Warm mushroom soba soup

The weather is getting a little chilly. The time of warm soup is back. The official season of sake kasu is open, even if I didn’t wait.

Asian cuisines are very careful about seasons of dishes. You’ll say that’s everywhere that wise people try to eat season produce. True, but they have kept a concern that was important in European Medieval cuisines and has since been neglected, which is the effect of food, whether they are cooling or warming. So these are two food said to be “warming” :

Sake kasu (sake lees). The soup made with it, kasujiru, is present all along the cold season in Kansai.

Buckwheat, here in soba noodles. It’s also seen in sobagaki.

I soaked a good handful of mixed dry mushrooms, then added onion, frozen and thawed tofu, garlic, soy sauce. Simmered.

For the sides, I’ve steamed kabocha and reheated hana mame (flower beans) with soy sauce and a little sugar.

I’ve added the soba and sake kasu in the soup, more soy sauce to make it saltier.

And to spice it up a tonic mix : diced ginger, garlic, negi leeks, and chili pepper. Just mixed in, reheated and served.

Kimchi in the kabocha.

A flower on the beans. Lunch is ready.

Soba no mi, buckwheat as rice

Buckwheat groats (sometimes called buckwheat berries) are called 蕎麦の実 soba no mi in Japanese. Mi means fruit/nut, and maybe that’s not too far from the botanical reality as that’s not really a grain. They are often added to cook together with rice. And they can simply replace rice.

Raw.

Cooked in the rice cooker on brown rice program.

I’ve added a few drops of sesame oil and black sesame for even more nutty flavor. No salt because I add it with :

Umeboshi natto.

Satsuma imo (sweet potato) and mizu nasu.

Platter of steamed veggies : suguna kabocha, satsuma imo, bok choi and chestnuts.

Not a pretty dish… This type of aubergine mizu nasu is usually served raw. I’ve sliced (I did) and cut in ribbons (roughly) the flesh. Salted. Rinsed after 19 minutes and sprinkles shikwasa lime juice.

A nice old fashioned meal.

Poteto sobagaki, Japanese gnocchi

This is second hybrid of potato gnocchi. These time I combined it with sobagaki, a traditional Japanese dish made of buckwheat.

Cooking the sobagaki (read here).

I’ve combined mashed potato and sobagaki.

Forming gnocchi.

Boiling them very quickly, just to warm them up before serving… otherwise they melt into the water.

Anerigoma ( tahini , sesame paste) and sudachi citrus juice sauce.

Deconstructed inari soba and 4 treasure mozuku soup

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 !

Tororo soba

It’s a very simple Japanese dish. This fresh sauce, tororo, is made from this root vegetable : Nagaimo.

Grating the nagaimo in the traditional way in a suribashi (mortar). You peel a length of that long potato and you rub it against the line of the pottery. You get this slimy texture, and that’s how we like it as it’s very refreshing. I guess some people don’t appreciate, and this vegetable is not for them.