Bear beer pancakes, with 3 Autumn fruits

A breakfast that feels the season. Grapes, apples and kabosu lime. This citrus from Kyushu has the size of a ping-pong ball and a woody fragrance. It is often served with fish or to make a ponzu sauce (citrus and soy).
You can see many types of citrus, lemons, lime, oranges on this blog. Japan has a huge variety and they are all different in flavor. That’s really great.

I was given beer. It’s alcohol free beer that the police gives away as part of a campaign against… drunk walking. I mean they give that to people passing on foot in the street. I’m not a fan of beer, but I can tell that this one is not really good, very bitter. But it’s OK to cook. It gives a nice barley flavor to pancakes and lightens them.

The batter made in the blender : beer of course, flour and whole wheat flour (half/half), a little coconut cream. I was out of regular sugar, so after pouring the batter in the pan I’ve sprinkled a little :

zarame sugar.

The skin of these grapes is said to be not very good for health. I’ve peeled them.

Sliced the apple. Tossed in juice of kabosu and garnished with cut peel of the citrus. Unlike the grapes and apples, the kabosu is not sweet and brings a pleasant balance of sourness.

Made the eyes and nose of the bears with coconut cream and kabosu peel.

Too hot to cook ? Too hot to eat ? Cooling full course

We’re in the heat of the hot days. I don’t even feel like eating, but that wouldn’t be a good idea. Let’s make something to enjoy till the last bit !
So here is the menu :

3 brown antipasti
tofu Caprese
kurozato kanten with grapes

Lots of hot weather recommended ingredients :
Kanten (agar) and konnyaku are jellies that help digestion.
Everything plant based, lots of raw.
Different colors and vitamins.
Sour vinegar, strong wasabi.

I know that looks… special. You have raw shiitake mushrooms, sliced, marinated in a little lemon juice.

Konnyaku sticks, with negi leeks. That has no calories or nearly. That’s for the fresh texture of the konnyaku and the pungency of the leek.

Today’s natto with black sesame and wasabi.

Now about the main dish…
capr’inspiration

Too lazy to prepare a sauce, I bring the olive oil, balsamico, salt and pepper on the table.

This time, it’s made with silky tofu and negi as the herb. Silkilicious…

The hardest ! The agar agar has to be cooked 2 minutes ! What a hell. But that’s all.

Just add the flavoring : kurozato, Okinawan black cane sugar. It has a taste of ginger bread, so just that is enough.
The hardened block cut in cubes, served chilled with grapes and toothpicks :

Al Andalus garlic, ajo blanco

This is the end of the end of Summer, there are still got days to savor the mythic cool soup of Malaga : ajo blanco (white garlic).

Refined and simple.

Ajo blanco

Take a mortar. It’s the secret of deliciousness. The blender doesn’t do it.

A small bit of garlic, sea salt. Paste that.
Add a handful of almonds, paste. Add a handful of the white of yesterday’s bread, wet it, paste. Add a little vinegar. Add a good amount of olive oil. Add fresh water.
You can give a little bit of mixer or sieve it to smooth it more, or not.
Let 1 hour in the fridge.

Silky cream.

Malaga is famous for its sweet grapes, they are a logical companion. Otherwise season fruits : melon, apple…

A drizzle of olive oil… and enjoy the refreshment.

Another Spanish chilled soup :

salmorejo

Risotto all’uva, chicken all’yuzu

Another lazy girl lunch. A muscat flavored risotto made with the macchina. Che ? You don’t have a risotto-maker yet ? Well, if you prefer waiting until the George Clooney starts selling them on the telly and all your neighbors get one…

The rice owns its color to the grape, to red wine, but mostly to the addition of 1 tbs per cup of black sticky rice. As you see, I used brown rice.

The machine doesn’t do anything… I fried the sofrito and the rice by hand. I made the stock by hand. I juiced the grapes by hand. Well, “by hand”, ahem, I mean that was not automatically done by the machine’s program. You see the machine in the 4th step, it cooks and stirs. That’s my old Kiki, the home-bakery. The jam program does that. I often use it to simmer sauces.

Remark : I had to add the liquid progressively otherwise that was splashing. IMO addind the liquid progressively brings nothing, the rice doesn’t care, but in a normal sauce pan that would be complicated to heat properly and stir a big amount of stock. I should have put the tap on the box inside the machine but I had not searched it in my many boxes of stuff. That took 1 hour, which was the expected time for brown rice.
Compared to the rice-cooker… well, in my experience, stirring all the time is useless. And I fry the sofrito and rice directly in my cooker (maybe not yours), so it’s more convenient.

Ecce risotto.
It looks a bit liquid. But as my Mum says “the rice keeps cooking after the end of the cooking.”. No kidding, if you take it out of the pan when it’s cooked, it will be over-cooked. Transfer it to the plate 10 minutes before. It finishes absorbing the liquid the time you take the photos. You can already see the difference with the close-ups. And I didn’t take more photos while eating. No time.

Bonus : since I made chicken and leek stock, after the risotto I had boiled chicken and leeks waiting for me. That was perfect with a little juice of green yuzu citrus and sea salt.

Others :
shadow risotto

4 white mushrooms in risotto

radicchio risotto

kabocha “risotto”

runner risotto

Bubbly grapes

Fruity dessert. Table grapes tend to be very sweet. I don’t really appreciate them because it’s too much for me. Unless I mix them with something neutral. to dilute sweetness.