Mushroom ratatouille and mozuku

An autumnal ratatouille and a Japanese sea weed. モズクmozuku is a sea weed from Okinawa that looks like small leaves in a jelly. They are sold already prepared or with a sauce aside like here.

I had veggies to finish : onion, white aubergine, purple aubergine, sweet green peppers.

Mixed dry Italian mushrooms including porcini.

I soaked and stir-fried the mushrooms with garlic. Then cooked my veggies in the same oil.

I completed with tomato paste, thyme.

I mixed the mozuku sea weed with its sauce (sweet vinegar) and added a few pieces of ginger. That can be drunk like a little soup.

Cabbage, konnyaku and natto.

Brown rice.

My lunch.

Pomelo and sea grape temaki-zushi (green sushi cones)

Temaki means hand-roll. Temaki-zushi are casual, and ideal for sushi party at home. You put the ingredients on the table :

And guests make a cone pocket with nori seaweed sheet, and fill it with rice and whatever they like. That’s like when you fill your newspaper cone with hot chestnuts, anybody can do it.

Easy no ?

Today, the sushi-meshi (flavored rice) is a little special. The classic version is white rice with a vinegar/sugar/salt seasoning. My rice is polished hatsuga (germinated rice). My seasoning is pomelo juice + kurozato (Okinawan black sugar) and very very little salt. Because this is a salty filling :

Umi-budo, ‘sea grapes’ seaweeds (more about it here)

More veggies.

And you get a sushi that tastes like a tropical sea breeze…

Tofu, natto and green caviar…

A very nutritious and delicious Okinawan style dish. It’s plant based, and easy to prepare… if you have the ingredients.
Well, go and fish that green caviar sea weed :

umi-budo (more here)

It’s very firm momendoufu (cotton tofu). I have pressed it with plate, slightly to extract excess water. The natto (fermented soy beans) is mixed with mustard and black rice vinegar. Around, you see bits of negi whites and shishito green pepper.

The grapes of waves. Okinawa’s green caviar.

海ぶどう umi-budo is an Okinawan delicacy. The name is literally a “sea grapes” and it’s a tasty seaweed. No, it’s the tastiest seaweed I’ve eaten so far, and I’ve tried a few in Japan.

It’s caulerpa lentillifera. It’s also called the “green caviar“. It’s not cheap for a sea produce here, but still affordable. Yes, the taste and mouth feel are caviardesque. It has some resemblance with salicornia or samphire too.

It is loaded with nutrients, particularly minerals like iron and others vitamin. That’s one more Okinawan super-food. But anything they graze there would have magic powers, so they have no merit to still look like kids in their 90’s… You can feel it is loaded with iodine, and very salty too. If you like strong taste seafood you’ll love it, but that’s surely not for everybody. It’s usually eaten raw, with some sour or vinegar sauce to contrast it.

with tofu

in sushi

Try it some day !

Tofu : tout !

Reblog from the “tofu page”

It’s compilation on the tofu topic…I add data regularly.

3 main tofu textures :

You have Japanese tofu that is :
kinu-dofu, silky tofu
momen-dofu, cotton tofu (translated as *firm tofu* in English)
Both are soft and watery. The first is very soft like egg pudding, the second is soft like starch pudding.
Really firm and dry tofu, the one that has a texture closer to meat is popular in China. It’s uncommon in Japan, except ….

Bottom line : If you like firm tofu…