My simple vinaigrette
Oct0
How do you like your vinaigrette? Do you buy it or do you make it yourself? I personally keep a bottle of self-made vinaigrette in the fridge which I mix with whatever I currently feel like. I use it for salads obviously but also for some simple dishes instead of a heavy sauce (like taboulé for example). I prefer to make small amounts at once to prevent the vinaigrette from standing too long in the fridge. What really helps is if you have a vinaigrette shaker or one of those saucing bottles that chefs normally use. You can store those in the fridge and they allow you to neatly apply the sauce on your dish.
Here is my recipe and a few variations:
Ingredients
- 50 ml olive oil
- 50 ml sunflower oil
- 1 1/2 Tbsp cider vinegar
- salt and pepper
- Combine the ingredients in a bowl, emulsify them with an immersion blender and keep in the fridge until you need it. Shake well before use.
Variations/Ideas
- Traditional french mustard dressing: add 1-2 tsp of Dijon mustard to the basic recipe. (This is generally my favourite)
- Instead of the cider vinegar you can use balsamic vinegar for example. Always use the best balsamic vinegar/olive oil for your salad dressings (and lower quality olive oil for cooking).
- Instead of 1 1/2 Tbsp of cider vinegar you can use 2 Tbsp of lemon/lime juice.
- You can add a little water so the vinaigrette doesn’t feel too heavy from the oil.
- Shallots, diced tomatoes, dill, leeks are nice additions to variate the vinaigrette.
Tarte aux Tomates (Tomato Tart)
Oct1
When I moved here to France I started to get to know French cuisine. One thing I truly fell in love with are tarts and quiches of all sort. If you wonder what’s the difference… well quiches normally always contain a savory custard which is made of eggs, milk and cream. They are also often garnished with several different ingredients like leeks and crisp bacon for example. Furthermore there is no sweet version of quiche.
Tarts on the other hand can be both sweet and savory. They can be filled with a custard but don’t have to and it mostly only features one main ingredient like “Tarte au chocolat” or “Tarte au citron” (Lemon-tart).
Anyway both are equally tempting. If you find the idea strange of eating a savory tart/pie, just forget about it and try some, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
My mother in law, who has been a great inspiration for me, was so nice as to teach me her recipe for a tarte aux tomates. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.
Ingredients
- 1 roll/sheet of shortcrust pastry
- 4 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 little onion (optional)
- 2-3 tomatoes (depending on the size)
- 250g of grated cheese (I used emmental, you can use a different cheese though, Parmesan for example)
- thyme (best is fresh but dried works too)
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven at 180 °C.
- Cover a tart/pie form with the sheet of shortcrust pastry.
- Pierce it with a fork a few times and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile wash the tomatoes and cut them in slices.
- Once the pastry is done, remove it from the oven and while being careful not to burn yourself spread the mustard on the bottom of the pastry.
- Cover the whole bottom with half of the cheese.
- Add the onions if you are using any.
- Lay out the tomato slices evenly to cover the whole tart. If you’ve got too many, just stack them a little. Don’t put too many though else there is going to be too much liquid.
- Cover with the rest of the cheese, add a little salt and pepper and sprinkle with the thyme.
- Drizzle a little olive oil on top then put the tart back into the oven for approximately 20 minutes.
Serves 8. Enjoy!
Shortcrust Pastry (Pâte Brisée)
Oct0
This easy to make pastry is often used as a base for tarts or pies. When baked, it does not rise up, but instead reaches a nice crunchy texture. Usually I just buy a roll of shortcrust pastry at the supermarket because I don’t have much time, but whenever I can I try to make it myself.
Pâte brisée is used a lot in french cuisine for both savory and sweet tarts. Possible fillings are tomatoes, zucchini, ham and cheese, apples, figs etc. Some people make a sweet alternative called sweetcrust pastry by adding sugar to the original recipe. Personally I use the basic shortcrust pastry for sweet tarts as well because I love the contrast between sweet and salty.
The pastry itself is very easy to make, however the tricky part is to prevent it from getting soggy once you add the filling (which mostly doesn’t need to cook as long as the pastry itself). This is why it’s very important to lay out a pie/tart-form with the finished dough and prebake it for approximately 10 minutes without the filling. This will ensure that the pastry is baked properly at the end and that it doesn’t absorb the liquid from the filling before the latter solidifies.
Ingredients
- 200g flour
- 100g soft but still cold butter (unsalted)
- 1 egg yolk
- 4 cl water
- 1 teaspoon salt
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Preparation
- Pass the flour through a sieve and make a little pile with it.
- Form a hole with your fingers in the middle of the pile and add the butter.
- Work the flour and the butter a little until you have a pile of crumbs (you can do this with a food processor as well).
- Form another hole and add the egg yolk, the water and the salt.
- Knead everything well with your hands until your pastry has a smooth but firm texture. If it feels wet still and if it sticks to your hand, gradually add flour until it reaches the desired texture. Do not work it too long or it will start to fall apart.
- You can wrap the pastry in a piece of clingfilm and refrigerate it for later use. Actually it is recommended to let it rest for approximately 2 hours in the fridge. If you don’t have the time you can still use it right away.
- Roll out the pastry so it becomes a round, 5-7 mm thick sheet.
- Lay out a tart/pie form and pierce the pastry a few times with a fork.
- If you want to make a tart or a pie, remember to prebake the pastry for approximately 10 minutes before adding the filling.
A Perfect Sauce Béchamel (White Sauce)
Oct0
VideoJug: How To Make Bechamel Sauce
Yesterday I decided to use up the Cauliflower/Broccoli I had left in my fridge and of course my first thought was to make a gratin with a nice Béchamel Sauce. Although I didn’t get time to make the actual gratin, I’d still like to post about how to make a perfect Sauce Béchamel. I’m using this quite often (in moderate quantities) as a base for gratins, to make lasagna or to cook other sauces.
This sauce can still be considered part of the basics of traditional French Cuisine; unfortunately it’s not being used much anymore by accomplished/modern chefs, due to the thick and rich texture of the sauce.
Personally I like to use this sauce in small quantities because:
- It’s made quickly
- You always got the ingredients at home
- Can accompany many dishes
- Can be seasoned and adapted almost infinitely
I found a video on videojug which reproduces almost exactly the recipe I usually follow to make my white sauce. I adapted the quantities to those mentioned in the video to make it easier. You can either follow the video or my description below. Anyway props to the people who made this video 
Ingredients
- 25g butter (you can substitute oil for this)
- 25g flour
- 300ml milk
- 1/4 peeled onion (optional)
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 4 cloves (optional)
- 1 pinch of nutmeg
- salt and pepper
____________
Preparation
- With the cloves, stick the bay leaves to the onions (if you use any, I don’t).
- Place the milk in a small pan and add the onion with the bay leaves.
- On low-medium heat, let the milk cook until it’s almost boiling.
- Turn off the heat and leave for five minutes to infuse.
- Remove the onion/bay leaves/cloves.
- Put the butter into a medium sized sauce pan and let it melt at low heat.
- When the butter is melted (be careful not to burn it) add the flour and stir well with a wooden spoon at low heat for about 1-2 minutes (you just made a “white roux”).
- Remove the pan from the heat and gradually ad the hot milk while whisking. You must beat constantly so the roux blends with the milk.
- Put the sauce back on the stove and bring to a boil while continuing to whisk constantly. This is very important, don’t stop to beat or the sauce will burn. When it starts to boil, lower the temperature and let simmer until the sauce reaches the desired thickness. Again, do not stop to whisk at any moment.
- Remove the sauce from the heat, season it with the nutmeg and the salt/pepper.
- Strain the sauce through a sieve to remove any possible lumps.
- If you are going to use the sauce at a later point, always cover it with a clingfilm, else it will develop a skin.
Enjoy!
My first bento!
Oct0
Ok this morning I got up 1 hour earlier than normally but I’m glad I did it, because check the result: my first bento!
Bento is a traditional way of preparing lunches for school/work in boxes that have several compartments to store the food carefully in order for the tastes not to get mixed up. But there is much more behind bento. Bento is also (as Japanese food in general) about the preparation. The appearance is supposed to be so appetizing that you feel like eating everything. For Japanese children for example a bento is the link between home and school. The mothers carefully prepare food for the child to feel accepted among friends and for the child to feel so appealed by the lunch that it will eat everything to the last rice grain. There are even bento meetings for parents and loads of magazines with ideas.
But bento aren’t only children meals Adults and people in general like to eat those whenever they aren’t at home. You can often buy those in shops or at train stations. Sometimes they contain special regional foods and then the bento are called ekiben (if I’m not mistaken ^^).
Taken from Wikipedia:
Types of bento
- Chūka bentō (中華弁当) are filled with Chinese food. The Chinese do not eat food that has become cold; this was invented in Japan.
- Kamameshi bentō (釜飯弁当) are sold at train stations in the Nagano prefecture. A bento is packed in a clay pot and cooked. This clay pot is a souvenir item.
- Makuno-uchi bentō (幕の内弁当) is a classic style of bento with rice, a pickled ume fruit (umeboshi), a slice of broiled salmon, a rolled egg, etc.
- Noriben (海苔弁) is the simplest bento, with nori dipped in soy sauce covering cooked rice.
- Sake bentō (鮭弁当) is a simple bento with a slice of broiled salmon (鮭, sake) as the main dish.
- Shidashi bentō (仕出し弁当) is made in a restaurant and delivered during lunch. This bento is often eaten at a gathering like a funeral or a party. It is usually packed with traditional Japanese foods like tempura, rice and pickled vegetables. A shidashi bento packed with European-style food is also available.
- Sushizume (鮨詰め) literally means “packed sushi“, and is a bento filled with sushi.
Other
- Hayaben (早弁), literally “quick bento”, is eating a bento before lunch, and having another lunch afterward.
- Hokaben (ホカ弁) is any kind of bento bought at a bento franchise called “Hoka-Hoka Tei”.
- Reitō mikan (冷凍ミカン) is a frozen mandarin orange often sold at a train station alongside ekiben. It was one of the earliest desserts sold onboard a train.
- Hinomaru bento (日の丸) was the name for a bento consisting of plain white rice with an umeboshi in the centre. The Hinomaru bento takes its name from the Hinomaru, the Japanese flag, which has a white background with a red circle in the centre. These bento were common in during the second World War, both because of the scarcity of food and the desire to and necessity of avoiding displays of excess while maintaining an image of stout. patriotism.
How to make bento? Well I will devote many many entries to this as I am reasearching stuff about bento like mad so stay tuned :p
I don’t claim to make perfectly traditional Japanese bento boxes, please don’t get me wrong I take a large part of Japanese recipes and check which ones I can cook that aren’t too time consuming (as I’m a full time student I don’t have much time) and that are doable with the ingredients that I can find here in the region I live in. (we only have one Asia-mart and they have one single shelf of Japanese ingredients… So not much choice for now - and ordering over internet is kinda pricey). Also I will fairly often use local recipes or western food that is well known (like chicken nuggets, country potatoes or taboulé).. but I will generally try to keep as much Japanese foods as I can and I will also try to keep the food as healthy as possible.
The obento you see above consists of Japanese cooked rice with roasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top of it. Moving on to the right we have teriyaki fried chicken (Teriyaki is a marinade for meat - will add a recipe at the end). Then cucumber slices and a little cornichon. Above we have chopped carrots and an onigiri (Japanese rice ball). Totally on the left we have a little fruit salad, a milk bottle of salad dressing (cute no? ^^) and two cherry tomatoes.
Recipes that you’ll need:
Onigiri
Makes 4 servings
- 4 cups of freshly cooked Japonica rice
- salt
- nori seaweed, cut in 4×2 cm stripes
- fillings (traditional fillings are Umeboshi (pickled plum),chopped pickles in general or dried bonito flakes… but as it is really hard to get a hold of any of these fillings here in France I like to use flaked cooked salmon, tuna seasoned with a tsp of soy sauce, omelet or any fried meat. The filling may not contain any liquid, it must be dry and it must be conservable up until you actually have lunch) note that fillings are not obligatory but if you put in some it should generally be fairly salty as it is accompanied by a lot of rice
- optional: black and white toasted sesame seeds
(If you don’t know how to cook Japanese rice: click here)
Clean your hands so that they are impeccably clean. Wet them under cold water and then rub a bit of salt with sesame seeds on your hand palms. Take 1 cup of cooked rice (while it’s still hot … test the degree of heat that you can still bear with your hands) and rapidly working, form a ball. Make a little, but deep hole with your finger in the middle of the ball of rice and add a teaspoon of filling. Now close the rice ball in such a way that the filling is embedded in the center; shape the onigiri either in a triangle shape or in a disc shape or in a rounded cylinder shape. To make triangles just cup your hands in an angle and rotate the onigiri until happy with the form. A sheet explaining this better: click.
Teriyaki fried chicken:
For the Teriyaki marinade
- 1/2 cup of soy sauce
- 1/2 cup of mirin (if you don’t find this ingredient you can substitute it by either sake and sugar or a sweet sherry)
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
Put all these ingredients together in a little pot, mix them and turn on low heat while stirring it. Let it simmer a few minutes and then turn off the heat. After the sauce has cooled down put it in a bottle and store in the fridge.
For the chicken:
Cut one chicken breast in bite sized pieces and pour about 3 tbss of teriyaki sauce over it. Now add salt and pepper and cover the chicken well with the sauce. Put it in the fridge to marinate for about an hour then fry in a pan. Watch out with the heat though as the sauce contains a lot of sugar it will easily burn.
Fruit Salad
- Fruits of your choice, cut in little pieces. For example: peaches, pears, cherries and grapes.
- 1/2 cup Honey
- 1/4 cup lime juice
Make a dressing from the honey and lime juice and pour over fruit pieces. Mix well, serve cold.
See you soon!
How to brew Sencha
Jan0
About 75% of all tea produced in Japan is Sencha. Sencha is a rather “common” tea that is drank every day. It has a light green to yellow color and a fresh grassy taste. Normally this type of tea is not used for tea ceremonies. (Tea ceremonies require powdered green tea called matcha)
So where to get Sencha? Basically if there is no Japanese or Asian store around you that sells teas, you can always order from the Internet. If you live in the U.S.A. you can order over Amazon:
If however you live in Europe you can either order over Mount Fuji or from JapaneseGreenTeaOnline.
What you need for cooking Sencha:
- An earthernware teapot and cups. Of course, if you already have a glass teapot at home, just use that one. An example for a teapot with fitting cups:
- A thermometer is useful, as the temperature of the water has to be exactly measured.
- Sencha tea. The tea will probably look something like this:
Cooking instructions (2 cups):
- Bring 250 ml (about 8 ounces) water to a boil (use normal tap water, don’t use filtered water).
- Prepare two cups and pour the boiling water into the cups. This will simultanously warm the cups and cool down the water. Leave the water inside the cups until it reaches a temperature of about 79°C. (174.2 degrees Fahrenheit)
- Put one teaspoon full of Sencha tea in your teapot and pour the water from the teacups into the teapot.
- Let steep for about 1-2 minutes then pour the tea back into the cups.
The tea should have a light green to yellow color. Enjoy.
How to cook Japanese Rice (thank you Maki!)
Jan0
Ok, I promised a thorough explication on how to prepare, conserve/store and eat Japanese rice best.
There are basically two types of Japanese rice. One type is the normal rice used in daily cooking for savory dishes. The second type is called mochigome and is used for sweet rice cakes and mochi, due to its stickiness.
Once you’ve chosen the right type of rice (and I doubt that you’ll have much choice in the store you’ll buy your rice at so I’ll forgo the advice on a certain brand) make sure to store it in tightly secured containers in a cool place.
Now on to the equipment needed for preparing Japanese rice!
- If you’ve never given this a thought before, you might consider purchasing a rice cooker. This might seem like something totally fancy and accessory to you but for me it has become indispensable since the very first week I bought it and not only because I like to cook Japanese. What’s great about rice cookers is that they don’t do ONLY rice cooking. When you get a rice cooker you can get a steamer/warmer at the same time meaning that you can prepare any type of rice (even western style), steam vegetables or keep them warm. Potatoes, eggs and carrots… basically anything that accompanies or composes a meal can be dropped into the rice cooker and you’re done. You can prepare whole meals with a rice cooker (watch out for more posts about this soon).
Cooking rice (especially Japanese rice) without a rice cooker is fairly complicated and mostly you’ll struggle to get it just right. (before my rice was far from perfect) But with this nice little helper you just drop the rice inside and you can prepare the rest of your meal while the cooker does all the work for you. You can even steam vegetables at the same time which preserves vitamines and is good for the health. Also a rice cooker doesn’t have to be pricey, I’ve found this one on Amazon which resembles the one that I have and you’ll get a rice spatula, a measuring cup and steaming container along with the cooker when you order.
- A rice spatula and a measuring cup are also very important utensils. The amount of water you add to the rice in proportion to the rice you want to cook must be measured carefully. Furthermore the rice spatula will help you get the cooked rice out of the rice cooker, without sticking and squeeshing the rice. Rice spatulas can be plastic or wooden. I prefer the plastic ones because they don’t take on any weird odors over time. But it’s all up to you.
2 piece Plastic Rice Spatula - Other than that you’ll need a large bowl or any other container that allows you to wash rice in. Also if you don’t have a rice cooker, a regular pan/casserole/pot will do.
Now comes the real fun, your very first Japanese cooking lesson!
No don’t worry, it won’t be me holding it because I’m quite happy to give credits to the wonderful blog that taught me how to properly prepare rice. On I Was Just Really Very Hungry, Maki will show you how to cook rice with or without a rice cooker. It’s a great step by step guide (yes even the washing requires some training) that goes through all details and leaves nothing out, here you go:
Japanese Basics: Plain Rice / Sushi Rice
Yes the post also describes how to make Sushi rice, but I’ll get to that in another post. For now make sure to follow the instructions precisely. When you are done and when the rice is looking at you all deliciously, you might wonder what else you can do now that you’ve got real Japanese rice. Don’t worry, there is a great deal of things you can do with cooked rice, for example Onigiri (Rice Balls), Sushi, rice omelet, fried rice or rice soup. Mouth watering already? Please be sure to check back soon for more recipes
Japanese Rice, where to find real Japanese ingredients?
Jan0
Well there is certainly nothing I enjoy as much as well prepared, steamy, Japanese rice. Japanese rice is a special variety of middle/short-grain rice that tends to stick just enough to be picked up by sticks but falls apart in your mouth. The variety itself is called Japonica Rice. Of course my first experience with Japanese rice was in a Sushi restaurant but nowadays my passion goes far beyond that. I discovered that Sushi actually only represents a fraction of the Japanese cuisine and that it takes so much more to compose a truly Japanese meal than a few pieces of Sushi.
About one year ago I started to experiment with Japanese ingredients and tried to reproduce authentic dishes. However until I managed to cook something that even remotely looked like in the cookbooks I had purchased, a lot of time passed and a lot of effort was made. All of this involved diving into a very obscure Chinese grocery store that holds a few Japanese ingredients and is unfortunately the only source of Japanese food here in Aix en Provence. After thorough research on the Internet, I thought I’d be prepared to enter the store and find the most important things quickly, but the reality was far from that. I was completely lost. I might add that my not speaking Japanese didn’t help at all. All ingredients had a unique and weird look, I literally had to pick up every jar and plastic bag containing food and carefully asses its contents.
The reason for my ignorance at the beginning was that quite frankly I didn’t know what to expect. When you read about Japanese food you hear fancy terms like dashi-stock, dried bonito flakes, pickled vegetables (oh no those are not any color you’d expect them to look like), aburage, pickled plums (yes salty), dried seaweed sheets (oh god there are so many…), various condiments like mirin (can just substitute that with sake, no?? well no, not really)… and so forth. If you, at this point, have no experience about Japanese staples, do you have any precise imagination of how these ingredients look? Well I didn’t and this is precisely why I started this blog, to explain Japanese food in easy terms, with illustrations and most importantly from the point of view of someone who wasn’t fortunate enough to ever experience Japanese culture first hand. (I hope that’ll change one day).
So let’s get back to the rice. If you truly intend to cook Japanese, rice would be the best thing to start with. Depending on where you live it will be more or less difficult to get a hold on this special rice. It really is different (significantly actually) from Basmati, Chinese, Western (long grain) rice, Risotto rice etc. this unfortunately means that you won’t be able to substitute it with anything. So when you set out to find this ingredient somewhere near you, try the following things:
- First check on the Internet if there isn’t an authentic Japanese store near you. Even Japanese restaurants sometimes have a little section where they sell groceries. From experience I can tell that Japanese shop holders will do their best to get quality rice into their shelves, which also means rice that hasn’t been harvested too long ago. They often have great advice if you ask them directly and contrary to people who never cooked Japanese before, they do know the difference between good and bad rice. Don’t be surprised if you pay about 2 € for a 1 kg bag… most Japanese staples are imported and hence quite expensive.
- If there is really no Japanese shop around you, check in Chinese, Korean or any other Asian shops. Sometimes these might be overwhelming with a lot of weird ingredients standing around, your best bet in that case is to ask directly if the shop owner isn’t too busy.
- If your search didn’t yield any results, your next stop is the biggest commercial center or supermarket that you have in town. Those also sometimes hold Japanese ingredients.
- If all of this doesn’t work for you, there is one solution that ALWAYS works, it’s ordering from the Internet. I personally don’t like ordering much, because it’s simply very costly with shipping and all, but as a last resort it definitely works. Some addresses to order Japanese ingredients: Mount Fuji and Japanese Kitchen are both UK based stores that deliver to most parts of Europe and maybe even to the U.S. // If you live in the U.S.A you can order from AsianFoodGrocer who deliver to any part of the U.S., but not to other countries // If you live in France you can also order from Asia Marché.
If finally you’ve managed to get a hold on Japanese Rice, you can move on to my next post, explaining how to cook, conserve and eat it best.
