A Japanese dish. Multiple dishes, but simple and ready in a few minutes.
Sashimi konnyaku. Slice seaweed flavored konnyaku, to be served chilled, like sashimi fish. Here with sweet chili sauce.
Genmai (brown rice) with sesame.
Hokke (arabesque greenling) that was salted. I simply grilled it under the broiler.
About hokke.
A water soup. As the rest was already very salty, there is just hot water, wakame seaweeds, carrot and nira (garlic chives).
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.
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.
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.
A little crispy lunch, a main, a soup, a fruit…
Inside, a rainbow of veggies and meat.
It’s very simple and quick to prepare, actually.
Wasabina, wasabi greens.
I poached them one minute in boiling water, then refreshed in iced water to retain the colour and freshness.
Very thin slices of beef that I briefly poached in hot water.
On Spring roll skins, meat, kimchi and green. That’s all.
Packed. I painted these with oil, and put a second layer. Then grilled in the oven toaster.
A golden hot parcel ready to be devoured.
In bonus, a beef soup. I cooked the leaves, then the meat in the same hot water. I’ve kept it as a base for this soup, added sea salt, wakame sea weed, dry chili and roast sesame seeds.
And there is a letfover : the stalks and some leaves of greens sliced, flavored with a little soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, grated raw ginger and sesame. That will be a tsukemono (pickle) for tomorrow.
Fish and seaweeds on the plate today.
Are there still Catholics that follow the tradition of eating fish on Fridays ? That was like a law when I was a kid and even at school they’d put fish on the menu that day. Well, they had not their concept of food industry fish. It’s a square or rectangle animal that lives in icebergs and is covered by a fur of fried bread crumbs. Nothing like that here. I’ve bought a back of Hokkaido salmon and I’ve cut it in rectangles myself, not to imitate, but I had enough for a dozen of servings. I froze some.
It’s not an Halloween sushi, but…
The sauce is only tartare by the name. It is made by mixing in a blender, blanched favas (broad beans) with rice vinegar, water, salt, pepper. Then I’ve added a big spoon of aonori seaweed flakes to bring even more marine breeze to the palate.
Wakame seaweed as a salad.
It’s a cold plate because the weather is still hellish hot here. The fish is steamed and chilled.
The tomato garlic rice (germinated hatsuga genmai) in its edible container. The green bits are favas.
A table !
There is less to wash when you eat the vessel.
Here is the meal around this super-healthy roll sushi (made here) with Hokkaido salmon, negi and brown rice.
Of course, I’ve sliced the maki (roll) and served with soy sauce to dip. Then 2 hot day sides :
I have a pot of red shiso… that I don’t water enough. Well, it survived so far. Umeboshi pickled plums are colored and flavored with this shiso.
The sauce is a pasted umeboshi and rice vinegar. On grated daikon. Shiso leaves to pinpoint the ume flavor. That’s all.
That’s simple, easy. That’s also deliciously fragrant and refreshing.
Chilled soup : dashi broth, ice cubes, wakame seaweed, soy sauce, sesame and dry chili.
Enjoy this cool Summer lunch !
Mmmmmmm…. umai !
GOURMANDE in OSAKA 