A colorful pasta, veggie, seafood one-dish meal.
Tagliatelle made with durum semolina plus a little matcha green tea powder.
Asari shellfish.
Cooked with garlic, chili, white wine, tomato paste…
…konnyaku, capers, favas (broad beans)
… stalks on mitsuba. The leaves decorate the serving plate.
Here is an okayu, a congee, a rice porridge.
Brown rice, soaked. Red peas boiled (Hokkaido aka endomame). A little salt. Lots of water. 3 hours simmering slowly in a rice cooker, a crockpot, or on a stove.
Umeboshi with red shiso.
To garnish : umeboshi flesh, cut shiso (from the umeboshi), stalks of mitsuba and black sesame.
Frozen tofu.
Refried briefly with Indian spice mix and turmeric.
A quick brunch.
Today’s lunch is Mexican style and plant based. I tried to make it not spicy for a guest not fan of hot chilis but, but…
Home-made whole wheat tortillas
Azuki beans, simmered with red wine, paprika, onion, garlic, a few shishito peppers, lots of cumin, thyme, a little cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, olive oil.
Mitsuba leaves, grilled shishito and avocado.
The idea is to fill the tortillas with beans and these greens.
Problem : Shishito peppers are usually not spicier than bell peppers. But it’s the end of Summer, and these are relatively hot… That’s great for me, not for those that have a sensitivity to hot peppers.
Side dish : okonomiyaki cabbage. Well it’s simply stir-fried with garlic and ginger, then flavored with sauce (Bulldog) for okonomiyaki.
As a dessert, double chocolate muffins :
Inari-zushi are sushi in little pockets like this (click). I wanted to make a variation , inari soba, with soba noodles instead of rice but I made a technical mistake, so the taste is here, delicious, but the shape, not at all… The second dish is a seaweed and veggie soup.
Abura-age (fried tofu) simmered in a broth of soy sauce, paprika, with a little chili and garlic.
MY MISTAKE : I forgot to open the pockets before simmering. And later, that was… impossible without tearing all apart.
I have made kujo negi into threads :
I’ve salted slightly and mixed with fresh soba buckwheat noodles (boiled 1 minute, then cooled in iced water, drained).
So I’ve placed the noodles on top of the pockets. The project was to fill them.
Fresh edamame from kuromame (black soy beans)
You need to cook them. It’s possible to rub the pods with salt and boil them that way, or to open as I did.
Inspired from a Chinese soup. I’ve cooked green and black edamame, dices of kabocha pumpkin and slices of okra. I’ve added sea salt and mozuku seaweed to the cooled broth. A few slices of sudachi lime bring fruity acidity.
Mixed baby leaves, plus mitsuba and cherry tomatoes.
My lunch !
That’s biryani party at the Daring Cook’s challenge.
Grace, one of our talented non-blogging Daring Kitchen members, was our Daring Cooks’ August hostess who shared with us some of her family’s tried and true Bengali Biryani recipes – all of them delicious and all of them prepared fresh from our own kitchens!
I had a weird one in archives :
I made 2.
seafood biryani (coming soon)
And this veggie biryani with a fruity touch :
Pineapple biryani. I took the recipe at the end as a guideline…I drifted away a little to adapt to my products.
Pineapple is the accent.
Pearl sweet corn.
Okra and red bell pepper. I used these season veggies for the gravy. I replace the coriander by mitsuba leaves.
The gravy, with home-made ghee.
Besides I prepared a ghee flavored rice with turmeric, cashew nuts and pineapple dices.
I had no basmati or other biryani specific rice. The only long grain rice I could get is Thai jasmine rice. I cooked it in the rice-cooker.
Layer rice and gravy, close the lid and reheat slowly.
First side dish : chick pea raita. I mixed boiled chick peas, coconut yogurt, very little grated garlic, salt, lemon juice and stalks of mitsuba. Let a few hours in the fridge.
Aubergine chutney as a second side.
Basic recipe from the challenge :
Vegetable Biryani:
Servings: 6
Ingredients
4 tablespoons (60 ml) (2 oz) (60 ml) ghee
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
½ inch (2½ cm) ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
4 tablespoons (60 ml) (2/3 oz) (20 gm) desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon chilli powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
Salt
14 oz (400 gm) canned tomatoes
9 oz (250 gm) frozen sweetcorn, thawed
5 oz (150 gm) paneer, cut into ½ inch (1 cm) pieces
2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped
2 tablespoons (30 ml) lemon juice
1 tablespoon fresh mint, choppedRice:
6 tablespoons (90 ml) (3 oz) (90 ml) ghee
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
4 whole cloves
4 whole black peppercorns
1 small cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 cardamom pod
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 cup (240 ml) (6½ oz) (185 gm) basmati rice, soaked for 30 minutes and drained
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon cumin
Salt
1 cup (250 ml) (6-1/3 oz) (180 gm) raisins
½ cup (120 ml) (85 gm) (3 oz) blanched almonds, halved
½ cup (120 ml) (85 gm) (3 oz) cashews, halved
2 cups (500 ml) water
Directions:1. Melt the ghee in a large saucepan over medium high heat and fry the cumin seeds until fragrant. Add the garlic, ginger, and onion and fry until golden brown. Stir in the coconut and fry for 2 minutes. Stir in the spices, salt, tomatoes, sweet corn, and paneer. Cook for about 20 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in the coriander, lemon juice, and mint. Remove from the heat.
2. For the rice, melt the rest of the ghee in another large saucepan and fry the whole spices until fragrant. Add the onion and fry until golden brown. Mix in the rice and fry for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in the spices, salt, raisins, nuts, and water and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes or until the rice is dry.
3. Layer the rice and vegetables in thin layers in a large saucepan, starting and ending with a layer of rice. Cover and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.
GOURMANDE in OSAKA 