Mini pumpkin patch and crunchy kabocha salad

I have a little collection of mini-pumpkin. So I made a kabocha sarada, a pumpkin salad. That’s a healthier alternative to potato salad.
It’s the ideal way to get a refill of vitamins in the darker season.

First, this is my basket :

4 minis. There don’t all have names. Well all pumpkins are called kabocha in Japanese.

A baby butternut.

The smallest is called a botchan kabocha. Botchan, it’s the last youngest son of a family, the spoiled brat.

If you want ideas to use pumpkins, browse :
my pinterest selection
and
Dissection of a Summer kabocha, no waste
and
Cinderella gourmande, recipes of golden carriage
and
kabocha keyword

So take any sweet pumpkin, steam it and take the flesh. Add the white part of negi leeks, a small onion thinly sliced, a little fresh ginger thinly minced. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well.

Add the juice and grated zest of 2 sudachi limes.

Renkon, lotus root. I buy them already peeled, sliced, cleaned and blanched, but you can do it yourself

Small cucumbers, cut in sticks. Add the cucumber and lotus into the kabocha mix. You may need to add water. Cover and let a few hours in the fridge.

The next day, flavors have mixed harmoniously.

I eat it over 2 or 3 days as a side dish, or as an item to fill a lunch box.

Sesame fresh cabbage wraps (lunch pack ready)

A simple refreshing plant-based lunch. It’s really crunchy and nutty. That’s popular in kombini (convenience stores) these days, but home-made is so much better.

First make some wraps with wheat flour, olive oil and water (recipe here).

After making, I’ve spritzed water on my tortillas and rolled them with cooking paper. The goal is to keep them flexible and easy to roll without breaking. They can be kept a few days in the fridge.

Grated cabbage.

A few other veggies. For the sauce tofunaise + freshly ground toasted sesame + a few chili flakes.

In the paper, they are ready to go. Serve with hot tea and a fruit :

Summer inari-zushi

Inari is the type of sushi contained in a sweetly soaked pouch of fried tofu. The pronunciation is Zushi in this word, inarizushi.
With season produce, they make a pleasant plant-based lunch.

I told you that so far the rainy season was a dry one, but that’s changing as we are reaching the end : It rains seriously !

I bought this. 油揚げ, abura age. They are slices of tofu, deep-fried.

Cut and they become little bags to contain your sushi.

My rice is a mix of mochigome (sticky rice) and genmai (brown rice) . Flavored with kurosu (black rice vinegar), very little salt and grated carrot.

I rinsed the abura age pouches with hot water to eliminate the excess of oil, then simmered them in a little sweet broth (shoyu soy sauce, kurozato black sugar, chili pepper and laurel). I don’t want mine too sweet.
Toppings : edamame fresh soy beans, fresh sweet corn, sweet green chili, carrot.

Served with kaiware daikon sprouts.

Easter hanami bento

A lunch to bring outside.

In a park… with cherry blossoms.

There are kyaraben (decorated bento) artists that produce masterpieces. I admire them, but that’s not for me.
I just tried to make it thematic colorful, thematic and tasty, without spending the night making it.

Mixed rice (brown and sticky), with green peas, and ninnikunome (garlic stalks) as a fence.

Shrimps and edamame marinated in yuzu juice.

Spring salad : spring onion, potato, parsley, turmeric.
I made both it the night before. It’s a salad that gets better when longly marinated. The ideal bento food.
For decoration : Blossoms of daikon radish.

Not very visible : small pies of potatoes flavored with miso and sakekasu (leftovers). Blossoms of carrots.
Desserts : A kumquat. Easter eggs.

The full menu.

Out there. Yes, an additional dessert, torta di riso (see here). The truth is that was too much. After the bento, I didn’t want to eat the cake, but I’ve eaten it later, for tea.

GOHAN Japanese rice, A to Z

RICE

The most important ingredient of Japanese cuisine is rice. Japanese rice are of the japonica style, they are round and firm. Outside Japan, you can get some sushi rice, or Italian arborio that are of japanica cultivar too. Sticky rice is a different type, it’s called mochigome in Japanese. Rice has different names in Japanese. Kome, okome, the plant. Gohan, meshi when it’s cooked…

how to cook Japanese rice (without a rice cooker)
genmai brown rice(healthier)
sticky rice