Vitamin colors

Three refreshing dishes to munch over hot days. Mix and wait. They served as side for several meals.

Step 1 : leafy tabouleh

Grating ginger.

Grating yuzu peel.

Cutting molokheya. Adding the ginger, citrus peel, leaves, turmeric, onion (grated too), garlic (grated too), salt and water to couscous.

Mix and wait.

Step 2 : green purple coleslaw

Just red cabbage, green bell pepper, daikon radish (grated in threads), yuzu citrus juice. Mix and wait.

Step 3 : grilled Summer salad

Aubergine, red bell pepper and green bell pepper roasted in the oven toaster. Then seasoned with olive oil, rosemary, chili flakes, salt. Mix and wait.

Veggie quickie

A simple veggie lunch plate, with a refreshing dessert. It’s hot, which is normal for the season, even if the news want to make us believe it’s a surprising phenomenon. I eat in consequences.

I’ve started with the mushrooms, cooking them in olive oil with minced garlic and salt. Then added red cabbage.

Then mixed in natto, goya (bitter squash), mitsuba leaves and stalks.

On top : flakes of chili pepper.

I bought these cubes of nata de coco. I really like eating them very cold in Summer. I’ve covered them with home-made coconut yogurt and sprinkled a little nutmeg.

Yakitori tsukune

Tonight yakitori !
But the photos are… night photos. Sorry.

You’ll see nicer in this post with 2 more versions of this basic skewer. And a mini-compil :

other yakitori

Soft tsukune recipe :
-For about 150g of meat (not too lean ground chicken), I’ve added a 1 tbs of ginger (minced), 1 tbs of leek (minced), 1 ts of soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, 2 tbs of sake, 1 tbs of sesame oil, plus a little more salt. After adding the previous ingredients and kneading, I’ve mixed in 2 big tbs of potato starch and about 1/2 cup of water. I let it rest 2 hours so flavors can mix.
-Then the balls are formed and boiled. Bring a pot of water to ebullition, pass on medium heat and throw in freshly made balls. When they are done, they are white all around and they come afloat. Take them away. They can be cooled and stored for a later meal, or used immediately.
-Put balls on skewers, oil, salt and grill. It’s the simple “salt grilled style”.

Yuzu citrus and togarashi hot chili pepper tsukune. I also made nira tsukune by adding minced nira (garlic chive) to the mix.

With the broth I made a soup, adding slices of ginger, shimeji mushrooms and negi leeks.

Lacquered yakitori balls and grilled kabocha

Sauce tsukune.

Sesame tsukune.
Two more variation of tsukune (meat balls) of yakitori (grilled chicken skewer bars). For simple “salt” version, see here.

Yep, they are painted…

The boiled balls (preparation here) are put on skewers, then painted several times with sauce, before, during and after being grilled under the broiler or on a brasero. I have not made my sauce, I’ve used the fruity Bulldog sauce (more here). Some yakitori shops use that, but most make their mix.
For the sesame ones, after 2 or 3 times, I stopped adding sauce but passed the skewer in a mix of white and black sesame seeds.

As I used the oven-toaster, I also grilled thin slices of kabocha pumpkin. Just like that, no salt, no oil. It’s delicious.

Vegetables (raw red onion, blanched and cooled okra and ninniku-no-me garlic stalks) and the leftover of creamy pesto dressing (preparation here). I mixed and let one hour.

Then 2 appetizers, I kept them “nature” without adding salt :

The seeds of kabocha, baked with the rest.

Edamame.

So I had a small casual dinner… well, that was a lunch.

other yakitori

Accras la la…

Just bring accras and you’re starting a French Antilles style party. These appetizers bring the mood. They are fried dumplings with herbs, spices and often morue (cod fish).

With a dip of salsa ? I’d usually spice them enough and I eat them like that, but I often see many Japanese people looking for the sauce whenever that type of dish appears…