summer

Zucchini (Courgettes) braised in rosemary infused olive oil

maki — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:23:28 +0200

I have not doing a lot of serious cooking lately, at least not the kind that results in a useful blog post. Most of my cooking energies have been expended on another project, which is wearing me down a bit (more on that at a later time). What I have been cooking for actual meals is very simple food, that requires minimal kitchen time, though not necessarily quick to cook.

The subject of this article is zucchini (courgette) slices that are slowly braised in a fragrant oil. It requires perhaps 10 minutes of actual kitchen time, but an hour or more to complete. Days even, if you choose one option. You don’t need to hover over the pan for that time, but you do have to be nearby, to keep an eye on the hot oil, not to mention any errant pets, children or clumsy adults that wander in.

The wait and vigilance are worth it though. The zucchini slices, scented with the pine-mintiness of rosemary, become brown and sticky and almost caramelized on the surface, and soft and creamy on the inside. It’s great as an accompaniment to roast or panfried meats or fish, or as part of a vegetarian meal (try it with pasta). I could have it every day, just on its own, if it weren’t for the rather ruinous effect it has on my waistline, even if the oil is good-for-you olive oil.

This is the taste of late summer in Provence for me.

Recipe: Zucchini (Courgettes) braised in rosemary oil

Preliminaries: For optimal results, make some rosemary infused olive oil. Just put some good olive oil in a clean glass jar, about two thirds of the way up, then stuff the jar full with rosemary. No garlic, no chilis, and certainly not a dainty single sprig. Put the lid on the jar and leave it out on your countertop. Give it a shake when you see it, once a day at least. In a few days you will have a headily rosemary-scented olive oil. At this point you can leave the rosemary in to make the scent even stronger, or remove the rosemary.

If you are in a hurry, you can scent your olive oil as you cook the zucchini slices by putting a couple of sprigs into the simmering oil. Beware of the rosemary burning though, which will impart a bitter taste.

3 to 4 small to medium zucchini (courgettes)
Rosemary infused olive oil, or olive oil plus a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary, or rosemary hydrolat if you have it (see notes below about hydrolat)
Salt

Slice the zucchini (courgettes) into 1/2 inch / 1cm thick rounds. Pat the slices dry with paper towels or a kitchen towel.

Pour 1/2 inch / 1cm oil into a large frying pan, and turn the heat up to HIGH. Put the zucchini in one layer in the pan - do not overcrowd the pan. Keep the heat on HIGH until the oil starts to bubble up rapidly, then lower the heat to low-medium, or to the point where the oil is quietly bubbling around the zucchini.

Leave like this for at least 30 minutes, until the undersides of the zucchini slices turn golden brown. Turn the slices over, and cook until the other sides are also golden brown.

Do not add salt during the cooking process! Salt will draw out the moisture from the zucchini, which is not what we want here. We want the moisture to stay inside while the surface gets crisp and caramelized.

Once the zucchini slices are darkly golden brown (they will have shrunk quite a lot too), remove them from the oil. You can drain them on paper towels to get rid of excess oil if you like. If you are using hydrolad, add about 1/2 teaspoonful at most to the hot zucchini slices and toss rapidly right now. Add a pinch of salt - don’t oversalt, or you’ll mask the delicate rosemary scent.

Serve piping hot, or at room temperature.

You can save the cooking oil for another dish. If you mix the braised zucchini with pasta, sauté the freshly cooked pasta in a bit of the oil. Wonderful!

Chef Erick Vedel’s Provençal cooking classes in Arles

I learned the slow braising technique at a wonderful class in Provençal cooking given by Erick Vedel in Arles, the town in Provence made famous by Vincent Van Gogh (he left an ear there, literally). Chef Erick scented his zucchini with mint hydrolat - hydrolat is the water that result when herbs and other plants are steam-distilled for their essential oils. Getting a hold of hydrolat may be a problem, unless you have some lab equipment to do your own, so I’ve used rosemary-infused oil instead (I just prefer rosemary with zucchini instead of mint). If you can get a hold of either rosemary or mint hydrolat, by all means use that - I’ve included instructions in the recipe. Using a drop or two of edible essential oil would work too, but be very sparing or you’ll overwhelm the zucchini.

I’ll have more about Chef Erick’s classes in later posts, but in the meantime if you’re interested in a great culinary experience and you’ll be in the area, I can highly recommend his classes. (If you’re a bit persnikety about order and cleanliness and stuff, be forewarned though, his kitchen is let’s say, well lived in.) Here he’s showing us how he distills lavender, using his huge antique copper distiller.

Erick Vedel’s website

Incidentally, I haven’t really posted a lot about my time here in Provence (though we have actually been living here for the better part of 6 months or so, with occasional forays elsewhere) because I have been scared of jinxing our chances of being able to stay here permanently, if I talked about it or something. I know, irrational. Things are looking up in that area now…once we are officially and truly settled you’re likely to read a lot more about it here. (That is in case this small mention has jinxed it! Ack. ^_^;)

The sweet, cultured taste of Calpis

maki — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:26:31 +0200

As your sometime guide to Japanese culinary culture, I would be remiss if I let another summer pass by without talking about Calpis.

Calpis is a sweetened fermented milk beverage. The label says:

“CALPIS” is a cultured milk drink, a refreshing gift from nature.

People tend to either love or hate Calpis. It tastes somewhat like very sweet, thick yogurt syrup with a dash of buttermilk. It is similar to Yakult, which seems to have been introduced more successfully around the world. However unlike the “gut-friendly” Yakult, Calpis makes no claims about containing active-bio-friendly-Dr.-Something-flora and things. In other words, it’s basically bad for you, as a sugary beverage should be. (It does have some half-hearted blurbs about being a good source of calcium, but then there’s all that sugar.) The ingredients are listed as cane sugar, milk and ‘dairy products’ (lactose), maltose and soy derived sugar.

It is sold as a carbonated drink (and labeled Calpico or Calpis soda, depending on where it’s sold), non-carbonated Calpis (or Calpico) water, and as a concentrate. There are fruit flavored versions too, but I like to stick to the original, unadulterated flavor. Derivative products include a premixed alcoholic cocktail called Calpis Sour, Calpis flavored candy, and frozen ices.

To English speakers in particular, the name is somewhat unfortunate, especially for a beverage. This is why Calpis has been marketed as Calpico in various overseas markets.

Originally Calpis was only sold as a concentrate, in a heavy glass bottle. The bottle did not have a label stuck on it. Instead, it was completely wrapped up in textured white paper patterned with blue polka dots. The paper was pleated like a summery dress of the 1950s, the decade in which the bottle was designed. (Think Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch.) You can still get the concentrate in this elegant bottle (mostly in boxed gift sets), sans the pleated paper, but nowadays the concentrate is mostly sold in boring paper cartons. They have kept the blue-polka-dot-on-white design though.

Calpis concentrate also makes a great syrup for shaved ice (kakigouri). When I was in Hawaii in November, I kept looking for Calpis as a flavor choice at the shave ice places, but never found it. I was disappointed. In Japan Calpis is ubiquitous.

I’ve always preferred the concentrate over the ready to drink Calpis, because you can put in as little or as much Calpis as you want. My mother used to scold us if we put too much Calpis in our ice water. Even now I get a small guilty thrill when I make my Calpis nice and thick. I become a 10 year old again, sneaking into the kitchen when my mother wasn’t looking, to add a big extra dollop of the stuff in my glass. I would stir it well, but there would always be a bit of full-strength concentrate at the bottom of the glass. I would tip my head back, letting the thick syrup glide slowly down the glass into my mouth, the last, sweet treat.

Unlike mugicha, my other favorite cold summer beverage, I do not indulge in Calpis that often these days. Mugicha is zero calorie and supposed to be good for you. 100ml of Calpis diluted to ‘regular strength’ contains 48 calories according to the official Japanese website. To compare, 100 ml of regular cola has 43 calories. (There is an artificially sweetened concentrate now with ‘60% less calories’, but it’s hard to find outside of Japan. Besides, what’s the point of artificially sweetened Calpis?) I would have to burn it off the way I did when I was 10, by playing Kick The Can for hours on end, to be able to handle more than an occasional glass. I tell you, growing up is highly overrated.

Calpis (Calpico) Water and Calpis (Calpico) Soda are available in many Asian grocery stores. Calpis concentrate is available at well stocked Japanese groceries especially in the summer, such as Japan Centre.

(Note: When I tell Swiss people about Calpis, they nod sagely and say “Ah, it’s like Rivella”. Well Rivella is also a cultured milk based drink (soda), but to me it tastes nothing like Calpis. Neither does the Migros knockoff Mivella.)

How to use Calpis concentrate

The recommended dilution for Calpis concentrate is 4:1 or 5:1 water to Calpis. I have gone up to as high as 2.5:1, but that is a bit extreme. The concentration level of pre-bottled Calpis/Calpico water is about 5:1.

To prepare, just fill a glass with ice cubes, pour in concentrate to your desired level, then fill up with cold water. Stir well. Since the concentrate has a tendency to sink to the bottom, it’s best to serve this with a straw or muddler to stir it around with. For an extra hit of Calpis, finish off the glass with a swirl of extra concentrate.

Use the concentrate neat as a topping on snowcones or shaved ice.

Calpis Sour

This is a cocktail. I use vodka instead of shochu, since shochu is not easily available in Europe.

Pour 1 finger of vodka and 2 fingers of Calpis concentrate into a glass. Add ice cubes. Top up with water and stir well. (You can also shake it in a cocktail shaker.) Garnish glass with a slice of lemon. Serve with a straw.

Use soda water instead of still water for a bubbly version.

Photo credits: Calpis Water bottle - luisvilla; Calpico bottles - samk; Calpis vending machine - jpellgen; Calpis closeup with ice balls - chidorian; Calpis giftset from my mom. (Other photos are by me.)

Nasu no miso dengaku: Japanese slow-roasted eggplant with dengaku sauce

maki — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:02:04 +0200

It’s still summertime, but I can feel the cooler days of fall coming, especially in the evenings when the temperature is dropping just a bit more than it did a few weeks ago. This is one of the best times of the year for food lovers, especially if you love vegetables.

Eggplants (aubergines) are in high season now and will be around for at least another month or so. While you can get them year-round, they are at their best of course in their natural season.

This is a classic Japanese way of serving eggplant, and it’s really easy. All you do is to slowly roast the eggplant until tender, either in the oven or on the stovetop in a frying pan, then serve with a glossy, salty-sweet dengaku (田楽）sauce. I could eat this every day, with a bowl of plain rice and some cold mugicha to wash it down.

Recipe: Slow roasted eggplant (aubergine) with dengaku sauce (nasu no miso dengaku 茄子の味噌田楽)

Serves 1-2, depending on what else is served at the same meal.

1 large, round or 2-3 small, fresh eggplants. Try to get ones with thin skins.
Olive or sesame oil

For the dengaku sauce:

3 Tbs. miso. Here I’ve used a haccho miso (八丁味噌）with some texture to it, but any miso you like will do. See Japanese miso primer.
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. mirin
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. olive oil or sesame oil
water

Prepare the eggplant, according to the type:

If you’re using a big round one: Cut off the blossom end, and reserve to use as a decoration.

If you are using a big long one (e.g. the standard Italian or American type eggplant): Take off the blossom end (optionally reserve for use as decoration) and cut the eggplant into thick slices crosswise, or into half lengthwise. (Note that I don’t recommend this type of eggplant for this, since the skin tends to be rather tough. Choose one of the other kinds if you can.)

If you’re using a small thin Asian-type eggplant: Cut in half lengthwise, keeping the blossom end on for decorative purposes.

Rub the cut surfaces of the eggplant with a little sesame or olive oil. Roast it in an oven at 200°C / 400°F, cut side down and tented with some loose foil until tender (the time depends on the size of the eggplant, but it’s about 10 minutes for a small eggplant, 30 minutes for a big eggplant, with the slices somewhere in between). It’s tender when you can pierce through easily with a skewer. You can try cooking the eggplant in a toaster oven too, but I haven’t tested this myself so you’re on your own as to timing and so on.

Alternatively, you can slow-roast the eggplant in a dry frying pan. Place cut-side down in a non-stick pan, and cover loosely with some aluminum foil. Pan-roast until tender over medium-low heat, turning once. This method is especially suited for small eggplant - it takes 5-10 minutes and doesn’t heat up the kitchen as much as the oven method.

While the eggplant cooks, prepare the dengaku sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a small pan, and set over low heat. Mix the sauce vigorously with a wooden spoon, until the sauce turns glossy. Adjust the consistency by adding drops of water. It should not be too runny, but should flow thickly, rather like a thick ketchup.

Serve the eggplant warm, coated with sauce.

About dengaku sauce

Dengaku (田楽 - the characters mean ‘rice paddy’ + ‘harmony’ or ‘music’ or ‘play’) is a classic miso based sauce. There are many variations, but the basics are the same: miso with sweetener, a little oil for adding gloss, and sake and/or mirin for added flavor. Sometimes a little soy sauce is added, or dashi stock instead of water, or even MSG. My version comes from my mother, of course, and is quite simple.

You can make dengaku sauce in quantity and keep it in a closed jar in the refrigerator, but I don’t bother since it’s so easy to make fresh. If you do make it and store it, warm it up a bit before using.

Dengaku sauce is terrific on other grilled or roasted vegetables, firm tofu, blanched konnyaku, and so on. It’s a bit sweet for my taste for serving on meat and fish, but you can try it out!

Add spice to dengaku-sauced foods by sprinkling on some shichimi tohgarashi (7-ingredient pepper, see Essential staples of a Japanese pantry).

Big, fat, round eggplant

These are the eggplants I used for the version at the top of the page, bought at my favorite farmer’s market in Provence:

You might be thinkng, “But Japanese eggplants are small and thin and cute!” Well the standard ones are, but in Kyoto (the home of Japanese haute cuisine) there is a variety of eggplant that is similar to the one in the photo called kaganasu （加賀茄子）- big, round, and quite thin-skinned. Here’s a photo of one.

There’s nothing like the combination of juicy, soft eggplant with that sweet-salty, thick dengaku sauce. Wait, I think I need to go to the market today…

Other favorite eggplant recipes from the archives:

Japanese country style stewed eggplant (nasu no inakani)
Steamed eggplant with spicy peanut sauce
Grilled eggplant and mushroom miso soup (you can make this just with eggplants)
Ratatouille

Traditional Japanese strategies for combatting natsubate, or the dog days of summer

maki — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:28:09 +0200

A cat of our acquaintance’s natsubate strategy: All-day naps in the shade.

August is particularly bad in the Tokyo area where I’m from, as it is in most parts of Japan except for the northern parts of Hokkaido. It gets really hot, and the high humidity makes everything and everyone moist, sticky and generally nasty. There’s a bit of relief in the form of a brief evening thunderstorm (夕立　ゆうだち　yuudachi) most days, but the respite is temporary. Getting a decent night’s sleep without air conditioning is pretty much impossible.

The term to describe the stage of lethargy and fatigue brought on by this hot, humid weather is 夏バテ　(なつばて　natsubabe; literally ‘summer fatigue’). Japanese people have devised various ways of combatting it. Some are food related, and some aren’t, but here are some of my favorites.

Eat and drink very cold things

An obvious strategy perhaps! It does mean that there are lots of delicious cool drinks and snacks in Japan. My favorite cool summer drink is mugicha or roasted barley tea.

Other quintessentially Japanese summer drinks include ramune, a lemony drink that traditionally came in a glass bottle stoppered with a marble (the word ramune is derived from the English ‘lemonade’); iced coffee, which can be served black, with sugar, or with milk and sugar, and is a popular vending machine item; and Calpis, a fermented, sweet milk-based drink (more about Calpis in another post!) Ice cold beer and sake are very popular too. Surprisingly perhaps, iced green tea is a fairly recent invention, promoted by bottled drink manufacturers.

To digress: Ice cube culture!

In Japan, cold drinks are usually served with lots of ice, either cubes or crushed. The same goes for the U.S. But here in Europe, cold drinks are often served with no ice cubes at all. Even places like McDonalds (which are all over France, especially in this area) only include 2 to 3 measly ice cubes in their drinks. When I ask people here about this I get two explanations: Ice cubes dilute the drink; or ice cubes are bad for your digestive system. (But if ice cold things are so bad for the tummy, why all the ice cream?) I love to crunch down on ice cubes when it’s hot, so I feel deprived!

Anyway, back to the subject…

A traditional ice cold snack is of course kakigouri (かき氷　かきごうり) or shaved ice, topped with sticky-sweet fruit flavored syrup. Here’s a Hawaiian version that I had in November…

Ice cream is popular too, though not exactly traditional. Nowadays rich, creamy brands like Häagen-Dazs (ハーゲンダッツ in Japan) are all the rage, but the ice cream I remember eating growing up was thinner and lighter, more like ice milk. It either came in little paper tubs, or as monaka, in a waffle-shaped wafer covering. (Yuki daifuku,　an ice cream filled dumpling, is a fairly recent invention from the 1980s or so.)

Other cool snacks include mitsumame (みつ豆), a sort of fruit cocktail with cubes of kanten (agar-agar) and cooked azuki beans; anmitsu (あんみつ), soft rice dumplings (called shiratama) with sweet azuki beans (an) and fruit; and kureemu anmitsu (クリームあんみつ), animitsu with vanilla ice cream. Here’s my very derivative version of kureemu anmitsu, using strawberries in balsamic vinegar instead of sugar-syrup. Below is a more traditional kureemu anmitsu by yumiko tanaka.

There’s even a savory cool snack, called tokoroten(ところてん）, thick noodles made from a seaweed called isinglass, with a vinegar-soy sauce sauce, topped with hot mustard and other things. Tokoroten is almost no-calorie if you use the eastern Japan style vinegar sauce. (In western Japan a sweet sauce is used instead.) The slippery texture may take some getting used to though. Heres a photo by CookieM.

Other cooling foods, from chilled salads to watery vegetables like cucumbers and eggplants (aubergines) are consumed to cool down the body. A popular easy to eat meal is cold noodles - soba (buckwheat noodles), so-men (very thin wheat noodles), hiyashi chuuka, udon and so on.

Give ‘em sutamina (stamina)!

Another way to combat natsubate seems diametrically opposed to the cool, cold food and drink strategy is to eat rich, oily foods, to give the lethargic body sutanmina or stamina, or seiryoku (精力 seiryoku), which can mean energy in general or sexual energy. A quintessential stamina-giving oil rich food is eel (unagi), in the form of unajuu （うな重うなじゅう), a bed of plain rice covered with filets of unagi in a savory-sweet sauce. Here’s a photo from HisashiToday:

Some assert that sutamina can be gained by eating organ meats. There are little restaurants that specialize in grilled organ meats, called horumon yaki (ホルモン焼き　ほるもんやき), literally translated as ‘grilled hormone’! Typical horumon yaki ingredients include things like hatsu (heart), motsu (kidney or stomach), hatsu (heart), tripe, and other innards from pigs (and boars), cows, and poultry.

Other sutamina giving foods include garlic, ginger and spicy foods (especially curry).

An umeboshi a day…

I have fond memories of going to stay at my grandparents’ during summer vacation. After playing out in the hot sun all day, my grandmother would always insist on my cousins and me having a salty umeboshi each. Umeboshi went a bit out of fashion for a while, due to concerns about high sodium, but they seem to be coming back in style now, since they are supposed to quite good for you, despite the salt.

Wear a yukata

A yukata （浴衣　ゆかた） is a casual summer kimono. Usually made of cotton or a cotton-linen blend tht is cool on the skin (formal kimonos are often made of silk, wool or similar synthetics), it’s most often worn in the evenings after taking a cool shower or bath. (Yukata literally means ‘bathing clothes’). A yukata is worn both outside and as sleepwear. (Photo by ori2uru.)

Traditionally, new yukata are made for each member of the family every summer. In my mother’s day, girls would often have to make a yukata as part of their summer vacation homework, by hand. (Yep in Japan they issue homework for the holidays!) In my day this had changed to making anything crafty (I remember making a raffia bag one year, a skirt another); I wish I had learned how to sew a yukata instead. There is a terrific short-story manga by my favorite manga author, Moto Hagio, called “The Yukata That Sayo Sews” (小夜の縫うゆかた), a sweet story about how 14-year old Sayo trying to decide whether or not to use the rather childish dragonfly-print fabric that her mother had bought the year before to make her homework yukata. Her mother had passed away before she had been able to sew that fabric into a yukata for Sayo…

A wind bell (fuurin)

Finally, one of my favorite non-food ways of keeping cool is to hang a　fuurin （風鈴　ふうりん) outside the window. A fuurin (literally ‘wind bell’) is a small metal, ceramic or glass bell, with a little paper tag hanging from the ringer part. When the wind blows, the bell make a small, high pitched sound. This sound is supposed to evoke coolness. Great care is given to choosing a bell with just the right chime. (Photo by r.g+.)

In principle a fuurin is related to those big, clunky wind chimes, but far more delicate. (Incidentally, one of the most jarring moments for me in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, which is riddled with cultural inaccuracies, was when a fuurin was seen hanging outside in the dead of winter and used as a doorbell. Wrong, so wrong!)

What are you favorite ways of keeping cool?

Postcards from Southwestern France: Gazpacho or cold soup, Cassoulet, Albi, Moissac, Conques

maki — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:04:28 +0200

We left Provence this week for a little trip to the Midi-Pyrénées in the southwestern part of France. We’ve been trying to save money by cooking at home most of the time since we started our nomadic existence in France (see previously; not that that’s much of a hardship, since the produce and other foodstuffs in Provence are spectacular). But this week we’ve been staying in an apartment in a 17th century townhouse right around the corner from the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in the heart of Albi, the capital of the Tarn Department. Since there are tons of great little restaurants here, we’ve been indulging ourselves a bit.

One thing I have noticed while eating out a lot more is that many places are serving little cups of what they usually call gazpacho, as an amuse bouche or as part of the entrée (appetizer). They are basically cold soups, made with various vegetables. I’m not sure this is a regional custom, but it is very nice regardless. Here’s one we had the other day in the small medieval town of Moissac, as an amuse-bouche. It was basically a cold tomato juice, but very nice and refreshing.

Here’s another kind of gazpacho - a cold melon soup, served as an amuse bouche also. It was just pureed melon with nothing added I think.

Here’s another one, served as part of an entrée. This time it was a cold sweet pepper soup.

Here’s a more classic gazpacho, made with tomatoes and cucumber, served in a tumbler. This was a full entrée portion.

Finally, here’s my favorite - it was merely described as a gazpacho des legumes (vegetable gazpacho). It was a cold vegetable soup; I tasted sweet corn, maybe carrot, celery, and so on. I know gazpacho purists may shake their heads, but it was really refreshing and delicious. It was one part of an amuse bouche - the other part was what you see on the spoon in the back, a piece of rough paté with a tiny bit of chutney. The combination was really nice.

Once we get back ‘home’ to Provence, I think I am going to start more meals with a little cold soup of some kind. It’s really a great start to a summer meal.

Cassoulet and more food from the region

The most famous regional dish is cassoulet, the hearty dish made of white beans and loads of hearty (fat!) meaty bits, such as duck, sausage, and - fat! I’ve had cassoulet elsewhere many times before, and made it myself, but the the way they make it here is really much better in my opinion. Here’s a relatively light yet still rich version that we had at a restaurant with the adorable name of La Fourchet A Droite (The Fork (is) to the Right) in Albi. The abundance of fat just makes it unctuously creamy rather than greasy. I liked it so much, I’ve managed to have it twice so far…and am contemplating having it again for dinner tonight! (Actually cassoulet is supposed to have originated in the town of Castelnaudary, which is about an hour from Albi. I think I need to come back here when the weather is cooler and more conducive to enjoying piping hot bean-and-meat casseroles.)

This is a Pastis Gascon, a speciality of the Gers region, also in the Midi Pyrénées. It’s a pastry made of many layers of phyllo dough, and is filled with Armagnac-soaked and caramelized apple. I’m not sure I totally love it, but it is so pretty to look at.

I much preferred this pie though. It was filled with poached apricots and served with a sour cherry sauce and rich vanilla ice cream. Gorgeous! This was dessert at the meal that started with the gazpacho des legumes amuse bouche pictured above, at the Hotel Sainte Foy in Conques.

A little more Albi, plus Conques and Moissac

Albi is a fairly large town, but very mellow, and not crowded at all, even though it is the hometown of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and has a fine museum dedicated to him, not to mention a big, fortress like cathedral, beautiful riverside views, a quaint old town and more. The town is built of red brick, which is a gorgeous pink-rose color. Here it is in the early morning…

…and in the late afternoon…

Here’s the inside of the large Marché Couvert (covered market) in the center of town. It has several produce stalls, a fish stall, bakeries and pastry shops, and a lot more. It may not be quite as awesome as the larger markets in Provence, but it’s still quite good. We bought stuff from here for the meals that we ate in.

I loved this little store, called L’Artisan Pastellier. They sell clothing, accessories and other products made from the blue Pastel dye that was highly prized in Europe until indigo was imported from India. The blue is softer than indigo. They also sell art pastels, watercolor paints and other art supplies, mostly made with vegetable based dyes. Their web site.

We also made side trips to the medieval towns of Conques (that’s a photo of Conques up at the top) and Moissac. One reason why I brought my mother here is because she’s been rather obsessed by the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostella, and Conques and Moissac were key stops. Both are beautiful places, though Conques is quite touristy. Moissac is a bit more relaxed I think. The Gothic cloister there is breathtaking.

If you’d like to see photos, they are all on my Flickr.

All in all, we really enjoyed our week here, even though the heat was stifling for much of it. (It felt a lot more humid than Provence, though that may just have been an anomaly.) I don’t think I would choose to live here full time over Provence, but I think I’ll try to come back here again in the cooler months - for, you guessed it, more cassoulet.

Basics: Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce

maki — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:06:51 +0200

I’ve updated this very popular article a little bit and pushed it up from the archives, since it is the season for cold noodles now. I’ll also have a followup recipe soon for the perfect accompaniment to zaru soba. Originally published in May 2007.

Most of Japan gets very hot and humid in the summer. To combat the heat, a number of dishes meant to be eaten cold have been developed. One of the main cold summer dishes is cold noodles.

Soba noodles, made of soba (buckwheat), are available all year round but are really popular when the heat turns unbearable. As with other cold noodles, they are prepared in a way that may seem strange if you’re used to pasta and other Western-style noodles. Unlike pasta, most Japanese noodles, including soba, are rinsed rather vigorously in cold running water. This not only cools them down but gets rid of excess starch, which adversely affects the flavor of the noodles. Many recipes written in English omit this critical rinsing step: you don’t just plunge it in cold water, as many directions incorrectly state, but you actively wash the noodles. Once you’ve done this once, you will definitely notice the difference. I’ve given detailed instructions for this procedure below.

Dipped into a properly made sauce or soba tsuyu, with plenty of spicy condiments or yakumi, there’s nothing more refreshing to eat on a hot summer evening.

Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce (Zarusoba)

Note: zaru means basket - so these are soba served in a basket.

To serve 4 people

For the sauce (soba tsuyu):

1/2 cup of kaeshi
1 1/2 to 3 cups of dashi stock or vegetarian dashi stock

Combine the two in a pan and bring up to a simmer. The less dashi you add the more intense the sauce will be, so add the dashi a little at a time, and start tasting after you’ve added about 1 1/2 cups: keep adding if it’s too strong. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, then let cool. You can do this a day ahead of time, and refrigerate the tsuyu.

Quick and easy version: Buy a bottle of concentrated tsuyu or mentsuyu, such as this one from Kikkoman, and thin out with water.

The noodles:

400g soba noodles, or about 100 grams per person (See note below about selecting soba noodles). Most soba comes in 100 or 200 gram packets.

Condiments, or yakumi:

Select at least one from:

Finely chopped green onions (this for me is essential)
Grated wasabi
Seven-flavor pepper (nanami tohgarashi = see this list for a description)
Toasted sesame seeds
Finely shredded green shiso leaves (another favorite for me, if it’s available)
Finely cut nori seaweed (cut with a pair of kitchen scissors, or just shred with your hands)
Grated fresh ginger
Finely julienned myouga (a kind of onion-like bulb: hard to find outside of Japan)
Finely grated yuzu peel

Cooking the soba noodles

Bring a large pot of water up to a boil. Unlike Italian pasta, you do not need to salt the water. Once it’s boiling, hold the noodles over the water and sprinkle them in strand by strand.

Once all the noodles are in, stir gently so that they are all immersed in the water.

Bring the water back up to a gentle boil, then lower the heat so that the water is just simmering. (This differs from the ‘rolling boil’ that’s recommended for pasta.) If the water threatens to boil over, add about 1/2 cup of cold water (but if you lower the heat to the gentle simmer, and have a big enough pot, this shouldn’t be necessary). Cook for about 7 to 8 minutes, or following the package directions (for thinner noodles 5 to 6 minutes may be enough. Test by eating a strand - it should be cooked through, not al dente, but not mushy either).

At this point, you may want to reserve some of the cooking water. This is called sobayu (そば湯), literally ‘hot soba water’, and many people like to add it to the remaining soba dipping sauce at the end of the meal to drink like soup!

Drain the noodles into a colander. Immediately return them to the pot and fill the pot with cold water. When you’re draining the hot water you may notice that it smells quite ‘floury’. This is what you want to get totally rid of.

If the noodles threaten to flood out over the pot, put the colander on the pot to hold the noodles down. Leave the water running for a while over the noodles.

Once the water and the noodle are cool, start to ‘wash’ the noodles. Take handfuls and gently swish and rub them in the water. Your goal is to wash off any trace of starchiness or gumminess on the noodles. When you’re done the water should run clear.

Make ready a flat sieve - a bamboo one is ideal and looks pretty. (You can use a nice looking colander instead, but flat sieves like this aren’t expensive - look in Asian markets.) Take a few strands of the noodles at a time.

Loop the strands onto the sieve to make a nice little bundle. This is one portion.

Allow for about 10-12 portions or so per person, if you’re using individual sieves. Arrange each bundle separately, to allow for easy pickup with chopsticks.

To serve the noodles: place a plate under the sieve or sieves to catch any drips. Put out small bowls filled with the condiments of your choice, which each diner can pick from. (Remember to put out small spoons and things if needed for the sesame seeds etc.)

The dipping containers can be anything that can hold about a cup or so of liquid. A rice bowl or a small soup bowl, or even a tumbler, can be used. Here I’ve used some small pudding molds that were a flea market find. (In Japan you can get special soba bowls or sobachoko.)

Fill each dipping bowl halfway with the cooled dipping sauce or soba tsuyu.

To eat, each person puts in the condiments of their choice, take a portion of the soba, and dips it in the sauce briefly - then, immediately eats the soba. Don’t let the noodle soak in the sauce or overload it with condiments, otherwise the delicate flavor of the soba will be overwhelmed.

At the end of the meal, you can add some of the reserve sobayu to the rest of your sauce (see above) to finish your meal.

Types of soba

The purest kind of soba noodle is made of 100% soba or buckwheat flour, plus water and salt. That’s really my favorite kind. There are other kinds of soba noodles though. Here I’ve used one made partly with konnyaku powder (which makes it quite sturdy, and supposedly lower-calorie).

Another popular kind of soba noodle has some green tea powder in it, which makes it a pleasant green in color. You don’t really taste the tea much though.

The best kind of soba noodle is freshly made (te-uchi), but this is a bit tricky…I haven’t actually mastered it yet. Maybe one day…

What to have with soba noodles

One of my favorite summer meals is cold soba, cold tofu or hiyayakko, some not-too-salty pickled cucumbers, and ice cold mugicha to drink. Another favorite soba accompaniment is tempura, which can be dipped in the same sauce - for some reason tempura (battered fritters of vegetables, squid, shrimp and so on) seems to fit particularly well. But tempura is a rather hot and sweaty thing to make, so I usually stick to the cold tofu.

My Mother's Simply Braised Spring Vegetables with a hint of Japan

maki — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:52:08 +0200

Here’s another recipe from my mother. She just told me the recipe, and the reminiscences, verbally, (she says the recipe is too simple to write down!); I’ve written it down in the first person, from her point of view.

When I was young and Makiko and her sister were small, Makiko’s father was sent to England by his company. After brief stays in London and Kent, we settled in Wokingham, a small town in Berkshire. (Nowadays I have heard it’s grown a lot bigger.) This was in the 1970s, when we had to go all the way to London to buy basic ingredients for Japanese cooking, like soy sauce. Making any kind of Japanese food was a struggle.

I grew some Japanese vegetables that I really missed, but had no chance of buying even in London at the time, in the garden of our rented house - things like shiso, mitsuba, shungiku, komatsuna, daikon and gobo (burdock). [See a dozen Japanese herbs and vegetables to grow - maki] I didn’t know anything about gardening, so when my gobo and daikon weren’t nice and straight, but were stubby ugly things with multiple roots, I wrote to my mother (international phone calls were so expensive then) in tears, asking her what to do. She wrote back so many times with detailed instructions - she was an avid gardener with a real green thumb. I still have those letters.

As I gradually adjusted to life away from Japan and my family, I became better at using local ingredients and adapting them to Japanese methods. This very simple summer braised vegetable dish is one recipe that I came up with during those years, that I still make every summer. It doesn’t even use dashi, which is standard in so many Japanese recipes. It uses vegetables that are available in Europe in early summer - new potatoes, green beans, peas, and carrots. The umami comes from the fresh young vegetables. Japanese cuisine is first and foremost about using seasonal ingredients, so to my mind, this is a very Japanese way of cooking.

Recipe: Simply Braised Spring Vegetables

This makes about 4 servings as part of a Japanese meal, to accompany rice, miso soup and one or two other dishes. You can also serve it alone or as a side dish to meat or fish.

To get the best flavor, it’s very important to use the freshest, preferably organic, vegetables you can find.

10-12 small new potatoes
2 small or 1 medium carrot
1 small onion
About 1 cup of shelled green peas
A large handful of green beans
1/2 Tbs. soy sauce (well she said ‘shu-shu’ (drizzle-drizzle), which I’m extrapolating to be about 1/2 tablespoon! - maki)
Salt (good sea salt is preferred)
Extra virgin olive oil, or other good flavorful oil (I use olive oil because you can get such wonderful olive oil here in the Provence, but you can also use sesame oil, walnut oil, and so on.)

Wash the new potatoes, and cut in half if they are big. Scrub and cut up the carrots into chunks. (Don’t peel the carrots - there’s a lot of flavor in the skin!) Dry both well in a kitchen towel.

Cut the onion in half, then slice against the grain (parallel to the root - as you would if you are cutting onion rings). Cutting against the grain ensures that the onions will cook faster.

Cut the tops and tails off the green beans, and cut in half. (If you have old fashioned green beans, take off the strings too.)

Heat up some oil in the bottom of the pan over medium-low heat. Put in the potatoes, and sauté while shaking occasionally until they are turning brown. Add the carrots about halfway through, and continue sautéing. This requires some patience, since it takes about 20 minutes or more.

Drain away any excess oil at this point. Add the sliced onions to the pan, and sauté some more until the onions are transparent and limp.

Add a small amount of water, just to about halfway up the potatoes. Add a tiny pinch of salt. Make an otoshibuta (drop lid) with a piece of aluminum foil, by crinkling it up so it fits on top of the vegetables in the pan, then poking a couple of holes in it with a chopstick. This otoshibuta ensures that the vegetables will cook evenly.

In the meantime, cook the green beans and peas in boiling salted water until crisp-tender. (Put the green beans in first, then add the peas for a couple of minutes.) Drain and set aside.

When the potatoes are tender (test by poking with a chopstick or fork) add the soy sauce, green beans and peas. Simmer for a few minutes longer while shaking the pan so that the flavors are evenly distributed. The water should be almost completely gone.

This is best served warm, but is also good at room temperature.

Optional: Add a little bit of sake or mirin near the end of the cooking process. This gives the vegetables a little added flavor and shine.

Tip: Sautéing vegetables in oil before stewing or braising

You will notice that this recipe calls for sautéeing the potatoes and onions in oil before braising. While most people know about sautéing onions and garlic to bring out the flavor, not many do this to other vegetables. Sautéing vegetables before cooking further brings out the flavor and sweetness in them. To prevent the final dish from becoming too oily, I always drain off any excess oil before proceeding further, as I did here.

Homemade Umeshu (plum wine) and Ume Hachimitsu Sour (ume honey-vinegar drink)

maki — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:53:59 +0200

Since so many people liked my mom’s umeboshi recipe, here are two more recipes using ume plums from her. She doesn’t have photos for these, so I’ve taken a picture of her notes, with a little illustration she did of how to layer the ume and sugar for the umeshu (plum wine).

How To Make Umeshu (plum wine)

Although it’s called plum ‘wine’, this beverage is actually a cordial or a liqueur. It’s much easier to make than umeboshi, since the alcohol prevents any mold from forming.

Ingredients and supplies

To make umeshu, you need three ingredients: unripe green ume plums, rock sugar (called kouri zatou (氷砂糖) or ‘ice sugar’ in Japan) and shochu or shouchuu or another flavorless distilled alcoholic beverage, such as vodka. Rock sugar is preferred because it melts slowly, but you could also use granulated sugar. (You can buy rock sugar at General Asian/Chinese grocery stores - maki)

For equipment, you need a large, wide mouth glass jar with an airtight lid. I use a very large canning jar with a snap-on lid with a rubber gasket. You could also use a screwtop lid. The jar should be large enough so that when you put the ume plums, sugar and shochu in, it should only come to about half of the height.

You’ll also need a sharp tool such as a toothpick or skewer to take out the stem ends, and a scale to weigh the ingredients.

Amounts

Weigh your ume plums, then weigh out about half of that weight in rock sugar. If you want it sweeter, increase to 60%. If you want to less sweet, use less sugar, though I would not go under 40% since unripe ume plums are very sour.

I like to keep it simple, and use 500 grams of sugar for every kilo of ume plums.

I never weigh the shochu, but there should be enough so that it completely covers the ume plums in the jar. For a kilo of ume plums I use about 2 liters of shochu.

Incidentally, I usually make about 5 kilo (11 lbs) worth of ume plums in one session, and I make it every year! So, that’s 5 kg of ume plums, 2.5 kg of rock sugar, and about 10 liters of shochu.

Method

Wash your jar or jars and lid well, and sterilize them in boiling water, in a hot dishwasher, in a warm oven, or with some of the alcohol you are using (shochu or vodka), just as you would when making jam or pickles.

Wash and dry the unripe green ume plums, and take off the stem end bits in the same way as in the umeboshi recipe with a toothpick or other pointy tool. You don’t need to soak them in water to get rid of the bitterness as you do with umeboshi, though you can if you want a very smooth tasting umeshu.

Weigh your ume plums after washing and de-stemming them, to get the amount of sugar you need.

Put a layer of ume plums in the jar, then a layer of rock sugar. Repeat until all the sugar and plums are used up, and press down with a clean spatula to compact it all in the jar. Pour the shochu or vodka into the jar until it just covers the topmost layer of plums. The jar should only be about half full, since a lot of liquid will come out of the plums. If you fill the jar too much to start with, the liquid may overflow and burst the lid off!

Put the lid on securely, and leave the jar in a cool, dark place. You may want to shake the jar occasionally to help things along. After about 3 months, the plums will have exuded a lot of juice and will come floating up to the surface - remove the ume plums (you can store them separately if you like; since they are completely saturated with sugar and alcohol, they won’t go bad). After about 5 months, the umeshu is ready to drink, but I like to leave it for at least a year to let it mature. Umeshu really at its best after 2 years, and just mellows and improves with age.

Mellow umeshu has a beautiful light green color, like light olive oil.

Some people like to eat the ume plums that have been used to make the umeshu; it’s believed to have medicinal qualities. People say that an ume a day keeps your insides healthy. You can also float a single ume plum in your umeshu drink as decoration.

How to drink umeshu

You can drink umeshu straight, or on the rocks (over ice cubes) like any liqueur. I like to mix it with water, at about a 1:1 ratio, with lots of ice cubes.

Fruit ‘wine’ with other fruit

If you can’t get ume plums, you can use the same method with other fruit. Strawberry wine, or ichigoshu, is very popular in Japan: for 1 kilo of good, ripe strawberries, use maybe 100 grams of sugar, depending on how sweet the fruit is. After 2 to 3 months, the strawberries will become completely white! Take them out (I wouldn’t eat these), and let the strawberry ‘wine’ mature. You can try apricots, quince, regular Western plums, and so on.

How To Make Honey Sour with ume plums

While umeshu is delicious, it is very alcoholic. So for non-drinkers and my grandchildren, I make a non-alcoholic version with honey and vinegar, called Honey Sour (蜂蜜サワー).

Honey Sour is easier to make than umeshu. Just take equal amounts in weight of unripe green ume plums, honey and vinegar. The vinegar can be rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar - any light flavored and colored vinegar will work. Combine it all in a sterilized large jar. After a while (3 to 4 weeks), take out the plums that will have come floating up to the surface; these can be eaten too, like the umeshu plums. You can rebottle the honey sour in sterilized bottles at this point if you prefer, which can be kept at room temperature.

Use Honey Sour in the same way as you would use umeshu - on the rocks, mixed with water, and so on. It’s also nice as a syrup on shaved ice (kakigouri). I like to bring a small bottle of it on hikes, where we mix it with clear, cold water from mountain streams. So refreshing!

You could try other fruit too. Quince (called karin in Japanese) are really good as a Honey Sour base.

Footnote from Maki: My mother’s drawings

I love the little drawing my mom did for her umeshu instructions. I think her drawings are great, and keep telling her so, but she doesnt seem convinced! Here’s one she did of breakfast a couple of years back, with a wedge of melon and a bowl of muesli. I’m trying to convince her to let me show more of her drawings!

Sweet onion and soba salad with fat-free umeboshi dressing

maki — Mon, 25 May 2009 10:48:38 +0200

We still haven’t found a house to buy (though we may getting close), and due to the way things work in France, we are probably going to be nomads for at least 4 more months even if we put in an offer for a place tomorrow. I’ve gotten more used to cooking in tiny holiday home kitchens, but I’m still not up to anything too complicated - or in other words anything that requires the use of more than 2 burners at a time.

Fortunately it’s now summer, which means lighter, less complicated meals anyway. This salad, which can be a meal on its own, a starter or a light side dish, features sweet salad onions (spring is the season for them, at least around these parts), sliced paper-thin and refreshed in ice cold water. The tart dressing features umeboshi (pickled plums) and uses no oil, so this is an almost fat-free, fairly low calorie dish, that’s vegan to boot.

Recipe: Sweet onion and soba salad with umeboshi dressing

For 4 starter sized portions or 2 main dish portions

For the dressing:

7 Tbs. (or 1/2 U.S. cup minus 1 Tbs.) vegan dashi, or the same amount of water with 1/2 tsp. of konbu seaweed based or (for non-vegetarians) bonito-based dashi stock granules
4 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice
About 3-4 umeboshi, or enough to make 1 Tbs. ume paste
2 Tbs. soy sauce

For the salad:

1 200g (about 7oz) pack of soba noodles
1 large or 2 medium sweet onions (see notes)
4-5 green shiso leaves
romaine or cos lettuce leaves

To make the dressing:

Take the pits out of the umeboshi, and chop the pulp up finely. You should have about 1 tablespoon of ume pulp. (If you can find something called ‘ume paste’, which is pureed umeboshi, you can use that to save some time.)

Put all the ingredients into a jar and close the lid tightly. Shake vigorously to combine. Refrigerate until you are ready to use it. (It will keep for about 3 days in the refrigerator.)

To make the salad:

Slice the onion as thinly as you can manage. Put the slices in a bowl of ice water.
Bring a pot of water to the boil, and cook the soba noodles following the detailed instructions here. The rinsing stage is very important here, otherwise the soba noodles will become gummy!
Shred the lettuce leaves - you should have enough for about 1 cup per plate. (Alternatively you can just line the plates with whole leaves, but I prefer to shred it.)
Finely shred the shiso leaves.

To assemble:

Line each plate with the lettuce.
Mount the soba noodles on top.
Drain the onion slices and pat them dry with kitchen towels. Mound on top of the soba noodles. Top with a sprinkling of the shiso leaves.
Pour the dressing over the salad, making sure everyone has an equal amount of the umeboshi bits.
Each diner should then mix the salad thoroughly before eating.

Notes

You can make all the components in advance, and assemble the salad as you’re about to serve it.

While this is a vegan salad, the flavors go very well with grilled meat or sausages. For a lighter version, omit the soba and just make a salad of the onions and lettuce.

To make this a complete one-dish vegan meal, top it with tofu cubes, and optionally increase the soy sauce in the dressing to 3 tablespoons. For a fun and so not vegan variation, top with crispy bacon bits, and/or slices of poached chicken breast.

The onions

Around these parts sweet white onions are sold as ‘oignons doux’. You can see them at the markets in big bunches like these.

In the U.S. look for varieties like Vidalia, Walla Walla and Maui.

By putting them in ice water, you do get rid of much of the ‘oniony-ness’ that makes you somewhat pungent, but you may want to avoid eating this salad just before a job interview or blind date, to be on the safe side.

Corn on the cob with butter and soy sauce

maki — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:32:50 +0200

I have to admit that I’ve been quite taken aback by how popular the new potatoes with butter and soy sauce recipe has been. Butter and soy sauce are so familiar to me as a tasty combination that I hadn’t quite realized that it would be new and exciting to a lot of people.

Anyway, here’s another extremely simple yet delicious way of using this magic combination on another summer vegetable - sweet corn. Here in Europe, eating corn on the cob is a relatively new custom imported from the U.S. - corn around here is either dried and ground up (as polenta and so on), or used as animal feed. So it’s not always possible to buy great, very fresh sweet corn. This treatment can perk up even an ordinary supermarket-bought corn on the cob, and will really shine with corn that you’ve just picked from your own garden.

Corn on the cob with butter and soy sauce

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 360°F.

Unhusk and de-silk the corn.

For every ear of corn, use about 1 to 2 Tbs. of unsalted butter. Soften the butter, and smear it all over the corn, so that it goes into all the crevices.

Wrap each ear of corn in a large piece of kitchen parchment paper (aluminum foil will work too), twisted each end tightly as if you were wrapping up a big piece of candy. Place the wrapped corn on a baking sheet. Make a small opening in one seam and pour in about 2-3 tsp. or so of soy sauce, and roll the corn around a bit to distribute the soy sauce.

Bake for 15 minutes, then turn over. Bake an additional 15-20 minutes.

Serve each ear of corn on a big plate, wrapper and all. Each person opens up the paper to eat the corn. Here’s how a wrapped one looks next to a partially unwrapped one.

The butter will have penetrated into the corn kernels, while the soy sauce adds a great salty-yummy flavor. (You can dip the corn as you eat it in any residual soy sauce in the paper.)