Cinco de burrito, and baked veggies

It seems the Cinco de Mayo, 5/5 on the calendar is the day when the Mexicans eat Mexican food. So I want some too.

So here is the menu : burritos colorados (in red sauce), 3 baked veggies. That’s how I imagine Mexican food.

I made these burritos from scratches. Home-made tortillas, strips of chicken grilled after being marinated in lemon juice, powdered jalapeno, salt and parsley, dices of avocado, parsley, onion…

Covered with a spicy tomato sauce. With soy yogurt, cabbage, avocado dices.

Nagai togarashi, they are local green sweet peppers.
I’ve filled them with sakekasu (sake lees) mixed with minced onion, paprika, turmeric, salt, a little olive oil and lots of cumin.

Baked !

栗黄金 kurikogane (chestnut yellow gold potato) is the princess of sweet potatoes. It is cultivated in Kagoshima, Kyushu. It’s very sweet and flavorful. They make high quality shochu liquor with it.

After being baked. I’ve also baked classic potatoes.

Takana-zuke pickled leaves at home (failed and corrected)

高菜 takana (literally ‘tall leaves’) is a type of large mustard green very popular in Japan. There are even different types of it. Usually it is prepared in tsukemono (pickled) called 高菜漬 takana-zuke.

First weight the leaves. Then wash them under fresh water and put them to dry outside in the sun.

After 2 hours : They are dry, still soft.

Necessary ingredient : 2% of the weight of leaves of natural sea salt.
Optional for flavoring : a piece of kombu seaweed, a dry chili

Put the salt all around the leaves. I put some on the stalk and fold in 2. Put them in a freezing bag with the flavorings.
After 15 minutes, they are already softer, push out the air and close the bag. Place in the fridge.
You are supposed to press the veggies in a pickle press. I have no idea where mine is. So I squeezed the veggies very tight, then placed the bag under something heavy. And squeezed again the next day…

Then… that doesn’t work ! After 2 days, the progress was too slow. FAIL !!!!
So I have added water to cover the leaves and 3 grams of salt per cup. So that’s another recipe now. The next day :

Yeah, much better. I can now make :

mehari sushi

Red and fried snow pellets. Duet of savory arare rice crackers.

In Osaka it’s just snowing mochi.

あられ餅（霰餅) arare mochi.
Arare mochi are cubes of dried mochi of about 1 millimiter. So they look like graupels. Yes, you know graupels ? They are snow pellets.
Arare means “snow pellets / graupels “. OK, I’m not sure what it is exactly, it’s a snow amount, bigger than a snow flake and smaller than an avalanche…
And that also the name of the arare rice crackers made with these cubes.

We can buy them, but I made mines from a block of mochi (see here).

When they are dry, you can fry them. That takes a few seconds till they triple of volume, then take color.

They are very crunchy. You can eat them like that, for the nice taste of fried rice. Or flavor them :

I’ve mixed hot chili (togarashi) and also mild paprika to moderate the fire. And a little salt. Just roll them in the spices.

It’s transparent. It’s “wasabi powder” .

More here.

So you get a set of home-made salty crackers. You can keep them a while… I imagine.

Koya-dofu soup. Reviving dry food.

A Winter soup made from a good old style broth, and a selection of dry food from my pantry.

高野豆腐 kouyadoufu
These blocks are hard, a dry moss like the green one you get to pick flowers in it, but in white. It’s tofu. Dried tofu.

koya Source Koyasan HP

Mount Koya, or Koyasan, is the name of a mountain, inhabited by a community of Buddhist monks, near Nara. They had the idea (or they imported it from China) to dry the tofu on freezing days, and it seems they invented the freeze-dry technique.
The dried tofu changes of textures, becomes like a sponge and it can be stored many months. It’s also very light in weight. It’s very convenient to stock tofu, and to take some when you travel.
When rehydrated, it doubles of volume, and I could cut it slices with scissors as contrarily to fresh tofu, it doesn’t crumbles. The taste is a little different too, more milky.

Here the items of my soup. There is also wakame sea weed, not on this photo.

TIPS :
To rehydrate dry food, cover it with lukewarm liquid. If possible, the liquid should not be salted otherwise it slows the process.
To speed it up, in the case of dry plants like fruits, mushrooms, even rice, you can add a little honey or diluted sugar.
To speed it up in case of protein-rich food like this koyadofu or beans, it’s better to have alkaline water. If yours is acidic, you can add baking soda to it.

more info about dry food

Home-made broth. I have well broken the bones so they released their extract and made the broth very white, full of nutrients.
Then it’s very simple :
-put the dry items, and some fresh minced ginger in a pan/bowl. Cover with warmed broth, add a pinch of sugar.
-wait 20 minutes
-cut the tofu. Add salt to taste. Re-heat.

Mmm… a delicious soup full of juicy items.

Togarashi kabocha tarte for lunch

That was our fav girls’ lunch when I was a student. We’d meet in town, 2 to 4 friends and when we were tired by window shopping we’d invade a salon de thé that proposed savory pumpkin tart, salad and drink set. Then we’d share a wedge of… a full ? Well cake. I have no cake here… well, I don’t show you everything.