I heart skewers

Mini yakitori lunch with skewers of chicken hearts. But let’s start with veggies :

Red sweet pepper.

Summer kabocha.

Chilled cream :
I put in the blender boiled kabocha, a raw red pepper, a few steamed shimeji mushrooms, a little miso and 2 tbs of roast sesame.
Served very cold with freshly ground black pepper on top.
It’s sweet, feeling and refreshing.

Chicken hearts and green sweet pepper skewers. To grill in the oven-toaster.

I’ve painted a few times the hearts with this so-su ( Worscester-style sauce).

Konnyaku noodles and sweet chili sauce.

The most refreshing salad

We are in the middle of a heat wave. That was hot before that’s hard now. Here is a dish based on refreshing ingredients. I already told you the konnyaku noodles were ultra refreshing and another benefit is their fiber greatly helps digestion.

Melon (Provence style). Itokonnyaku (aka shirataki, konnyaku noodles). Hot green chili peppers.

Rinse longly the noodles. Add bits of chili pepper and raw ginger. Put in the fridge to get it very cold.

Carve pearls of melon.

Lay on the noddles. Add the juice that escaped.

Serve very chilled. At the last minute, decorate with ribbons of basil and balsamico reduction.

White waterfall (konnyaku noodles, shirataki)

糸こんにゃく (itokonnyaku) or しらたき(shirataki). They are noddles made of konnyaku. Shirataki means white waterfall as that’s what they look like. And who doesn’t want to eat a fresh mountain torrent in this season ?

Myoga, a veggie related to ginger. Delicious raw.

The noodles are sold in bundles that can unfold or not if you want to cook them in a hot pot. I simply rinsed them in cold water.

That’s a food without calories and it’s popular in the West some diet extremists. I don’t eat konnyaku in order to stuff my face without getting the calories. The food is appreciated in Japan for its texture and the lack of flavor that allows you to match to any flavorful food. A perk is konnyaku fiber favors smooth digestion.
These noddles, served chilled are very refreshing.

The tsuyu (dip sauce : dashi broth + soy sauce + mirin) with grated daikon radish. All the flavor comes from it so the tsuyu has to be coarse. I added green yuzu slices and the myoga.

Natto with mustard.

A small gaspacho.

Bought black gomadofu (black sesame tofu). You can make yours (recipe). This one is sweet. I served as dessert it with a yamamomo berry.

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 :

Rice-cooker mushrooms and beef wine stew (via Gourmande in Osaka)

Last year…

Beef marinated a few hours in red wine, with lemon peel, garlic, laurel, cardamom. Forgot it all day in the rice-cooker (rice porridge mode) with red onion, shiitake mushrooms, konnyaku noodles. Added enoki mushrooms. While I prepared bifun (rice noodles) stri-fried in olive oil, with bok choy and topped with lots of Italian parsley. Bok choy and Italian parsley bifun. Enoki mushrooms. White konnyaku noodles colored by the sauce. Red onion. Cal 5 … Read More