Mitsuba and Spring roll du jour

Hot weather is back and Spring roll addiction too. They are never exactly the same. Is there a more convenient way to eat a large variety of raw vegetables ?

三つ葉 mitsuba means “3 leaves” in Japanese. It’s a very common herb here. I’d say it’s Japanese coriander. It is not so strong, it’s different but if you ate some you’d think about coriander or cilantro.
It is not great to cook it, so it’s added to salads, to garnish a soup.

The base is grated Japanese turnip, with some leaves. I’ve let it a while and squeezed excess water.

Gochujang (Korean spicy miso) + natto.

Cucumbers.

Simple chijimi (garlic chive pancakes)

Onion, nira (garlic chives), peppers…

The batter is flour and potato starch. I cook them in neutral oil and add sesame oil to finish.

Cut in squares.

Grilled cauliflower

Simple and delicious grilled veggie meal with a fresh fougasse bread.

Sliced Spring cauliflower and onion, painted with olive oil. Salt, pepper.

Roasted 15 minutes under the grill.

Sprinkle paprika on top. Serve with edamame for more proteins …

…and baby leaf salad.

The dressing is leftover of Korean pancake dipping sauce (soy sauce, black rice vinegar, chili peppers, onion…).
The bread is in another post.

Golden sweet potato waffles

Simple waffles with 2 yellow twists.

You can see these bits in them. They are cubes of baked sweet potato.

Kurikogane potato (more here)

The second ray of sunlight is a generous teaspoon of turmeric in the batter. Mix. Heat the waffle-maker. Cook. Prepare coffee.

When it rains, jeon and makkoli

It was raining, raining, raining today…

When it rains, the Koreans make jeon as the noise of cooking them is similar to the sound of rain drops falling. And they drink makkoli, because… Well, I guess they must be thirsty.

I’ve got makkoli from the convenience store. It’s written in Japanese but that’s the real thing. It’s a drink made of fermented wine, close to Japanese amazake (sweet sake). But the Japanese one is for kids, while the makkoli has 6% alcohol, like a wine. I have to be careful because that’s so sweet that I’d drink that like milk, well even more easily than milk. But then, I don’t make a merry tispy fellow, just a person suddenly feeling sick. So, let’s be reasonable.

Chijimi and jeon are both names of Korean pancakes, well in Osaka, it’s all chijimi and you’ve seen some before here.
That’s the fashion to make green nira chijimi. I’ve seen restaurants had them. That’s a good idea,

nira

I have added a whole bunch of nira (garlic chives) into the blender with flour, a piece of potato and potato starch. That’s not so solid as usual, but if you flip them carefully, no problem. The taste is very green. I’ve used the color of onion and yellow bell pepper to contrast.