Walnut crust blue sweet potato pie

It’s very a simple and delicious coffee cake. Few ingredients, little process and full flavor.

Purple satsuma imo sweet potato. The potato has already a flavor of almond cream cake, so not much is needed.

I took the flesh of a baked potato, and smashed it with a little coconut cream, a little Grand Marnier liquor and very little sugar. Just mixed.

The crust is walnut, oatmeal, a little sugar, a pinch of salt and very little water, together in the blender. Then put in molds and dried in the oven. Well I should have taken it out before filling…
The taste is really pure walnut

So just fill the crust.

Serve chilled or warm. And enjoy with your coffee.

Sesame and sesame ramen

A warm ramen lunch to fight the chilly weather.Nothing goes better with pork broth than the nuttiness of toasted sesame.

I bought the noddles and the soup (tonkotsu pork broth).

The reheat noddles and toppings. Sliced ginger and kujo negi leeks. Toasted sesame and kiku chrysanthemum. And on top of that, a little mix of miso, toasted sesame and garlic, pasted together.

A very filling side dish : veggies in gochujang Korean sauce. There are okra, kuromame black soy beans, ninniku no me garlic stalks…

…slices of ukon turmeric.

Pot au feu or pot luck ? Seafood veggie red stew.

A long time ago, a very cheerful lady asked if I liked French pot au feu and I said that was not my favorite dish. She was very disappointed as she had just discovered the dish in a “traditional French restaurant” here in Osaka, and she said : “Really I love everything spicy with tomato sauce, chick peas, seafood and hot dog sausages…”. It seems, she ate an original variation for sure that drifts far away from what most call pot au feu in France.
Well, I’ve made it today without the knackies. I don’t know if that has a name. Maybe the Spanish “cocido de pulpo con patatas”, but I don’t see it with sausages. Well, they are not here.
I have the pulpo (octopus) :

Hokkaido octopus.

Into a broth (onion with cloves, chick peas, bouquet garni, mushrooms).

Boiled.

Added potatoes. Later tomato sauce and a little red wine. a little hot chili.

Kyoto red kabu turnip.

I first added pieces of the root, then stalks, then at the end leaves.

Put it in a pottery.

Cover and announce “pot au feu” or whatever name…

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.

Champilège 3 : Fall fungi pie soup

Une soupe en croûte.
A fragrant Autumnal broth, trapped under a crispy pie.

Awabi-take. The name literally means “abalone mushroom”. It’s a type of eringii.

Bunapi and awabi-take.

In a white wine chicken broth, with thyme.

Sealed, and baked.