Gnocchi x gnocchi

Gnocchi di patata ? Gnocchi di polenta ?

That’s the Daring Cook’s challenge of this month : potato gnocchi.

Todd, who is The Daring Kitchen’s AWESOME webmaster and an amazing cook, is our September Daring Cooks’ host! Todd challenged us to make light and fluffy potato Gnocchi and encouraged us to flavor the lil pillows of goodness and go wild with a sauce to top them with!

As I had already made some and I wanted a fresher Summer version, I tried to combine polenta gnocchi and potato gnocchi recipes :

It’s gluten free. I didn’t add flour. I cooked the polenta, and made mashed potato. I mixed about 60% potato, 40% polenta. Flavored with salt, nutmeg, black pepper, a little olive oil. Let cool a few hours.

Prepared a sauce (tomato, garlic, olive oil) and stir-fried peppers and onions with garlic and rosemary.

Formed gnocchi with the chilled dough, coated them in sauce.
They can’t be boiled or they would fall apart (yep, I tried). It’s not a problem, they can reheated in the sauce.

Actually, I ate the second serving not reheated and the dish is as good hot as cold. It’s great for this hot season.

Matcha tortilla tacos

A Mexican-Japanese fusion dish. I’ve added Japanese matcha tea, azuki beans and rice to tacos.

Azuki bean chili, with rice, green peppers, fresh thyme and dried tomatoes.

Wheat flour tortillas with matcha green tea powder.

Add a piece of steam corn cob. And wrap…

Green chili polenta

Today polenta, and as usual, a variety of season produce.

I cooked the polenta grain. Added minced and salted sweet green chili, small bits of hot chili (red). Pepper, nutmeg. Let chill overnight in a mold. Then put on a dish, paint with olive oil and pass a few minutes under the grill. Pour a little tomato juice around in the dish. Serve hot.

Frozen cotton tofu (momendofu). I froze the whole block in its water. Thawed. Press to push out the water, cut in cubes. As you can see, it has a bread like texture now.

Stir-fried frozen tofu with eringi mushroom, garlic, olive oil.

Na no hana no ohitashi (rape blossoms). They are blanched and refreshed. With tomato juice agar jelly.

Edamame pesto salad. Boiled edamame, onion, yellow pepper, the broken leaves of na no hana. I mixed in a leftover of sesame basil pesto. Let a few hours in the fridge.

Nashi. Japanese pear.

Salmon Summer tacos (home-made masa tortilla)

A fresh Mexican style lunch today…

The market’s findings…

Yeah ! Cilantro, coriander.

Masa tortillas. Well, it’s work in progress for the shape, but they taste great. It’s too simple, just add water, mix, knead, wait, spread… Just train. But I can’t buy masa harina easily, so I won’t have many opportunities for training.

If you don’t have masa harina , you can make :
wheat tortilla
corn tortilla (with grits, polenta, they are not gluten free)

Salmon and green peppers are grilled…

Before filling the shells…

… on top of the veggies. I’ve added some minced hot chili that does not appear on photos (it’s red), and a few drops of Jalapeno Tabasco sauce.

Now let’s devour that…

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.