Spring eggs floating on a green pond

Ultra-fresh Spring eggs are a delicacy. They are perfect to make poached eggs. This is a light first dish, ideal to start a big Easter feast.

They are placed on a simple soup of romaine salad. Seasoned with spices.

na-no-hana

My green fix, with nanohana (rape blossoms.

With some râpées (grated potatoes, with cut of nanohana and parsley).

The soup is made of the stalks and bigger leaves of the nanohana, juiced. And some fresh sakekasu (sake lees). The soup is cooked a few minutes till it thickens.

That’s a new one. It’s less sweet than the Autumn one, but still sweet and mellow. That balances the bitterness of the vegetable.

Steamed blossoms to complete. That’s a a very green lunch.

Today’s ramen, tan tan tan…

Inspired by tan tan men. But it’s really free style with what I had in stock. That was delicious.

Boiled ramen noodles and bok choi.

The ground mix : azuki beans, minced onion and garlic, chili paste, spices, stir-fried.

Added hot broth, and sesame paste (black and white, that’s why it’s gray). The paste is not very aesthetic, but it brings fat and creaminess. More chili. And parsley.

Some tempura (onion and tsubomina), as a side, to place on top.

Kuromame bean is the new black

黒豆
This is a compilation about ideas to cook kuromame (black soy beans). First, you need to boil them, go to the end of this post for instructions.

SIDE DISH

As a side dish for :
kare raisu (Japanese curry)
Korean wind lunch
Rum vanilla apple black beans, in fragrant tortilla

WITH RICE

Rice and beans.

Black rice
Same recipe as seki-han, red rice (red rice), but with kuromame…

Salade de riz Méditerranée

BEAN BALLS

A variation to burger or croquette.

Tama (green lemon big bean ball)

Swedish bean balls
Dark green curry with bean balls

OTHERS :

Marron berry chunky terrine (France)

Feijoada with pig trotter (Brazil)

Enfrijoladas frescas (Mexico)

kuromame shiso empanadas

also in :
Japanese garden creamy Winter soup
four bean gumbo
‘lumaca’ soup

SWEET :

Recooked in a syrup of sugar and grated fresh ginger.

Sweetened with syrup of kurozato (black sugar). They are floating with black sesame on top a bowl of sweet potato okayu

PREPARATION OF DRIED BEANS :

Cooking them is quite long, that can take 3 or 4 hours, after soaking them 24 hours. The time is hard to “predict” as it depends on the size of beans and their age (this year’s crop, or older…).

Process :
-Anyway, rinse them and soak them. You can add baking soda or not (I don’t but Japanese water is not harsh).
-Bring them to boil, you use the soaking water or change. In the first case, color will be more vivid. Boil them at least 10 minutes and take away the foam on surface (the toxic substance of beans).
-Continue on low heat, in a crock pot if you want. Beans are cooked when they are soft.
I cook a batch of 250g without any flavoring, and I freeze most in cups (silicone cupcake molds) for further use.

Tip (that I don’t use) : to keep the color, you can add some nails or other iron objects that are rusted.

Japan’s most common recipe is to cook them with sugar (same weight as the beans) added from the soaking water, or from the low heat simmering… or like I do later. The sweet black beans are one item of the New Year good luck dishes. For savory recipes, you can add a piece of kombu seaweed in the water.

Soupe du jour : lumaca pace…

It cooks at the slow speed of a snail…
Because we have a weather to eat soup. As you can see, it contains pasta and many items but no lumaca (snail), only lumaca pasta (the package claims that, it should be “lumaconi” maybe).