Tofu lasagna and farm fruits

Not the Italian lasagne. 豆腐ラザニア tofu rasaniya It’s a Japanese comfort dish. Not an homonym, it’s really inspired by the pasta dish but without the pasta. You are left with very soft tofu in Italian style sauces. Warm and tender. It’s usually served with rice.

Fruits like those you pick in the backyard. I went to the countryside. I have some from a farm, others from farmer’s market. They are the fruits you can see in local woods right now, kaki persimmons, mikan oranges, yuzu citrus. You can see two types of kaki, some rounds and some ogive ones. The latter may be shibui (tart) and the farm lady said we should guess… A bit of branch is left and if they are tart, we can do that.

That’s a quickly thrown casual meal. I had tomato sauce, silky tofu and these blanched veggies : bell peppers and ninniku no me (garlic stalks).

For the cheezy sauce as usual sake kasu, miso and this time the oil was sesame oil. I have added grated ukon (turmeric).

Alternate and bake. I topped with toasted bread crumbs.

Genmai, brown rice. I was given good farm rice too.

Serve very hot. Mmmm…

Champilège 3 : Fall fungi pie soup

Une soupe en croûte.
A fragrant Autumnal broth, trapped under a crispy pie.

Awabi-take. The name literally means “abalone mushroom”. It’s a type of eringii.

Bunapi and awabi-take.

In a white wine chicken broth, with thyme.

Sealed, and baked.

Grating wasabi

Grating wasabi for a refreshing tofu dish. That’s a combination of two interesting textures.

A fresh wasabi root. I’ve simple grated it. That’s very different from the product in the tube. More flavored and less strong.

Okra (gombos). They have a huge jelly strength hidden in them. Like this :

Okra tororo : blanched okra, chilled, pasted in the blender. Flavored to taste with grated wasabi and soy sauce.

You can, for instance, serve okra tororo with soba.

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.

In small cubes.

I’ve poured the tororo on the tofu.

Koyadofu tteokbokki, cooking Korean street’s sticks of fire.

Today, I’ve made tteokbokki that I call tokkpokki because that’s how I hear it and remember when I have no spell-checker. Yes, that’s hot !

Here are the ingredients :
-the ttoek are Korean mochi or blocks of rice paste. For this dish the cylinder shape is common.
-veggies (carrot, onion, garlic)
-sauce
-a protein, here tofu (that could be strings of meat, slices of fishcake or boiled egg)

The spicy Korean miso, gochujang. I’ve added paprika powder for more redness, and 2 dried hot chilis for spiciness. That way you can choose the level of hotness you wish.

Koyadofu is freeze-dried tofu. The hard blocks can be re-hydrated in water in a few minutes.

They become like sponges. I had one big block that I cut in slices.

I add the different ingredients, the sauce, water, then the ttoek and let simmer half an hour. Salt, sugar, hot chili can be added to taste.

That’s ready.

Sanchu, Korean salad. That’s not what Koreans do but I like it as a side here.

A glass of makkoli rice drink.

The meal was complete with kimchi, and green jeon pancakes.

For more : Korean Compil’

Purple beans, Mexican wind.

Today’s bean lunch takes us to Mexiiiico ! I feel so much warmer after eating this.

I’ve added spices, cumin, nutmeg, powdered jalapeno, and a diced carrot to boiled azuki beans (I restocked big time : soaked and cooked 1 kg !). The salsa is from a jar.