer. I desperately needed very precise instructions, so I started to look for videos and finally followed the famous YouTube show called Cooking With Dog. I found it comprehensive, very well made and the concept of a talking dog funny and completely crazy. I have chosen this video also because the recipe called for mitsuba, the Japanese plant which starts forming a small forest on my balcony and which is particularly good with eggs. It was a sign I should choose this show and no other.

The video was very helpful and, apart from scaling down the recipe’s amounts, the only thing I changed was eliminating the sugar. Japanese omelettes are always sweet, the thing which doesn’t suit my taste buds, so my home-made tamagoyaki, even though clumsy and messy-looking, was the best because it was 100% savoury, just the way I love it. Check the Cooking with Dog show to see the original three-egg recipe and very comprehensive instructions, but, please, do not compare the final result to mine!

TIPS:

PAN: The special square or rectangular pan is not necessary. Tamagoyaki can be prepared in a round pan too. The important thing is to adapt the size of the pan to the number of eggs you want to use. I have bought the smallest pan I found because it was adapted to a two-egg omelette, perfect for one serving. My rectangular pan’s measures are: 18 x 13 cm (7 x 5 inches), so if you want to make an omelet with two eggs, take a similarly-sized round pan.

HERBS: I have used here mitsuba because I love it and am lucky to grow it on my balcony, but of course any fresh herb of your choice will be great here. I recommend chives, tarragon or dill.

SERVING: My favourite way to serve tamagoyaki is with good French buttered bread (baguette or similar bread with crunchy crust), but you can have it as a snack or in a more Asian way, as a part of a meal with rice, pickles, vegetables…

Tamagoyaki is often served cold, but personally I like it still slightly warm, with a splash of soy sauce.

Special equipment: long cooking chopsticks. As difficult as it may seem, in my opinion cooking chopsticks are a perfect tool for this omelette. You can try also with normal eating chopsticks, but they might be too small.

Preparation: 15 minutes

Ingredients (serves one as a main course, for example breakfast):

2 eggs

2 tablespoons Japanese stock (dashi), but in my opinion chicken stock will be perfect here too (you can dissolve a pinch of instant stock of course)

1 teaspoon soy sauce

(ground black pepper)

pinch of salt

about 10 sprigs mitsuba leaves or any other herbs of your choice (chives, tarragon, dill…)

oil

(soy sauce and grated daikon radish to serve)

Chop the herbs (if you use mitsuba, use also the stalks!).

In a wide bowl mix the eggs, add the stock, the salt, the soy sauce and the pepper, if using. Combine with the chopped herbs.

Heat a pan (keep in on medium heat) and grease is slightly using chopsticks and a piece of folded paper towel soaked in oil and brushing the surface with it.

To check if it’s hot enough Cooking with Dog’s chef advises pouring a small drop of egg mixture: if it sizzles, it means the pan is ready.

Pour a part of the omelette mixture (in case of my pan’s size 100 ml/about 3,5 fl oz was the ideal amount) onto the pan and move the pan so that the egg mixture covers the whole surface.

When it’s half-cooked, lift the pan from the heat and start rolling the omelette. I found that rolling in the direction towards me was easier.

Push the roll towards one side of the pan (the one with the handle is more practical).

Grease the pan once more, holding the soaked paper towel in chopsticks.

Pour once more the same amount of egg mixture. Spread it evenly, moving the pan.

Make sure it arrives under the rolled first part of the omelette (lift the roll slightly while spreading the mixture).

Fry it, destroying with your chopsticks the bubbles forming on the surface.

When this portion is almost cooked, lift the pan from the heat and roll the omelette, starting with the roll you have previously made.

Push it towards one side of the pan (preferably close to the handle), grease slightly the surface and repeat the whole process until you finish the egg mixture.

Make sure you are not left with a tiny amount of egg mixture! It’s better to make the last rolled layer too thick than too thin. If it’s too thin it will break or/and be overcooked.

Squash slightly the roll with a wide spatula, transfer it onto a chopping board.

Let it cool down slightly and cut into 4 equal pieces.

Serve cold or slightly warm (it is usually served cold).

Cooking with Dog show’s chef recommends serving it with grated daikon radish and a splash of soy sauce. I like it served still warm, with good buttered French bread (with crunchy crust), with a splash of soy sauce and, optionally, with some chili or chili paste.

Cucumber Fried with Perilla (Shiso)

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cucshisop

Have you ever fried cucumber? Even though it’s one of the vegetables I eat most often, such a way to serve it had never crossed my mind before I saw this recipe in the Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop. In constant search of new ways to cook shiso (see below), I prepared this dish out of pure curiosity, considering it a rather risky experiment. Luckily, quickly fried, still crunchy and juicy cucumber tasted surprisingly well. Paired with strong, slightly astringent shiso leaves, fresh chili and vinegar, it created a bold-tasting and original side-dish.

Shiso (紫蘇), or perilla, is an Asian aromatic dark red or green plant with an astringent taste and strong fragrance. I have discovered it thanks to the Japanese cuisine, where it’s frequently used raw, cooked and its red variety is gives a reddish hue to pickles. Similar varieties of this herb are also used in Korean (ggaennip, 깻잎) and Vietnamese (tía tô) cuisines. Thanks to Fuchsia Dunlop’s book I learnt that perilla is also appreciated in China. Shiso is not to everyone’s taste, but I instantly fell in love with its herbaceous aroma and the more I cook with it, the more I appreciate it.

Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, which presents the Hunan province, has not only revealed a new way to prepare cucumber. It has most of all made be realise I am very fond of the combination of hot, salty and sour flavours, typical of this place (and often distorted abroad by the addition of sugar). The few dishes I cooked from this book (I hope to share them with you soon) were excellent and proved once more that Fuchsia Dunlop approaches food writing with discipline and passion. I equally – and even more – recommend her “Sichuan Cookery” which is one of the best cookery books I have ever seen.

If you like cucumber and have access to shiso, try this simple but surprising (at least for me) recipe. I haven’t modified the original instructions and have only changed amounts of ingredients. If you don’t find shiso, the author advises Thai sweet basil and I totally agree. The taste will be completely different, but it’s also a strong, aromatic herb, which gives excellent results when cooked. For me, the taste of the dish is interesting enough to try making it without any herb.

If you look for shiso cooking ideas, you might like some of these:

Teriyaki Pork Rolls with Shiso and Gochujang

Pork Rolls and Shiso in Tempura

Garlic and Shiso Infused Soy Sauce

Shiso and Bacon Fried Rice

Preparation: about 15 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

1/2 long cucumber

1 red chili (fresh)

1 garlic clove

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

4 tablespoons chopped perilla leaves (the recipe calls for purple perilla leaves, but I’m sure you can use the green variety too)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon peanut or canola oil

Halve the cucumber lengthwise and then cut diagonally into 0.5 cm/about 1/4 in thick slices.

Chop the chili and the garlic. (Remove the chili seeds if you don’t want your dish to be too hot).

Heat one tablespoon oil in a pan or wok.

Spread the cucumber slices at the bottom and fry them at high heat until they are slightly golden on one side (about 2 minutes). Turn them and fry the other side in the same way.

Add the chili, the garlic and the soy sauce. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the vinegar and the chopped perilla.

Stir well the dish for one minute and put the pan aside.

Add the sesame oil and stir well before serving.

Bread Tartlet with Egg and Asparagus

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All the asparagus fans will probably agree that a rare magic operates when an egg gets in contact with delicious green spears. Therefore, the successful outcome of this small experiment was neither a feat nor a surprise, but I was glad to learn another way to serve asparagus and to discover another perfect spring brunch: it is easy, quick, amusing and features the star of the season’s vegetables.

I love individual dishes, desserts and snacks, but bread tartlets are special also because they are one of the reasons why I appreciate soft, sliced toast bread (also called “sandwich bread”, but it is not my idea of a good sandwich…). I remember I saw this bread for the first time maybe only as a teenager. It appeared sliced, packed in plastic, had a suspiciously long life and was sold only in supermarkets, so I have always associated it with convenience – or even fast – food. Then, I slowly started to prefer it in certain snacks or dishes, such as bread tartlets, which for me give this super-soft bread a real raison d’être: no other bread I know is flexible enough to be easily rolled out, flattened and then shaped into an edible container. You can experiment with other types of bread of course, but it must be soft, dense (not with big wholes, like baguette for example) and elastic enough to be folded.

Until last week I had always prepared bread tartlets with ham and egg, the version I found years ago in “Si simple, si bon!” (So good, so simple) by Josée di Stasio. It was so simple and so good (the pun was unintended!), I have never felt the need to modify it. Now that I dared changing it, I somehow feel that this asparagus twist (which I have also tested with ham) announces a long list of experiments with other seasonal vegetables. (I actually already have several in mind…).

Josée di Stasio calls this tartlet a “ramekin”, but I thought the word “tartlet” was more appropriate (I think it could also be called a “bread basket”). She also recommends baking the tartlets in muffin moulds, but I usually prefer individual baking dishes (ramekins) which are wider, higher and make bigger baskets. Retrieving the tartlets from the ramekins may be delicate, but somehow even such a clumsy person like me has always succeeded, helping myself with a knife and then a spoon.

Here are some other suggestions for asparagus lovers:

Tama Konnyaku with Asparagus

Chawan Mushi (Egg Custard) with Asparagus

Asparagus with Chicken and Miso

Asparagus Tempura

Asparagus Teriyaki Pork Rolls

Asparagus with Cashew Nuts and Chicken

Asparagus Maki Sushi

TIP: If you don’t like crunchy asparagus, you can blanch it before making these tartlets. (I prefer it crunchy, so I never do this).

Special equipment: muffin moulds or individual round baking ramekins with approx. 8 cm/about 3 in diameter (if the bread slices are 10×10 cm/about 4×4 in, but if they are bigger, take bigger ramekins)

Preparation: 25-30 minutes

Ingredients (for one bread tartlet):

1 slice toast/sandwich bread

2 medium thick green asparagus spears (mine were about 1cm thick in the middle/a bit less than 1/2 in)

1 egg

butter

salt, pepper

(mustard)

(one or more ham slices)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Roll out the bread thinly with a rolling pin.

Cut off the crust (it burns easily).

Spread butter on one side of the slice.

Butter the ramekin or the muffin mould.

Line the ramekin with the flattened slice (buttered side down) so that it forms a basket.

(Put some mustard at the bottom if you like to spice up the dish.)

(If you wish to add ham, line now the bread “basket” with a slice or slices of ham).

Cut off the hard bottom part of the asparagus spears (I usually cut off about 1/3).

Cut the rest into bite-sized pieces and place at the bottom of the bread tartlet, keeping one tip (you will put it on top after the egg for decoration).

Break one egg into the tartlet.

Place delicately the asparagus tip on top.

Put the tartlet into the oven and bake until the egg white is set (this depends to your preference: I prefer the runny yolk but the white must be completely set).

Take out of the baked tartlets (separating from the walls with a knife and then scooping out with a spoon should do the trick), season with salt and pepper, and serve hot with a green salad.

Goat Yogurt, Cucumber, Radish and Dill Salad

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Have you ever bought a food product which tasted good but you had no idea what to do with it? It happens to me regularly, but usually involves exotic, foreign food. Strangely, I have recently had similar experience with goat yogurt. I like goat cheese a lot, so I did like goat yogurt too, but somehow couldn’t place it in any food category (and definitely not in the same as cow milk yogurt), not to mention a dish where I could use it.

The other day I felt like making a Cucumber and Radish Salad but unfortunately – or rather luckily – I ran out of standard yogurt and sour cream I usually add. Substituting it with goat yogurt, I actually discovered a much more interesting version of this refreshing salad. I have also added some chopped dill harvested from my balcony and couldn’t believe my taste buds! I have no words to describe how terrific proved the mixture of refreshing cucumber, subtle dill scent, slight radish spiciness and subtle goat yogurt flavour.

UPDATE: I have just discovered that goat yogurt is amazingly good served with Hungarian Chicken with Paprika (Paprikàs Csirke), instead of the usual sour cream.

Here are some other cucumber salad ideas you might like (I have just realised there is the same bowl in all the photos… I guess I liked it a lot last year!):

Cucumber and Seaweed Salad

Cucumber and Chervil Salad

Radish Cucumber and Sour Cream/Yogurt Salad

TIPS: This salad should be made just before serving, otherwise the vegetables will render liquid and the “sauce” will get watery.

Just like my older yogurt/sour cream version, this salad a perfect side-dish or starter in both Western and Asian meals. I can very well see it served with hot and spicy Indian food.

Dill is one of the herbs which freeze very well and taste much better preserved this way rather than dried. You just have to chop it finely before freezing and make sure it is thoroughly dried.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

6-7 big red radishes

1/3 long cucumber

3 heaped tablespoons goat yogurt

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

(salt)

Cut the cucumber in four pieces lengthwise, and then into thin slices.

Cut the radishes in two pieces lengthwise, then into thin slices.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl (taste if you need salt; I didn’t need any) and serve.

Asparagus Maki Sushi

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makiaspergepp

After green salads, maki sushi are my second biggest spring cooking frenzy. I am not able to prepare perfectly shaped and equal rolls, but the taste is there, so my lack of dexterity doesn’t stop me from preparing them regularly (I guess I should write about them more often…). Maki sushi are quick (and become quicker and easier to prepare with practice), cheap, healthy and offer endless combinations. Crunchy, slightly blanched green asparagus gives a fresh seasonal spring touch to maki sushi and confirms once more that asparagus, in spite of its distinct taste, creates marvellous dishes even with such bold ingredients as seaweed. Here I have combined it with mayonnaise and katsuobushi (shaved bonito flakes, see below). I find the result extraordinary, but if you don’t like or cannot find shaved bonito, asparagus alone is an amazing maki sushi filler.

Even though I play rather freely with different ingredients, the idea of asparagus maki sushi came from Shizuoka Gourmet blog, an excellent source of virtual culinary trips to Japan (or rather to the Shizuoka prefecture!). Without Robert-Gilles’s blog I would never imagine that asparagus and katsuobushi might be a perfect company. Its smoky taste, combined with crunchy fresh asparagus and mayonnaise is stunning. It’s a pity I cannot prepare these maki sushi all year round. Thank you, Robert-Gilles, for this wonderful idea!

If you are fond of asparagus, you might like some of these ideas (click at the images):

Tama Konnyaku with Asparagus

Chawan Mushi (Egg Custard) with Asparagus

Asparagus with Chicken and Miso

Asparagus Tempura

Asparagus Teriyaki Pork Rolls

Asparagus with Cashew Nuts and Chicken

You might also like these sushi maki versions:

with Ground Beef

with Shrimp, Avocado and Cucumber

TIPS: As you see above, I prefer maki with less rice than usually served in restaurants and on most blogs, but if you prefer the “standard” rice amount, count 500g (about 2 2/3 cups) rice and not 300g (1 1/2 cup).

Dried shaved bonito flakes (katsuobushi) are sold in bags in Japanese grocery shops. Together with konbu seaweed it is one of the ingredients of the most popular version of Japanese stock (dashi, see the recipe here). It cannot be substituted by anything, but if you don’t find it, these maki sushi will be excellent anyway.

Sesame seeds are far from obligatory too. I am just addicted…

Special equipment:

rice cooker (unless you know how to cook the rice in a “normal” pan)

maki rolling mat or a special futomaki roller

Preparation: 20 minutes (+ 1 hour for rice cooking and cooling)

Ingredients (serves 2 – 3):

5 nori seaweed sheets

300g (about 1 1/2 cup) sushi rice (or 500g/about 2 2/3 cups if you prefer “standard” rolls)

Rice mixture:

4 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon mirin

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Filling:

15 green thin asparagus spears (about 1 cm diameter), 3 for every nori sheet

10 heaped tablespoons katsuobushi

mayonnaise

(grilled white sesame seeds)

soy sauce+wasabi

a bowl of rice vinegar

(marinated ginger)

Cook the rice in the rice cooker (or in a pan if you know how to do it!). Put the hot rice into a bowl and add the rice mixture ingredients. Stir well and leave to cool down.

In the meantime cut off the toughest lower part of the asparagus spears (usually the lower 20%).

Blanch the asparagus spears (about 2 minutes) and let them cool down.

When the rice has cooled down to the room temperature (it can’t be completely cold!), put a nori sheet vertically on the rolling mat, shiny side down.

With fingers dipped in a bowl of rice vinegar spread 1/5th of the rice evenly, leaving a 1 cm gap on the top, far edge.

Arrange the filling ingredients on the rice, in a horizontal line, close to the bottom edge.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Roll the maki starting from the bottom edge, gently pressing after each turn.

Moist the upper edge with rice vinegar before doing the last turn.

Press gently the roll and put it aside.

In order to obtain more or less similarly sized pieces, cut the roll first in two parts, then put them in a row and cut them in two parts, etc..

(It is easier to cut maki with a moist knife blade.)

Arrange them on a plate and serve with wasabi, soy sauce and marinated ginger.

Miso Vinaigrette

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misovinp

I never get bored with dressed green salads. After years of having it regularly, both as a side-dish and a starter, I am always excited at the discovery of a new dressing, especially when warm spring days arrive and salad leaves are bought with higher frequency. This miso vinaigrette is simple, but original in its creamy consistency and quite complex taste it owes to miso. I have written below a short recipe, but to put it simply, it’s a traditional mustard vinaigrette with miso used instead of mustard. Accidentally this salad was a perfect company for the recently posted Chicken with Soy Sauce, Garlic and Molasses.

Miso has been frequently appearing on my table (see below) for several years now, but I have never thought of putting it into a vinaigrette. I have found this excellent and obvious idea in Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu, an American married to a Japanese farmer and living in rural area for several decades. The book contains both classic recipes and Nancy Singleton’s own inventions based on local ingredients. It is also full of stories about family, neighbours, local producers and, in general, describes life in the Japanese countryside. The book is a particularly compelling read, a beautiful object, a good source of recipes and I strongly advise it to all the Japanese cuisine fans, even novices because the majority of the recipes are easy and clearly explained.

For those who haven’t tasted miso (味噌), it’s a thick paste made by fermenting soybeans and/or barley or rice and one of the most important ingredients of the Japanese cuisine (Korean and Chinese cuisines use very similar pastes too). Miso is packed with protein, vitamins and minerals and some people claim it even helps to fight the radiation sickness. In Japan miso has three main colour types: white (shiromiso), red (akamiso), black (kuromiso), and there is also mixed miso (awasemiso). The only downside of miso is that is can be very high in sodium, so look for special “low sodium” misos (some high quality misos don’t even have this mention, but are less salty). Whatever the salt content, white miso has always a milder taste, so it’s a good idea to start one’s adventure with light-coloured miso. Apart from the three basic colours, there are myriads of different misos, depending on the brand or producer, the ingredients, the region…

If you have bought a tub of miso and wonder what to do with it, you might like:

Asparagus and Chicken Stir-Fried with Miso Sauce

Garlic Miso Chicken Breast

Miso Soup with Shrimp and Tofu

Mackerel Simmered in Miso

Chicken and Aubergine in Garlic Miso Sauce

And if you look for other salad dressing ideas, you might be interested in my recent delicious and very unusual discovery:

Sesame Paste (Tahini) Dressing

Apparently I am not the only one who eats more salads at the arrival of spring. This week Nami (Just One Cookbook) has posted a gorgeous seaweed salad and a miso (!) dressing, while Gourmantine (Gourmantine’s Blog) has presented no more no less but eight salad dressings. Visit their blogs for more inspiration!

TIPS: The below amounts should only be treated as approximate and adjusted to your taste, the miso kind or brand. (I have slightly modified the original amounts too). I have added some agave syrup to mellow the flavours (not present in the original recipe), but it’s not necessary.

I don’t like my salads drown in sauce, so double the below amounts if you prefer a very moist, rich salad.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves two – three):

1/3 lettuce head, washed and torn into smaller pieces

(cucumber, tomatoes or any other raw vegetables cut into pieces)

Dressing:

3 heaped teaspoons miso of your choice (I wouldn’t advise the very dark, strong miso)

2 teaspoons oil

4 teaspoons rice vinegar

(1 teaspoon syrup or honey in case you need to adjust the taste; I have used agave syrup)

In a glass combine well the vinaigrette ingredients.

Place the salad leaves and other vegetables in a bowl and pour the miso vinaigrette over them just before serving.

ANZAC Biscuits with Dried Cranberry

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Have you ever heard of ANZAC biscuits? Many of you might be put off by the above unequally shaped, unattractive cookies, but in reality these are one of the most delicious and addictive sweet snacks I know. Until now I have been preparing only their standard version and I wish I had thought of cranberries earlier because I liked them this way even more.

ANZAC stands for “Australian and New Zealand Army Corps”, created during the World War I and these biscuits were created at the same time by women desperate to send nutritious home-made food to their husbands, sons and boyfriends. According to this website, faced with at least two months’ transportation time, a group of women worked out a recipe based on rather healthy Scottish rolled oats biscuits and added only those ingredients which ensured long preservation. There are several theories on why eggs are not used, but their absence certainly makes biscuits last longer.

The first time I baked these biscuits (see the recipe here), I was inspired and encouraged by Mr. Three-Cookies, the cookie and biscuit specialist from Three-Cookies blog, where I found the recipe (actually at Easily Good Eats by the same author). Before tasting ANZAC biscuits for the first time I expected ordinary, but good crunchy biscuits, with a healthy twist, i.e. oats. What I obtained was well beyond my hopes: slightly crunchy, slightly chewy, addictive sweet snacks with a very pleasant buttery taste, enhanced by baked nutty oats. In short, the mixture of such simple ingredients has created a complex, surprising result I am still fond of, after dozens of batches.

ANZAC biscuits have always been so satisfactory, I haven’t even bothered to modify the basic recipe. However, a couple of days ago, the beautiful Cranberry Coconut Quinoa Loaves posted by Kelly (from Inspired Edibles) convinced me that dried cranberries are a perfect pairing for coconut and this is how I had the idea to tweak my usual recipe. The experiment was a big success, at least for a big fan of chewy cookies like me (the cranberries’ presence has at least tripled the chewiness!). The flat rounded, more or less equal shape was more difficult to obtain with dried fruit inside, but then I’m not a very meticulous cook… Thank you so much, Kelly for such a wonderful inspiration; cranberries and coconut are an excellent pairing, definitely worth further explorations. Thank you again, Mr. Three-Cookies, for making me discover the world of ANZAC biscuits.

If you don’t like or have cranberries, I strongly advise testing the classic recipe first (or simply follow the below recipe eliminating cranberries):

If you are fond of coconut sweets, you might like these too:

Easiest Chewy Coconut Cookies (aka Macaroons)

Coconut, Chocolate and Rum Truffles

Moist Chocolate and Coconut Cake

or the above Moist Coconut Cake but without chocolate

Coffee and Coconut Cream with Agar

Light Chocolate and Coconut Cream (also with agar)

or Matcha and Coconut Cream with Agar

If you want to play with the basic ANZAC recipe, Mr. Three-Cookies has frequently (and successfully) experimented with these amazing biscuits, so check his Three Cookies blog for inspiration.

TIPS: Unless you have a health problem, do not use margarine or any other vegetable shortening. The butter taste and aroma is so strong, you will lose a big part of the pleasure.

As I have mentioned above, they keep fresh in a tightly closed container for several days (and maybe even more, but I wasn’t able to test more than five days). The biscuits stay crunchy and slightly chewy.

Do not expect vivid red spots on your biscuits: the cranberries will darken during the baking process (the ones you see above are just meant to add a touch of colour to the dark biscuits.)

WARNING: do not taste the raw dough! You will end up eating it straight from the pan while you wait for your previous batch to bake.

Preparation: 1 hour (or 30 minutes if you manage to bake everything in one batch)

Ingredients (I have obtained about 35 biscuits, you will obtain a bit less if you skip cranberries):

70 grams/1 cup rolled oats

90 grams/1 cup desiccated coconut

120 g/1 cup flour

125 g/about 4,5 oz butter

160 g/3/4 cup brown cane sugar

1 tablespoon dark syrup (I used 2 tablespoons molasses)

1 teaspoon baking soda (bi-carbonate of soda, in countries where it is not widely available, for example in France, it can be easily bought in pharmacies)

2 tablespoons boiling water

6 heaped tablespoons dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Melt the butter and syrup or molasses in a big pan.

Combine the flour, the oats, the coconut, the cranberries and the sugar. Add slowly to the melted butter.

At the end combine the boiling water and soda. Pour the mixture into the dough and stir well with a spoon.

Roll small balls (I usually make walnut-sized balls, but this time I wanted smaller biscuits, so I made the balls 1/3 smaller) and put them on a baking sheet (leaving at least 3 cm spaces between each ball since they will spread).

Flatten them slightly (they will flatten even more during the baking process) and bake 10-15 minutes or until golden.

Don’t worry if the dough seems crumbly. It is normal. Just squeeze well the dough when forming balls in your hands and don’t flatten them too much.

Keep them in a tightly closed container. Apparently they keep for ages. All I know is they keep for at least five days, well closed.

Chawan Mushi with Asparagus (Japanese Savoury Egg Custard with Asparagus)

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Chawan mushi is a perfect representative of these comforting, universally enjoyable dishes, which are hardly known in Europe and which surprise all those who still associate Japanese food with sushi and raw fish. For me it has all the qualities of a perfect dish: it is light and healthy, but filling; it is extremely versatile, both in terms of ingredients, as well as serving occasions, and, most of all, it tastes wonderful. It can be made in advance, then reheated or served cold and since it is prepared in individual containers, it also looks cute on the table. The only obligatory Asian ingredients here are sake and soy sauce, so I hope it’s accessible for home cooks all around the world. Accidentally, it’s perfect after short food indulgence periods, such as Easter.

Chawan Mushi (茶碗蒸し) was the first recipe I made from “The Japanese Cooking. A Simple Art” by Shizuo Tsuji, one of the best cookery books I have ever had and I have only slightly modified the amounts’ ratio. I have already written about this amazing dish almost a year ago, but here is a quick reminder. Chawan mushi, meaning “steamed in a tea cup”, is a light custardy mixture of seasoned stock (Japanese or Western) and eggs, to which different “fillings” are added. The traditional version includes a long list of ingredients (including ginko nuts!), but in my opinion this is a typical versatile dish that can easily be modified depending on one’s preferences, seasons or simply contents of one’s fridge.

My first chawan mushi was made with shrimp and green peas (see the recipe here), but I have already played with different meats, seafood, vegetables, mushrooms and the results were satisfactory every time. The ways to serve this custard are also endless: it’s perfect as a part of the main course, with rice and some Asian pickles, or Western way, with bread and a bowl of green salad dressed with vinaigrette. I find it excellent as a cold or warm starter, as an afternoon snack, as breakfast, as a picnic snack… Possibilities are endless.

Asparagus and egg are a well known successful pairing, so you will not be surprised if I say this is – at least now – my favourite version of chawan mushi. As a notorious carnivore I have added small pieces of chicken breast marinated in sake, but you can forget them and keep it strictly vegetarian. Shizuo Tsuji advises chicken stock if dashi is unavailable and, I will probably shock some Japanese cooks, but here, with bits of chicken I have definitely preferred chicken stock (I have tested both). (Of course vegetarians can use vegetable stock I guess).

If you don’t like asparagus, you might enjoy chawan mushi with shrimp and green peas:

TIPS: Even though chawan mushi is easier to prepare in a steamer, Shizuo Tsuji’s suggestion to use a water bath in the oven gives excellent results. Actually this is the way I prepare it because the steamer plate in my rice cooker is too low for my heatproof cups.

If you don’t have a nearby Japanese grocery shop, individual, but high heatproof cups may be difficult to get. I have found very good ones at IKEA (even though without lids), but as soon as I got hold of the beautiful Japanese chawan mushi cups you see above, I stopped using the old ones.

Mitsuba is the traditional herb served with Chawan Mushi (it is usually steamed on the top of the custard), but as you see I haven’t added it because my mistuba hasn’t even sprouted yet (check the lovely mitsuba decorated version on Nami’s blog (Just One Cookbook)). You can add any herbs on top, as long as they suit the ingredients, but frankly these custards were perfect without any herb.

Special equipment:

individual heatproof cups (at least 6 cm high, mine were 6,5 cm high,with a 7,5 cm diameter)

Preparation: 45 minutes

Ingredients (4 portions):

10 medium thick green asparagus (less than 1,5 cm thick in the thickest place) or double this amount if you want a vegetarian meal

2 small chicken breasts

1 tablespoon sake

salt

(mitsuba leaves)

Custard:

2 eggs

300 ml dashi (Japanese stock) or chicken stock

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sake or mirin (with mirin the custard will be slightly sweetish)

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Preheat the oven to 220°C (or prepare your steamer).

Cut up the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces, combine with sake and sprinkle with a bit of salt.

Put aside.

Cut off the toughest part of the the asparagus stalks’ (I usually cut off 1/4 if I use the above-mentioned, medium thick asparagus).

Cut the rest into bite sized pieces.

Boil a lot of water and prepare a big baking dish at least as high as the heatproof cups.

Mix the eggs very delicately in a bowl. In another bowl combine the dashi (or chicken stock), salt (it depends on how salty your stock is), sake/mirin and soy sauce. Pour the stock mixture over the eggs and stir well, without beating.

Strain the chicken pieces. Divide them and asparagus equally into four heatproof cups.

Put mitsuba leaves on top (click here to see how Nami ties them in a cute traditional way).

Strain the custard mixture and pour into the garnished cups.

Cover the cups with aluminium foil or the lids if you have special cups with lids.

If you use the oven, place the cups in a big baking dish. Fill the dish with hot water (not boiling). The water should arrive up till 3/4 of the cups’ height.

Put the dish in the oven and let the custards bake for 30 minutes.

If you use a steamer, steam for about 20 minutes.

If you use herbs which do not support well the heat, sprinkle chawan mushi with them just before serving.

Serve hot or cold with bread/toast for breakfast, with a salad for a lunch, as a snack or as a starter.

You may serve it with soy sauce. Personally I think it is not necessary.

Even though the eggs’ mixture sets during the cooking process, the mushrooms or other vegetables might release juices, so think about putting a spoon on the table!

Thai Roasted Chili Paste (Nham Prik Pao)

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For those addicted to fiery flavours, experimenting with a new chili variety or a new hot seasoning is always an exciting adventure. This simple chili paste, completely different from anything I have ever tasted, has proven an extraordinary discovery. Obligatory ingredient of the famous Thai hot and sour shrimp soup (Tom Yum Goong), roasted chili paste (Nham Prik Pao/Nam Prik Pao) is widely available in Asian grocery shops, but it’s so easy and quick to prepare, I strongly discourage you from the shopping trip.

All you need are shallots, garlic, dried chilies, oil and, after about twenty minutes, you obtain a surprisingly complex, aromatic, smoky seasoning that can enrich many – not only Thai – dishes. Even a tiny amount of this paste will transform any boring stir-fried meat, seafood or soup into a fragrant, well-seasoned meal.

I have found this recipe in “Real Thai. The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking” by Nancie Mc Dermott, the book I mentioned last week when I presented you the fantastic Pork Curry without coconut milk. Apparently, this paste is traditionally roasted over charcoals, but the author’s dry-frying method can be made in every kitchen. I have followed the author’s instructions, but using a food processor instead of a mortar and slightly changing the ingredients’ amounts.

Obviously, the dish I prepared shortly after I made this paste was the above-mentioned Hot and Sour Shrimp soup (I will write about it soon) and it was just perfect. Then, the following day I simply added this paste to stir-fried shrimp and obtained once more a delicious result. According to the author, the paste will keep at room temperature for at least a month, so I hope to experiment with it in many more meals.

If you like the idea of making your own oily chili seasoning, you might be interested in the moderately hot and completely different Japanese thick sesame and chili oil condiment called Taberu Rayu:

TIP: Unless you are a crazy hot food addict, make sure you remove all the chili seeds. As you see above, I didn’t and I think me and my husband are the only people I know who can enjoy food seasoned with this explosive paste.

Preparation: about 20 minutes

Ingredients (yields about 125 – 150 ml/ 1/2 cup or a bit more):

6 big garlic cloves, unpeeled and halved lengthwise

8 small shallots, unpeeled and halved lengthwise

15 small dried chilies

250 ml / 1/2 cup oil (I have used peanut oil) (+ a small amount for dry-frying, if necessary)

Warm a pan or a wok, pour a tiny amount of oil (or not, if you have a pan which allows the absence of fat). Dry-fry the chilies at low heat, constantly stirring for about 5 minutes until they become darker but make sure they are not burnt.

Remove the chilies.

Dry-fry the garlic and shallots (you can fry them together or separately depending on the size of your pan or wok) until they have charred black spots, but, once more, do not let them burn completely.

Put the garlic and shallots aside and when they are cool enough to be handled, remove the peel.

Remove the seeds from the chilies (or, if you are very bold, leave them) and the stems.

Put the three ingredients in a food processor and mix until a thick, relatively smooth paste is formed (mine was slightly chunky).

Heat the 250 ml oil in a pan and, constantly stirring, fry the paste for about 5 minutes until it darkens.

The oil will be almost totally absorbed by the paste, so you will end up with a rather small batch.

Put the paste into a jar, wait until it cools down, close well the jar and keep at room temperature for at least one month.

Korean Mung Bean Sprouts Salad (Nokdu Namul)

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I’m starting to wonder how far will go my obsession with sesame seeds. A jar with roasted sesame seeds is placed just next to the salt container, at the stretch of my hand, so it proves how much I like it and how frequently I use it. Frankly speaking, every time I prepare an Asian (or even vaguely Asian) meal, my first reflex now is to sprinkle it with sesame seeds and I never regret my gesture (although I do manage sometimes to resist the temptation). As for the sesame oil, a small teaspoon stirred just before serving adds a deep, nutty flavour I find more and more addictive too.

This salad, found in Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen: a Cookbook by Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall owes everything to sesame oil and seeds. For me it was was also a interesting new way to consider mung bean sprouts I regularly add to stir-fried meats, rice or noodles. Even though the dressing is light, the tiny amount of powerful sesame oil transforms it into an interesting, fragrant side-dish. The addition of sesame seeds, as always, gives a pleasant crunchy note.

I have scaled down the original recipe to two serving and used European chives instead of spring onions I didn’t have. I have also change the name from “seasoned mung bean sprouts” to a “salad” because I have it cold and treat it as a salad.

TIP: If you have never used sesame oil, I advise buying it in a Japanese or Korean shop (or maybe simply Asian). The only time I bought a bottle of good quality, cold-pressed organic sesame oil made in Europe I discovered something I dislike so much I still wonder how to use it (and it wasn’t rancid). I think Asian sesame oil is made from roasted, not raw, sesame seeds.

This salad is apparently served both at room temperature and very cold. I prefer it cold, so I have quickly rinsed the blanched sprouts in very cold water. If you want to serve it at room temperature, skip this step.

Preparation: 15 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

150 g/about 5 oz mung bean sprouts

1 teaspoon soy sauce (or more if you use low-sodium soy sauce)

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 small clove garlic

(salt)

ground pepper

1 green onion (the lighter part only); I have used European chives instead

toasted sesame seeds

Blanch the mung bean sprouts in boiling water for a minute.

Quickly drain and, if you wish to serve the salad very cold, rinse it with very cold water.

Drain once more.

Crush the garlic and chop it finely.

Mix it with the soy sauce, the vinegar, the sesame oil, the ground pepper and the salt (if you need it).

Put the sprouts in a big bowl and combine with the dressing.

Chop the green onion or the chives.

Transfer the sprouts to a serving bowl.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onion/chives.

This salad can be served very cold or at room temperature (I have preferred it cold).

Salad with Sesame Paste Dressing

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If, every time you open a jar of sesame paste, you have to close your eyes to fully enjoy the inebriating, nutty fragrance and never resist stealing a teaspoonful, then this recipe is for you. I know it looks like a bowl of ordinary lettuce, but it’s much more than that. The leaves are delicately seasoned with the creamiest, richest salad dressing I have ever made. If used in moderation (this is why it is barely visible on the photo), this dressing is so addictive, I found myself preparing it three days in a row. I discovered it accidentally, a couple of days ago, while leafing through Sichuan Cookery by Fuchsia Dunlop, one of the best written cookery books I know. As someone, who prepares either the classical French vinaigrette with mustard (sometimes garlic) or its vaguely Asian version, with soy sauce and sesame seeds, I was thrilled to discover this completely new way to dress the humble lettuce.

This salad has proved for me an ideal choice for the this time of the year, when a bright green, crisp, raw side-dish cheers me up and announces the imminent spring. Its creamy, intense dressing keeps it still in the rich, comforting food category. The addition of sesame oil might at first seem superfluous, but it has wonderfully increased the nutty fragrance, so I wouldn’t advise skipping it. The only big change I have allowed myself here was the addition of vinegar. The original recipe didn’t contain any acid ingredient and I desperately need some tanginess in my salads. In my defence I would like to emphasize I have used black Chinkiang vinegar, regularly appearing in Sichuanese recipes, such as Bang Bang Chicken, also found in the same book and also containing sesame paste.

TIP: If you don’t have dark Chinese sesame paste, try finding wholegrain sesame paste (I buy it in organic shops). Otherwise, any good light sesame paste will do. Black sesame paste might be too strong, but of course it depends on your preferences.

Soy sauce is not mentioned in the original recipe, only salt. I have used low-sodium soy sauce here because the dressing was too thick and I didn’t want to use more oil.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

crisp salad leaves (tear the bigger ones into several pieces)

1 heaped tablespoon sesame paste

1 flat tablespoon Chinkiang vinegar (I think that malt vinegar would be the closest substitute here but do try finding Chinkiang vinegar which is unique)

pinch of sugar or syrup

1/6 teaspoon salt (or/and light soy sauce)

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

(toasted sesame seeds)

Place the dressing ingredients in a big bowl.

Mix them with a spoon until the sauce is homogenous.

Adjust the taste and add more oil/soy sauce/vinegar/sugar if the consistency is too thick.

Spread the dressing inside the bowl, place the salad leaves and delicately “wipe” the bowl’s interior with them.

Transfer the seasoned salad to a serving dish or bowl.

You can sprinkle it with toasted sesame seeds.

Pineapple and Chili Jelly

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pineapplechjp

January is maybe not the most exciting month to fill one’s pantry with jams, pickles and other preserves, but there is certainly still some work to be done. Pineapple, like certain other exotic fruits, is in full season here in winter and, given its low price and ubiquity, this is probably the best moment to put it into jars. This golden yellow jelly is until now the best pineapple preserve I have tested. The method, as well as my beloved hot and sweet flavours’ combination, make this jelly similar to Hot Pepper Jelly, Apricot and Chili Jelly or Green Tomato and Chili Jelly. A unique pineapple aroma is what makes all the difference.

This jelly goes well with both Asian and Western dishes. I often have it with grilled or stir-fried meat, vegetables, on steamed rice or as a sandwich spread and it’s fabulous with fish and seafood in general. You can also serve it as a dip with crackers, nachos or… why not with Baked Wonton Chips from my previous post?

TIPS:

-Some of you might have probably heard that pineapple (as well as kiwi and some other fruits) stop jelly from… jelling. This is absolutely true, but only when it comes to raw fruit. Cooked for some time, pineapple loses this troublesome characteristic.

-Since every pepper variety is different and everyone has different preferences (or chili resistance level), it is difficult to say exactly how many chilies should be used. Adjusting is not easy since the jelly tastes stronger when it’s still hot (and it should be put still hot into the jars). The best idea is to stick to the same chili variety, make a small first batch, put aside a couple of tablespoons and taste the mixture when it has cooled down. It might be too late for this batch, but it will give you an idea of how the following ones should be modified. Needless to say, the below amounts should be treated rather as approximate (this jelly was very hot).

-The sugar and vinegar amounts depend of course on your preferences, but also on the pineapple’s sweetness. Try with the minimal amounts (see below) and increase them if needed.

-It’s a good idea to prepare different hotness levels of this jelly and label jars as “slightly hot”, “medium hot”, “very hot” etc..

-Do not forget to write down the exact amount of chili, sugar, vinegar, etc. you have used, so that you can improve the recipe next season or simply make sure you stick to the good one.

Preparation: about 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 kg pineapple (weighed after being peeled), i.e. approximately one big pineapple

160 g – 200 g (5,5 oz – 7 oz) caster sugar

10 bird’s eye chilies or 10 bigger medium hot chilies

160 ml – 200 ml (5,5 – 6,8 fl oz) cider vinegar (4,5%)

25 g powdered pectin

1 flat tablespoon salt

Core the peppers, discard the stems and wash thoroughly removing the seeds (or not, if you want a very hot jelly).

Peel the pineapple, cut into chunks and mix with chilies in a food processor.

Combine the mixed fruit with the remaining ingredients in a big pan.

Bring to the boil on high heat and, stirring, keep boiling for about 20 minutes.

Lower the heat and simmer for 10 more minutes.

Taste it and adjust the taste adding the vinegar, the sugar or the chili if needed (bearing in mind the chili and the vinegar taste is stronger when the jelly is hot). The most important is that the mixture doesn’t have a very sour taste.

Add the pectin and, constantly stirring, keep at medium heat for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the jelly has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Spoon the jelly, still hot, into clean and dry jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the jelly, its level of hotness and don’t forget to mark the date.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year (I have opened a two year-old one recently and it was in a perfect state).

Baked Wonton Chips/Wonton Crisps

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I have never made a single wonton dumpling, yet I have already used three packages of wonton skins in last couple of months. First, I discovered how to transform wonton skins into edible cups (see the photo and link below), which, once filled, proved impressive, but surprisingly effortless snacks. Then, quite recently, I started to play with these wonton chips (or crisps). Quick and easy, they are an ideal low-calorie and low-fat alternative to nachos or other commercial deep-fried snacks, but they certainly do not fall into the “diet food” category; an excellent taste and delicate, crisp texture remain their biggest assets.

Similar recipes can be found everywhere on the web, but instead of following any of them, I decided to copy the edible wonton cups instructions, adapting them to bite-sized chips. If you wish, before baking, you can sprinkle them with spices, coarse salt, grated cheese… whatever comes to your mind. I chose this time to keep them simple, but slightly fiery and brushed them only with chili oil.

If you are tempted by this uncommon way to use wonton skins, you might also like to transform them into these edible cups:

wontoncupspj

Edible Wonton Cups

TIPS: Wonton skins or wrappers can be found in frozen food section in most Asian grocery shops. I find them here also in bigger “normal” supermarkets. They thaw quite quickly (usually two hours at room temperature).

Preparation: 15 minutes

Ingredients (40 chips):

10 wonton skins

1 tablespoon oil (I have used chili oil)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Brush wonton wrappers with oil, piling them up and slightly pressing so that you brush only one side of each sheet, but both sides end up oily.

Cut the pile into four equal triangles (or into another shape of your choice).

Place the pieces on baking paper.

Bake for about 5 minutes until golden.

Beware! They burn very quickly, so watch the first batch closely (the time depends on your oven).

Harihari Zuke (はりはり漬け), Pickled Dried Daikon

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Drying fruits, vegetables and mushrooms is not only a way of preserving them. First of all, they have a different use in the kitchen and often become so good and unique, they could never be substituted by their fresh versions (it’s maybe a question of personal preferences, but I would never put fresh mushrooms in Ragù alla bolognese). I have been drying fresh produce for many years (I have recently posted here several methods to dry apples), but doing this with the long Asian white radish called daikon has never crossed my mind. When I saw pickled dried daikon at Hiroyuki’s blog (Hiroyuki’s Blog on Japanese Cooking), I was very intrigued and curious but didn’t expect much more than a moderately flavoursome, interesting side-dish and certainly not the excellent taste and extraordinary texture it has changed into! I also like fresh daikon a lot, but once dried and pickled, it undergoes a magical transformation.

Daikon is one of the staple Japanese vegetable and its dried version is quite popular too. It is often used in simmered dishes and sold in two forms: wari boshi daikon (thicker strips) and shredded daikon called kiri boshi daikon (go to see the difference here at Hiroyuki’s blog). Harihari zuke (pickled dried daikon) calls for the thicker version (wari boshi daikon). Just like most Japanese pickles, these have a delicate, slightly sweetish taste, but this is where the similarity ends. The very special chewy, but at the same time crunchy texture is what makes them unique and, in my case, addictive. Thank you so much, Hiroyuki, for this extraordinary discovery!

If you don’t find thickly cut dried daikon, wari boshi daikon is ridiculously easy to prepare, whatever method you use (it’s also an excellent way to use up leftover wilted, dying daikon!). I haven’t even checked if I can get it in my city because I knew it would be cheaper when made at home and moreover I wanted to use organic vegetables. For this first experiment I used only one daikon, but after the surprisingly good outcome I have just started to dry a new, this time much bigger batch. This way I will have dried daikon ready any time I feel like preparing this wonderful snack again.

I have slightly changed Hiroyuki’s proportions in the pickling liquid and have omitted seaweed strips (see the original Hiroyuki’s recipe here).

If you don’t feel like drying daikon, you might like these tsukemono (Japanese pickles):

kyurinop

Cucumber Pickled in Vinegared Soy Sauce (Kyuuri no kyuuchan)

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Pickled Ginger (Gari)

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Pickled Pink Radish

TIPS: In Japan daikon is usually dried in the sun. Of course, given the season, I couldn’t do this. In the winter I dry fruits and vegetables on radiators: it’s quick, it doesn’t require much attention and doesn’t consume any additional energy. If you don’t have radiators, you can dry them using either the oven set at lowest temperature or hang it over the stove and wait until it dries by the heat produces while you cook (the latter can last a bit more). Of course, if you have a dehydrator, you don’t need me to tell you how to do it. Click here to see detailed description of the drying methods I used for example with apples and which apply to most cut fruits or vegetables.

Fresh chili is not obligatory here, but a it is very pleasant addition if you like hot food.

Preparation (3 hours + drying process, if you don’t have dried daikon, which depends on the method used, see here):

Ingredients:

1 medium daikon (about 300 g – 350 g/about 11-13 oz) or a handful (filling loosely a 125 ml/ 1/2 cup container) of wariboshi (thick strips of dried daikon)

4 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce or 3 tablespoons normal soy sauce+1 tablespoon water

4 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 flat tablespoon sugar (I have used agave syrup)

1 fresh medium-hot small chili, seeds removed

Frist dry the daikon (wariboshi, i.e. thicker version).

Peel the daikon, cut horizontally into 7 – 8 cm (about 3 in) chunks (I have cut my daikon in three parts).

Then cut each piece lengthwise in two, then cut each half lengthwise into 1 cm-thick strips.

They should be more or less similarly thick, but not necessarily identical.

Dry it following the instructions I gave here (using a radiator, an oven or hanging it above the stove).

When the daikon has dried completely (it has to be tough when you touch it: the drier it is, the longer it will keep; otherwise it can become mouldy), you can start the pickling process.

If dried daikon strips are too long to be considered “bite-sized”, cut them in two.

Put the daikon strips into a bowl of boiling water and leave there for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime dissolve the sugar in the mixture of vinegar and soy sauce.

Shred the chili pepper and put into the pickling mixture.

Squeeze the soaked daikon and dry it. Put it into the pickling mixture and leave in the fridge for 3 hours, shaking from time to time so that it pickles equally.

Eventually, the dried strips will absorb all the pickling liquid (the photo above was taken only after ten minutes’ pickling, hence the liquid at the bottom).

Such pickles can be left in the fridge for several days (or maybe weeks? I have no idea because I have managed to keep them only for two days).

Indian Chickpeas in Tangy Sauce (Khatte Channe)

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Happy New Year, my dear readers! I hope you have spent wonderful, palate-pleasing holidays. I bet many of you have made new year’s resolutions, just like I did, and probably some of them concern food too. I wish you all the discipline, the courage and the patience to stick to them! This Indian chickpeas dish illustrates two of my 2013 goals: cooking more legumes and using more often the fascinating cookery books I own and tend to forget, such as the highly reliable Classic Indian Cookery by Julie Sahni, where I found this excellent recipe. As for my sudden longing for Indian flavours, I owe it to Eva (Kitchen Inspirations), who dazzled me with her extraordinary Indian feast throughout half of December (it started here and went on for several impressive posts).

Khatte Channe can have different consistencies, going from a thick soup to a dish with moderated amount of sauce and this version falls into the latter category. I will not bore you with the detailed description of the subtle and complex mixture of flavours (I wouldn’t be able to do it anyway) and will simply say it is the best chickpeas dish I have ever had in my life. One more successful adventure with Julie Sahni’s book, proving that I should open it more often. (Another delightful dish I have prepared following Julie Sahni’s instructions and posted here was Butter Chicken, which, contrary to its name, wasn’t greasy or heavy.)

I have slightly changed the spices’ amounts and adapted the recipe to four servings. Of course, like many Indian dishes in sauce, this one can be made in advance and reheated (the fresh sliced onion and fresh chili should be added however only before the dish is served).

TIPS: If you cannot find tamarind, you might use some lemon or lime juice instead. If you can find it, buy it because it keeps forever in the fridge and apart from the tanginess, brings a very particular taste. Tamarind is sold in Asian shops (not only Indian), usually in blocks (about 200g/ 7 oz) containing both the pulp and seeds and has to be dissolved in hot water.

Julie Sahni emphasizes the importance of the long onion browning stage in many Indian dishes and I must confess I first tried short cuts, i.e. quickly softening onions instead. I quickly realised the final result obtained with browned onions is well worth the effort of constant stirring for 20 minutes.

Preparation: about 1 hour

Ingredients (serves four as a side-dish with rice and for example a meat dish):

2 x 400 g (about 2 x 16 oz) cans chickpeas or cooked chickpeas + 125 ml liquid from the cans or cooking liquid

1 big onion

2 medium garlic cloves

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

2 cm (0,8 in) piece of block of tamarind paste

1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

200g (2/3 or about 7 oz) small can of chopped tomatoes or 200 g (7 oz) fresh tomatoes, skinned and chopped

1 heaped teaspoon grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon garam masala

oil

1 teaspoon roasted and then ground cumin seeds

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 fresh green chili pepper finely chopped (I have used red chili pepper and only sliced it)

Drain the chickpeas, keeping the liquid aside.

Dissolve the tamarind paste in 190 ml (about 6 oz) boiling water, squashing it with a fork. After a couple of minutes strain the juice thus obtained, getting as much as you can out of the paste.

Slice the big onion.

Chop the garlic cloves.

Heat 2 – 3 tablespoons oil in a pan. Fry the onion, constantly stirring for about 20 minutes until they become “caramel”, as the author calls it. Add the garlic and stir-fry it for 2 minutes.

Add turmeric, cayenne pepper, tomatoes and the ginger.

Cook the sauce at medium heat for 5 minutes.

Add the tamarind juice and and the chickpeas liquid.

Let everything simmer covered, at low heat for 15 minutes.

Finally add the drained chickpeas, garam masala, the cumin and cook for 10 more minutes.

Season with salt and serve sprinkled with sliced fresh onion and chopped or sliced fresh chili.

Wonton Cups, or Edible Snack Containers

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As you may have noticed I have taken a small break from blogging. After an intense shopping and cooking period, I have been spending recent days eating the remains of Christmas food, drinking wine, going through the tons of books I was offered for Christmas and, in general, enjoying a most lazy end of the year. I hope you are also relaxing and enjoying this festive period. The recipe I am going to present today perfectly illustrates my partly idle and festive mood. In fact, if I were to make a list of recipes with the highest attractiveness vs easiness ratio, these dumpling wrapper cups would win hands up. I will not exaggerate if I say that in my case they have revolutionised the world of snacks and particularly of finger food.

The ridiculously simple “recipe” keeps in one sentence really: brush the wonton wrappers with oil, line muffin moulds with it and bake for ten minutes. Once the edible, crisp cups are ready, you can fill them with practically whatever you wish, as long as it doesn’t leak. As you see, this time I chose my beloved guacamole, but the possibilities are really infinite. I can already imagine myriads of dips, salads and even grilled dishes, which served in these small cups would brighten up any party table.

This unusual way to use wonton skins is one of the most extraordinary cooking discoveries of this year and I owe it to Juliana (Simple Recipes) who, thanks to her beautiful post featuring wonton cups with smoked salmon filling, taught me the most magical snack trick in the world. Thank you so much, Juliana, for this amazing idea!

Before I pass to the recipe I would like to wish all my dear readers a very happy and prosperous New Year. May this upcoming year make all your dreams come true.

TIPS: If you want your cups neat and round, follow Juliana’s advice and cut off the corners before baking the skins. I found the uneven corners quite amusing (especially since it made the recipe even lazier…).

Before filling the cups with salads and other dishes with sauce, make sure they are well drained; the cups are not 100% waterproof!

Cut the filling’s ingredients into small chunks, so that the cups are easy to eat.

The cups can be made in advance (even two days in advance) and kept (empty) covered with paper towels.

Here are some other wonton filling suggestions:

Smoked Mackerel and Egg Spread

Rice Salad with Shrimp and Avocado

Onion Confit with Fig and Port

Mango, Chicken and Cucumber Salad

Fresh Cheese Spread

Avocado and Walnut Salad

Baba Ghanouj

Korean Stir-Fried Squid

Preparation: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

wonton (Asian dumpling) wrappers (thawed)

oil

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).

Brush wonton wrappers with oil, piling them up and slightly pressing so that you brush only one side of each sheet, but both sides end up oily.

Line muffin moulds (or other small moulds) with the wrappers and bake for about 10 minutes until they become golden brown.

(I use silicone moulds, so no need to grease them, but if you use metal tins you might need to brush them with oil).

As soon as the cups cool down, fill them with whatever comes to your mind and serve.

Empty cups keep crunchy for three days covered with paper towels.

Cabbage and Ramen Noodle Salad

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ramensaladpj

This is, without any doubts, the star of this winter’s salads. I saw it several months ago on Azusa’s blog (Humble Bean) and wouldn’t stop thinking about it. How could I forget a recipe which had dried uncooked noodles among its ingredients? I simply waited for this time of the year when cabbage is one of the rare seasonal salad vegetables. Even though the salad looked beautiful, I must admit that the intriguing use of noodles was what tempted me most of all to prepare it. In fact I didn’t expect even half as good result and certainly not such a wonderful, complex side dish. The crunchy mixture of dry noodles, peanuts and sesame seeds is of course the focal point here. Once browned in butter, it proved an amazing topping and a perfect company for the sweet and sour salad dressing. I can very well see it sprinkled on many other dishes too. (Maybe I’m wrong, but I suppose the Japanese would call it “furikake”.) I made this salad for the first time yesterday, I have had it once more today and am already looking forward to serving it tomorrow. I think it will be my staple this winter just like Azusa’s Tomato and Shiso Salad was for the last two summers. Thank you so much, Azusa, for one more extraordinary discovery!

This recipe comes from a Hawaiian cookery book and accidentally it would go perfectly well with Shoyu Chicken, the only other Hawaiian dish I prepare (also found at Humble Bean). It would be an original alternative to coleslaw or any salad served with roast meat or birds during holidays. The guests’ amazement is guaranteed!

I have slightly modified the recipe mainly using peanuts instead of almonds, adding salt to the crunchy mixture (I still don’t know why I did it but it was a good decision) and scaling it down to a dish for two. Visit Humble Bean to see the original recipe.

TIP: The best way to crush both peanuts and noodles is to put them in a resistant bag (such as ziplock) and crush them with the bottom of a bowl for example.

I have made a bigger amount of the crunchy mixture (it has to be kept open, otherwise it will lose its crunchiness) and the following day the salad took me only 5 minutes to prepare. The mixture cannot be kept for a long period though (it might get rancid).

Preparation: 20 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

150 g (about 2 cups) shredded white cabbage or a mixture or white and red cabbage

Crunchy mixture:

4 flat tablespoons crushed ramen noodles (Chinese-style “curly” wheat noodles)

2 flat tablespoons sesame seeds

3 flat tablespoons crushed peanuts (the original recipe calls for almonds)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

Dressing:

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar (I have used agave syrup)

3 tablespoons chopped green onion (I had chives, so I have used them instead)

Heat the butter in a pan and, at low heat, brown the mixture of noodles, peanuts and sesame seeds, constantly stirring. When the noodles become golden, put the pan aside and combine the mixture with the salt.

Combine the dressing ingredients. Combine it with the shredded cabbage.

Sprinkle the salad with crunchy mixture and green onion or chives.

Give the salad a stir just before serving it.

Drying Apples, Using a Radiator, an Oven or a Stove

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driedapplespj

I have always loved dried apples for their tanginess and chewy texture and even though I eat them regularly, I have never bought them in my whole life. My mum used to dry apples which were too wilted to be eaten or very acid, tart varieties offered by friends or family, who had trees going wild. Some fruits were even too bad to be baked, but drying worked like a magic wand, transforming them into flavoursome, healthy snacks. I have been doing the same for many years, but it is really nothing to boast about: dried apples are the easiest home-made snacks I know. Especially if, like me, you can dry them on… radiators.

My mum dried apples in three different ways: in the oven, over the stove and on radiators, the last method being the most frequent (and my absolute favourite). In fact, even though they are not often considered as such, radiators are excellent drying appliances in heating season: easy to use, absolutely free and not requiring our presence or much attention. Of course this will not work if you have floor heating or if your radiators have a drying-unfriendly shape (although you can always play with threads… see below). I have always been lucky to have drying-friendly radiators in every flat I lived in.

Drying in the oven is not more difficult, but it consumes energy and requires your presence at home (unless you are one of those people who trust electric appliances and leave ovens, dish washers and washing machines on when they go out; I have lost my faith in machines after a serious accident with a relatively new washing machine). Drying over the stove is probably the oldest fruit-drying method. It is also cost-free (unless you rarely cook), but requires preferably a gas stove and a bit more work beforehand because apple pieces have to be thread on strings or threads and placed above the stove.

Dried apples are very handy in a mixture of snacks served with drinks. They might be a nice healthy, slightly tangy accent among the nuts, crisps, chips or whatever you plan to serve with drinks during the approaching end-of-year parties. Obviously, do not mention that these snacks were a way of saving dying fruits from the bin and even less that you have dried them on a radiator!

TIPS: Whatever method you choose, keep tasting apples every several hours. This way you will choose the texture and dryness level you prefer.

If you mix several different varieties, dry them separately and put in labelled different jars. My favourite are acid varieties but many people prefer the sweeter, floury ones.

Preparation: several hours – several days

Ingredients (the final yield depends on the apple variety and on the dryness level):

apples (can be very wilted)

Peel the apples, core them and cut into thin slices (they should be 1/2 cm/ 1/5 inch thick; otherwise you will obtain crisps (or chips)).

You can cut the whole apples (this will produce slices with a hole inside) or if you don’t have the apple corer, cut the apples in quarters, core them and then slice each quarter.

———DRYING ON A RADIATOR:

Cut a piece of baking paper similar in size and shape to the surface of your radiator.

Place the apple pieces, making sure they do not touch each other.

If your radiators are very thin or have another form which doesn’t allow placing a flat piece of baking paper, you can use the STOVE-DRYING method (see below) and dry your apple pieces on threads hung on radiators.

Taste them every 4-5 hours to check the dryness and texture. I prefer my apples slightly soft.

Put the dried, cool apples in a jar with a lid. They will keep at least for a year (no need to refrigerate).

———DRYING IN THE OVEN:

Preheat the oven to 50°C (122°F).

Place the apple pieces on baking paper, making sure they do not touch each other.

Taste them every 4-5 hours to check the dryness and texture. I prefer my apples slightly soft.

The drying process can be divided into several days.

Put the dried, cool apples in a jar with a lid. They will keep at least for a year (no need to refrigerate).

———DRYING OVER THE STOVE (works best with gas stove):

If you have sliced whole apples and obtained doughnut-like slices with holes, put them on a thick thread and hang high above the stove.

If you have quarter slices (like the ones you see above), take a resistant but thin thread with a needle and, piercing every apple slice, put them on the thread. Hang the thread high above the stove.

The apple slices will dry while you cook, so of course this process should be divided into several days.

Taste them every 4-5 hours to check the dryness and texture. I prefer my apples slightly soft.

Put the dried, cool apples in a jar with a lid. They will keep at least for a year (no need to refrigerate).

Korean Radish Salad (Musaengchae)

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daikonsaladkpj

Winter – or late autumn – vegetables are scarce and can quickly become boring (especially for someone who doesn’t like pumpkin), but luckily there is daikon, the Asian long white radish. It can be served raw or cooked, but it is only the former which, thanks to its spiciness and crunchiness, reminds me of the spring pink radish. I have always liked the way for example Radish Kimchi stops me from feeling heavy and sleepy after hearty meals. This quick and refreshing salad is one of the rare Korean dishes not really requiring exotic food ingredients (apart from the sesame oil which can be easily skipped) and as such it can be served with many, not only Korean dishes. It should be prepared with “mu”, white Korean radish, which is shorter and plumpier than daikon, but I have never seen it sold, so daikon was the only choice I had. I do not complain though because it’s excellent this way too.

I found this recipe in my Korean cookery book (The Food and Cooking of Korea by Young Jin Song) and have only slightly modified it, but its versions vary a lot on internet. I have seen it with ginger, garlic, green onions… so feel free to modify it, as long as the ingredients stay Korean (whatever it may mean!).

Yesterday I saw Hiroyuki (Hiroyuki’s Blog on Japanese Cooking) posted his wife’s Daikon and Tuna salad. I thought it was a funny coincidence to discover two new appetising daikon dishes in one week. Hiroyuki’s wife’s salad is completely different, but very tempting so click here to check it or wait until I post it on my blog .

TIP: The salad does contain chili powder, but the amount and the hotness level depend on your personal choice of course (you can use sweet paprika too). The last batch (several big bags) of Korean chili powder I bought proved to be only slightly hot, so I can use more of it without obtaining fiery results.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2 if it’s the only side-dish):

200 g/about 7 oz very cold white Korean radish or daikon

Dressing:

1 teaspoon delicate vinegar (I have used rice vinegar but it can be cider vinegar too)

1/2 teaspoon sugar (I have used agave syrup)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Korean chili powder (or any other chili powder)

(1/2 teaspoon sesame oil)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

toasted sesame seeds

Cut up the radish into matchsticks or grate it on a mandolin or with a special shredder.

Combine the dressing ingredients and stir into the radish.

Serve immediately sprinkled with sesame seeds or put into the fridge and serve it later (it tastes better cold).

Ajvar (Balkan Pepper Spread)

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ajvarpj

Ajvar (pronounced “aye-var”) is a roasted red pepper spread (or “relish”), extremely popular in Balkan countries, but apparently with Serbian origins. The simplest version of ajvar contains only peppers and garlic, but many people add aubergines and this is what I did. The Turkish biber salçası and Romanian zacuscă are similar spreads, although the latter contains a smaller proportion of peppers.

A couple of years ago I bought a jar of ajvar in a nearby shop. It was inedible. When Ping (from Ping’s Pickings) proudly presented her home-made ajvar, I realised I had probably been unlucky with the low-quality commercial brand. From what I know Ping doesn’t have Balkan origins and doesn’t even live in Europe, so her enthusiastic comments were even more convincing. Then Mr. Three-Cookies (Three Cookies and Easily Good Eats blogs) prepared it too and his successful results were more than enough to make me dream of home-made ajvar. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to prepare it last year, but I have never forgotten about it (I keep on seeing the hated commercial jars quite often!).

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon very cheap Hungarian (read: the best) long red peppers, the perfect variety to prepare ajvar. I have bought three kilos and embarked on the ajvar adventure too. I will not lie. Even though ajvar is not difficult, the whole process is long, requires a lot of work and the yield is low. Apart from these “details”, this spread (or relish) is totally worth all the hassle. It tastes like nothing I have ever eaten, is versatile, addictive and amazingly good. It’s a fantastic bread spread for toasts, sandwiches, wraps, tortillas and it can also be served as a dip with snacks or sauce with grilled meat. Look out for cheap peppers and prepare it. I promise you will not regret the efforts.

My recipe is a mixture of what I found on Ping’s blog, Mr. Three-Cookies’s blog and a Serbian blog called Palachinka. Thank you so much, Ping and Mr. Three-Cookies, for the inspiration and for emboldening me to prepare this unique, wonderful dish. Thank you, Marija, for the extremely helpful photos and useful tips!)

TIPS: I wanted my ajvar a bit spicy, hence the chili peppers, but mild version is probably more popular.

Apparently the best texture is obtained with a meat grinder, but since I don’t have one, I quickly mixed everything in a food processor.

This is a short-term, fridge preserve. The author of Palachinka advises covering with hot oil and adding sodium benzoate (which I even happen to have), but since my yield was only about one litre and since it quickly “melts” every day, I thought I will not bother with it. If you want to keep the jars in the pantry, check how to do it on her blog.

Preparation: 2 days

Ingredients (yields about 1 litre):

3 kg (about 6,6 lbs) red long sweet peppers (at worst you can use bell peppers; they have a

thicker skin, so the yield will be higher, but they are less aromatic)

fresh chilies (I have added 3 medium hot chilies)

500 g (about 1,1 lb) aubergines

5 big garlic cloves, peeled

4 tablespoons oil

about 1 flat tablespoon salt (or more/less to taste)

Wash the peppers, grill them whole either on a grill or (like me) under the broiler until the skin is charred and starts showing “blisters”. Turn them to roast the other side and wait until the skin is charred too.

Put the still hot peppers in a well closed plastic bag or in a big pan, tightly covered with a lid, and leave overnight.

Proceed the same way with aubergines and chilies.

The following day, put on the gloves (otherwise your fingers and nails will be red for many days), peel the peppers and chilies, discarding the stems and removing all the seeds (the seeds you see on the photo come from the aubergine).

Peel the aubergines and remove the stalks.

Grind the aubergines, the peppers, the chilies and the garlic in a meat grinder or mix in a food processor. (Do not insist too much, the mixture should be slightly coarse).

Put everything into a pan, add half of the salt, all the oil and simmer on a very low heat for about two hours, constantly stirring (it burns easily) until there is no liquid separated from the ground vegetables. Taste after two hours and add more salt if needed. Simmer for 15 more minutes until the salt is completely dissolved.

Keep in a closed container or jars, in a colder part of the fridge for at least a month.

Spring Rolls with Soba Noodles and Cucumber

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sobaspringrollsp

Still in a joyful mood as a recent Charles’s guest blogger, here I am, travelling far across the ocean, straight to MJ’s Kitchen. Fascinated by MJ’s Southern cuisine, so exotic and different from mine, and impressed by her meticulous approach to every single recipe and ingredient, I am very proud to guest post for her today and sincerely hope you will visit her beautiful blog.

Given my passion for the Asian cuisine, I was glad that MJ suggested it for today. The last hot sunny days are still there, so I have chosen to present you a recent snack discovery. It is a cross between Vietnamese and Japanese cuisine, driven by an inspiring recipe on a… Korean blog. It sounds a bit complicated, but in reality this four-ingredient recipe is quite quick and simple.

Vietnamese rice paper used to prepare the famous spring rolls is a versatile staple I enjoy every summer. It is easy to stock, it has a very long shelf life and filled with vegetable or meat leftovers, it can be transformed into delicious, light sandwich alternatives. Even though I experiment a lot with rice paper, I would have never thought of combining them with Japanese soba noodles (see below), if I hadn’t spotted Soba and Kimchi Rolls at Heart Mind and Seoul blog. The rolls looked delicious and the presence of soba noodles was particularly surprising and tempting. The day I decided to recreate this recipe I ran out of kimchi, so I decided to replace it with cucumber for a crunchy, fresh note.

These simple rolls proved one of these rare vegetarian (and even vegan) snacks in which, even as an avowed carni- and piscivore, I didn’t mind the absence of fish or meat. This was probably due to the fact that soba noodles have a high protein content and are quite filling. They are satiating, but not heavy thanks to the substantial amount of the cucumber and the light, hot dipping sauce. They are an excellent alternative to sandwiches and I have particularly appreciated them as an afternoon snack. Halved horizontally, they make original party finger food. For a more complete meal, I can imagine them as a side dish with grilled meat or fish. Thank you, Sook, for the inspiration!

Soba (蕎麦) means in Japanese both buckwheat and buckwheat noodles. Soba noodles have a nutty taste and a characteristic strong aroma and can be served in both hot and cold dishes, the latter being particularly popular in cooling summer dishes. They are popular in whole Japan, but are apparently particularly in Tokio. According to wikipedia, in the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868) the rich population of Edo (the ancient name of Tokio) who consumed only white rice, poor in thiamine (vitamin B1) the deficiency of which lead to beriberi. When it was discovered that soba was rich in thiamine, the Edo population started to consume it in big amounts.

Buckwheat is not only transformed into flour and consumed not only in Japan. In fact hulled and roasted buckwheat grains are very popular in several Central and Eastern European countries (Russia, Poland, Ukraine…). In France “gallettes” or savoury crêpes originating from Brettany region are also made with buckwheat flour. Belonging to the Fagopyrum genus, buckwheat is not a grass, nor a cereal, even though it looks like one. Its qualities are so numerous, it is surprising most of the Western countries never consume it. It is very rich in protein, minerals, antioxydants, iron and doesn’t contain any gluten, so can be consumed by people who don’t tolerate it. Moreover, buckwheat grows very quickly and easily. That is why it can be cultivated in cold climate and crops can be easily multiplied in hot regions. If you ever have the chance, taste buckwheat honey. It has an unforgettable aroma and taste.

TIP: Dried noodles called “soba” can be bought in Japanese grocery shops, but most of them contain a mixture of buckwheat and wheat flours, so check well the ingredients before buying. My favourite are 100% buckwheat soba (juwari 十割 or towari) because of their intense flavour and aroma, but some people find it too strong. Soba noodles are usually light brown, but they can also be green when mixed with green tea (cha soba) or seaweed (hegi soba) and light pink when flavoured with cherry (sakura soba).

Preparation: about 20 minutes

Ingredients (for 5 – 6 rolls):

6 rice paper sheets (22 cm/about 8,6 in. diameter)

50 – 60 g (about 2 oz.) soba noodles

1/2 big cucumber

2 – 3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Dipping sauce:

5 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce (or less if using standard soy sauce)
1 tablespoon chili oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar

Cook the soba noodles for 3-4 minutes in boiling unsalted water (the time depends on the brand and the kind of noodles, so check the exact time on the package).

Drain the noodles with very cold water to stop them from further softening.

Cut the noodles in two (shorter noodles will be easier to use here) and put aside.

Prepare the cucumber cutting it in 6 cm sticks.

Fill a big wide bowl with warm (not hot) water.

Dip rice paper sheets one by one in the water, immersing them delicately so that you don’t break them.

As soon as the sheet softens (about ten – twenty seconds), put it onto a chopping board.

Place horizontally, about 5 cm/2 in. from the rice paper edge which is closest to you, a stack composed of noodles and cucumber pieces.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds and roll tightly but delicately, starting from the edge which is closest to you.

Proceed in the same way with the remaining rolls.

Serve them immediately as they are or cut in two horizontally.

If you wish to serve them later, wrap them individually in cling film because they dry out very quickly.

Pickled Yellow Mango

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Today I have a big honour and pleasure to guest post for my friend Charles from Five Euro Food. I strongly encourage you to pay him a visit and browse through his inspiring recipes from such different parts of the world as Sweden, Britain or Tunisia, watch his impressive cooking videos, admire his breathtaking photos from trips in France or simply say hello. I know Charles shares my passion for home preserves and September being the preserving month par excellence, I have decided to share with you and him my latest pickling experiment.

Even though I prepare some jams, most of my pantry jars contain savoury sauces, jellies and pickles. Mango is the main ingredient of several types of hot sauces and chutneys I prepare every year, but I haven’t tried pickling it until now. If, like me, you are a fan of Indian pickled mango, you will understand that this was the first recipe I started to look for. Unfortunately, Indian pickles are prepared with expensive green mangoes, and, most of all, I found only short-term preserving recipes. I desperately wanted to use the easily available yellow mangoes and to keep the pickles in my pantry for at least a year, so I ventured into something completely new. I kept Indian flavours and combined them with the foolproof European long-term pickling method I use with cucumbers and peppers (click here to see my beloved Pickled Peppers or Hot Chili Peppers).

The experiment was risky, but proved worthwhile. Tasted after a couple of days (I had to make sure I present you an edible recipe!), the pickled mango has exceeded my expectations. I feared the excessive sweetness and softness of the fruit, but they were perfectly balanced by chili peppers, vinegar and powerful spices. The scarce amount of oil I poured on top of every jar tamed down the harshness of the vinegar and mellowed the flavours. I can already see these aromatic mangoes bringing sunshine to my winter meals.

TIP: If you don’t care for long-term pickles, you can skip the processing stage and keep these pickles in the fridge for at least several weeks.

If you don’t like hot flavours, skip the chili.

The riper the mangoes, the softer the pickles will be. Even those made with quite firm fruits were rather soft (nothing to do with crunchy vinegared cucumbers).

Preparation: 1 h + processing

Ingredients (makes about 8 x 300ml/about 10 fl oz jars):

3 mangoes (not too ripe, still firm)

Marinade:

600 ml/about 2,5 cups vinegar (4,5%)

500 ml/about 2 cups water

150 g/2/3 cup caster sugar

3 flat tablespoons salt

3 teaspoons nigella seeds

2 teaspoons fenugreek seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 teaspoons white mustard

8 garlic cloves

about 8 thin slivers fresh ginger

2 bird’s-eye-chilis (or any hot chili variety; the amount depends on how hot you want your pickles)

8 tablespoons good quality oil (I prefer olive oil)

Roast nigella, fenugreek, cumin and mustard seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to pop.

Put them aside.

Put on gloves. Cut the chilis into slices, discarding the seeds.

Peel the mangoes and cut them into more or less equal square pieces.

Fill empty, thoroughly washed and dried jars with mango pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height and not tightly packed), add garlic cloves (one per jar), toasted spices (a teaspoon per jar), two chili slices and one ginger sliver per jar.

Bring the marinade to the boil and let it simmer for a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved.

Fill the jars with hot – not boiling – marinade, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim.

Pour a tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

/At this point you can either keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks or process the jars, as described below, and store them in your pantry for at least a year!/

Place the cool jars in a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to the boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 15 minutes (if you use bigger jars, increase the processing time; I usually process 500 ml jars for 20 minutes).
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As most pickles, these should improve with time.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Ketchup

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ketchuppp

Last weeks of summer are the best moment to make your own ketchup, but if you consider it an easily copied and uncomplicated sauce, think again. For long years all the home-made specimens I tasted or tried to make were only distant and ridiculous wannabes, not even meriting to be labelled as “ketchup”. Accepting the superiority of commercial brands was not easy to accept by a passionate preserver like me, so when two years ago I was offered a huge batch of untreated, ripe tomatoes, the old dream of making my own ketchup returned. I started searching on internet, leafing through my cookery books… Finally, thanks to Jeffrey Steingarten and his fascinating “The Man Who Ate Everything” (one of the best food-related books I have ever read), I discovered a marvellous sauce which beats every single commercial brand and which is no longer a home-made copy, but the best ketchup in the world.

I have slightly modified the ingredients’ amounts because the original recipe was intended for ten pounds of tomatoes. The process is not complicated itself, but a bit fussy and long. The initial volume of tomato pulp and juice will reduce up to 80%, so this sauce is quite costly, unless you cultivate tomatoes or have access to very cheap ones. The tomatoes must be very ripe and ideally untreated or almost untreated. If the tomatoes’ quality is good, the result is so excellent, you will find it difficult to believe you have made it on your own. The flavour balances between the concentration of a fresh ripe tomato taste and a subtler version of good commercial ketchup. Once you have tasted your first batch, you will realise this sauce is too good to be served with just any ordinary sausage or meat and definitely not to every guest…

TIP: If your tomatoes are far from being perfectly ripe or are rather watery, I strongly advise the Indian style Tomato Chutney. The recipe gives amazing results even with ordinary tomatoes.

Preparation: around 2 hours

Special equipment: a food mill (a sieve and a spoon may be used instead, but it takes much longer)

Ingredients: (for 1 kg tomatoes, but the volume will reduce up to 80%)

1 kg tomatoes (about 2 lbs)

1 garlic clove chopped

1/2 medium onion chopped

70 ml (about 2,4 oz) cider vinegar (4,5%)

1 teaspoon peppercorns

1 teaspoon allspice berries

6 cm (about 2,4 in) cinnamon stick

2 cloves

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon dried ginger

1/2 tablespoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar

Chop roughly the tomatoes.

Put them in a pan, cover, cook over high heat 5-10 minutes, stirring until the chunks give off their juice.

Strain the juice, pressing gently to the sieve, so that the liquid goes through, but not the tomato pulp.

Add garlic, onion, spices and vinegar (not sugar!) to the liquid obtained by straining.

Cook over moderate heat until it becomes slightly syrupy (it will take 40 – 60 minutes).

In the meantime sieve the pulp or put it through a food mill (make sure the seeds and skins do not get into the pulp). Put aside.

Strain the syrupy liquid discarding all the spices, onion, garlic etc.

Pour it over the pulp, add the sugar and stir well.

Cook until you obtain the desired ketchup consistency (keeping in mind that hot ketchup is a bit more liquid than when it cools down).

Adjust the taste if necessary (some tomatoes need more sugar or more salt) and heat until the sugar is dissolved.

You can mix the sauce in a food processor if you judge the texture not smooth enough.

/At this point you can (after the ketchup has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the ketchup, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Hot Peach Sauce

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hotpeachsaucep

Every year, especially when the busiest pantry-filling season arrives, I try to limit jars-related posts in case some of you, my dear readers, become totally bored with the preserving subject. This Peach Sauce is one of these which didn’t fit into my last year’s “quota” and I promised myself I wouldn’t skip it this summer. My recent discoveries of Jed’s (Sportsglutton) fabulous Peachy Western Bacon Cheeseburger and Eva’s (Kitchen Inspirations) marvellous Peach Salsa reminded me to present you this simple, but highly palatable hot and sweet sauce.

As some of you know, I am addicted to the mixture of sweet and hot flavours. This is one of the reasons why, instead of standard jams, “fruit” shelves in my pantry are mainly filled with hot sauces, jellies, chutneys and similar products. Most of them go exceptionally well with both Western and Asian dishes, so I will not exaggerate if I say I do not imagine my life without them. Some taste better with seafood, some with poultry, grilled meat, skewers, toasts or simple sandwiches and other, like this peach sauce, enhance practically every savoury meal or snack.

Visually and technically this sauce is very close to Mango and Chili Sauce I wrote about in June. It is equally beautiful, easy and quick to prepare. In spite of a slight tanginess, this sauce is more versatile, probably due to a subtler fruit aroma. If you feel tempted by this simple preserve, now is probably the best moment to profit from ripe, end-of-season peaches.

Whatever you do with peaches, do not throw out the peel. It can be used to prepare amazingly good Peach Peel Butter.

In case you want to experiment with fruits and chili, you might also like these:

Hot Strawberry Sauce

Mango and Chili Sauce

Apricot and Chili Jelly

TIPS: Vinegar and sugar amounts depend on the fruits’ sweetness and the ones below are only an example. Some peaches require more sugar and some more vinegar. Always put down the exact amounts so that you know what you should modify next time you preserve.

The hotness of this sauce should be adapted to your own preferences and your resistance. The below chili amounts are only an example and depend also on the chili variety. Several tips for those who are not used to handle hot peppers:

1-Wear gloves while washing or cutting them !

2- Add your peppers gradually. They vary a lot in size, in hotness, and even the same variety can be completely different depending on the season and country of origin. I always first mix peppers in a food processor and then add them gradually until the sauce acquires the desired taste.

3-Do not throw away the seeds if you want the sauce to be even hotter! (they are the hottest part of the peppers).

4- Keep in mind that the warm sauce is always hotter in taste than the cold one… (Wait for the sauce to cool down, taste it and you can reheat it once more adding more chilies if you want).

Preparation: around 30 minutes + a couple of hours for cooling + 20 minutes for processing

Ingredients: (about 3 x 200ml jars, but it depends on the fruits’ juiciness and ripeness)

1 kg (about 2 lbs) peaches

1 T salt

200 g (1 cup) sugar

200 ml (6 3/4 oz) white wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5% acid)

preferably fresh, red or green hot peppers (I put 3 flat tablespoons of mixed tiny “bird’s eye” chili peppers and my sauce was really hot)

Cut off the peppers’ stems. Cut in half lengthwise and throw away the seeds (or not! if you want your sauce extra hot).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Put aside.

Peel the peaches putting them in a big bowl or pan filled with boiling water.

After five minutes empty the bowl/pan and cover them with very cold water.

After 5 more minutes they can be peeled with fingers.

Do not throw away the peel! Make Peach Peel Butter (I promise it’s delicious).

Cut up the flesh. Mix the peaches in a food processor.

Place the mixed peaches, the sugar, the salt and the vinegar in a heavy bottom pan (shouldn’t be aluminium or copper, otherwise the vinegar will react with the metal).
Add the chilies gradually (for example starting with half of the amount). Cook for about 30 minutes. Taste and, optionally, add sugar /vinegar/peppers to adjust the taste.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 15 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date (do not forget to put down the exact amounts of every ingredient).

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Kyuuri no Kyuuchan (Pickled Cucumber with Soy Sauce and Ginger)

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kyuurinop

Kyuri no kyu chan (きゅうりのキューちゃん) is brand name of extremely popular Japanese cucumber pickles. I’m always thrilled at the idea of reproducing a famous factory made product at home (I still keep on preparing my own Taberu Rayu, a Japanese thick chili oil), so when I saw the recipe on Hiroyuki’s blog on Japanese cooking, I knew I would try it soon. This first test was particularly exciting since I have never actually tasted the original pickles. I have no comparison, but Hiroyuki’s home version, slightly modified and prepared with big, long Western cucumbers turned out delicious.

Unlike Western strong pickles, Japanese style pickles (tsukemono) have a low acidity level, are more or less sweet (sometimes too sweet for my taste) and, unless store-bought, they belong to short-term preserves; as such they have to be kept in the fridge. The low acidity is sometimes a nice change from stronger European pickles which cannot be served at every meal. The sweetness level of many Japanese dishes is however often too high for me, so I have slightly reduced here the sugar amount. I have also used low-salt soy sauce (Hiroyuki said they were very salty). I was very happy with the result and found these pickles addictive. They were so delicate and versatile, I had them with every single meal (breakfast too). Moreover, I was astounded by the incredible taste of the pickled ginger strips. They were supposed to be only a part of cucumbers’ seasoning, but I enjoyed fishing them out and eating separately. My next batch will be bigger and I will certainly add more ginger. Thank you, Hiroyuki, for this excellent recipe!

If you find yourself with a big batch of cucumbers, I strongly recommend trying the incredibly easy and particularly flavoursome Cucumber Kimchi:

cucumberkimchip

or the Moomins’ Cucumber Salad I posted last year and have been putting into jars this weekend:

Preparation: 15 minutes + 12 hours

Ingredients:

2 Japanese cucumbers or 1 big long Western cucumber

1 tablespoon fresh ginger slivers

1 tablespoon sugar

100 ml (about 3,4 oz) low-salt soy sauce

50 ml (about 1,7 oz) rice vinegar

toasted sesame seeds

Cut the cucumbers into 1 cm (about 1/2 in) slices and if they are big, cut the slices in two.

Put the sugar, the soy sauce and the vinegar in a pan. Bring to the boil.

Add the cucumbers and the ginger strips. Let them simmer for 2 minutes.

Put aside and once cooled, refrigerate them overnight.

Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.

Pickled Peppers

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pickledpepperp

These are by far the most extraordinary pickles I know. I have been preparing them for long years and always in several big batches because they are also my family’s and friends’ favourite preserves. I already wrote about these pickles about two years ago, but at the time I didn’t have many visitors, so they remained unnoticed. When recently Jeno from Weeknite Meals commented on this old forgotten post I felt I had to dig it out and share with all my visiting and blogging friends (while making this weekend’s batch I also changed the previous awful photo). Thank you, Jeno, for drawing my attention to this post.

I can shamelessly affirm that these are the best pickled peppers I have ever tasted because I am not the author of the recipe. I got it from a friend, who, in her turn, got it from her boss, an excellent cook. I have never had a chance to taste her boss’s peppers, but I believed my friend when she said they were simply the best. She was right because I have never even tried to modify the original recipe. I have always put the same spices, the same proportion of vinegar and sugar and the same significant amount of garlic too. I also never skip the tablespoon of oil which smooths and “polishes” the flavours.

Every variety of pepper can be pickled this way and as you can see below the process is quite easy. The most important is that the peppers be fresh and ripe. The stronger their aroma the better the pickle will be. Of course red peppers are most beautiful. The jars keep for at least a year, but a three year old jar I recently found at the back of my pantry was still perfect. You should wait at least a couple of weeks before tasting, but it largely improves with time.

I pickle also Hot Chili Peppers, but in a slightly different way. Click here to see the recipe.

Preparation: 1 hour+processing

Ingredients:

1.5 kg (3,3 pounds) sweet peppers

about 20 peeled garlic cloves

up to 10 bay leaves

a couple of teaspoons mustard grains

a couple of teaspoons black pepper grains

2-3 teaspoons allspice grains

1 litre (about 4 cups) cider/white wine/other alcohol vinegar (mine was 4,5%, if you use a stronger one, add proportionally more water)

1.1 litre (about 4 cups and 3 oz) water

400 g (1 3/4 cups) caster sugar

3 tablespoons salt

olive oil (or other good quality oil)

Cut the peppers’ stems, discard all the seeds and white parts. Cut them into 2-3 cm pieces.

Fill in empty jars with pepper pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height), add 2 garlic cloves, 3 allspice berries, 3 pepper grains, 6 mustard grains and 1 bay leaf per every 500 ml jar.

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan and let it boil a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved. Put aside.

Fill the jars with hot (no longer boiling!) vinegar mixture, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim. Pour a generous tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to the boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As do most pickles, this one improves with time. Pickled peppers are perfect with cold meats, in sandwiches, on toast, as a side dish…

Lecsó (Hungarian Pepper Stew)

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lecsop

This week something unusual has happened. I prepared a dish posted by a blogger a long time ago only to see the same person post one of my recipes two days afterwards. I talk of course about Zsuzsa (Zsuzsa is in the kitchen) who has made a real piece of art (see it here) out of my Poppy Seed and Chocolate Cake recipe and moreover called her post “Birthday Cake for Sissi”. (I felt as if it was my second birthday this year…). Zsuzsa had no idea that two days before I had prepared the famous Hungarian pepper stew (lecsó), following her recipe. I haven’t told her of course because I wanted to make a small surprise, so here it is: Zsuzsa’s extraordinary, genuine Hungarian lecsó.

Of course this is another dish I prepared using the peppers brought by my friend from Hungary (I have used some of them in Hungarian Stuffed Peppers) and I hope this “detail” made my lecsó even more Hungarian. In case you have never heard about it, lecsó (pronounced letcho) is a big Hungarian classic. Just like stuffed pepper it calls for long light yellow sweet peppers with thin skin. Lecsó is usually served either with sausage (according to my Hungarian friend the best ones are the smoked, but not dried sausages, such as Hungarian, Polish or German) or with beaten eggs which are incorporated into the lecsó at the end. It is also often cooked together with rice, but I wanted to have it with some crunchy baguette and fried sausage, so I have skipped the rice. Lecsó can also be an excellent side dish served with meat or fish.

I haven’t really modified Zsuzsa’s recipe, but slightly changed the amounts. I found it simply perfect, especially the addition of garlic which doesn’t always figure in other Hungarian recipes. This lecsó is light and low-fat (just like Stuffed Peppers) and proves that Hungarian cuisine doesn’t have to be heavy and greasy (I know some people think this). Make sure you cook more than you think you’ll eat because the smell and the taste are so irresistible, second helpings have absolutely to be included in your estimates. Thank you, Zsuzsa, for this amazing recipe.

TIPS: Zsuzsa doesn’t peel the tomatoes and I couldn’t decide whether I should peel them or not (I usually do when cooking tomatoes). Finally I peeled half of the tomatoes, but next time I will not peel them at all. The skin adds more flavour. I know that some people have problems with tomatoes skin, so if you are one of these, peel all the tomatoes.

If you want your lecsó hot, add some hot chili powder (see below). Otherwise you can use only sweet paprika.

Preparation: around 1 hour

Ingredients (serves 2, with second or third helpings):

6 medium tomatoes

6 long yellow peppers

2 long red peppers

4 tablespoons oil (I used duck fat instead)

1 onion

4 garlic cloves

3 tablespoon sweet paprika (I have put 1 tablespoon hot paprika and 2 tablespoons sweet paprika)

salt, pepper

(300-400g smoked sausages (sliced) or 4 beaten eggs)

Peel the garlic and chop it finely.

(If you want to peel the tomatoes, put them in boiling water for a minute. Take them out with a slotted spoon and put into cold water. Peel them.) Chop the tomatoes roughly.

Core the peppers, remove the stalks and cut them into slices.

Chop the onion and fry it in fat until soft and translucent.

Remove from the heat, add the remaining ingredients.

Simmer covered until the peppers are soft, checking if you need to add more water.

If you want to serve it with sausages, I strongly advise frying or grilling them before. Then slicing them. It gives much more taste to the lecsó. Add the sausage slices, cook for 10 more minutes and serve.

If you want to serve it with eggs, beat the eggs in a bowl and simply pour them into the pan with lecsó, stir a bit and serve when the eggs are set.

Steamed Aubergine with Chili Sauce

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steamedauberp

I have started to cook Sichuanese. I mean the real Sichuanese cuisine, because as soon as I opened Fuchsia Dunlop’s “Sichuan Cookery” I realised that many dishes labelled as Sichuanese are not Sichuanese at all. The contents of this book sounded so fascinating that I must have bookmarked a third of the recipes. The two first ones I chose to test turned out marvellous (no photos yet, but I will repair my mistake soon) and a plate of steamed aubergines sounded too unusual to miss it.

I might have already mentioned that I used to be completely indifferent to the aubergine and rather avoided it because it always seemed difficult to prepare in a way that wouldn’t include tons of oil. Nowadays I realise that I like the aubergine more and more every year, so I look out for every new recipe, preferably not calling for deep or shallow frying. Fuchsia Dunlop says this is a simple home recipe, but for me it was a revelation. It was easy, it took me about 20 minutes and the first impression is unforgettable. The texture of the steamed aubergine is incredibly silky, soft, moist, “buttery” as says the author, and the vinegared chili sauce gives it a huge awakening kick. In the meantime I have noticed some more steamed aubergine recipes at Shizuoka Gourmet, so you will probably see some more of these on my blog.

Before I pass to the recipe I would like to tell you about an extraordinary surprise Zsuzsa (Zsuzsa is in the Kitchen) prepared for me. Yesterday I felt as if it had been my birthday when I saw this gorgeous Poppy Seed and Chocolate Cake on her blog. This cake was prepared by my mum for every single one of my birthdays and is still the best cake I have ever had in my life. I have posted it some time ago (see here my clumsy version) and have completely forgotten that Zsuzsa promised to prepare it one day. Thank you, Zsuzsa, for this virtual present and such a huge surprise! I was deeply touched.

Now back to the recipe! (I have slightly modified it, adapting to a side dish for 2 and also adjusted it so that it can be steamed in a basic rice-cooker which like mine doesn’t have “high heat” or “low heat” options).

TIP: The author advises salting the aubergine in order to remove the bitterness. I have realised many years ago that, at least in the part of Europe I live in, aubergines are no longer bitter and do not require this stage. If your aubergines are of the bitter variety, cut them in half, salt them and leave for 30 minutes. Then wash them and pat them dry before starting to steam them.

Preparation: about 20 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

1 medium aubergine

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 teaspoon Chinese black vinegar (Chinkiang, easily found in Asian shops)

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon chili oil preferably containing flakes; I used my home made Taberu Rayu, but I think any chili oil with the addition of chili flakes will do

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Cut the aubergine in two (removing the leaves and the stem of course).

If using a rice cooker pour 300 ml (about 1 cup and 1/5) water, place the aubergine on the steaming plate.

Steam until the rice-cooker switches off.

(If you have a separate steamer, the author advises to steam the aubergine for 5-10 minutes over a high flame.)

Cut the aubergine into bite-sized pieces and serve either hot or cold with the chili sauce aside (as a dip) or pour the sauce directly over it (this is the way I preferred it).

Homemade Pickled Ginger (Gari ガリ)

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garip

A very funny thing happened to me about a week ago (my Asian friends will laugh their socks off now!). I went to my Asian grocery shop, took some shiso, some lemongrass, sweet thai basil and – at least that is what I thought I took – a package of galangal. When I came back home I looked closely at my galangal and it seemed a bit different… Then I read on the label it was actually young ginger. You might think I was angry, disappointed or both, but not at all! Not only was I happy to have young ginger, but actually instantly knew what to do with it.

As a notorious preserver and pickler I repeat my favourite recipes year by year, but also constantly look for new ideas, so when I saw Pickled Ginger in Street Café. Japan by Emi Kazuko, I made it straight away. The recipe called for fresh ginger and I didn’t understand at first that “fresh” meant young, cream-coloured bulbs without the hard brown skin. Needless to say, my experiment with “standard” ginger was a bit disappointing and when I finally realised after some web research what the problem was, I assumed I will never be able to make this delicious pickle at home because I had never seen young ginger anywhere in my city. Imagine my joy when only after a couple of weeks I realised I was actually able to buy it in my favourite Asian grocery shop!

I have slightly modified the original recipe . Moreover, apart from the short-term, “fridge” pickled ginger (will keep up to three months apparently), I have also prepared a second batch of long-term, Western-style processed pickles (the only difference is that I processed the jars in boiling water). I will be updating this post to report about the changes (if there are any) throughout the year. The pickling liquid in both jars has taken on a slightly pink hue (alas the ginger colour hasn’t almost changed at all, maybe because I used cider vinegar) and the fridge version turned up exactly as I wanted it to be: refreshing, slightly crunchy, but still soft, not too sweet and without the “soapy” aftertaste I sometimes find in store-bought pickled ginger. It wasn’t as soft as the store bought pickled ginger, but it didn’t really bother me. Apparently young ginger is in season until the end of summer, so I hope I can prepare more of these pickles.

UPDATE: After several months the long-term pickled ginger (processed in boiling water and stored in my pantry) tastes even better!

TIP: If you plan long-term pickles, change slightly the amounts and do not add water (see the ingredients’ list below)

Special equipment: a mandolin to slice the ginger

Preparation: 40 – 50 minutes + at least 24 hours before tasting

Ingredients (yields at least 1 x 300 ml/ 10 oz jar; if you prepare long-term pickles, prepare 1 more small jar just in case):

150 g fresh, young ginger, peeled

2 tablespoons sea salt

125 ml (1/2 cup) rice vinegar (I have used 4,5 % cider vinegar, simply because I have several bottles in stock; use 250 ml/1 cup vinegar if you prepare long-term pickles)

60 ml (about 1/4 cup) water (for long-term pickles I have skipped water)

60 ml (about 1/4 cup) white sugar (for long-term pickles I used 90 ml/ about 0,4 cup sugar)

1 teaspoon salt

Cut up the ginger into knobs and then, using a mandolin, cut each knob lengthwise into paper-thin slices (lengthwise direction is very important!).

Rub the ginger with salt and put aside for 3 hours (the ginger will soften).

Rinse the ginger, pat dry and put into a jar.

Bring to boil the vinegar, the sugar, the salt and the water, if you prepare short-term pickles.

Pour the hot (not boiling) mixture over the ginger, close the jar.

Leave it to cool down and then refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

It can stay in the fridge for three months.

If you prepare long-term pickles, place the cooled jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 15 minutes.

Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

These will keep for at least a year in your pantry. I will update this post saying if the ginger taste changes.

NOTE (concerns only the long-term pickles): For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html

Mango and Chili Sauce

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I am impatiently waiting for the peak preserving season which starts some time next month. In the meantime, since mangoes seem to be already in season in many parts of the world, last weekend I was very glad to be able to fill this year’s first jars with my beloved hot mango sauce. I have posted this recipe a long time ago, when I didn’t know most of my present web friends and I thought it would be such a pity if one of my most often prepared and served sauces remained forgotten or unnoticed. For me it’s such an extraordinary preserve, I think it may even merit to be posted regularly once a year.

Why do I find this sauce so exceptional? First of all, because I love mango and chili combination. Secondly, because of its simplicity. In fact, I haven’t followed any precise instructions and the recipe is the result of my experiments with chili, mango and obligatory preserving agents (vinegar and sugar). Thanks to the short ingredients list, this sauce is an extremely versatile seasoning or dip. You can serve it with roasts, stir fries, sandwiches, noodles, rice bowls,snacks…. Apart from those who hate hot and sweet combination, everyone seems to enjoy this sauce (this is one of my biggest “jar as a present” hits). Last but not least, mango season is quite long and since they are imported from different parts of the world they are available (at least in Europe) all year round, so this sauce can be prepared at practically any time of the year.

If you still hesitate wondering how you will use this sauce, here are some suggestions:

-Stir-fried asparagus, chicken and cashew nuts

-Sesame Coated Tuna Nuggets

-Japanese Chicken and Leek Skewers (Negima)

-Asparagus Teriyaki Pork Rolls

-Okra Teriyaki Pork Rolls

-Sesame Coated Chicken Nuggets

-Chicken Karaage

TIPS: The vinegar and sugar amounts depend on the mango sweetness and the ones below are only an example. Some mangoes require more sugar and some more vinegar. Always put down the exact amounts so that you know what you should modify next time you preserve it.

1-Wear gloves while washing or cutting them !

3-Do not throw away the seeds if you want the sauce to be even hotter! (they are the hottest part of the peppers).

4- Keep in mind that the warm sauce is always hotter in taste than the cold one… (Wait for the sauce to cool down, taste it and you can reheat it once more adding more chilies if you want).

Preparation: around 30 minutes + a couple of hours for cooling + 20 minutes for processing

Ingredients: (2 mangoes will yield around 3-4 200ml jars, but it depends on the fruits’ juiciness and ripeness)

2 mangoes

1 T salt

200 g (1 cup) sugar

200 ml (6 3/4 oz) white wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5% acid)

preferably fresh, red or green hot peppers (I put 3 flat tablespoons of mixed tiny “bird’s eye” chili peppers and my sauce was really hot)

Cut off the peppers’ stems. Cut in half lengthwise and throw away the seeds (or not! if you want your sauce extra hot).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Put aside.

Peel the mangoes, cut up the flesh. Mix the mangoes in a food processor.

Place the mixed mangoes, the sugar, the salt and the vinegar in a heavy bottom pan (shouldn’t be aluminium or copper, otherwise the vinegar will react with the metal).
Add the chilies gradually (for example starting with half of the amount). Cook for around 30 minutes. Taste and, optionally, add sugar /vinegar/peppers to adjust the taste.

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date (do not forget to put down the exact amounts of every ingredient you used).

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Savoury Cake with Goat Cheese and Dried Tomatoes/Goat Cheese and Dried Tomatoes Bread

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Savoury cakes (called “breads” by many people) are one of my favourite party snacks. They are easy to prepare, do not require any complicated stages (such as kneading, easily adaptable to available ingredients and, most of all, very rewarding because they seem to impress most of the guests and guarantee lots of compliments. Apart from parties, they are a great everyday sandwich substitute and I strongly recommend it for picnics. Some of you might remember the two savoury cakes I have posted on my blog (Cake with Ham and Olives and Cake with Shrimp and Edamame). This goat cheese cake was prepared with the same basic batter (of which I am particularly proud, see below). Then, as usually, I simply added what I found in the fridge and what suited my mood.

As I have already mentioned in my previous posts, savoury cakes are quite popular in France (they are called by English name “cake”, pronounced “kek”) and I have always loved the concept, but the cakes always seemed too fatty (greasy fingers were inevitable). In fact, in order to be moist and soft, most cakes contain quite a lot of oil or butter. After many attempts to lower the fat content I finally found out that the smooth fresh cheese (called fromage blanc or quark) was an excellent partial oil substitute and guaranteed the softness and the moisture I wanted to achieve. I have recently also discovered that the fresh cheese can easily be replaced with silken tofu (see the recipe below). Both are impossible to detect, do not alter the batter’s taste and make the cakes incredibly soft. In short, I encourage you to try this delicious and light batter recipe and then add whatever comes to your mind. I have always considered it as foolproof and hope it will never let you down either.

TIPS: The cake should be served cold (it’s difficult to cut when warm). It can be made well in advance, wrapped in cling film and kept in the fridge for two-three days.

Quark cheese/fromage blanc/fresh cheese is smooth and has a very thick yogurt-like consistency (a bit softer than cream cheese). It may contain up to 40% fat, but I always use the lightest one. If it’s not available, replace it with silken tofu, but skip the milk (see below).

If you manage to find a narrow and long baking dish, it makes cute, two-bite sized, elegant snack slices. I have bought a 4 cm x 30 cm (about 1,6 x 12 inches) and use it very often. It is perfect for half a batch when I don’t have guests and don’t want to make a big cake.

Before I pass to the recipe I would like to thank A_Boleyn for testing my Chawan Mushi with Shrimp and Peas (the egg custard I have presented in my previous post). In spite of a silly mistake in my recipe, she has achieved wonderful results. Click here to see her beautiful egg custard.

Preparation: 1h15

Ingredients (for a 30 cm x 10 cm baking dish or two 4 cm x 30 cm dishes):

200 g quark cheese/fromage blanc (or 200 g silken tofu, but in this case skip the milk)

125 ml milk (approx. 1/2 cup)

50 ml oil (approx. 1/5 cup)

250 ml flour (approx. 1 cup)

1 flat tablespoon salt

pepper

4 eggs

1 package baking powder (16 g/about 0.5 oz)

1 tablespoon thyme

100-150 g/ 3,5 oz- 5.3 oz fresh goat cheese

10 dried tomatoes (drained if preserved in oil or soaked in hot water to soften if they were just dried)

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Mix the eggs, the cheese, the flour, the milk, the baking powder and the oil with a spoon. Season with salt and pepper.

ATTENTION! If you use silken tofu, you need to mix the batter in a food processor or a blender.

Add the chopped tomatoes. Stir well.

Grease a rectangular 30 x 10 cm baking dish or line it with baking paper. (You can use two smaller dishes of course).

Pour the cake preparation.

Delicately drop small amounts of goat cheese (heaped teaspoons) in equal distances, pushing them inside the cake.

Bake 1 hour or until the cake is golden brown. Let it cool down (the best would be to refrigerate for one or two hours). Serve it cut into slices and then into 2 or 4 bite-sized pieces or, if using as a sandwich alternative, simply cut into slices.

Cucumber and Chervil Salad

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This year I have started to grow chervil for the first time in my life. It proved one of the easiest and quickest herbs to grow on my balcony and I haven’t even noticed when it started to look like a small bush. Even though chervil is widely used in French cuisine (it’s a part of “fines herbes” mixture) and easily available here, I have never bought it or cooked with it, so this huge harvest looked quite challenging.

If you have never tasted and/or seen chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium), it’s similar to carrot greens, but its leaves are more fragile and smaller. Even though chervil is related to parsley, its subtle aniseed taste is completely different. The first leaves I pinched out of my balcony plant made me realise it was the most elegant herb I am growing and therefore it required a special treatment, at least for the first time. Alas, all the recipes I found used chervil together with other herbs, so I realised I had to make up something on my own. Finally, I decided to combine it with cucumber in a light, refreshing salad. Instead of vinegar I used lemon juice in my vinaigrette to make a more delicate seasoning, which wouldn’t mask the chervil taste. The simple salad I have prepared reminded me a of some Japanese simple but surprising dishes: the few ingredients created distinct, but subtle and elegant flavours. After such a rewarding first experiment I am looking forward to harvest more off my beautiful balcony bush.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

1 chilled small or half a big cucumber (I used 12 cm/ about 5 inches)

a small handful of chopped chervil

Vinaigrette:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon lemon juice

salt, pepper

Cut the cucumber in two lengthwise and then slice it thinly.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl.

Add the cucumber and the chervil.

Mix everything and serve immediately.

Egg Croquettes (Tamago no Korokke)

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I love eggs and have always considered myself an exceptionally big egg consumer until I read that the Japanese eat more than 300 eggs per person a year. Nowadays everyone agrees that an egg a day is perfectly safe (for healthy people of course), but when eggs were on a nutritional black list in Western countries, this Japanese preference, paired with national low cholesterol levels must have seemed mysterious for our health specialists. I have recently realised that many of my blogging friends share my love for eggs (a special mention here for Hiroyuki’s neverending list of delightful egg recipes which could fill a whole cookery book!). I have bookmarked many recipes and intend to prepare them in the near future, but in the meantime they made me long for a dish I loved as a child, namely Egg Croquettes.

Egg Croquettes are an easy, comforting, home dish everyone seems to enjoy. They call for only three ingredients and are one of these dishes you can make when you think there is practically nothing left in the fridge. I have always used to serve them with a refreshing well-vinegared salad and some bread. This time, maybe keeping in mind the Japanese love for eggs I had them with a bowl of rice and it turned out to be an excellent option too. They make a perfect lunch, dinner, brunch or big breakfast and I am sure they would be an excellent picnic snack and why not a bento box item?

Actually I have “Japanised” these croquettes even more. They are usually shallow-fried, but since deep-frying is not only much quicker, but also less fat-absorbing, I decided to deep-fry them just like I proceed with the famous Japanese korokke (Potato and Meat Croquettes). They turned out better than all my previous egg croquettes and I will never go back to the traditional method. I have also found that Japanese panko crumbs created a crunchier, less soggy crust. Of course, if you prefer however shallow frying and standard breadcrumbs, I guarantee that such traditional croquettes will be excellent too.

Egg croquettes don’t require any sauce, but I have accidentally discovered that they are simply irresistible served with mayonnaise and Thick and Crunchy Japanese Sauce (Taberu Rayu). With all these Japanese touches I decided even to give it a Japanese name. I hope my Japanese friends will not scold me for this.

In case you are also a big egg fan, here are some recipes with eggs playing an important or main role:

-Spring Salad with a Fried Egg

-Smoked Mackerel and Egg Spread

-Tanindon (Rice Bowl with Eggs and Pork)

-Mixed Salad with a Fried Egg

-Bread Baskets with Eggs

-Oyakodon (Rice Bowl with Eggs and Chicken)

TIP: Even though it takes one more hour, I found out that refrigeration makes the forming process much easier: cold ingredients are simply stickier.

Preparation: 1 hour (or two, if you choose to refrigerate the egg mixture)

Ingredients (serves 2-3):

6 hard-boiled eggs

1 raw egg

4-5 tablespoons breadcrumbs (or more)

salt, pepper

5-6 tablespoons chopped chives or spring onions

breadcrumbs for coating (several tablespoons)

oil for shallow- or deep-frying

Chop the eggs as finely as you can (you can mix two of the eggs in a food processor to make the texture creamier, but not all of them!).

Combine them with the raw egg, the chopped chives or spring onion and season with salt and pepper.

Add gradually breadcrumbs until the mixture can be formed into balls (it depends on the egg size, the breadcrumbs, the chopping etc.).

(Putting the mixture into the fridge for one hour will make the forming process easier but you can start doing it straight away).

Preheat the oil in a pan.

Squeezing tightly the egg mixture, form balls and flatten them to round or oval patties (5 cm/2 in. diameter).

Coat them in breadcrumbs and shallow- or deep-fry.

If you deep-fry, my test for the right temperature is throwing some breadcrumbs into the pan. If they don’t fall down, but bubble and fry immediately, then the temperature is high enough.

Deep-frying will take only about one or two minutes. Shallow frying will take much longer (at least 15 minutes).

Put the croquettes on paper towels to remove excess oil and serve them either with bread or with rice.

Tama Konnyaku and Asparagus Skewers

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In spite of what some of you might think the white balls you see above are not gnocchi or any other floury dumplings, but tama konnyaku, a wonderful, healthy, almost zero calorie Japanese product made with a plant called konnyaku (Amorphophallus konjac). Often called devil’s tongue, yam or konjac this plant is transformed into flour and then mixed with water to produce a sort of gelatinous, transparent substance, sold as noodles (shirataki or ito konnyaku), rectangular blocks (ita konnyaku) and the “balls” you see above (tama konnyaku). All these products are very rich in fiber, contain no carbs, have almost zero calorie per 100 g and an amazing capacity to absorb the flavours from the sauce or the soup they are served with. The high fiber they contain regulates the digestion, gives a very quick sensation of satiety, while the low-calorie and low-carb intake allows even the biggest diet freak to enjoy a fabulous dish. Konnyaku is called in Japan “the broom for the stomach” due to its high fiber content.

Until now I have posted only two konnyaku-based recipes (Stir-Fried Shirataki or Ita Konnyaku Noodles and Tama Konnyaku with Bacon and Shiitake), but I stir-fry them quite often, which is not the way they are usually served in Japan (very often served in broths or soups). Whenever I know I will have a rich, high-calorie dinner, I prepare my lunch with konnyaku noodles or balls and can guiltlessly indulge in a pizza, foie gras, duck confit or another rich dish I adore.

This is how a package of konnyaku balls looks like:

Last week, when I decided to prepare a tama konnyaku lunch, I had a quick flash of skewered tama konnyaku probably seen on a website, a blog or a tv program. I combined them with asparagus, my favourite spring vegetable and served as a side-dish with stir-fried chicken breasts. Since konnyaku balls don’t have much taste, a sauce was obligatory and teriyaki glaze seemed the easiest choice. I must say I was very happy with this first skewered side-dish in my life. It looked cute and was a perfect lunch the day I planned to dine in my favourite pizzeria (I needn’t add I do not go there to have a light salad…).

TIPS: Tama konnyaku is sold in bags filled with water. They have a very long shelf life if kept in the fridge. If you don’t use the entire bag content, rinse the balls, put them in a bowl, cover with fresh water and keep tightly closed for a couple of days in the fridge.

I don’t have a grill, so this recipe explains how to prepare the skewers on a simple grill pan.

If you prefer a sweeter teriyaki glaze, add some sugar. (For me the sweetness of mirin is enough).

Preparation: 30 minutes

Ingredients (serves 3-4 as a side dish):

1 bag of tama konnyaku (400g)

10 green asparagus stalks

Teriyaki glaze:

2 tablespoons mirin (can be substituted with 1 – 2 tablespoons syrup)

3 tablespoons soy sauce (or 4-5 if you have low sodium soy sauce)

3 tablespoons sake

Soak the skewers in water for at least 15 minutes to avoid burning.

Cut up the asparagus stalks into bite-sized pieces, preferably similar in length to the tama konnyaku thickness.

Drain and rinse tama konnyaku. Cook them in boiling water for about 5 minutes.

Rinse them once more.

Thread the konnyaku balls and the asparagus pieces on skewers.

Heat an oiled grill pan (or a grill).

Place the skewers on the pan (oil brushed side down) and grill about 7 minutes on each side (or more depending on the asparagus thickness).

In the meantime bring the teriyaki glaze to boil in a small pan and boil it until it thickens. Put aside.

Place the skewers on serving plates and brush them with teriyaki glaze on both sides.

Pickled Pink Radishes

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Pickles take a big space in my pantry and apart from the regular ones (like Pickled Sweet Pepper), I like experimenting with new vegetables or new recipes (my recent discovery, Moomins’ Cucumber Salad was a big hit). When I saw pickled radishes recipe in “Street Café. Japan” by Emi Kazuko I realised I had a big bunch of radishes in the fridge and it was an excellent occasion to prepare these first short-term pickles in my life.

This recipe is based on pickled Japanese turnip (kabu), but the author proposes to substitute it with pink radishes, Western turnips being too tough for this method. Before the pickling process Japanese turnips are often vertically cut in the upper part, which makes them resemble chrysanthemum leaves. According to Emi Kazuko similarly cut pink radishes will resemble cherry blossoms. I have only found oval radishes and I don’t think they produce the desired visual effect, but they do take on a beautiful hue, which slightly reminds me of pink cherry blossoms. The funny looking vertical cuts are very useful: they enable the vinegared mixture to penetrate the interior of the radish.

I loved everything about these pickles: their easiness, the quick pickling time, the beautiful hue, the unusual, surprising look and most of all the amazing taste. They will certainly become my regular spring side dish. I still have to check how they react to long-term pickling.

TIPS: The author advises of course rice vinegar, but since I had several bottles of cider vinegar I usually keep for pickling purposes, I used this one instead. The result was delicious even with basic, cheap cider vinegar.

These pickles can be made with any variety of small pink or red radishes.

Preparation: 40 minutes + one night in the fridge

Ingredients:

15 radishes

150 ml rice vinegar (I used 4,5% cider vinegar)

50 ml water

2 flat tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons salt

Cut off the radish stalks in the way that a flat base is formed.

Put the radishes flat base down and keeping it with your left hand make 4-5 vertical cuts in the upper 3/4 of each radish.

Turn the radish 90 degrees and make similar cuts.

Put the radishes in a bowl, rub them with the salt and put a heavy object on the top (for example a small plate).

After 30 minutes drain the liquid rendered by the radishes.

Dissolve the sugar in the mixture of water and vinegar, combine with the radishes and put into the fridge for 24 hours.

Pickled radishes keep for at least one week in the fridge.

Radish, Cucumber and Yogurt /Sour Cream Salad

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I woke up yesterday and, just after my obligatory coffee fix, all I could think of were pink radishes. As if hypnotised, I went to the market, bought two huge bunches of beautiful radishes, came back home, opened the fridge, took a cucumber, sliced it, then sliced some radishes, added soured milk (I had been craving this one too, see the explanation below), salted everything and literally threw myself on it (luckily, after a while, I controlled myself enough to save some of it for the photo).

I think I should listen more often to my cravings because the salad was exactly what I wanted for a sunny spring day. It was crunchy, refreshing, tangy and slightly peppery thanks to the radishes. It was inspired by a cucumber salad (vaguely Polish) I sometimes prepare, but the radishes made all the difference. The second batch I made also yesterday for dinner was a perfect side dish with fiery fried rice. Given the sour milk/cream cooling properties, I’m sure it will go well with any hot dish.

TIPS: I usually prepare this salad with sour milk which is almost as thick as sour cream (at least the one I buy), but is low-fat. You can use sour cream or natural yogurt or, even better, Greek yogurt instead (I would add a dash of lemon juice to the yogurt to obtain the slightly sour result).

This salad should be made just before you serve it, otherwise the vegetables will render liquid and the “sauce” will get watery.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

6-7 big red radishes

1/3 long cucumber

3 heaped tablespoons sour milk/cream or yogurt

salt

Cut the cucumber in four lengthwise and then into thin slices.

Cut the radishes into thin slices.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and serve.

Cucumber and Wakame Sunomono (Cucumber and Seaweed Salad)

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Nami’s blog (Just One Cookbook) is one of my biggest Japanese cuisine inspiration sources. If I hadn’t written about any of her recipes recently, it’s only because several of those I had tested and posted have become my staples (Korokke or Potato Teriyaki Pork Rolls are the best examples). This refreshing salad has been bookmarked for a long time and after testing it I already feel that it will regularly appear on my table too.

If you go to a Japanese grocery shop (or to an organic food shop), you will find several types of seaweed, most of them sold in dried form. They have different colours, textures, they are cut in different shapes, they are used in slightly different ways and of course their taste is different. This salad calls for wakame seaweed which is usually sold pre-cut, in small bags. When soaked, wakame’s size increases in a very impressive way. Since it happens very quickly, I am still amazed every time I watch it “grow” in a bowl of water. Since the only dish I have been making with it was miso soup, I was glad to find a second and completely different way to use this seaweed.

This salad is a part of Japanese “sunomono” or vinegared dishes category. Even though I have already had this type of salad in Japanese restaurants, it was my first home-made and I must say I loved everything about it. The colours, the lightness and tanginess of the dressing, the slightly crunchy wakame texture, the dynamic “kick” julienned ginger provided and, most of all, the aroma. In fact, once mixed with the dressing and chilled, the salad’s smell reminded me of freshly caught, fried small fish… This unusual impression is probably due to the combination of wakame, dashi (Japanese stock) and sesame oil. Thank you, Nami, for one more amazing recipe.

TIP: My only modification was reducing the sugar content because I prefer acid dressings. If you want it milder, double the sugar amount (1 tablespoon instead of 1 teaspoon).

Dashi, the Japanese stock, can be bought instant or prepared at home. I make it once a week and refrigerate it (it is used in many Japanese dishes I prepare). Click here to see the recipe.

Toasted sesame seeds were not included in Nami’s recipe, but I just couldn’t stop myself from adding them…

Preparation: 15 minutes + chilling time

Ingredients (serves 2):

1/2 long cucumber or 1 shorter (about 15 cm)

1 teaspoon salt

Dressing:

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons dashi (Japanese stock; click here to see how to make it at home)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 flat teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 thin slices of julienned fresh ginger

Soak the wakame in a bowl of cold water and drain it after 10 minutes.

Peel the cucumber, leaving the skin with every second stroke of the peeler, so that you obtain a nice pattern.

Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and then into thin slices.

In a bowl combine the cucumber with salt, mixing well with your hands, and leave for 3 minutes.

Squeeze the cucumber to eliminate the water it has produced and put it into the fridge.

In the meantime combine the dressing ingredients (vinegar, dashi, soy sauce, oil, sugar) and bring them to boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Put aside.

When the dressing has cooled down, combine it with wakame and cucumbers.

Chill the salad.

Sprinkle with ginger. Serve.

Daikon Remoulade

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I have bought some daikon (white radish) with a plan to make a Japanese daikon salad or pickles. Once julienned, the daikon reminded me of celeriac… Since the only way I have celeriac is celeriac remoulade, I have decided to give a Japanese twist to this famous French classic. I have substituted the French mustard with wasabi paste and skipped pickled cucumbers which would make it too harsh. Otherwise I think the sauce still can pretend to the name “remoulade”. (See here the traditional Celeriac Remoulade recipe)

This version of remoulade is light, refreshing, with a hot wasabi kick and a slight crunch. Made with a Winter vegetable, but in a springtime spirit. Ideal for a sunny March day.

TIP: This salad can be made in advance (even the day before). Actually it tastes even better the following day.

Preparation: 25 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2):

200 – 250 g daikon (white radish), peeled and finely julienned or grated

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons capers (drained and washed if they were preserved in salt)

1 tablespoon green onion, chopped (or (an)other fresh herb(s) of your choice)

1 teaspoon wasabi paste (or fresh grated wasabi if you are one of those lucky people who can get it)

salt

Put the daikon in a bowl.

Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon salt toss well and let it stand for about 15 minutes.

Wash the daikon with very cold water and drain it well.

Put in a big bowl.

Combine all the remaining ingredients and then stir them into the grated daikon.

Adjust the seasoning and serve.

Thick and Crunchy Japanese Chili Oil and Sauce (Taberu rayu)

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I don’t have the habit of praising factory-made sauces or condiments, but when I discovered taberu rayu, I have instantly fallen in love. This Japanese condiment is sold in tiny jars filled half with chili oil, half with a crunchy mixture of fried garlic, sesame seeds and chili and it goes well with almost every dish I tested (not only Japanese). Since me and my husband are both addicted to this rather expensive sauce, I thought I should try reproducing it at home. I had no idea what to start with, so I turned for help to Robert-Gilles, my blogging friend from Shizuoka (Shizuoka Gourmet). Robert-Gilles has already saved me from many culinary troubles (daikon leaves rice topping is one of the best examples) and here he was once more extremely kind, generous and helpful. In short, as if by magic, the taberu rayu recipe appeared the following day on his blog!

As Robert-Gilles has written here, taberu rayu (食べるラー油) appeared in 2009 in Okinawa as a modified version of chili oil, originating from China. The name means literally “chili oil for eating” probably because, as I have mentioned above, a part of the condiment is solid. My Japanese grocers sell two types of taberu rayu: one contains dried garlic and the other both dried garlic and dried shrimp. Since I find the former version more versatile, I have left out the shrimp in this first experiment. The recipe proved quite easy (although I did burn the first batch of fried garlic…), rather quick and the result was surprisingly close to the “original” condiment. Home-made taberu rayu is hot and slightly sweet. It has a pleasant crunch due to the sesame seeds and garlic, combined with the stickiness of gochujang (Korean chili paste) and a wonderful bright red colour. Maybe because it lacks artificial after-taste, I find it even more addictive than the factory-made version. Thank you so much, Robert-Gilles, for this extraordinary recipe and for your kind help!

TIP: If you don’t find gochujang (Korean chili paste), you will find a recipe also on Shizuoka Gourmet blog. You can substitute it here with a bigger amount of chili flakes and a bit more sugar, but the texture will be different.

Preparation: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients (fills a 200 ml jar):

100 ml canola oil (or another oil with a neutral taste)

50 ml sesame oil

1 dried chili

3 thick slices of fresh ginger

10 cm piece of leek

2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean chili paste)

2 heaped tablespoons Korean chili powder (or half of it if you don’t like very hot seasonings)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar (I used agave syrup)

2 tablespoons white sesame seeds

(about 2 tablespoons dried shrimps, chopped)

Fried garlic:

deep-frying oil

5 big garlic cloves, finely chopped (or roughly mixed in a food processor)

Fried onion:

deep-frying oil

1/2 onion, finely chopped (or roughly mixed in a food processor)

First prepare fried onion and fried garlic.

Heat some oil in a small pan and when it’s hot enough to fry the garlic (a bit of garlic thrown into the oil will stay at the surface, the oil will start bubbling around and instantly frying it), throw delicately the chopped garlic and take out as soon as it is slightly golden. It will take about one minute or less. Drain the excess oil on paper towel and put aside.

Filter the oil and fry the onion in the same way. It will take more time (a couple of minutes). Drain the excess oil on paper towel and put aside.

In a metal bowl combine the sesame seeds, (the shrimp), the chili powder and 1 tablespoon sesame oil.

Pour the remaining sesame oil and canola oil into a pan. Add the ginger, the leek and one dried chili.

Fry at low heat for a couple of minutes.

Take out the vegetables and heat the oils until they start smoking.

At this point pour slowly, stirring, the hot oils into the sesame and chili paste.

Add the remaining ingredients, stir well, put into a jar and keep for one month at room temperature.

Thick and Crunchy Japanese Chili Sauce on Punk Domestics

Thai Curry Soup with Tofu

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I don’t cook many strictly Thai dishes, but red and green curry pastes are among the ingredients I constantly keep in my fridge and use quite often, in very unorthodox ways. Most of the time one of them ends up in a quick, flavoursome, vaguely Thai soups or sauces, usually prepared with my beloved, versatile chicken breasts. This quick fiery soup is my first experiment in pairing tofu with Thai seasonings. It was inspired by Kelly’s Spicy Thai Coconut Soup (on Inspired Edibles blog) which, even though made without red curry, instantly reminded me of this wonderful paste. Her soup looked gorgeous, appetising and the idea of serving tofu Thai way simply wouldn’t get out of my mind.

Too lazy to check Kelly’s exact recipe, I simply proceeded like in my usual vaguely Thai soups. I have substituted meat with tofu and added the vegetables I found in my fridge. The result was light, but filling and smelled divine. Tofu was so flavoursome, I bet it tasted better than the cardboard-like battery chicken breasts so many people buy. It was certainly much healthier too. In short, a recipe I can sincerely recommend even to those who are not very fond of tofu. Thank you so much, Kelly, for this excellent idea!

TIPS : Both lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves freeze very well. Kaffir lime leaves can also be dried. They lose of bit of their aroma, so their amounts should be doubled in this case.

Preparation: 15 – 20 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

200 ml chicken or vegetable stock

100 g firm tofu cut into cubes

1 tablespoon red curry paste (or less if you don’t like very hot dishes)

1 crushed lemon grass stem or 1 big kaffir lime leaf

50 ml coconut milk

1 tablespoon fish sauce

vegetables of your choice (I took sliced red pepper and snow peas)

Combine all the ingredients in a pan (except for coconut milk and the vegetables you would like to keep crunchy) and let them simmer for about 15 minutes.

Add the soft, quick to cook vegetables (such as peas, snow peas or courgette), the coconut milk and let the soup simmer for 5 more minutes.

Serve.

Warm Lentil Salad (Salade Tiède aux Lentilles)

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Last week, while preparing the Friday Far Breton post, my old recipe book reminded me I used to cook French much more often at the time I discovered this pudding. Leafing through the stained pages I stumbled upon the Warm Lentil Salad, my beloved lentil dish I haven’t had for ages. I still remember the first time I tasted this salad, in a traditional French restaurant and was very surprised by the enthusiasm of the friend I lunched with. When her salad finally arrived and I tasted it, I instantly regretted having taken a different starter. It was a simple, typically bistrot style preparation of warm lentils and vinaigrette, but the taste was astonishing.

The Warm Lentil Salad is usually served as a starter (at home I prefer it as a side dish), sometimes alone, sometimes sprinkled with fried bacon and sometimes with foie gras terrine. You might be surprised by the latter version, but actually the humble lentil is an ideal company for foie gras and if you ever go to France, this pairing is quite frequent in Lyon restaurants. Even served alone the salad is certainly hearty and filling, but probably thanks to the vinaigratte it feels much lighter than any lentil dish I know.

TIPS: This salad can be made with freshly cooked lentils, but it’s also a very good way to use leftovers, warm them in the microwave and then combine with the vinaigrette sauce. The lentils can also be cooked the day before and warmed just before being served with the vinaigrette.

Preparation: 40- 50 minutes depending on the lentils

Ingredients (serves two – three):

250 g firm, dark green or brown lentils (the best here are the French lentilles de Puy) or 500 g cooked lentils (in this case skip the stock, bay leaf and thyme)

1 liter chicken or vegetable stock

1 bay leaf

1 heaped teaspoon thyme

Vinaigrette:

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons vinegar (or more)

1 tablespoon French mustard

salt, pepper

Cook the lentils in the stock with bay leaf and thyme. When they are soft, but not mushy, drain them.

Put the warm lentils in a big bowl and combine with the vinaigrette. Taste and adjust the taste.

Serve immediately as a starter or a side dish.

Baked Corn Crackers

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corncrackersp

I am crazy for nachos and the only thing that keeps me from devouring tons of them is the obvious huge fat and salt content. Therefore, when I saw beautiful, nachos-shaped, low-fat and low-salt Polenta Crackers featured on Three-Cookies blog, I could hardly believe my luck. The recipe (available here) proved extremely easy, quick and versatile. Even though I couldn’t call them home-made nachos, the crackers were light, crispy, spicy and highly addictive. Last but not least, they were perfect with Gin Seville and Passion Fruit Daiquiri, my recent discoveries. Thank you, Mr. Three-Cookies, for this foolproof and extraordinary recipe!

TIPS: The below spice mixture as well as spice amounts are approximate. Feel free to experiment with whatever comes to your mind.

The most important step is rolling out the dough as thin as possible. If the crackers are thick, they are hard and not crispy at all.

Preparation: 25 minutes

Ingredients (makes enough crackers for 6-8 people and at least two hours of beer/wine/cocktail drinking):

1 cup (about 130 g) flour

1 cup (about 160 g) cornmeal (or half cornmeal, half semolina; I preferred 100% cornmeal)

about 1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

water

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili
1 tablespoon oil

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Combine the flour, the cornmeal and all the remaining ingredients in a bowl.

Add gradually water (starting with 50 ml) until the dough is created and you are able to form a ball. (Do not add to much water: the dough will get sticky).

On a baking tray roll out the dough as thin as you can (I have lined mine with baking paper, but the dough doesn’t stick anyway).

With a knife or a pizza cutter cut out the shapes you want to obtain (squares were easier than triangles, hence my shape change) and bake until the crackers start being golden (about 10 – 15 minutes).

Avocado and Walnut Salad

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Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you have spent lovely holidays and a wonderful New Year’s Eve. I also hope you haven’t exaggerated with rich festive food and drinks, but if you did, switching to healthy and simple recipes might help you recover from the recent indulgences or at least make you feel better.

The avocado and walnut combination is a recent discovery, inspired by Shizuoka Gourmet’s blog, and to be precise, by his creative wife’s bentos. Her avocado, mayonnaise and walnuts salad looked appetising, simple and proved a very interesting combination of flavours and textures. Apart from the obvious crunchy texture, walnuts provide a slight bitterness, which counterbalances the mellow avocado taste. The cucumber I have decided to add lightened the dish without modifying the flavours. Apart from the wonderful flavour, this salad is packed with blood pressure-lowering potassium, anti-oxidants, has a high fiber content, vitamins and even though it does contain a dash of mayonnaise, it is a very pleasant change from the heavy dishes I have recently exaggerated with. In short, this simple salad is a delicious and healthy side-dish, ideal for this time of the year. Robert-Gilles, please thank your wife for one more culinary inspiration.

Before I pass to the recipe I would love to say how proud and happy I was to learn Ping from Ping’s Pickings has tested my simple Last Minute Crackers recipe, making gorgeous star- and tree – shaped crackers. Click here to see how wonderfully she used up her puff pastry cuttings. Thank you, Ping, for this New Year’s gift!

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves two as a side-dish):

1 avocado

10 cm fresh cucumber

5 walnut kernels (+more 2-3 for decoration)

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

Tabasco

Worcestershire sauce

salt, pepper

Cut up the avocado and the cucumber into bite-sized pieces.

Chop up the walnuts.

Mix the mayonnaise, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper

Combine the sauce with the walnuts, cucumber and avocado.

Serve chilled.

Onion Confit with Fig and Port

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The busiest pickling and jam-making months are behind. However, I keep on making Apple and Pear Sauces, preserving exotic fruits (Mango Chutney or Hot Mango Sauce) and I have just started to prepare this year’s batches of onion confit. If you have ever been to a French deli, you have probably seen expensive small jars of “confit d’oignon”, seasoned with different alcohols and/or dried fruit. Confit is a long simmered, slightly sweet onion jam. It is typically served warm with foie gras (fat duck’s liver), but it is also excellent with black pudding, grilled or roast pork, chicken and duck. It works perfectly well also as a tart filling or even as a simple toast spread.

Since I have always found onion confit prices excessive and totally unfounded (onion being one of the cheapest and easiest stored basic European vegetable), I decided to experiment on my own. I quickly realised how cheap and easy the whole process was, even though it required several hours of long simmering. The fig and port version is by far my favourite, but even when both are skipped, the confit is excellent. I think a jar of confit is a very good idea for a home-made, edible Christmas present and an original alternative to flowers or chocolates when one is invited to someone’s house.

Onion confit can be made with any onion variety. I usually go for the cheapest ones, since they “melt” a lot during the long simmering process.

TIP: Onion confit can be either processed and preserved in the pantry or stored in the fridge for one or two weeks. If you don not intend to process it, reduce the vinegar and sugar amounts. Here they act as preserving agents, but if the jam is eaten quickly, their addition is merely a question of taste balance.

Preparation: 3-5 hours (it can be made in two days)

Ingredients (yield depends much on the onions and preferred consistency, but don’t count on more than 2x 150 ml jars):

1 kg onions, peeled and sliced

4 dried figs

50g brown cane sugar

1 tablespoon salt

soy sauce (to taste) or more salt

100 ml ruby port wine

100 ml white wine vinegar 4,5%

2 tablespoons good quality oil

(ground pepper)

Heat the oil in a pan, add the onions and let them soften a bit on a very low heat (you can put the lid on the pan, but remember to stir very often).

After about 10 minutes add the soy sauce, the sugar, finely chopped figs and the vinegar.

Let the whole mixture simmer on a very low heat for about an hour, frequently stirring.

Add the port wine.

Cover the onions with a lid, let them simmer for at least 2 more hours, stirring.

Adjust the taste, adding more vinegar or salt or sugar and let the confit simmer uncovered until the liquids evaporate and it takes a consistency of a jam.

/At this point you can (after the confit has cooled down) keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for about a year/

Pour the confit, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, this is not a USDA tested recipe and therefore not recommended for canning by their standards.

Mushroom Soup

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I should probably call this recipe “THE Mushroom Soup” because this is the only mushroom soup I have ever made and my all-time favourite, in spite of its evident simplicity. Last week, when I saw Hiroyuki’s mushroom picking adventures and his Japanese mushroom stew, I almost instantly ran to buy some mushrooms and made a big pan of my beloved soup. I haven’t picked mushrooms for ages and awfully miss this activity, but this soup is one of the rare dishes where I don’t regret wild mushrooms. It is one of the rare cases when humble, farmed button mushrooms are just perfect.

This soup has all the advantages a meal can have. It’s healthy and light, but nourishing. It is easy, cheap and quick. It also calls for very few, basic and easily available ingredients. Leek can be substituted with onions, but parsley is not here merely for decoration. Without parsley the taste is a bit boring and flat. A tiny amount of cumin enhances this basic mushroom’s flavours, but it’s not necessary.

Preparation: 30 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

1 liter chicken stock (or water + granulated stock) or vegetable stock if you want a vegetarian version

200 g button mushrooms

1 big carrot

1 medium leek (only the white part) or 1 medium onion

pepper, salt, cumin

2 -4 tablespoons cream

parsley

(butter)

Clean and slice the mushrooms and the carrots (these should be sliced very finely).

Slice the leek’s white part or the onion.

Put everything in a pan filled with the chicken stock.

Bring the soup to boil and let on medium heat for about twenty minutes (or until the mushrooms start losing water).

Add the cream or the milk and, if you want, 2 tablespoons butter.

Season with salt and pepper

Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Green Tomato and Chili Jelly

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I have just spent another weekend making King of the Pippins Sauce (they have finally appeared on my market) and preserving green tomatoes, which will soon be over. Contrary to the Green Tomato Salad, this recipe is, I can proudly say, my own invention. Of course it is not very original since I based it on Hot Pepper Jelly, modifying the proportions, but aiming at a similar blend of sweet and hot, my favourite flavours’ combination. I first made it as an experiment with a couple of leftover green tomatoes, but the result was so good, I have been preparing this jelly for three years now. In spite of being hot, this jelly has a very subtle, slightly refreshing taste. It is not as versatile as the Pepper Jelly. It goes well also on toast, with grilled or stir-fried meat, fish, vegetables, but I avoid pairing it with curry, red tomato sauce, spicy dishes or simply with very powerful flavours.

The process is very easy. You simply mix the tomatoes and the chillies in a food processor, then cook it with the remaining ingredients, add the pectin and put into jars.

Preparation: 45 minutes + hot water bath or another processing method

Ingredients:

1 kg green tomatoes

red or green chili peppers (here everything depends on how hot you want it to be; I usually add 10 bird’s-eye-chili peppers)

1 tablespoon salt

300 g white sugar

100 ml vinegar 4,5% acidity (or less if using stronger vinegar)

60 g pectin in powder

Wash the tomatoes and the peppers.

Cut off the stems.

Put both in a food processor and mix well.

Put into a pan, add the vinegar, the sugar and the salt and boil on medium heat for about 20 minutes.

Add the pectin, stir well and let the jelly simmer for 15 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Green, Unripe Tomato Salad

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October seems to be the best moment to look for (or ask for) green tomatoes, at least on my market. I don’t talk about the always-green variety which is very sweet and often striped (I think it’s called sometimes “zebra”). What I mean are completely unripe tomatoes. They are acid, already have a pleasant aroma, but their flavour is still very shy. I started to preserve green tomatoes a couple of years ago when I realised how cheap they were (farmers prefer probably to get rid of the unripe tomatoes very quickly and sell them for almost nothing) and when I decided to recreate the green tomato salad I used to like as a child. Since I didn’t know anyone who did it at home, I looked for recipes on internet and modifying them throughout the years, adding carrots and peppers, I have adapted them to my own taste.

Green tomato salad is very easy to make and its flavour is surprisingly delicate, compared to other vinegared preserves. It never fails to impress those who taste it for the first time, since most people expect it very sour and harsh. The onions make the vinegar brine mellower, the carrots give a crunchy side and together with the peppers, they make the jars look merrier. If you remember the Moomins’ Cucumber Salad, the process of making this one is very similar. As you see on the photo above, green tomatoes quickly become yellowish, but both carrots and red peppers keep their bright colours.

This salad is a great side dish and an excellent alternative to cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce in sandwiches. It is best when served chilled.

Preparation: about 1 hour + hot water bath or another processing method

Ingredients:

1 1/2 kg green tomatoes

2 big carrots

2 big red bell peppers

300 g onions

1 liter vinegar 4,5%

600 ml water

200 g sugar

4 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons mustard grains

2 tablespoons pepper corns

2-3 bay leaves

Slice the tomatoes and the onions.

Cut the red peppers in thin strips.

Slice the carrots finely (the best would be to use a mandolin).

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan. Bring to boil and let it on medium heat for 10 minutes.

Pack the vegetables tightly in jars, distributing evenly the pepper corns, the mustard grains and the bits of bay leaves.

Fill the jars until about 80% of the jars’ height.

Pour the hot (not boiling) vinegar mixture over the vegetables, leaving about 2,5 cm space below the lid.

Cover with lids and let the jars cool. (You can leave them overnight).

/At this point you can (after the jars have cooled down) either keep them in the fridge for a couple of weeks or process as described below and store in your pantry for at least a year!/

Leave the jars to cool.

Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the salad and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Green Tomato Pickled Salad on Punk Domestics

Quick Seasoned Olives

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It will be the shortest and easiest recipe I have ever posted on my blog and also the quickest appetizser I can imagine. The only reason I have decided to post it is the number of people I see on my market buy horribly expensive, seasoned olives, stocked and prepared in very dubious conditions. I admit I also used to buy them, convinced the marinades were complex and required long weeks to acquire the desired taste. Luckily, I quickly realised I was wrong. A good olives marinade can be very simple and even though seasoned olives taste better after a couple of days, those served almost straight away are very satisfying too. A strong, garlicky marinade means even the cheapest olives (like the ones above) can be transformed into a flavoursome appetiser, although, of course, the higher their quality, the better the final taste will be.

My favourite combination is very simple and calls for easily stored ingredients. I also I sometimes add a bit of chili if my guests like fiery food too. The flavours are simple and go perfectly well with most drinks. If you decide to leave the olives for a couple of days, make sure you shake the container at least twice a day.

Preparation: 15 minutes – several days

Ingredients (makes an appetiser for 3):

about 150 g drained olives (or 250g if they still have pits)

1 big garlic clove, crushed or grated

1 heaped teaspoon thyme

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

(chili in powder)

Combine everything in a bowl. Cover and put into the fridge for 15 minutes (or several days). Serve.

Aubergine with Ponzu, Miso and Sesame Sauce

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This is another lovely recipe I have found on Nami’s extraordinary blog (Just One Cookbook) and another one which confirms my fondness of the aubergine. If, like me a couple of years ago, you associate the aubergine with fat-soaked tasteless slices, you should try this simple and healthy dish, which makes me regret the aubergine season is almost over. I think it’s an excellent introduction to the sophisticated and simple way the Japanese cook their vegetables, bringing the best out of their subtle taste.

I hope Nami will not be angry to learn I have slightly changed her recipe, skipping konbucha/kombucha (昆布茶, ”seaweed tea”), one of the sauce ingredients I kept on forgetting to buy. According to Nami its presence guaranteed umami taste, so for me miso (fermented soy bean paste), as the quintessence of umami, was the obvious substitute to experiment with. The experiment was so successful that now, having tried both versions I couldn’t say which one I prefer. Both create a perfect, complex flavours’ combination of flavours and both are ideal with the grilled aubergine. The sauce with konbucha is lighter and more delicate, while the one with miso is creamier and has a stronger taste. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t advice any substitute for ponzu (ポン酢), a mixture of soy sauce and yuzu juice. I tried once to combine soy sauce with lemon, then with lime juice, but the results were not satisfactory.)

After much hesitation I have decided to post the miso version in case some of you don’t have konbucha (it’s a bit more difficult to get than miso), but I strongly encourage you to follow Nami’s original recipe and try both of them.

I have accidentally discovered this grilled aubergine is ideal served with Garlic Miso Chicken Breast Skewers, also adapted from Nami’s Garlic Miso Chicken Wings recipe). Nami, I am so grateful for the sophisticated simplicity and delight your Japanese meals bring to my table!

Preparation: 15 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

1 medium eggplant, in 1/2 cm thick slices

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 flat tablespoons chopped chives or green onions

3 tablespoons chopped shiso leaves

Sauce:

2 tablespoons ponzu

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon miso (or 1/4 teaspoon konbucha, click here to see the details on Nami’s blog)

Brush both sides of the aubergine slices with sesame oil and grill them or pan-fry them on both sides. (Or heat some oil in the pan instead of brushing the slices).

In the meantime combine the ingredients of the sauce (I close them in a small container with a lid and shake like a cocktail; it helps to dissolve the cold miso).

Arrange the aubergine on a plate, sprinkle with chives and shiso and pour the sauce.

Serve warm or cold (I prefer it warm).

Shirataki (白滝,しらたき), Ito Konnyaku (糸蒟蒻), or Zero-Calorie Noodles

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This title is not a joke. Of course the above bowl’s content doesn’t have zero calories, but the white, slightly transparent threads have zero – or almost – calories. They are also healthy, natural and I still remember being totally blown away when I discovered them at my Japanese grocer’s. Shirataki (白滝 orしらたき), sometimes called konnyaku noodles or ito konnyaku 糸蒟蒻 (see Hiroyuki’s and Nami’s comments below), are made from konjak (Amorphophallus konjac, also called devil’s tongue, yam or konnyaku), which is transformed into flour and then mixed with water to produce a sort of gelatinous, transparent substance. The latter is sold most often in two basic forms: noodles (shirataki or ito konnyaku) and rectangular, often brownish, blocks (ita konnyaku). Both are sold in bags filled with water and, kept in the fridge, they have a very long shelf life.

In Japan noodles and rectangular blocks are usually used in stews and soups. The blocks are often torn into pieces to increase the surface which will absorb more flavours and juices. See how in the Shinya Shokudo (深夜食堂) opening (my beloved tv series), Master tears into pieces a block of konnyaku to prepare tonjiru (a pork soup):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgQtA4iJHsM

If you want to see a detailed and well explained tonjiru recipe, go to Hiroyuki’s Blog on Japanese Cooking. His post and appetising photos made me crave a bowl of shirataki and gave me the idea of today’s post too! Thank you, Hiroyuki, for the inspiration!

Konnyaku is very rich in fiber, and so are shirataki. Visually they resemble the Chinese glass noodles: they are also transparent, have hardly any taste and absorb the flavours from sauces and food products they are cooked with. The main difference is that shirataki’s caloric value approaches zero (to be exact it’s about 3 kcal per 100g, which beats even the cucumber)! The high fiber they contain regulates the digestion, makes one feel they are very filling and suppresses the hunger, while the low-calorie and low-carb intake allows even the biggest diet freak to enjoy a fabulous bowl of noodles. I have also read on many websites that konnyaku is called in Japan “the broom for the stomach” due to its high fiber content. Both, noodles and block, keep for a very long time in the fridge, so it’s easy to have them at hand. In short, it’s THE wonder food!

Before passing to the recipe I would like to show you the wonderful knife I won a couple of weeks ago in 5 Euro Food‘s giveaway and which I am thrilled to use every day. I don’t want to make a free ad for this brand, but just say that if you still don’t have a high quality knife, do get you one! Cutting is easier, quicker, lighter, the grip is perfectly comfortable… This knife is also a particularly beautiful object with its unusually coloured, slightly reddish wooden handle (it also has my initials engraved on the other side of the blade!). Needless to say, cutting is now my favourite pastime! Thank you, Charles, for this lovely gift!

This recipe is just one of the cook-what-you-have-in-the-fridge examples of stir-fried noodles I make. It is not particularly Japanese, nor Chinese, it’s just a simple dish I had for my lunch yesterday and if it wasn’t for shirataki, I would never post such an ordinary stir-fry.

UPDATE: Hiroyuki and Nami, thank you so much for your precious feedback!

Preparation: 20 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

1 package shirataki

50 g chicken breast

1 small green chili

1 small courgette

1 big shallot or small onion

1 garlic clove

1 cm fresh ginger

salt, pepper

grilled sesame seeds

oil for stir-frying

Sauce:

4 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce (or 2 tablespoons regular soy sauce)

2 tablespoons sake

1 tablespoon corn starch

Rinse the noodles with cold water and boil for 2-3 minutes (dont’ be scared of the initial unpleasant smell; it will disappear).

Rinse them once more and put aside.

Combine all the sauce ingredients.

Cut the chicken breast into thin strips. Season with salt and pepper.

Peel the garlic clove and ginger and chop them finely.

Slice the shallot and the chili.

Cut the courgette into long pieces.

Heat some oil in a pan. Add first the garlic and the ginger, then after a minute, add the onion.

Fry it about a minute, stirring.

Then add the chicken and the chili pepper.

Stir fry until the chicken is cooked.

At the end add the courgette and fry it for about two minutes to keep it crunchy (or more if your prefer it soft).

Finally, add the noodles and the sauce with corn starch.

Fry everything, constantly stirring, until the sauce thickens.

Serve sprinkled with grilled sesame seeds.

Baba ghanouj, M’tabal or Lebanese Aubergine Dip

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Baba ghanouj or baba ghanoush (apparently meaning “spoiled dad”) is a Lebanese mixture of grilled aubergine flesh, olive oil and some other ingredients, such as garlic, lemon juice and sesame paste. It is served as a dip with other mezze (a selection of small dishes) or as a side-dish with grilled meats and vegetables. Similar, mashed aubergine-based dishes exist in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria… In France every aubergine purée is called “caviar d’aubergines” (I know what most of you think…).

Since it is one of the most popular Lebanese dishes, probably every Lebanese home cook has his or her own recipe. I have found mine on the French blog Cuisine libanaise par Sahten, full of Lebanese recipes (and not only). Sahten says that when yogurt is added to baba ghanouj, it is called moutabal and I should probably say I have made m’tabal. On the other hand yogurt exists in many recipes still called baba ghanouj, so I have decided to put both names. Anyway, the taste is all that counts and here I haven’t been disappointed. The dip is light, flavoursome and, like lots of aubergine dishes, has a slightly mushroomy taste. If you grill the aubergines over the open flame, baba ghanouj will have a smoky flavour too. Apart from the above typically Lebanese serving ideas, I would advise it as a sandwich or wrap spread, certainly healthier and lighter than mayonnaise.

Preparation: 30 minutes – 1 hour (depending on the aubergine preparation method) + about 2 hours in the fridge

Ingredients (serves 3-4 as a dip):

2 medium aubergines

1 tablespoon sesame paste

juice from 1/2 small lemon

2 garlic cloves (crushed)

2 tablespoons natural yogurt

salt

good olive oil

(parsley)

Grill the aubergines in the oven, over the open flame or on a grill until the skin is completely black and burnt.

Take out the flesh, mix it with garlic, lemon juice, sesame paste and salt.

Put into the fridge for about 2 hours.

Serve sprinkled with parsley and a dash of olive oil.

Moomins’ Cucumber Salad

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Moomins, aka Moomin trolls, are chubby characters invented by the Finnish-Swedish writer Tove Janssen who depicted their adventures in a series of sparingly illustrated books I used to devour in my early teens. The books were originally written in Swedish and then became famous all around the world, in as different countries as Germany and Japan, where they were extremely popular. I remember I immensely enjoyed finding myself plunged in the peaceful, simple Moomin world, where everyone was kind and even the scariest characters end up being nice… I got really addicted to Moomins when, in the 90s, the tv started to broadcast a full-coloured Japanese Moomin cartoon. Here is the English theme song, just to give you an idea of what Moomins’ world looks like:

Afterwards I learnt that several different cartoons had been produced not only in Japan, and some as early as in the 60s! I have to confess even as an adult I feel nostalgic about Moomins. Once, I have even given CG from Cooking Gallery an idea to put them into one of her extraordinary charaben (character bento boxes). Imagine my joy when I saw she actually made perfect, beautiful, edible Moomin family! Click here to see what I of course consider as the most beautiful of CG’s bento boxes.

Moomins’ adventures haven’t been developped for years, so imagine my emotion when I learnt the existence of the Moomins Cookbook! Luckily, it has already been translated into English, otherwise I would certainly order it in Swedish (or Finnish) and would insist on reading it with a dictionary in one hand! As its title suggests (Moomins Coookbook. An Introduction to Finnish Cuisine), this illustrated book contains Finnish recipes. However, I must admit I haven’t ordered it with intention of its practical use, but merely to purchase a new Moomin item.

Imagine how excited I was to discover there not only an ideal way to pickle the cucumbers I was offered at the farmers’ market, but to realise that the result went far beyond what I had hoped for. The salad is extremely flavoursome, it can be served as a side dish or drained and put into sandwiches and I recommend it to everyone, not only Moomins’ fans. However, I admit that labeling the jars as “Moomins’ Salad” is a particularly thrilling experience for someone who feels nostalgic for these chubby characters.

The recipe calls for sliced gherkins, but long cucumbers were a perfect substitute. I have only slightly modified it, mainly reducing the sugar content, so if you prefer sweeter pickles, add 320 g sugar. I didn’t have fresh black currant leaves, have put dried ones instead, but I think they don’t change the taste at all, so I shall skip them next time. The salad tastes lovely without them too!

(This salad can of course be made as a short-term pickle and kept in the fridge. It is ready after a couple of days.)

Preparation: 1 hour + hot water bath processing (or another method)

Ingredients (I have obtained 5 x 400 ml jars):

1 kg gherkins or cucumbers

1 big carrot

1 tablespoon allspice berries

1 tablespoon peppercorns

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

(1 tablespoon cloves which I have skipped, since I am not a big fan of cloves in pickles)

4 garlic cloves (peeled and cut in two)

(1 tablespoon grated horseradish, which is optional in the recipe and which I didn’t have)

dill flowers, stems (dried or fresh) or seeds

(blackcurrant leaves (I used dried, but they don’t really change the taste so either use fresh ones or skip them))

1 liter wine or cider vinegar (4,5%)

200 g sugar

3 tablespoons salt

Wash and scrub the gherkins. If using big long cucumbers you can peel them if the skin is very tough or only one row in two (as I did) or not at all (the pickles will be crunchier). Slice the cucumbers or gherkins finely with a knife or with a mandolin.

Peel the carrot and slice it finely too.

Pack the sliced vegetables tightly into the jars, distributing the spices and garlic evenly between the layers (one garlic clove for one jar). Finish the layering at the 3/4 of the jars’ height.

Combine the vinegar, the salt and the sugar. Bring to boil, stirring.

Pour the hot vinegar into the jars (leave 1,5 cm under the rim) and close them.

/At this point you can (after the jars have cooled down) either keep them in the fridge for a couple of weeks or process as described below and store in your pantry for at least a year!/

Leave the jars to cool.

Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the salad and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Moomins' Cucumber Salad on Punk Domestics

Falafel

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falafelp

As an avowed carni- and piscivore I always feel the need of animal or seafood protein presence in order to feel I am having a full nourishing meal. Falafels are one of the rare exceptions and on the rare occasions when I am got to a kebab sandwich shop, I surprise myself with choosing the vegetarian snack rather than the meat-loaded option. For those who have never seen falafel, it is a deep-fried ball – usually slightly squashed – made with chickpeas, chickpeas and fava beans or only fava beans. Falafels are popular in Middle Eastern countries and apparently have origins in Egypt. They are so widely consumed in Israel that this year McDonald’s launched McFalafel there! Falafel can be served as a snack or appetizer but it is usually bought wrapped in thicker bread or in thin pita bread together with raw vegetables and sauce(s). I have already had falafel sandwich in Lebanese, Turkish and Egyptian shops. Every time the taste was slightly different, but rarely disappointing.

When, a couple of days ago, browsing through Baking Devils blog I saw appetising home-made falafels, I decided to give them a try. The preparation was quick (especially if made with canned chickpeas), easy and the result more than satisfying. In fact, these were the best falafels I have ever had in my life! Thank you, Baking Devils, for this wonderful recipe!

If, like me, you have dried chickpeas, you should soak them overnight, but I swear, the result is worth waiting for! I have only slightly modified the below ingredients’ amounts, but the recipe stays the same. My favourite pairing for falafels in a rolled pita is a mixture of hot chili sauce, yogurt (or sour milk), chopped onion, salad, cucumber and tomato. Even though the falafel balls are usually slightly squashed, I have only squashed mine when putting them into pita. I haven’t managed to squash them before frying. The balls would fall into pieces every time I tried doing it.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the courage to make my own pita bread, but you will find a very well explained - and apparently not complicated – pita recipe on Baking Devils blog. (Jenny and Shilpa are so creative, they have even thought about a Mexican falafel version with black beans!).

Preparation: about 45 minutes

Ingredients (I have obtained about 20 apricot-sized balls):

250 g dry or 400 g canned chickpeas

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

2 tablespoons chopped coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon powdered chili

1 small red onion

1 big garlic clove

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 flat teaspoon salt

black pepper

oil for deep-frying

(pita bread and for example tomatoes, cucumbers, salad, onion, hot sauce, mayonnaise, yogurt…)

If you have dry chickpeas start by soaking them overnight in cold water with a pinch of baking soda.

If you have canned chickpeas you can start the preparation straight away.

Put all the ingredients (apart from oil of course) in a food processor and mix them very well to a coarse, but homogeneous paste.

Heat the oil (test if it’s hot enough by throwing a pinch of your chickpea paste, if it doesn’t stay at the bottom, but goes up at once and starts bubbling, it means the temperature is high enough for frying).

Form small balls with your hands (mine were apricot-sized), squeezing out the liquid very hard. There will be more and more liquid as you approach the bottom of the bowl where you have put your paste, so I advise transferring it into a sieve so that the liquid flows out a bit.

Fry them, trying not to overcrowd the pan, until golden-brown.

Serve wrapped together with raw vegetables and sauces wrapped in pita bread or serve them as a snack/appetizer.

Mango Chutney with Garam Masala

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Long before I started to make my own savoury preserves, mango had always been my favourite in Indian hot chutneys and fiery mango sauce served in Indian restaurants. After my three years’ experience of Hot Mango Sauce and Mango Chutney preserving, this is still my favourite fruit to pair with spices and chillies. Mango is versatile, makes thick sauces and doesn’t have any acidity, so the preserves don’t require lots of sugar. There is also something I love about mangoes: they are available most of the year, since they are imported from different parts of the world.

According to most bloggers who have origins or family in the mango-growing countries neither the smell nor the taste of the mangoes available in Europe can be compared to the real, fresh mangoes’ flavour and aroma. I was always wondering what they meant. Finally, I had a chance to experience the difference and realise what the real mango meant the day when my husband was offered a box of these African beauties, coming straight from mango trees in Mali:

And here is a mango with a standard-sized lime to show you how big they were:

Not only were they huge, chubby, with a funny shape, but most of all, their aroma and taste were extraordinary. The first thing I noticed was they didn’t have the nauseous, overwhelming smell usually ripe mangoes have. Cut into pieces and eaten raw, the Malian mango was refreshing, firm and its smell was delicate. I would say it was a sophisticated version of the fruit I have been buying here for years. Since the mangoes had to be eaten quickly, we partly had them raw and the rest was preserved in a Mango Chutney with Garam Masala. Now, every opened will bring back the memories of this unusual discovery and make us think about Zeïnabou, a kind and generous lady without whom I would never know what a “good mango” meant. Thank you, Zeïnabou, for the discovery we would have never dreamt of and for the exquisite mango feast we shall never forget!

Mango Chutney with Garam Masala is a smooth, sauce-like type of chutney, different from this, chunky, British-style Mango Chutney and even though the recipe is not genuinely Indian, garam masala gives it a warm, rich Indian touch. The tamarind pulp or sauce can be replaced with lemon juice, but the taste is really better with tamarind.

I found this chutney a long time ago on the Discuss Cooking forum and am particularly grateful to Clive from Venezuela (cliveb) for sharing this excellent recipe, which I have only slightly modified.

I don’t need to add that this particular batch, made with Malian mangoes, was exceptionally luscious!

Preparation: 1 hour (+hot water bath processing)

Ingredients:

2 standard oval mangoes or 1 huge Malian mango

2 cm fresh ginger

120 g raisins

200 g brown, cane sugar

200 ml cider vinegar (4,5%) or white wine vinegar

40 ml tamarind juice/pulp or juice from 1/2 lemon

4 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

2 teaspoons garam masala

3 teaspoons chili in powder

Peel the ginger, the mangoes, add the rest and mix in a food processor or a blender.

Cook everything on a medium heat, stirring, for 30-40 minutes.

Adjust the taste if needed (more chili if it’s not hot enough, more vinegar if it’s too sweet and more sugar if it’s too acid). If you have made any modifications, let the chutney boil for 10 more minutes.

Pour the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking),, cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the chutney and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Mango Chutney with Garam Masala on Punk Domestics

Sweet Pepper and Allspice Spread

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Have you ever tried to deconstruct a dish and create a different texture with the same ingredients? I bet that if the result is satisfactory, you will feel like a professional chef, a magician or you will simply be very proud of your boldness. At least I was when, after mixing and thickening the Pickled Sweet Peppers (see the recipe here), I obtained a highly palatable sweet pepper spread.

I don’t remember how I got this crazy idea, but since the necessity is the mother of invention, I probably had too many peppers and not enough jars to pickle them… I remember I had also been looking for a smoother and less fiery alternative to the hot pepper jellies I make every year. I reduced the liquids, mixed everything, thickened with powdered pectin and, I don’t want to boast, but the result went beyond my expectations. Needless to say, I decided to double or triple the amount of preserved jars this year.

I prepare this spread with Hungarian kapia pepper (red and long), but of course bell peppers and other sweet peppers will also work perfectly well. The more aromatic and ripe the pepper, the better the taste will be. Thanks to the vinegar the colour stays vivid red even after a year spent in the pantry.

I use this spread on toasts, in sandwiches (instead of butter or mayonnaise), with grilled meat, with roast pork, on tarts and in crunchy rolls (see the recipe here). The possibilities are infinite.

Preparation: 2 hours + hot bath processing

Ingredients:

1 kg sweet peppers

400 ml 4,5% vinegar (I used cider vinegar)

450 ml water

170g sugar

2 tablespoons salt

12 allspice grains

1 teaspoon black pepper in grains

1 tablespoon mustard grains

2 small bay leaves or 1 big

8 garlic cloves

60 g powdered pectin

Wash the peppers, core them and remove the stems.

Cut them roughly in four or six pieces.

Combine all the ingredients apart from the red peppers.

Bring them to boil. Throw the peppers into the pan and let everything simmer for 20 minutes.

Put aside for one hour.

Mix everything in a blender. Put back into the pan, add the pectin and bring to boil, constantly stirring.

Let it boil at medium heat for 10-15 minutes.

/At this point you can (after the spread has cooled down) either freeze it or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the spread, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Sweet Pepper and Allspice Spread on Punk Domestics

Tomato Chutney

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Spices can make miracles and a mixture of Indian spices can transform an ordinary vegetable into a highly palatable side-dish, a cheap meat cut into a fantastic curry and a big bag of cheap, watery tomatoes into a luscious chutney. I learnt the latter last year, when, having bought a bag of rather bland looking tomatoes, I tried to transform them into the ketchup according to my favourite, Jeffrey Steingarten’s recipe. The result was very disappointing and so far from the one obtained with high quality tomatoes, I decided to look for a different preserving idea.

After some research I managed to save the remaining couple of kilos with an Indian chutney recipe, which really acted as a magic wand. The result is complex, slightly sour, slightly sweet, with an intense tomato flavour and a hot kick from the chili peppers. I don’t remember where I have found it or if I have modified it (I suppose I did), but needless to say, this chutney is simply breathtaking if made with aromatic and ripe tomatoes. As usually the chili amount depends on everyone’s preference and on the chili variety. I use it as a sauce with deep-fried chicken (Chicken Karaage is a good example), with toasted sandwiches, with sausages…

Special equipment: a food mill (a sieve and a spoon may be used instead, but it takes much longer)

Preparation: 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 kg tomatoes

2 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 teaspoons nigella (onion seeds)

3 dried, crushed chili peppers

1 teaspoon powdered chili

100 g sugar (preferably cane sugar)

300 ml apple vinegar (4,5 %)

1 tablespoon salt

Chop roughly the tomatoes.

Put them in a pan, cover, cook over high heat 5-10 minutes, stirring until the chunks give off their juice.

Sieve the tomatoes or put them through a food mill.

Heat the oil in a pan, fry the spices a couple of minutes, add the vinegar and the sugar and let it simmer, stirring, for 10 minutes until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the sieved tomato juice.

Cook over moderate heat until it the chutney has the required consistency (I like it similar to the ketchup consistency).

Taste and add more chili/vinegar or sugar. Let it simmer 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Ratatouille

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Ratatouille is a French vegetable ragoût from Provence region (originally from Nice). Its name comes from “ratatohla”, a word in Occitan language, still spoken by some people in Southern France. It is the Summer dish par excellence, since all the necessary vegetables don’t leave the French markets – and kitchens – from July till August. Everyone cooks ratatouille in a different way, but there are three main general methods. Some people chop all the ingredients and let them simmer or fry together, others fry them separately and assemble them only before serving. I use a third method, which consists of quick frying of all the vegetables separately (except for the courgette, which gets too mushy), and then putting them in the same pan to finish the cooking process. The French are not fond of hot dishes, so the peppers used in ratatouille are always sweet. Personally, I find a hot version more palatable and always include a couple of chili peppers. Ratatouille is often literally drowned in oil and since I use it very sparingly, I would define mine as “light”.

Ratatouille is usually served as a side dish with grilled fish, meat or an omelet, but it can also be a vegetarian main dish. The amounts of the ingredients depend on your preference (I always put a bit more of courgette, since it is my favourite here). This is one of those dishes, which improve when reheated, so don’t hesitate making a big batch and serving it throughout the week.

Preparation: 1h30

Ingredients (serves 5-6 as a main dish and at least 8 as a side dish):

4 tablespoons oil

2 medium aubergines

1 big sweet pepper

3 hot chili peppers

2 medium courgettes

6 big tomatoes

4 big garlic cloves

1 big onion

thyme

bay leaf

salt, pepper

(tomato sauce or concentrate, in case the tomatoes don’t give the desired consistency or taste)

Put the tomatoes in a pan filled with boiling water. Take them out after 10 minutes and cover with cold water.

Peel them, chop them roughly and place in a big pan.

Chop the aubergine in 1-2 cm pieces and put into another bowl.

Slice the onion.

Chop the garlic.

Cut the courgette in half slices or quarters of slices.

Chop the peppers.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil a frying pan. Fry the onion for a couple of minutes and when it starts softening, add the peppers.

Fry both for 5 more minutes.

Transfer the onion and the peppers into the pan containing the tomatoes.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in the same pan, add the garlic and, after 30 seconds, the chopped aubergine.

Fry the aubergine until it starts giving off water.

Transfer it to the big pan.

Add thyme, bay leaves, salt, pepper and let the ratatouille simmer uncovered for 40 minutes.

Add the courgette and let the ragoût simmer for 30 more minutes.

Serve hot.

Apricot and Chili Jelly

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I think I have always enjoyed the mixture of sweet and hot. Hot fruit chutneys, jellies and sauces often accompany my meals and constitute a big part of my seasonal preserves. Since apricot is often paired with savoury dishes and since my favourite pork roast is stuffed with apricots (see the recipe here), combining apricot and chili wasn’t a big risk to take when I first made it last Summer. Apricot resists even the hottest chili addition and doesn’t lose its recognisable tanginess, so this year I labelled one batch as “medium hot “and another as “very hot”. Apart from the pork dishes, the jelly is very good with roast chicken and I often use it as a toast or sandwich spread.

Since every pepper variety is different and everyone has different preferences (or chili resistance level), it is difficult to say exactly how many chilies should be used. Adjusting is not easy since the jelly tastes stronger when it’s still hot (and it should be put still hot into the jars). The best idea is to stick to the same chili variety, make a small first batch, put aside a couple of tablespoons and taste the mixture when it has cooled down. It will be too late for this batch, but it will give and idea of how the following ones should be modified. Needless to say, the below amounts should be treated rather as approximate.

Preparation: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 kg apricots

300 – 400 g caster sugar

200 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

2 flat tablespoons salt

6 medium hot long Turkish “aci sivri” peppers (about 10 cm long, mine were green this time)

1 1/2 package pectin in powder (about 65-70 g)

Wash the apricots and remove the kernels.

Core the peppers, discard the stems and wash thoroughly removing the seeds (or not, if you want a very hot jelly).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Add the apricots and mix thoroughly.

Combine the mixed fruit with the remaining ingredients in a big pan.

Bring to boil on high heat and, stirring, keep boiling for about 20 minutes.

Add the pectin and, still stirring, keep on the heat for 10 more minutes.

Spoon the jelly, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Apricot and Chili Jelly on Punk Domestics

Daikon Leaves Furikake (大根葉振り掛け)

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Even though I grow my plants only in balcony boxes, I have several herbs (chives, mint, dill, basil, marjoram… and even mitsuba!) and such weird things as… daikon. A kind friend send me once several packages of grains from Japan and among those was daikon the big white radish). I suppose I should say rather daikon leaves, since only leaves were featured on the package and I suppose this variety is not supposed to have huge radishes, just like the parsley I have on my balcony, which contrary to my other parsley variety, doesn’t grow big roots.

Anyway, my daikon leaves grew extremely quickly and frankly even though their taste was pleasant, I didn’t know what to do with them. Imagine my joy when Robert-Gilles, from Shizuoka Gourmet blog kindly offered to help me and posted a Daikon Leaves Furikake recipe. Thank you, Robert-Gilles, for this thoughtful gesture and for the excellent recipe! This furikake was so good I made it already several times.

Furikake (振り掛け) means “a condiment sprinkled over a dish” and is something between a condiment and a topping put over the rice (I must say I had problems with classifying it in my Western categories…). It was the first furikake I have ever made, but thought it was an excellent idea and will certainly look for some more furikake recipes in the future.

I have slightly modified the recipe and used some leftover rice combined with green peas instead of white rice. Dried shrimp or fish is not obligatory and since I didn’t have either, I skipped it.

It’s a great way to use leftover rice and to avoid throwing away the daikon leaves if your radish has them.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

a big handful of finely chopped daikon leaves with stems (they will shrink)

1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil

2 tablespoons cooking sake

1 tablespoon mirin

1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce (or more if, like me you have a low-sodium soy sauce!)

3 tablespoons katsuobushi (shaved bonito)

2 tablespoons roasted white sesame seeds

(dried small shrimps or dried small fish)

Heat the sesame oil in a pan.

Fry the chopped leaves over high heat until they become soft.

Add sake, mirin and soy sauce, stirring before adding each of them.

Fry the fish or shrimp in a separate pan.

Add the fish/shrimp, the sesame seeds and katsuobushi to the leaves mixture and fry, stirring, for 30 seconds.

Put over a bowl of rice and serve.

(It can be kept in the fridge and served cold too).

Chanterelle and Goat Cheese Tartlets

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Last year I wrote about the Chanterelle and goat cheese tart. This recipe is more or less the same, but downsized into cute small tartlets. Chanterelles (Cantarellus Cibarius) have always been my favourite mushrooms and since I paired them with goat cheese for the first time in my life, I have never got tired of this perfect combination. The fresh marjoram is here, as the French say “la cerise sur le gâteau” (the cherry on the cake), in other words the last, perfecting, touch.

As I already mentioned last year, the tart and tartlets can be prepared either with ripening goat cheese or with fresh goat cheese. After many experiments I now opt for half of each and find this the ideal combination. Since fresh marjoram can be difficult to get, I grow it on my balcony or buy it and freeze it so that I am never short of it: the tartlets are not the same without this herb. If you cannot find it, don’t use the dried marjoram, which is too bitter. You can use oregano or thyme (both fresh) instead, but I am afraid it will completely change the taste. Personally I prefer to skip the herb rather than use something different. The tartlets are wonderful served at a party or simply enjoyed as an aperitif with a glass of white wine. Prepare lots of them, as they disappear in no time at all…

For those who don’t know what the chanterelle looks like, an old photo of mine:

Special equipment:

pastry cutter

mini-tart dishes or 1 dish with mini-tart cavities

Preparation time: around 1 hour 30 min

Ingredients (12 tartlets):

1 ready-made puff /shortcrust pastry package (mine was a 230g package) or your own home made pastry

250g goat cheese (I put half fresh goat cheese and half ripening, mouldy fat goat cheese)

400 g chanterelles

1 big onion

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon butter

200 ml liquid cream (or half cream and half milk)

3 eggs

a bunch of fresh marjoram

salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

When it reaches the above temperature, cut out the slightly bigger circles than the tart dishes (or tart cavities) you have.

grease a mini-tart dishes (or a big mould with mini-tart cavities) and line them with the pastry, pressing with your fingers. Make small holes in them pricking with a fork.

Cover the flat surface with pieces of baking sheet and put some dried beans on it*. This way the pastry will not rise too much.

Precook the tart shells until it’s no longer raw, but still white or slightly golden.

Take it out, put the beans back into their jar and let the tart shells cool.

In the meantime wash the chanterelles, cut up the bigger ones.

Cut up the onions and fry them in oil. When they become translucent add the chanterelles and the butter.

Cook them on a low heat covered for around 20 minutes, put salt and marjoram leaves and finish cooking uncovered until almost all the liquid is evaporated.

Add the cream, the eggs and pepper.

Crumble the goat cheese on the precooked tart shells.

Cover with the chanterelles mixture and bake at 180°C until dark gold.

Serve warm.

*I have a big jar of dried beans bought especially for pastry precooking. You can use the same jar of beans for years.

Marmite Muffins

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Marmite is a British dark brown spread made from brewer’s yeast, a by-product in the the beer industry. It has a very characteristic strong taste and either you love it or hate it (I love it of course). Launched in 1902 Marmite became very popular during the two world wars, when, due to its high vitamin B content, it was an important element of soldiers’ rations and became very useful in times when the vitamin deficiency was very frequent. Marmite was first sold in earthenware pots, shaped like a casserole dish, hence the name coming from the French world “marmite” (meaning “casserole” and pronounced “marmeet”). Australian and New Zealand Vegemite, as well as Australian Promite are very similar products. In Europe I think only the Swiss have a Marmite equivalent, called Cenovis (from the Latin “cenare”, to eat, and “vis” “strength”), which also used to be a staple in the army.

I have never tasted Vegemite or Promite, but I like Cenovis as much as Marmite and couldn’t really say which one I prefer. For me Marmite has an enticing and highly addictive smell and flavour. I even suspect it of being rich in umami (the famous 5th taste). Until now I have only had both spreads on buttered bread, but have always wanted to use them in more elaborate preparations.

When I saw the Sweet – Savoury Marmite Cake on the Baking Devils blog, I thought it was a perfect recipe to embark on a series of cooking adventures with Marmite. I was right, since this first “baking with Marmite” experiment gave extraordinary and original results, appreciated even by avowed Marmite haters. Thank you, Baking Devils, for this delicious recipe!

I have slightly modified the Baking Devils‘ recipe, mainly reducing the sugar and butter amounts and putting more Marmite, but most of all, as a big fan of individual snacks, I decided to make muffins instead of a big cake. I have filled some cups 3/4 full and some 1/2 full. I definitely preferred the latter, lower muffins, more “marmitey” and more addictive. These muffins are perfect for a savoury breakfast or afternoon tea. Baked in mini-muffin forms, they would make intriguing appetisers or party snacks.

If you want to learn more about Marmite, visit the http://www.marmite.co.uk website. For those interested in Cenovis, there is http://www.cenovis.ch (only in French or German).

Preparation: 1 hour

Ingredients (makes 12 muffins, with cups filled 1/2 full):

120 g flour

3 eggs

50 g sugar

1 teaspoon salt

25 g butter

3 teaspoons baking powder

150 ml water

Topping:

6 tablespoons melted butter

4 teaspoons Marmite

50 g grated cheese (I used gruyère)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Mix the butter with sugar in a food processor.

Add gradually flour and eggs, continuously mixing.

Add the remaining ingredients.

Fill the muffin forms 1/2 full and bake about 15 minutes.

Combine the Marmite with the melted butter and spread on the hot muffins.

Sprinkle with grated cheese.

Put under the oven broiler/grill and grill until the cheese melts.

Serve warm or cold.

Hot Pepper Jelly

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Since I discovered a passion for preserving about two years ago, pepper jelly jars have been occupying a big space in my pantry. I don’t remember where I took my basic recipe from, but it’s very easy and no matter how much I modify it, it always works and preserves very well. The pepper jelly originates from the Southern United States. It can be prepared as well with sweet peppers as with hot chilies, but a combination of both is what I make most often. Pepper jellies spice up every dish, cold or warm, I use them as a spread for toast, in sandwiches, on grilled meat and fish, with rice, noodles, mixed them into sauces… In short, if you like a mixture of sweet and hot, make a small batch and see the difference with all the industrially made chili sauces, spreads and pastes you have been buying.

Pepper jelly can be made with any pepper or chili variety, however the more aromatic the pepper, the better the jelly will be. The jelly you see here is the most recent one I made with a mixture of excellent hot and sweet peppers my friend A. very kindly brought me from Hungary (the green one is hot). They were extremely aromatic and flavoursome and made these jelly jars very special, not only tastewise. Thank you so much A.!

The below amounts can be modified according to your preference, but bear in mind the cold jelly is less hot, the vinegar’s taste is less strong too and the consistency thickens while the jelly cools.

The jelly can be frozen, refrigerated or preserved (see below) and kept for at least a year in the pantry.

Preparation: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

200g sweet peppers

200g moderately hot peppers

200g caster sugar

250 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

40 g powdered pectin

1 flat tablespoon salt

Core the peppers, discard the stems and wash thoroughly removing the seeds (apart from the hot pepper seeds, if you want your jelly to be hotter; I removed only half of those).

Mix the peppers in a food processor.

Combine them with the remaining ingredients in a big pan.

Bring to boil on high heat and, stirring, keep boiling for about 15 minutes.

Taste it and adjust the taste adding the vinegar, the sugar or the chili if needed.

Add the pectin and, still stirring, keep on the heat for 10 more minutes.

Spoon the jelly, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Tomato and Shiso Salad

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Forget the basil, forget the chives, the mint or the parsley; shiso is undeniably the tomato’s best friend. Shiso (紫蘇) or perilla, a staple in the Japanese cuisine, has a herbaceous, slightly bitter flavour and a strong aroma. It is used as well in raw as in cooked dishes (see the Ume-Shiso Chicken Skewers). I took to shiso instantly and the more I use it the more I like it. Looking for some shiso use ideas I stumbled upon a wonderful inspiring blog called Humble Bean, where I found the Tomato and Shiso Salad and felt at once I would not be disappointed.

I was right. The salad was a revelation. It is falsely simple, yet proves sophisticated and complex, which for me is a perfect definition of the Japanese cuisine. The sweetness of the tomato, the bitterness of the shiso and the lively crunch of the onion are already an ideal combination, but the delicate sauce makes it extraordinary. The salad is so addictive I served it two days in a row and I feel I could have it not only every day, but with every meal or even in between, as a light snack. The only modification was substituting the onion with a shallot (I ran out of onions). In theory the below amount serves two, but for me it makes only one portion for one shiso addict. Thank you, Azusa, for this marvellous discovery.

(A shiso leaf photo for those who are not familiar yet with this aromatic herb).

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

1 chilled tomato

3 big shiso leaves

1/2 small onion (I used 1/2 shallot)

Sauce:

1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

several turns of the freshly ground pepper

Remove the tomato stem and slice it.

Chop finely the onion and soak it for 5 minutes in cold water.

Do the same with shiso (in a separate bowl).

Combine the sauce ingredients.

Drain the onion and the shiso and pat dry.

Arrange the tomato slices in a bowl.

Sprinkle with the onion, then with shiso and drizzle the sauce over it.

Dry Tarator, or Bulgarian Dill Salad

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I think I have already mentioned I am growing herbs on my balcony. Some grow easier, some less and some refuse to sprout. This year’s dill grains were very shy at the beginning, but now they grow like crazy reaching almost 50 cm height!. Finding a new, rich in dill recipe became vital! Something reminded me of a delicious dill salad I was served any years ago by a Bulgarian friend of mine and after a quick internet research I found the Angellove’s Cooking Bulgarian blog and there the dry tarator recipe.

Tarator is a famous Bulgarian cold soup made with yogurt, cucumbers and dill, while dry tarator, also called Snow White salad (Салата Снежанка), or yogurt salad (Млечна салата), is a thicker version of the soup, served as a salad. I have repared two versions of dry tarator: one with chopped cucumber and the other with grated cucumber. The latter was rather semi-dry, perfect as a dip or as a thick sauce (the above photo is my second, dip/sauce version). Both versions were excellent for the hot days we are having now in Switzerland. I think I’ll grow dill all year round only to be able to prepare it whenever I want.

Mina from Angellove’s Cooking advised me to add some water, if I wanted to obtain the tarator soup. I will certainly remember this advice on very hot Summer days. As usually I have modified a bit the original recipe (e.g. adding more dill since I really adore it and grating the cucumber since I wanted this to be a dip). This is the first Bulgarian recipe I have realised, but certainly not the last!

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

400 ml drained yogurt (or not drained if using very thick yogurt)

3 tablespoons olive oil

5 tablespoons chopped dill (the recipe called for 2 tablespoons, but if I couldn’t stop myself from adding more)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

a couple of tablespoons chopped/ground walnuts

1 long cucumber

2 teaspoons salt (or more)

(crunchy Chinese cabbage leaves or or other crunchy salad leaves)

Mix or grate the garlic (I mixed them with the dill in a food processor).

Either peel the cucumber and chop it finely or don’t peel it and grate it if you prefer this to be a dip/sauce.

Combine all the ingredients.

Taste the salad and add more salt if necessary.

Fill the crunchy salad leaves with dill salad or serve it in bowls.

Decorate with dill sprigs.

Snow Peas Shira-ae (白和え)

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When I saw Green Bean Shira – ae recipe at Nami’s blog (Just One Cookbook) I knew I would love the dish. Miso, tofu and sesame seeds are my beloved Japanese cuisine ingredients, and shira-ae (白和え) is a dish of vegetables mixed with these ingredients. How could I resist? Instead of the green beans I used blanched snow peas, now in season, and the result was even better than I thought: delicate and light, but very filling at the same time. A perfect side-dish and maybe even a main dish for vegetarians? Thank you, Nami, for sharing this fabulous recipe!

Shira-ae means more or less “mixed/dressed with white” and belongs to the “aemono “, or “dressed dishes” category, which could be compared to the Western salads or side dishes, since it includes vegetables with a sauce without vinegar. Shira-ae is for me a double discovery: not only is it the first aemono dish I have ever made, but also the first one I have ever tasted. “Sunomono” is another, very close category including vinegared dishes, but I haven’t explored it yet.

Even though my dish looks different from Nami’s one, I have followed her instructions to the letter, apart from substituting the sugar with mirin. I have also adjusted the amounts to make an individual dish (I am the only tofu fan at home). At the time I prepared it I didn’t have the Japanese mortar (now I do and intend using it very often!), but the Western type of mortar was very efficient in grinding sesame seeds too. You may use also an electric grinder, but the smell gradually created during the process of manual sesame grinding is incredible and worth the tiny effort.

Special equipment:

a mortar or a spice grinder

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

100 g snow peas (trimmed and cut in two)

50 g tofu

2 tablespoons toasted white sesame seeds

1 teaspoon miso

1 teaspoon mirin (or sugar)

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Drain the tofu.

Grind the sesame seeds in a Japanese mortar (suribachi), a standard European mortar or in a spice grinder.

Add the remaining ingredients.

Blanch the snow peas.

Put the snow peas in a bowl and combine with all the above ingredients and the crumbled tofu.

Serve warm or cold.

Hot Strawberry Sauce

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Posting the same recipe year after year looks probably weird, but I simply cannot resist presenting once more this extraordinary and surprising strawberry sauce. Last year I invented it for the first time, inspired by the strawberry BBQ sauce recipes I kept on seeing on internet and stripping them down to vinegar, sugar, peppers and strawberries. I was amazed – and still am – at how hot peppers bring out the strawberry flavours. I thought I had preserved enough of the sauce to survive a year, but I was wrong. The tiny jars and bottles were disappearing so quickly, I had to limit myself to a certain amount opened every month. Now that the strawberry season has started I plan to make as many batches as I can manage and make sure I will not be forced to limit my consumption.

I used once more the Peruvian aji panca dried peppers, with their typical, but subtle smoky flavour. I buy them in a small shop selling the US, Mexican and Peruvian food products. Of course, if you cannot get aji panca, use any dried, moderately hot, but preferably whole peppers, without seeds. The taste will be very good too.

The sauce can be used straight away, kept in the fridge for at least a month, frozen practically forever or processed in sealed jars/bottles and kept in the pantry for one-two years. It’s excellent on grilled poultry and pork, on toast, on open sandwiches, with fried/grilled tofu, as a dip for dumplings, spring rolls, vegetables or savoury biscuits…

This time my strawberries were a bit acid, but the sauce was still fabulous. The colour depends on the fruit variety and the vinegar. This time it was particularly dark and I preferred it this way.

Preparation: 45 minutes+jars processing

Ingredients:

300g strawberries

100 – 150g white sugar

200 ml (white) wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5%)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 whole dried aji panca peppers without stems and seeds (you can use any kind of dried moderately hot peppers)

Wash the strawberries, remove the caps and stems.

Put all the vinegar and 100g sugar in a pan, add the whole peppers and let them simmer for 10 minutes on a very low heat. Put aside.

Mix the warm liquid in a blender, add the strawberries and salt, mix again. Pour back to the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Check if the sauce is sweet enough and, if necessary, add more sugar (or vinegar if you think it’s too sweet). Let it simmer for 10 more minutes.

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, the bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date.

Making Okara (おから) and Soy Milk

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I discovered the existence of okara quite recently while browsing through Hiroyuki’s blog and observing his experiments with this mysterious product. Okara (おから) is a by-product after the soy milk or tofu production. It is the soy pulp remaining after the soy milk has been drained. As you see above it is a slightly yellowish, grainy pulp, more or less dry (depending how strongly the pulp was pressed during the draining process). Even though okara is a by-product, it would be pity to throw it away, since it is an extremely healthy, low-fat ingredient, containing iron, calcium and rich in protein and in fiber. Okara can be for example added to dough in cakes or cookies, it can be simmered with vegetables, added to sauces, made into vegetarian hamburgers, etc. and the Chinese transform it into a special tofu called zha doufu (渣豆腐). This by-product seemed to me much more interesting and intriguing than the main product, which can be bought at every supermarket.

Even though I put soy milk in my coffee every day, I have never tried to make it on my own, convinced this process requires either special equipment or long experience, or both. Looking dreamily at the soy-milk maker at Hiroyuki’s blog I thought either I manage somehow to find okara at my Japanese grocer’s or I’ll never taste it. Thanks to K.’s kind message and very detailed instructions, I realised that home-made soy milk – or rather okara – is very easy and doesn’t require an expensive soy milk maker! Thank you again, K., for your precious advice!

The process is a bit long since the soy beans have to be soaked overnight or for 8 hours, but it is extremely easy. The softness/dryness and also the weight of okara depend on how well you squeeze the pulp. If you want to learn more about the use of okara, Hiroyuki’s blog contains very interesting recipes and tips.

In next post I’ll write about my first successful experiment with okara: a delicious leftover jam cake (which can be made also without okara).

Special equipment:

big sheets of gauze (bought at the pharmacy) or cheesecloth

cooking thermometer

Preparation:

30-40 min.+ min. 8 hours for soy beans soaking

Ingredients (I obtained about 400g okara):

150g dried soybeans

water

Soak the beans in water for 8 hours (the water amount should be at least the double of the beans, since they’ll swell).

Wash the beans, put them in a blender with 1,5 litre hot water and mix for a couple of minutes.

Pour the mixture into a shallow pan, add 1 litre boiling water, put the thermometer and simmer for 15 minutes at 70°C.

Strain the mixture through a sieve lined with cheesecloth or gauze plied in four. Squeeze the soy pulp very firmly and put aside.

Check this post to see one of the ways to use okara in a healthy and delicious jam cake.

Making Soy Milk and Okara on Punk Domestics

Buckwheat with Miso

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Buckwheat is cultivated in as different countries as Russia, Japan, France and Brazil. Japanese soba noodles and soba shochu, Russian blinis гречневая каша, French “gallettes” or savoury pancakes, boûketes in Belgium, Polish “kasza gryczana” (hulled grains, usually roasted), Italian pizzoccheri,… All those are made from the same plant.

Belonging to the Fagopyrum genus, buckwheat is not a grass, nor a cereal, even though it looks like one. Its qualities are so numerous, it is surprising most of the Western countries never consume it. It is very rich in protein, minerals, antioxydants, iron and doesn’t contain any gluten, so can be consumed by people who don’t tolerate it. Apart from all these healthy sides, buckwheat grows very quickly and easily. That is why it can be cultivated in cold climate and crops can be easily multiplied in hot regions.

The older I get, the more I like buckwheat – based products, and especially buckwheat groats, e.i. hulled grains. They are a bit crunchy and a bit soft at the same time. They have a very pleasant nutty aroma and a tiny hint of bitter taste. I don’t know if it is due to my temporary deficiency of one of its healthy components or if it’s a simple food craving, but sometimes I want it so much, I must have it in the following hours. In Switzerland (like in most Western European countries) the only easily obtained buckwheat groats are not roasted and lack the nutty flavour the roasted ones have. Luckily Russian and Polish shops carry roasted groats and luckily they exist in most European countries and in North America, where the buckwheat groats’ name (“kasha”) has Polish/Russian origins.

I usually have buckwheat groats as a side dish (they are perfect with pork roast and the Polish pork stew with allspice), but they also make a good ravioli or vegetable stuffing. I don’t know why, but I have never tried to mix them with Asian ingredients. However, a couple of days ago, I thought about the Japanese soba noodles, remembered I had a miso (Japanese soybean paste) dressing in the fridge and decided to combine them. It is difficult to describe how excellent this Japanese-Polish fusion proved to be. Needless to say, since that day miso has become the buckwheat groats’ best friend. (UPDATE: It’s not really a fusion dish… I have just learnt that buckwheat groats do exist in Japan where they are called “soba gome”; they are however not very popular).

The White miso dressing recipe comes from my beloved Japanese Cooking. A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji (read more here). It keeps about 2 weeks in the fridge and is a good way to use up an egg yolk. If you don’t want to prepare the miso dressing, the buckwheat will be also good with miso alone (if you can add some mirin, it will be even better). This time, instead of pork, I had it with grilled chicken.

Update: Janet’s comment and cooking kasha experience made me think how buckwheat groats/kasha may be tricky to cook, especially for the first time. After two or three times it’ll become very easy. I changed a bit the cooking process description, more helpful this time – I hope - for a beginner.

Preparation: 30 minutes

Ingredients (serves two):

150 g roasted buckwheat groats

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons white miso

or White miso dressing:

1 egg yolk

4 tablespoons white miso

1 tablespoon sake

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon mirin

(dashi, Japanese stock, 出し)

Put the buckwheat groats into a cup.

Measure the double of the buckwheat volume in water.

Pour the water into a pan. Bring it to boil, add the salt.

Throw the buckwheat into the pan and let it cook partially covered at medium heat for about ten minutes.

Lower the heat and let it simmer, covered, for about 5 more minutes.

The water should be completely absorbed by the grains. If it’s not absorbed yet, put the pan aside, leave the cover on and it will get absorbed without cooking too.

Prepare the miso dressing.

Combine the yolk with the miso in a small pan.

Add the remaining ingredients one by one.

Put the small pan into a bigger one, with boiling water and let the sauce thicken (and the egg yolk cook), delicately stirring for about 5-10 minutes.

(The miso dressing can be diluted with dashi stock. It keeps two weeks in the fridge.)

Taste the buckwheat groats. They should be still crunchy, but cooked. If they are not soft enough for your taste, add a bit more water and cook them longer.

Drain the groats. Combine them with one tablespoon miso or miso dressing.

Serve the groats with a big dollop of miso/ miso dressing on top.

Asparagus Tempura

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Tempura (天ぷら), batter-coated deep-frying, belongs to “agemono (揚げ物)”, or Japanese deep-frying methods. Tempura is used with different vegetables, mushrooms, seafood and fish and the resulting dishes are covered in crunchy, bubbly, thin layer of extremely light and transparent coating. Even though its preparation steps are ridiculously easy, tempura has a reputation of the most difficult agemono method, the lumpy consistency of the batter being the hardest part to achieve (especially for someone used to smooth, Western-style batters). However, this lumpiness and ice-cold temperature are crucial if one wants to achieve the typical tempura dish look, crunch and taste. Even though the tempura batter – composed of yolks, flour and water – can be easily made from the scratch, the ready-to-use dry mixture is quicker, it can be bought in every Japanese grocer shop and allows making very small batches (like the one below). This shortcut is also probably the best to start with, given the difficulty of this method.

I must admit I have had the tempura mixture in my kitchen for at least a year. I tried it only once, the attempt was a complete failure and discouraged me for quite a long time. However, admiring the bean sprouts in tempura, featured on Hiroyuki’s Blog and thanks to his kind tempura recipe translation and explanations, I decided to give it another go. Scared of repeating my tempura failure I also re-read the detailed instructions in my Japanese cooking reference book by Shizuo Tsuji (Japanese cooking. A simple art) and started experimenting. Bean sprouts tempura proved very quickly to be definitely not for the beginners, but the green asparagus, one of my favourite vegetables and in season now, was a huge hit. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my asparagus tempura, I am sure I haven’t managed the correct “bubbly” tempura coating and only hope it will get better in time. My not-so-perfect tempura was crunchy, light and brought out the asparagus delicate taste so well, it is now officially my favourite asparagus recipe. In short, the devil is not so black as he is painted and I should have reopened my tempura mix a long time ago!

Tempura is usually served with the below dipping sauce (taken from Shizuo Tsuji’s book). However, if you don’t have the necessary ingredients, the asparagus is delicious dipped in raw yolk with a bit of salt and pepper or in a soft-boiled egg. I also enjoyed it with my last year’s hot and smoky strawberry sauce.

There are two tempura methods. The first one consists only of dipping the food into the batter, while the second requires coating the food in the flour before the dipping step. I have chosen the first one for my asparagus. I used only the upper half of thin (5-7mm thick) green asparagus and cut this part in two in order to achieve bite-sized pieces. If you want to use the thicker parts too or if your asparagus is thicker, you should blanch it first for 1 minute, transfer it quickly into cold water, dry thoroughly and then dip into the tempura batter.

Preparation: 20 minutes

Ingredients (serves two as a starter, side-dish or a snack):

10 x 5-7 mm thin green asparagus upper halves (or 2/3, only the lower very hard parts removed)

3 tablespoons tempura mixture+ 3 tablespoons ice-cold water

(a couple of tablespoons flour if following the second 2-step method)

oil for deep-frying

dipping sauce:

60 ml dashi (Japanese stock)

20 ml mirin (sweet cooking sake)

20 ml soy sauce

a couple of tablespoons grated Japanese radish (daikon)

1-2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

Preheat the oil to about 170-180°C.

Prepare the asparagus tips and pat them dry.

Combine very roughly and quickly the tempura mix with ice-cold water (the chopsticks are here perfect, since they will not produce a smooth batter, but a lumpy one).

Check the oil temperature by dropping a bit of the batter. If it stays only a bit under the surface and then quickly moves up and starts bubbling, the temperature is good.

Dip the asparagus in the batter and deep fry for about one minute.

Drain with a slotted spoon and put on paper towels before serving.

Cheese and Chili Crackers, or Savoury Easter Bunnies

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I have almost missed the only occasion in the whole year when making bunny-shaped pastry doesn’t look ridiculous or childish! To be honest since we don’t go away this year, I have almost forgotten it is Easter. This morning I took out my bunny – shaped pastry cutter and started to look desperately for an idea. Then I remembered the cheese crackers recipe on Delicious Days. My decision was made: this year’s Easter will be marked by savoury bunnies.

If you have a food processor, the preparation is very easy and quick. I have chosen the gruyère cheese and Korean chili mixture and obviously the bunnies were irresistible (especially the one dressed up for the above photo!). However, any hard cheese can be used and if you don’t like chili, follow the Delicious Days‘ instructions and add some poppy seeds. Of course if you don’t have bunny-shaped cutters, use any cutters you like. Happy Easter!

Preparation: about 1 hour

Ingredients:

125 g flour

1 teaspoon salt

150g grated hard cheese

2 tablespoons chili or poppy seeds

50 g butter

2-3 tablespoons cold water

Put everything apart from the water in the food processor. Mix well for about 3 minutes.

Take out the dough and knead slightly with your hands.

Form a ball, wrap into plastic film and refrigerate for 30 – 60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Roll out the dough with a rolling pin 3 mm thick.

Cut out the crackers and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake 10-15 minutes until slightly golden.

Cooling and Hot Mint Sauce

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Mint is not the herb I often use in the kitchen, and yet I buy it sometimes when I simply cannot resist its fresh, enticing aroma. The sad thing is I usually end up drying it and then drinking as herbal tea. A couple of days ago I decided I had to break this vicious circle and start cooking with mint. Remembering how quickly I empty the mint sauce bowl in Indian restaurants, I decided to give it a try. Since every Indian mint sauce recipe I found called for the ingredients I didn’t have, I improvised my own recipe. Even though the result was different from what I had in Indian restaurants, it was really good. I especially liked its contrasting palate sensations: refreshing and cooling, it gives a hot kick at the same time. The aroma is still enticing.

Given my experiments with this sauce, I can recommend it as a dip for deep-fried dishes, with rice, with cold turkey cuts, and I think I couldn’t find a better company for the leftover, warmed Lamb Masala.

Special equipment: food processor

Preparation: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

1 big bunch of mint (100g)

200 ml yogurt

1 teaspoon of very hot powdered chili or green/red fresh chilies (amounts depend on their hotness and your personal taste)

salt

Cut off the hardest parts of mint stalks, leaving only the thin branches and leaves.

Mix the mint in a food processor, add the yogurt, mix again. Transfer to a bowl, add a bit of salt to taste (I added 2 teaspoons) and the chili.

Serve chilled.

Secondary Dashi (Niban Dashi 二番出汁)

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As a continuation of the Primary Dashi recipe I posted last week this post will be a very short one. As a quick reminder, dashi (出し) is the most popular Japanese stock made with konbu seaweed (昆布) and dried bonito fish flakes (although there are some other types of Japanese stock…).

After the primary dashi’s preparation, more delicate and lighter in coulour (see the recipe here), the konbu and the bonito flakes (katsuobushi かつおぶし) should not be thrown away. In fact they will be used to make a secondary dashi (niban dashi 二番出汁), a bit stronger and slightly darker, perfect for nourishing soups’ base or for soups with strong tasting vegetables. The recipe is also taken from “Japanese Cooking. A Simple Art” by Shizuo Tsuji.

Preparation: <25 minutes

Ingredients:

konbu and bonito flakes leftover from the Primary Dashi

750 ml cold water

5-7 g fresh bonito flakes

Place the leftover konbu and bonito flakes in 750 ml cold water. Put it over high heat and when it starts boiling, reduce the heat and let it simmer until it is reduced by 1/3 or 1/2 (the latter will have a stronger taste).

Add the fresh bonito flakes and immediately put aside.

Wait 30 seconds – 1 minute until the flakes fall to the bottom.

Remove the foam from the surface and strain through a piece of gauze.

This time the konbu and the bonito flakes can be thrown away.

Ramsons (Wild Garlic, Bear’s Garlic) and Almond Pesto

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Ramsons, wild garlic, buckrams, bear’s garlic, bear paw garlic… (Allium Ursinum) is a wild, wide-leaved plant with a very distinct garlic scent and apparently a favourite of bears, who would dig out its bulbs (hence the name). Its edible long leaves are very similar to those of the lily of the valley and mixing them up is very dangerous, since the latter are toxic. The strong smell created when the leaves are rubbed is the only way to distinguish them if one is not an experienced ramsons picker. Planting its bulbs in one’s garden (I have learnt it was possible on the Cottage Smallholder website) or buying from a trustworthy market stall is even safer!

Ramsons grow all around Europe (ail des ours, czosnek niedźwiedzi, megyhagyma, aglio orsino…), but while their use in the kitchen is popular in certain countries, it is almost non-existent in the others. In Switzerland they appear in April and disappear in May and are so popular, they can be found on many market stalls and even in supermarkets. Ramsons can be stir fried with vegetables or meat, put into soups or – my favourite way of enjoying them – act as a very bold basil substitute in pesto. Since, accidentally, I discovered how delicious the pesto with almonds can be, this year I decided to apply the same substitution in the ramsons pesto. The result was so satisfying I’m wondering if I’ll ever buy pine nuts again…

Beware! Wild garlic pesto is powerful, almost hot, advised rather for strong emotions’ amateurs and/or garlic fans! Have it preferably for dinner and take tic-tacs or chewing gums if you go out the following day. The garlic breath might linger for a couple of hours, but the wonderful taste is well worth this small inconvenience. Just like the basil pesto, this one can be kept for at least a week in the fridge, if covered with a thick layer of olive oil. Stir it into pasta, spread it on fresh bread, toast, grilled meat or fish, add it into salads, use it as a dip…

Special equipment:

pestle and mortar or a food processor (a mini-mixer is the best if making a small batch of pesto)

Preparation: 10 minutes (or more if using a mortar)

Ingredients:

3 handfuls of ramsons

3 heaped tablespoons ground almonds

1 flat teaspoon salt (coarse salt is better if using the mortar)

2 – 3 heaped tablespoons grated parmesan

10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (or more if you want to keep in for a couple of days in the fridge)

If using a mixer put everything in the mixer bowl and mix. Adjust the taste.

If using the mortar start with almonds and salt, then add the cheese, the ramsons and the salt. Finish with olive oil.

If you don’t use pesto the same day, put it into a jar, cover with olive oil and close tightly. It will keep for at least a week in the fridge.

Fresh Cheese Spread with Chives

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Even though the Spring is indeniably there, I still have to wait a bit for the local asparagus and try out Clarkie’s Asparagus and Parmesan Tart I have seen on Beloved Green. Meanwhile I have been watching, impressed, the jungle of Winter-surviving chives, growing like crazy on my balcony and serving as a joyful, green touch of Spring in my kitchen. Even though there are thousands of ways to use chives, my all-time favourite is the fresh cheese spread, a reminder of my childhood and probably the most innocuous of all my food addictions. Here is only a part of my chives jungle (including, on left, nira 韮, Chinese chives, very kindly offered by my friend A. and also courageous – albeit moderate – Winter survivors):

The fresh cheese I have in mind is called “curd cheese” and sometimes “farm” or “farmers cheese”, available in Polish/Russian/ Hungarian grocery shops all around the world. Curd cheese is widely used in Central and Eastern Europe (Russian творог, Polish twaróg or biały ser, Hungarian túró or Austrian Topfen are only some examples in both savoury and sweet dishes and is my absolute favourite in Baked Cheesecake (while its smooth, mixed version is ideal in Unbaked Cheesecake). Its texture might be described as something halfway between ricotta and feta, but its slightly tangy taste differs from both. Since it is produced by straining soured milk, curd cheese is a natural product and if low or medium-fat variety is used, it makes relatively healthy meals and desserts. (It shouldn’t be mixed up with American “cheese curds”!). This is how curd cheese, crushed with fork, looks like:

This spread is not only fresh, low-fat, quick and known as an appetite suppressant, but it tastes much better on wholemeal, black, crunchy bread or even pumpernickel, which makes it even healthier (on the other, hand I have read somewhere fresh cheese is no longer considered as healthy as in the past…). Fresh cheese spread keeps for a couple of days in the fridge, in a closed container. Actually, I think it tastes better the following day, when the chives’ flavour is stronger. I always make a big batch to have it ready for breakfast or as a snack.

TIP: If you cannot get curd/farmers cheese, you can replace it with cottage cheese, but it has to be drained and combined with sour cream/milk or kefir (not yogurt) to make it tangy.

Other recipes which call for curd cheese:

-Potato and Curd Cheese Dumplings

-Pear and Curd/Cottage Cheese Pie

-Light and Moist Baked Cheesecake

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

150 g curd/farmers cheese (or drained cottage cheese)

4-6 tablespoons yogurt, kefir, sour milk or sour cream (or more if the cheese is dry)

salt

about 10 flat tablespoons chopped chives

Crush the curd cheese with a fork, add the yogurt, kefir or cream gradually, stirring until you obtain the desired consistency (this depends not only on the cheese brand, but also on your preferences).

If using cottage cheese, crush the grains with a fork before adding kefir or sour milk/cream.

Add the chives, the salt, give it a good stir and taste if it’s salty enough.

Celeriac Remoulade, or Céléri rémoulade

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Raw, cooked or fried, the celeriac was high on my “hated vegetables” list since I was a child. When I started to cook, the only time it appeared in my kitchen was in a home-made stock composition. Once the stock cooked, celeriac would end up in the bin. Observing some of my French friends enjoying their ubiquitous céléri rémoulade I didn’t know at the time I began to be intrigued. It took me however a long long time to dare tasting this despised root, albeit disguised. Celeriac Remoulade was a real revelation and I am convinced it has a power to convert more than one celeriac hater. In fact, hardly a couple of days after I tasted it, I bought the first celeriac in my life with another intention than making stock.

I was of course lucky to have my first céléri rémoulade in a good restaurant and not in a school cafeteria or bought in a supermarket. In fact, most of what is labelled as “céléri rémoulade” is terrible (from what I’ve heard not only in France) or simply hasn’t got much in common with the original preparation. Remoulade Sauce means basically seasoned mayonnaise with herbs, gherkins and capers, and a good Celeriac Remoulade is so simple and undemanding, it is hard to believe how efficiently and frequently it is spoiled.

My slightly modified recipe comes from the French classic “Petit Larousse de la cuisine“, but many different traditional versions exist. Some advice blanching celeriac after it’s grated, but I think this way it loses the wonderful fresh crunchy side. Some literally soak the celeriac in the sauce, but I prefer to keep it light, with hardly any sauce. Of course you can adjust the mayonnaise’s amount to your own taste. Celeriac Remoulade keeps very well in the fridge, up to a week (unless the mayonnaise is home-made). Definitely a very healthy and good change from a green salad, it is excellent with a pork roast, cold cuts, Egg and Bacon Pie, toasts, sandwiches…

Preparation: 10 minutes if using a food processor or more, if you grate the celeriac on a traditional grater

Ingredients (serves four as a side dish):

1 big celeriac (approx. 500 – 600g)

Remoulade sauce:

100 ml mayonnaise

10 flat tablespoons chopped fresh herbs (I usually put parsley and chives, but my recipe mentions also tarragon and chervil; other recipes enumerate borage among the remoulade herbs)

5 small finely chopped French gherkins (cornichons) or two big pickled cucumbers

5 tablespoons drained capers

salt, pepper

(French mustard)

(anchovy essence or 2 mixed anchovies)

Peel the celeriac and grate it very quickly on a vegetable grater (the bigger holes).

Combine it with the mayonnaise, the herbs, the gherkins, the capers and the anchovies if using. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir well and taste. If it seems a bit bland, add some mustard.

Serve preferably chilled (if all the ingredients are very cold, it can be served straight away).

Sesame and Soy Sauce Vinaigrette

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At first glance, putting down a salad dressing recipe may seem ridiculous. However, whenever I observe people preparing it, everyone uses different proportions and/or ingredients. For years I had been preparing mine traditionally, fiddling with the variations of the French vinegar/lemon+oil+mustard/garlic way, but as soon as I started to experiment with soy sauce and other Japanese products, my favourite – though not the only one – vinaigrette has changed. I still call it vinaigrette since it keeps – albeit vaguely -the main vinaigrette’s rules: something fat+something acid+something strong and salty. Apart from the evident Japanese touch, my favourite dressing is not in the dense, heavy, dripping from the spoon sauce category. It is extremely light, in terms of look, taste and fat content.

Even though it is not a strictly Japanese recipe, both the soy sauce and the vinegar must be Japanese. The Chinese are simply too strong. Of course the proportions can be adjusted to your personal taste.

Special equipment:

(for me a very small jar or plastic container with a lid is very handy in the sauce shaking step, but of course not necessary)

Preparation: 5 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2):

leaves from half a small iceberg salad torn into pieces (or the equivalent of any green salad leaves)

3 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce (or more if using the low-sodium sauce)

2 tablespoons Japanese rice vinegar

3 tablespoons grilled sesame seeds

2 tablespoons oil (strangely olive oil works here as well as sesame oil, but the taste will be completely different)

Put all the ingredients – apart from the sesame seeds – in a small jar. Close it tightly, shake it and combine with the salad in the serving bowl.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Pesto with Almonds, or Pesto alle mandorle

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Some pretend pesto (pronounced “pestu” in its home Liguria dialect), dates back as far as the ancient Rome. “Pesto genovese” (Genova is the capital of Liguria) has a DOC label (Controlled Origin Denomination) and shouldn’t be confused with “pesto alla genovese”, since labelling their jars this way producers are no longer obliged to follow the traditional recipe and include additional – read “cheaper” – ingredients.

Pesto genovese is traditonally composed of seven ingredients: basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, salt, parmesan, pecorino (ewe cheese) and olive oil. However, even Italians, albeit known for their culinary conservatism, do not necessarily stick to the DOC version. Leaving out pecorino is one of the most frequent alterations and also the one I usually make.

Craving for pesto last weekend I was confronted however with a new absence: this time I ran out of pine nuts. I quickly realised the Italian web abounds with almond pestos and decided to give this substitution a go, too lazy to go and fetch pine nuts. Apart from the almonds’ inclusion I sticked to my usual preparation, namely the slightly modified recipe from the famous “Il Cucchiaio d’Argento” (The Silver Spoon), but still without pecorino cheese. For once my laziness paid off! Pesto with almonds was much more subtle and so impressing, I think will choose it often deliberately instead of the traditional one.

Pesto is usually served stirred into pasta, but it’s also a good idea to spread it on fresh bread, toast, grilled meat or fish, add it into salads, use as a dip…

Special equipment: pestle and mortar or a food processor (a mini-mixer is the best if making a small batch of pesto)

Preparation: 10 minutes (or more if using a mortar)

Ingredients (serves two in a pasta with pesto dish):

3 handfuls of basil leaves

2 heaped tablespoons ground almonds

1 flat teaspoon salt (coarse salt is better if using the mortar)

1 big or two small garlic cloves

2 – 3 heaped tablespoons grated parmesan

10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (or more)

(pepper)

If using a mixer put everything in the mixer bowl and mix. Adjust the taste.

If using the mortar start with garlic, almonds and salt, then add the cheese, the basil and the salt. Finish with olive oil.

If you don’t use pesto the same day, put it into a jar, cover with olive oil and close tightly. It will keep for at least a week in the fridge.

Potatoes and Curd Cheese Dumplings, or Pierogi ruskie

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Ravioli, empanadas, gyoza, mandu… Dumplings – or pastry packages with various fillings – appear in most of the traditional cookery books in the world. Pierogi (pronounced “p-ye-ro-ghee”), or Polish dumplings, have dozens of different traditional fillings, and their variations are infinite. They can be both sweet and savoury, bigger or smaller, with or without meat, but the pastry gives them the typical Polish touch. A bit thicker than the Asian one, it should be firm, a bit elastic, but never tough. Pierogi are also usually bigger than the Asian dumplings (not to mention the Italian ravioli), attaining sometimes a big fist size.

Even though I’m a declared carnivore, strangely, my favourite are the vegetarian pierogi (“pierogi ruskie”), filled with potatoes, curd cheese and fried onion. These ingredients make a very unusual and complex combination, impossible to compare to anything else and surprising when tasted for the first time. These dumplings’ name is erroneously translated as “Russian”, but they have got nothing to do with Russia. In fact, apart from a slightly offensive adjective meaning “Russian”, “ruskie” also refers to the region nowadays partly in Ukraine and partly in the Eastern Poland, and previously called “Red Ruthenia” (belonging to Poland before the 2nd World War). This is the region where this type of dumplings originated from. Consequently, they should be translated rather as “Ruthanian dumplings”. To make matters more complicated, the Ukrainians apparently call them “Polish dumplings”…

The Polish dumpling pastry is very easy to prepare, provided one has a kneading food processor. It is a bit longer and needs a bit of exercise when hand kneaded. A fork is the traditional tool to seal the edges and a very efficient one too. The dumplings are first quickly cooked, and then can be served straight away or fried. Some serve them with sour cream, others with chopped and fried cracklings or bacon or fried chopped onion. This pastry recipe comes from my mother and of course is the best! The filling is more or less the same in every “Ruthanian” pierogi recipe. Normally the dumplings are served as the main course, but if you make them smaller they can become original finger food.

Special equipment:

a kneading food processor (or strong hands and a bit of patience)

Preparation: 1 hour – 1 1/2 hour (depends on your experience and kneading-rolling velocity)

Ingredients:

Pastry:

250 g white flour

100 ml hot (not boiling) water

1 egg yolk

1/2 tablespoon neutral tasting oil (not olive oil)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling:

150g curd cheese (or 150g drained off cottage cheese, e.i. about 300g before draining)

150g cooked and peeled potatoes

1 medium onion

salt, pepper

1 tablespoon oil

Prepare the filling. Chop the onion and fry it in 1 tablespoon oil until slightly browned.

Mash the potatoes and combine with the cheese, the onions, the salt and the pepper. Mix well with a fork (not with a mixer!). Adjust the taste if necessary (the pepper should be very present in the overall taste).

Combine the pastry ingredients and knead them until the pastry is smooth and doesn’t stick to your hands, or combine them in a food processor. Mix them quickly with a kneading function.

Add more flour if necessary.

Cover the pastry with plastic film, since it dries very quickly.

Roll out half of the pastry to a 1/2 cm sheet (some people prefer 1 cm thick). Take a round pastry cutter or a glass and cut out 7 – 10 cm diameter circles. Fill them with a tablespoon of the cheese mixture, seal with your fingers, put on the table and press down the rims on one or both sides with fork’s teeth.

Layer the filled dumplings on a plate, separating the layers with plastic film, otherwise they’ll stick to each other.

Bring two litres of salted water to a boil.

Cook 4-5 dumplings at a time, counting 3 minutes from the moment they appear at the surface.

(After the second or third batch they’ll start sticking to the bottom of the pan, so you should push them a bit after 30 seconds, otherwise they’ll never go up to the surface).

Serve them immediately with sour cream or sprinkled with fried cracklings, or fried bacon cubes.

They can also be slightly fried and served crunchy. Personally I prefer them just cooked and served either with fried bacon or with fried onion.

If you want to serve them the following day, place them in a plastic box, putting cling film after each layer and closing the box tightly before putting them into the fridge.

Eringi & Teriyaki

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Called simply “eringi” (エリンギ) in Japanese, Pleurotus eryngii also bears such names as king trumpet or king oyster. Together with the more famous oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) it belongs to the Pleurotus genus. In the wild this mushroom grows together with the roots of Eryngium plants, hence the Latin name, but it is widely cultivated too. Even though king oyster grows in the Middle East, Northern Africa and even Southern Europe, it is particularly appreciated in Asian countries, especially in China, Korea and Japan. I think they are not often cultivated and not easily found in Europe (apart from the wild ones in the South), but I am lucky to find them sometimes imported from Korea (where it is called saesongi 새송이 ).

The film below (click here to see it directly at Youtube) presents a Korean king oyster farm (I adore the funny way they grow in pots!) and shows the passion the Koreans have for this mushroom:

King oyster mushroom doesn’t seem very attractive when raw – it doesn’t have any smell or taste. However, once stir-fried or grilled, it develops a subtle, inimitable aroma and the famous “umami” (うま味) or 5th primary taste. Apart from the elegant and sophisticated flavour I also adore this mushroom for its meaty texture. I think it’s perfect quickly fried or grilled, served with teriyaki sauce. It is a wonderful starter, goes very well with grilled meat, but due to its delicate flavour it shouldn’t be served with hot or/and spicy dishes.

Preparation: 15 minutes

Ingredients (serves 4):

400g eringi mushrooms

neutral tasting oil

Teriyaki sauce:

6 tablespoons mirin

4 tablespoons soy sauce (or 3 if you have low sodium soy sauce)

2 teaspoons sugar

6 tablespoons sake

Bring mirin and sake to boil, add the soy sauce and the sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and put aside, keeping it warm.

Clean the mushrooms if they are a bit dirty and cut them in two lengthwise.

Heat a non-stick pan or a grill.

Brush them with a bit of oil on each side.

Grill the king oysters or stir-fry until they are slightly browned (about 2 minutes on each side).

Put them on a warmed plate.

If you use a grill, bring the teriyaki to boil once more, let it thicken a bit and pour over the mushrooms.

If you use a non-stick pan, pour the teriyaki on it (don’t wash the pan after having take out the mushrooms) and let it caramelise for about 1 minute.

Pour the teriyaki over the mushrooms.

Curd Cheese Biscuits (Túrós Pogácsa)

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pogacsap

These clumsy, innocent-looking biscuits have long been the biggest culinary nightmare of my life. In short, every single attempt to reproduce these Hungarian delights called pogácsa (pronounced “pogatcho”) ended up in a complete failure. Thus, throughout the years and numerous experiments, I have never managed to make anything palatable. Until yesterday, when, encouraged by Zsuzsa’s (Zsuzsa is in the kitchen) kind advice, I could present a highly satisfactory batch of túrós pogácsa (or curd cheese biscuits).

According to Wikipedia “pogácsa” derives from the Latin “panis focacius”, a name given in acient Rome to bread baked in the ashes. “Pogača” or “pogacha” is a like – sounding bread from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and ”poğaça” from Turkey . The same Latin name gave also birth to “fougasse” and “focaccia”, French and Italian flat breads. In Hungary pogacsa are eaten as snacks or appetizers and can be bought practically at every baker’s. They have different sizes, textures and varieties. They can be made with pork cracklings, sour cream, potatoes, hard cheese, curd cheese (sometimes called “farmers cheese”)… The latter is my favourite version, somehow lighter and more complex. When leavened and layered, they have are light, delicate, situated somewhere between the crumbly puff pastry and soft, moist rolls’ texture.

Following Zsuzsa’a advice I looked for a new Hungarian recipe and finally have ended up with a mixture of what I found on this Hungarian website and the Zsuzsa’s advice. The curd cheese (available in Polish or Russian shops, I have written here a bit about the curd cheese) can be substituted here with drained cottage cheese. Thank you, Zsuzsa, for your encouragement and advice.

Special equipment: a small biscuit cutter (or a very small sharp-rimmed glass to cut out the biscuits)

Preparation: 1h30

Ingredients (about 40 x 4 cm diameter biscuits):

250 grams flour

250 grams curd cheese (or cottage cheese with whey removed)

250 grams softened butter

7 g dried yeast

2 flat teaspoons salt

1-2 yolks

1 egg

(grated hard cheese or/and coarse salt)

Combine the flour, the butter (cut into small pieces if cold), the curd cheese, the yeast and the salt. Knead it for about 10 minutes (I have put it my food processor, kneading function). Form a big ball, put into a plastic bag and let in the fridge for 20 minutes. Heat the oven to 200°C. Roll the dough very thinly, brush with egg yolk. Fold in two pieces, brush it once more. Repeat this operation twice more. The pastry should be 1-1,5 cm thick. Cut out the biscuits, put them on a baking sheet, brush with a slightly bitten egg and sprinkle either with coarse salt or with grated cheese. Put them aside for 10 minutes. Put them into the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes until golden.

Grilled Tofu with Sesame Seeds

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I would like to wish a Very Happy New Year to everyone who happens to read this post. I sincerely hope all your dreams come true in 2011 and, since everyone has New Year’s resolutions, I hope you’ll stick to every single of them.

Talking about the resolutions, one of mine is – like every year – to start eating healthier and lighter. Even though I was rather wise this year (oysters overdose was the only exaggeration of recent weeks…), I start being obsessed with attempts to change some of my meal habits. Since it’s still cold, the most difficult part of the day is the morning, since my organism cries for omelets, scrambled eggs and sandwiches. This is the moment miso soup (click here to see the recipe) becomes one of the regular guests on my table, but even though I add different ingredients every day it might become boring.

Since practically all the nutritionists seem to agree the high-protein and low-carb breakfast is the healthiest option, I try to find the recipes or make up the dishes entering this category and not calling for huge amounts of bread. This is very difficult, especially given the fact I don’t become hungry until 10 a.m. when one hard boiled egg without bread wouldn’t simply be enough. Trying to follow the above nutritional advice and listening to my late morning needs I realised grilled firm tofu with sesame seeds lives up to all my expectations. It is packed with (good) protein, it is low- fat and low-carb, it calms the hunger for several hours and most of all it is delicious!

I have made up this recipe for breakfast, but it is also a great between-the-meals snack, a first course or even a main course if you combine it with a salad or some other vegetables. The vinegar adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the grilled tofu, makes the dish lively and more complex. I said “grilled”, but I actually simply fry the tofu in a tiny amount of oil. It looks and tastes almost like grilled.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one hungry late breakfaster):

150 g firm tofu cut into cubes

1 teaspoon oil

1 tablespoon light soy sauce (the Japanese is the best here)

1 tablespoon rice vinegar (or less)

1 tablespoon white sesame seeds (maybe grilled or not, see below)

Put the tofu cubes on paper towels and dry them well.

Heat the oil in a non-stick pan.

Fry the tofu until light golden at least on two sides.

If your sesame seeds are not grilled, add them to the tofu when turning the cubes to the other side. Thus it’ll become slightly golden.

Transfer it into a small plate or bowl.

Combine the vinegar with the soy sauce and pour over the tofu.

Sprinkle with grilled sesame seeds (if you haven’t grilled them with the tofu) and enjoy this yummy and completely guilt-free meal!

Prune Vodka

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This recipe is to be tasted in about… a year. I found it while leafing through “Home made wines, nalewki and meads” by Elzbieta and Krzysztof Adamski, a small Polish book packed with over 200 recipes. The ones which interest me particularly are the easiest ones, namely nalewki. As I have already mentioned while writing about Mandarin Vodka, making liquors at home has been a long Polish tradition, so finding books with hundreds of recipes is not surprising. Contrary to most worldwide made liquors, the Polish nalewki are not necessarily sweet and aging is usually obligatory (apart from certain exceptions, such as Mandarin Vodka).

The making process of the Prune Vodka, as most such preparations, is ridiculously easy. It requires only 90% alcohol, water, prunes and… a lot of patience. The authors promise that after a year the result will resemble – in colour and taste – nothing less but… cognac. How can one miss such an occasion? I will keep serious and try not laughing for at least a year, because one never knows…

Preparation: 5 minutes+1 year and 1 month waiting time

Ingredients:

150g stoned prunes

1 litre 90% alcohol

1 litre water

Put the stoned prunes in a big jar. Pour water and alcohol over them. Close the jar. (Following the advice I found on a Polish alcohol makers’ forum I mixed water with alcohol and left it for two days before pouring over the prunes. Don’t ask me why, I simply listen to the specialists…)

After a month strain the prunes and discard them.

Filter the liquid through a coffee filter or a piece of gauze folded in 4.

Close it tightly and wait one year before tasting.

Update (one month later): the colour of the strained liquid is beautiful and it does remind me of cognac, however the smell is overwhelmed by the alcohol. No trace of any other aroma. Since I am not supposed to taste it before a year, I haven’t even tried to (the smell wasn’t encouraging anyway!). Next update in a year’s time!

Dried Apricot and Chili Jelly

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This autumn I sowed the grains too late, but somehow managed to grow red hot peppers on my balcony at hardly 10°C. I assumed there are certain countries where pepper season is almost all year round and stopped worrying if the Thai or Moroccan chilies I buy were grown in a greenhouse or outside. I shall never know anyway. Having made several hot dishes, I was still left with a lot of red peppers and started looking for new preserving recipes. This way I discovered the Canadian Bernardin Home Canning website, full of inspiring ideas, found there the Habanero Gold Jelly and … have completely ignored it, only stealing the excellent idea to combine dried apricots and chilies.

The result was sweet and hot, with a slight acid hint, due to the apricots’ presence. In fact, my jelly looked much merrier than the one featured on the Bernardin website. It was very thick, with a lovely golden-orange colour reminding of hot, Summer days, and had a definitely warming effect on the palate, perfect for these cold gloomy days! It is wonderful served with stir-fried vegetables, chicken, rice, in sandwiches… and in my opinion ideal with grilled or fried scallops.

Preparation: 30 minutes+ 30 min (apricot soaking time)

Ingredients (approx. 4 x 200ml jars):

350g dried apricots finely cut or mixed in a food processor

300 +100 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

200g red moderately hot peppers (mine were red, came from Thailand and were more or less of the middle finger’s length)

400 g caster sugar

100 ml water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 package pectin in powder (45g)

Bring the 300 ml vinegar to boil. Put aside.

Add the apricots and let them soak for 30 minutes. Take them out and chop finely.

Chop the hot peppers finely (discard the stalks and seeds) or mix them in a food processor.

Combine all the remaining ingredients (including 100 ml vinegar) with the vinegar and let them boil 20 minutes, constantly stirring.

Add the pectin and cook 10 more minutes.

Spoon the hot jelly into sterilised jars, cover with lids.

Leave the jars to cool.

Guacamole My Way

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With the words “My Way” I don’t pretend having invented this version of guacamole. It’s simply a mixture of what I read in different recipes and what I added or modified over the years, adapting it to my taste buds. Apart from the ingredients the texture is also my favourite one, e.i. roughly crushed with a fork, but not mixed. After several encounters with Mexicans outraged at the “fancy”, “overloaded” “falsified” Western avocado sauces and claiming the real guacamole is nothing but avocado, salt and lime juice, somehow I feel I should add “My Way”, thus proving I don’t pretend mine being the traditional recipe.

Preparation: 15 minutes+ 1 hour in the fridge

Ingredients:

1 avocado

juice from 1/2 small lime

1/2 flat teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon dried ground coriander

1 teaspoon dried ground cumin

1 small red onion

1 small tomato

1 tablespoon tabasco

Spoon out the avocado flesh. Put it into a bowl and squash roughly with a fork.

Sprinkle with the lime juice and stir.

Chop the tomato into small cubes.

Peel and chop the onion.

Add everything to the avocado, stir well and put into the fridge for at least one hour.

Serve with crackers, nachos or as a sauce for grilled chicken.

Pickled Pepper

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I often used to buy pickled sweet pepper, but there was always something wrong… too much oil, too much vinegar, not enough spices… When I tried to find tips for pickling peppers at home, one of my friends sent me her boss’s extraordinary recipe. At the time I didn’t even suspect it would be the best pickled pepper ever and that it would become the pride of my pantry. Thank you A.! This recipe is so perfect, I have never been tempted to modify it, in spite of tens of batches I have pickled since. Such a pity you live too far to let me offer you some jars.

This pickle has a sweet, rich peppery taste and aroma, with strong presence of garlic and spices. The addition of a small quantity of oil makes it smooth and even more delicate. You should wait at least a couple of weeks before tasting, but this pickle largely improves with time.

Every variety of pepper can be pickled this way. The most important is that it is fresh and ripe. The stronger the peppers’ aroma the better the pickle will be. People usually pickle bell peppers, but my preference goes lately to the long Hungarian “kapia” variety. They don’t have as much flesh, but I find their taste and aroma more intense.

Preparation: 1 hour+processing

Ingredients:

1.5 kg (3,3 pounds) sweet peppers

about 20 peeled garlic cloves

up to 10 bay leaves

a couple of teaspoons mustard grains

a couple of teaspoons black pepper grains

2-3 teaspoons allspice grains

1 litre (about 4 cups) cider/white wine/other alcohol vinegar (mine was 4,5%, if you use a stronger one, add proportionally more water)

1.1 litre (about 4 cups and 3 oz) water

400 g (1 3/4 cups) caster sugar

3 tablespoons salt

olive oil (or other good quality oil)

Cut the peppers’ stems, discard all the seeds and white parts. Cut them into 2-3 cm pieces.

Fill in empty jars with pepper pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height), add 2 garlic cloves, 3 allspice berries, 3 pepper grains, 6 mustard grains and 1 bay leaf per every 500 ml jar.

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan and let it boil a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved. Put aside.

Fill the jars with hot (no longer boiling!) vinegar mixture, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim. Pour a generous tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As do most pickles, this one improves with time. Pickled peppers are perfect with cold meats, in sandwiches, on toast, as a side dish…

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Pickled Sweet Pepper with Allspice on Punk Domestics

Plum/Damson and Tamarind Chutney

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This is one of the numerous ways I transformed the huge amount of plums I was offered this year. Jams and sauces were an obvious choice, but I was very reluctant to try making a chutney again, since my last year’s experience was really disappointing. However, faced with so many kilos of plums to transform I tried to make out which ingredient could have spoiled the taste of my previous plum chutney. Onion was one of the candidates, so as soon as I saw a recipe without it, something told me I ought to try it. I found it on The Cottage Smallholder website, but slightly modified it, omitting grapes and putting more plums instead. I also crushed all the spices in a mortar. In spite of these changes the result was stunning! No more onions in my future plum chutneys!

This chutney is supposed to be cooked slowly for many hours and, as you observe the taste changing throughout the process, you understand why! It gets better every hour. At the beginning I was wondering whether I should mix everything just before putting into jars, but at a certain point the cinnamon stick and other spices simply started to fall into pieces and melt into the sticky and very dark paste.

Preparation: around 10 hours (can be divided into several days)

Ingredients:

1350g plums (mine were damsons, or at least very similar to damsons)

450g seedless grapes ( I simply put more plums, since I didn’t have grapes

1 lemon sliced fine (seeds discarded)

300g dried apricots (chopped at least into eight pieces)

200g dried sultanas

225g-450g soft brown sugar, depending on how sweet your plums are

125g tamarind block (soaked for 20 minutes in a mug of boiling water then sieve and reject the seeds) or 2 tablespoons tamarind paste. I added the tamarind infused water to the chutney too.

5cm stick of cinnamon

2 large garlic cloves chopped fine

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons allspice berries

1 teaspoon ground ginger

750 ml white wine vinegar

3 small hot bird’s eye chillies (seeds removed) Chopped fine

2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

5 juniper berries

15 black peppercorns

2 heaped teaspoons yellow mustard seed

Crush the spices in a mortar. Stone the plums, cut up roughly. Put everything into a big pan (at the beginning put only 225g sugar). After around 5 hours check the acidity level and see if you should add more sugar. Let the chutney simmer on a very low heat for at least one day (I cooked it for 2 days, totally for more than 10 hours).

Spoon the hot chutney into sterilised jars, cover with lids.

Leave the jars to cool.

Hot & Smoky Strawberry Sauce

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I know it’s becoming monotonous… hot mango sauce, hot plum sauce… but once you discover the taste of a home-made sauce, you’ll want to transform every existing fruit this way. Well, almost every fruit… As much as I love strawberries in sweet dishes or simply eaten fresh and raw, it has never been my candidate for any savoury transformation.

Strawberry BBQ Sauce? There seemed to be quite a lot of these recipes on the web. I was very curious and finally decided to try out the strawberries in a savoury sauce. Since their season is coming to its the end, I thought “it’s now or never” and bought a small “experimental” punnet. Since all the BBQ sauce recipes looked unconvincing, I decided to forget them and adapt my own very simple hot sauce recipe I use for example with mango.

To save the BBQ idea, I added medium hot aji panca dried peppers from Peru which have a particular, smoky flavour (and look a bit scary!).

I don’t know what role the peppers’ choice played in it, but this hot sauce is the biggest and yummiest surprise in my preserving experience! Not only do the hot pepper and vinegar go well with this fruit, they actually boost to the maximum the strawberry taste and aroma! In short: I discovered the wild side of the strawberry!

Preparation: 45 minutes+jars processing

Ingredients:

300g strawberries

100 – 150g white sugar

200 ml (white) wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5%)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 whole dried aji panca peppers without stems and seeds (you can use any kind of medium hot dried peppers)

Wash the strawberries, remove the caps and stems.

Put all the vinegar and 100g sugar in a pan, add the whole peppers and let them simmer for 10 minutes on a very low heat. Put aside.

The sauce will take an orangy hue, ressembling tomato sauce.

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Use this sauce on grilled meat, with poultry, on toast, on open sandwiches, with fried tofu (you’ll never look at tofu the same way again!), as a dip for dumplings, spring rolls, vegetables or savoury biscuits…

Hot Plum Sauce with White Wine

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Filling up my pantry with jars has become inevitable in the summer, unless I stop shopping at my market. Even when I don’t plan buying anything for storage, there is always something so irresistible and beautiful, that when I finally come back home I see bags filled with fruit in quantities I’ll never manage to eat before they start rotting. The plums I saw were supposed to finish their existence in a pie, but I finally didn’t feel like baking for several days.

Trying to save the plums from the dustbin I started to look for something interesting to do and finally have chosen the plum sauce from “Jasmine Cuisine“, a lovely French Canadian food blog I have recently discovered. I modified the recipe aiming at a lazier version (e.g. I didn’t discard the skins as Jasmine did), so my sauce got very dark and wasn’t as beautiful as hers. I also added more spices, since my plums were a bit bland. In spite of that the result was surprisingly delicious and beautiful. The sauce goes perfectly with pork and is a yummy variation in sandwiches or on toast (must be also delicious with dim sum or other Chinese dumplings, as Jasmine suggests). ‘Somehow I feel this won’t be the last plum sauce I make this summer…

Preparation: around 1h 15 minutes+processing

Ingredients (my modified version, using 1 kg plums weighed before removing stones):

1 kg red round plums, weighed with stones

2 garlic cloves

1 big onion

180 ml cider vinegar (mine was 4,5%)

175 cane sugar

100 ml dry white wine

1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

1 teaspoon ground cinammon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger root

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 ground cloves

7 tiny pili pili (bird’s eye) green peppers, with seeds (if you want to obtain a very hot sauce)

Dissolve sugar in vinegar and wine, warming it on a low heat.

Remove the plums’ stones, add the fruit to the above mixture, together with all the remaining ingredients. (click here to read my tips on preserving with hot peppers)

Let it simmer for around one hour. Mix it in a blender. Pour back to the pan, adjust the taste if necessary and cook 15 minutes or more if you want your sauce to be thicker.

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Hot Plum Sauce with White Wine on Punk Domestics

Chanterelle and Goat Cheese Tart

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The chanterelle is by far my favourite mushroom. Picking it in the forest is easy (its beautiful golden yellow colour is well visible on the ground), quick (they tend to grow in groups) and rarely disappointing, since the chanterelle is rarely attacked by insects. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to go “mushroom hunting” for so many years… Luckily Swiss markets and supermarkets sell them sometimes already in May and I still buy them in late autumn. Chanterelles (apparently called sometimes “egg mushrooms”) are relatively small in Europe, but apparently the ones from Eastern US are as big as fists and weigh up to one kilo!

Chanterelles (especially the smallest ones) are delicious preserved in vinegar, but the dish I became addicted to is Chanterelles and goat cheese tart. I found the recipe in a magazine, but it was so many years ago I can’t remember where. I only remember being very sceptical about the chanterelle-goat cheese mixture. How wrong I was! Chanterelles have a delicate taste, but adding goat cheese doesn’t modify it. It seems to be a perfect combination!

Fresh marjoram is a must in this tart! Do not try to use the dried one, as it is too strong and too bitter.
You may try to substitute it with fresh oregano or thyme, but the taste will be completely different. I know fresh marjoram is sometimes difficult to get (at least where I live), so as soon as chanterelles appear I put a bunch of marjoram in my freezer especially for this tart.

Preparation time: around 1 hour 30 min

Ingredients for one round tart pan (serves 3-4 as a main course or 4-6 as an appetizer):

1 ready-made puff /shortcrust pastry package (mine was a 230g package) or your own home made pastry

250g goat cheese (I put half fresh goat cheese and half ripening, mouldy fat goat cheese)

400 g chanterelles

1 big onion

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon butter

200 ml liquid cream (or half cream and half milk)

3 eggs

a bunch of fresh marjoram

salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

When it reaches the above temperature, grease a tart pan and line it with the pastry, pressing with your fingers. Make small holes in it pricking it with a fork.

If you have small baking dishes, you may also make individual tarts (as I did this time).

Cover the flat surface with a baking sheet and put some dried beans on it*. This way the pastry will not rise too much.

Precook the tart shell until it’s no longer raw, but still white or slightly golden. Take it out, put the beans back into their jar and let the tart shell cool.

In the meantime wash the chanterelles, cut up the bigger ones.

Cut up the onions and fry it in oil. When they become translucent add the chanterelles and the butter.

Cook them on a low heat covered for around 20 minutes, put salt and marjoram leaves and finish cooking uncovered until almost all the liquid is evaporated.

Add the cream, the eggs and pepper.

Crumble the goat cheese on the precooked tart shell.

Cover with egg, cream and chanterelles mixture and bake at 180°C until dark gold.

Serve with a green salad.

*I have a big jar of dried beans bought especially for pastry precooking. You can use the same jar of beans for years.

Hot Mango Sauce

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One is always advised to preserve only seasonal produce. I have no idea if July is the mango season, especially since it does not grow here and since I see it all year round on my market. Sometimes I am lucky to stumble upon big, ripe and cheap mangoes and then I can’t stop myself from buying some and filling jars for my pantry. This time I decided to do some more hot and sweet mango sauce.

This quick and easy sauce has a beautiful intense and sunny colour. It is delicious on roast pork, chicken, on toasts, rice, green salad, as a dip…

Several tips for those who are not used to handle hot peppers:

1-Wear gloves while washing or cutting them !

2- Add your peppers gradually. They vary a lot in size, in hotness, and even the same variety can be completely different depending on the season and country of origin. I always mix peppers and add them gradually until the sauce acquires the desired taste.

3-Do not throw away the seeds if you want the sauce to be even hotter! (they are the hottest part of the peppers).

4- Keep in mind that the warm sauce is always hotter in taste than the cold one…

5- Decide the colour you want to obtain. If you add green peppers the sauce doesn’t usually change colour. It stays beautifully yellow with some green spots. When using red peppers, be prepared for a slight change of coulour: it becomes orange or even reddish (if cooked for a longer time). I made those two with the same mango, but different peppers:

6-Make notes of the exact proportions of your sauce together with the date you’ll put on your jar label. This way next time you’ll know how to modify it if it is not perfect.

Preparation: around 30 minutes + a couple of hours for cooling + 20 minutes for processing

Ingredients: (2 mangoes will yield around 3-4 200ml jars, but it depends on the fruits’ juiciness and ripeness)

2 mangoes

1 T salt

200 g (1 cup) sugar

200 ml (6 3/4 oz) white wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5% acid)

preferably fresh, red or green hot peppers (I put 3 flat tablespoons of tiny “bird’s eye” peppers and my sauce was quite hot)

Cut off the peppers’ stems. Cut in half lengthwise and throw away the seeds (or not! if you want your sauce extra hot).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Put aside.

Peel the mangoes, cut up the flesh. Mix the mangoes in a food processor.

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date (do not forget to put down the exact amounts of every ingredient you used).

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.