A Winter minestrone with mizuna greens and pancetta

A hot, warm, earthy soup meal with a charming perfume of rosemary.

Winter minestrone is when you don’t get many fresh ingredients. In this season that’s normal. There are no tomatoes, no fresh broads beans. It’s the time to use dry beans. I had some white ones already cooked (my freezer stock).
They discounted the pancetta. As you can see more package than bacon, but well they sell it like the butter at the pharmacy, not cheap. There is a huge “exotic tax”. I buy it only on sales. Yesterday, 50% discount, that was mine !
I had mizuna greens. So why not ?

First the bacon, onions, garlic. Then the rosemary, potatoes and water. After 10 minutes : tomato and stalks of mizuna. After 20 minutes, beans, more green, more garlic. After 20 minutes, finition with salt, pepper, parmesan cheese.

PLUS ! PLUS !
What can you had to this great soup to make it even greater ?
Pancetta fried in olive oil, and oil.
Or mizuna raw leaves and grated parmesan cheese.
I put all that.

White on white, double cheese and cauliflower soufflé

A soufflé doesn’t wait for photos to be taken… so clic clic, that’s all and I rushed to enjoy that marvel of lightness before it falls down.

Cauliflower is white, soufflé batter is white-yellow, cheese is yellow. You see only white… So I have to tell you there are bits of cauliflower, cauliflower purée, pizza cheese, parmesan and mace in this warm foam.

Baby size. Family size :

Creamy bean gratin

Many veggies around a hot gratin. Another easy lunch.

2 servings of (frozen) white beans as a base. Plus tomato paste, garlic, sage, silky tofu. On top, parmesan cheese and olive oil.

Simple one ingredient recipe : small Japanese turnips. And that’s all.

They get dried and slightly “burnt” first. The juice caramelised and gave them a sweet taste.

I should get more leafy greens no ? Oh, an idea :

Express kale soup (powder for smoothies) with South-Asian spices : galangal, lemon grass, leafs of citrus.

Where do you hail from Miss Doria ?

Kinoko Doria. Mushroom Doria.

It’s a hot comforting dish totally adopted by Japan… but where does that come from exactly ? Big mystery !

It seems Miss Doria arrived, without her luggage in the port of Yokohoma, at least 100 years ago.
I never got an explanation from where it comes. What country ? Wikipedia says it’s from mine.
Roughly, their tale :

At the origine, the dish was created in a restaurant in Paris and name from the noble Italian family “Doria”. That was a dish with cucumber, egg, and tomato to represent the flag of Italy…. Then in 1925, it was made in Yokohama, by Swiss chef Saly Weil , with shrimp bechamel…

Logical ? Plausible ? Saly Weil arrived in Japan in 1927, they also say.
There is a little more on that chef on the web.
Saly was a man… I liked the idea of an international woman chef in the 1920’s. Too bad.

I have not found anything about Doria in Europe.

So you were born in Paris, Miss Doria ? Champignons de Paris, mushrooms. Why Paris ? Because they started growing some mousserons wild mushrooms in the caves under Paris. Probably at the time of the supposed Doria invention.

Make a 3 step doria

1. Make rice :
Rice pilaf or refried in sauce… any flavor is OK.

2. White layer
Top with white sauce and cheese. The layer can be… very thick. I am little player. I don’t want to be able to say it’s as thick as my waist and hear people giggle and say : “Oh yeah !”.

3 Gratinage
In the oven, 10 minutes. Serve hooooot ! You can even serve it on a keep-me-hooot brasero.

Kobe being a copycat town of Yokohama, it has a number of Doria Restaurants. All over Japan, it is served in the Yoshoku Restaurants. Yoshoku is old-style “Western for Japanese” food that started from Meiji Era. The Doria shops offer countless variations.

Types of Doria

Common colors of rice sauce : yellow (butter and “saffron”), red (tomato), orange, brown (meat sauce), green…
Common types : plain doria, chicken doria, seafood doria
Optional topping : I have seen some topped by : a hamburger, an egg, a big shrimp, tons of cheese, an omelette, sausages, meat-balls, fried items like croquettes…

Sunny sides.

Well, today’s flavor… it is a Milano-fu Doria (Doria Milanese)… totally un-Milanese, of course.

Mushrooms, onions, garlic, stir-fried brown rice, with lots of tomato paste, nutmeg, turmeric, herbes de Provence. I made 2 layers of rice. In between : raw spinach and Asian napa cabbage.
A thin layer of simple white sauce with a little Hokkaido cheddar. Flakes of aged parmesan (very hard…).

(meal with double serving of rice)

Cal 726 F25.9g C112.5g P28.6g

Cheesy tokkpokki al dente ?

I read the post of Chef Joe on the blog Merveilles de la Nourriture, Spicy Korean Rice Cake (ddukbokki) topped with Cheese . He made cheese baked tokkpokki… but in a Korean sauce. That was surely delicious.

After that, my idea was to serve the Korean tokk like Italian pasta, in a tomato sauce and cheese. So I started with garlic and onion in olive oil, added tomato passata, herbes de Provence… then the tokk. The cheese is grated old parmesan. It’s not baked. The last addition is rucola.