Crazy about Japan (and my first guest post)

What do you think about Japanese cuisine? Do you hate it? Love it? Or maybe you have just never tried anything else apart from sushi? I don’t know if I have never mentioned it (if I don’t, I am doing it now), but I am in love with Japan ♥. I love its culture, its language (I have even tried to learn it when I was ten years old. As I suppose you have already guessed, I didn’t succeed) and of course its food.  Contrary to what people thing, Japanese cuisine is a very simple one and it focus on fresh products and the flavor of each ingredients (instead of a concoction where they become unrecognizable)

I have been a big otaku for years ; now I just don’t have time to read manga or watching anime, but I still like it. Actually, two of my biggest hobbies began with manga: drawing and website/graphic design. I could spend all the day drawing the characters of my favorite series. Luckily enough, my teachers didn’t care about the fact that I had all my notebooks full of faces and little drawings. And of course, my first websites were (you guessed it) about manga and anime. I began to design websites when I was only ten years old!

Now, I have too many books from school to read and too many homework to do, so the only way I have to put in practice my interest in Japanese is cooking; I can live without TV (actually, I don’t watch it anymore), cinema, computer games or even without going out on Saturdays nights, but I need doing at least some cooking to relax.  

Well, writing a post (my first guest post!♥) about Japanese culture for some friend of mine (who is even more a lover of Japanese culture than me) is another good way to take a break from schools :) I cooked a Mushroom miso soup and wrote the recipe, which you can read here. By the way, you can visit his blog, NihongoUp: it’s about Japanese language and culture. Philip is a Russian New Media developer & designer (check out his game to learn Japanese!) who has been living for years in Czech Republic. He has got a small section about food and recipes, and I tried one of them: Stir-fried tofu with green beans. Maybe I can’t afford going to Japan, but at least I can eat a tofu with green beans at home :)

Check out this mushroom miso soup recipe on NihongoUp blog!

By the way, I have created a Twitter account (I couldn’t resist it!) Now I have to get the hang of it. What do you think about Twitter? Do you think that it will suppose the disappearance of blogs  (yeah, some people think it will) and that microblogging is the future? Or that it is just a passing fashion? In any case, I succumbed to the temptation, and now I have a Twitter widget on the right side of the blog :)

Stir-fried tofu with green beans By Philip, from NihongoUp Blog(recipe here) I have introduced very little changes in this recipe because it’s incredibly easy. It’s the perfect everyday dish: healthy, balanced, tasty and quick. The only ingredients I omitted are fresh minced ginger and mirin because I run out of this ingredients (visiting the Asian store is in my “to do list” since September). The original recipe calls for extra-firm tofu, but mine was frozen. I would say it worked as well as regular tofu. I forgot unthawing it, so I put it in the steamer for five minutes and it turned out perfect. Then,  press it between two plates and something heavy on top as you would do with a non-frozen tofu block (it allows the tofu to absorb better the flavor) and marinate it in the mix of tamari (soy sauce), mirin, sesame oil and maple syrup for 15 minutes.

Cauliflower and green peas dry curry (T&T)

I have been a cauliflower hater most of my life. I hated all about it: the taste, the color and specially the smell. I remember that when I was little, I couldn’t stand arriving at home from school and smelling this thing — just mentioning “cauliflower” was enough to send shivers down my spine— while it was cooking in the kitchen. I admit that I was a little bit fussy about food when I was little (not just with cauliflower) but I still can’t understand my past aversion to this veggie. My mother was always trying to disguise it covering it with an omelet; it worked with my brother, but not with me….I was too clever (just kidding. I suppose my brother loved omelet too much to leave it on the plate. My mother, of course, always made sure that the cauliflower was broken in tiny, tiny florets)

Now I love it. And I don’t need covering it with anything: I can eat it plain, steamed and just with a drizzle over it. Actually, I eat most of my veggies this way: it’s easy and you can savor them in all their glory (I am sure that I have already told it…and more than once. I wonder why I am such a pain in the neck).  I could do a list of all the veggies I hated before going vegan and that now I adore, but I am afraid that you would fall asleep before I finished.

A couple of days ago I was in a café, speaking with a friend: she ordered a chocolate bun and told me she was addicted to it; I told her that I was addicted to Brussels sprouts and broccoli (now I am afraid that I lost her forever).

But if I only ate steamed veggies I wouldn’t have anything to blog about, so sometimes I need to cook something more elaborated. An example is this cauliflower curry I did for this month Tried and Tasted. Since Renae sent me a box full of spices because I complained about how difficult it was to buy them here (I won’t get tired of saying it…you’re a darling! : ) I suppose you will receive soon your parcel from Spain), every time I cook something Indian I am like a kid with a new toy….at least I can cook something without omitting half of the ingredients! 

So if you like Indian cuisine too, have a look at Sunshinemom’s Tongue Ticklers, the blog of the month in Tried&Tasted November edition. The hostess is Raaga, from The Singing Chef. As always, you have more information Raagas entry on T&T, or in Zlamushka’s original post. But the principle is easy: you cook something from Tongue Ticklers, make a photo, blogs about it and send it to the hostess (this month to The Singing Chef  webmistress). Non-bloggers are welcome too.

Feel free to use this logo (I am the official T&T designer…yay!),but it would be nice if you linked back to Tales of a Spoon ;) It’s the only thing that I ask in return.

Cauliflower and green peas dry curry - Gobi Matar ki sukhi subzi Serves: 3 From: Tongue Ticklers 1 kg cauliflower ½ cup peas (I used one cup) 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp carom seeds  ( Sunshinemom emphasized that it shouldn’t be omitted, but I didn’t have any) ¼ tsp fennel seeds 1 ½ coriander powder ½  tsp cumin seed powder ¼ turmeric Chili (to taste; I didn’t add  too much) 1/8 dry mango powder 1 tsp fenugreek Coriander and dry fenugreek leaves (I omitted this) Break the cauliflower in small florets. Heat a little bit of oil in a skillet (or in a wok) and add the cumin, carom and fennel seeds. Add the cauliflower, salt and cover until half cooked. Add the peas and cook until almost done. Add the powdered spices (turmeric, coriander, chili, mango and cumin). Sauté. Adjust the seasoning if needed. Finally, add the fenugreek, sauté for a minute more and turn off the heat. Sunshinemom recommends serving it on rotis or rice

Verdict
Definitely, you can’t omit half of the spices when cooking something Indian like I was doing. I have done curry many times before, but it never tasted like this (I suppose it’s logical when you curry lack some essential ingredients, like turmeric). It was spicier than I am used to, but I liked it. I have been only once in an Indian restaurant (it was in Prague, and my friends told me that it was real Indian food. If their Indian friends told them it, I suppose it was true) and it was rather spicy….but very pleasant to palate. You know, spicy enough but not too spicy. Well, this is the most similar to something Indian I have ever cooked :-) Light, easy to digest (fennel and cumin are very good in this sense), low-fat and quite quick. Maybe I will try a wet variation of it (but first I have to find a soy yoghurt without a tone of sugar in it)

Now that summer is over, I have dug up some photos I did when I was still on holidays.

Curried rice and red lentils with Brussels sprouts

Fall is definitively here. The wind is already cold and gusts on morning and afternoons, and you only want to stay at home with you cup of hot tea (or coffee, or herbal tea. I would like to be so healthy, but I can’t). I fancy again hot porridge on mornings, and for me it’s the sign that cold days are already there. And of course, sweet potatoes and chestnuts. I have been living on sweet potatoes lately, but today I ate chestnuts for the first time this autumn. I bought them at school. Yeah, at school: 11 year students (which here is called 4th of ESO, and it’s the last compulsory year) are selling roasted chestnuts in the school café to recollect money for their end of year trip. I think that the authentic fall tastes like chestnuts and sweet potatoes, doesn’t it? It’s common to see people who sells them in the street , especially just before “Castanyada”, a traditional Catalonian celebration which takes place during the All Saints’ Day (although every time more and more people is replacing it with Halloween) and where people eat roasted chestnuts, panellets (small marzipan cakes) and sweet wine. We even saw Trick ‘r Treat,— Michael Dougherty horror film—in English class! 

I have posted recipes with pumpkin and sweet potatoes so far (chestnuts and panellets are in my “to do list”, but  I have sun a little bit other wonderful vegetables like….Brussels sprouts, for example. I don’t know why there are so much Brussels sprouts haters.  I can understand spinach haters or even chard haters—although I love this veggies as well—….but what is wrong with Brussels sprouts? I love eating mine plain, just steamed and with a drizzle of olive oil on top (like a lot of veggies), but sometimes I fancy something different. Brussels sprouts is not the kind of veggie you usually put in your slow and long cooking dishes, but I decided to try. The result was today’s recipe.

Curried rice and red lentils with Brussels sprouts I haven’t used too much curry in this recipe, so if you like your curried dishes spicy consider adding a little bit more. The coconut milk makes it even milder, and cooking it on a low heat and whole softens the Brussels sprouts without making them fall apart. Feel free to try it with other kind of rice (white rice, Arborio, basmanti rice…), but be careful with the cooking time. From: original recipe Serves: 3-4 1 tsp curry powder 1/2 tsp garam masala 1 onion, chopped 5 tbsp tomato paste 1/2 cup brown rice, half cooked 2 pears in quarters 1 cup Brussels sprouts 1 cup water 2 cups shredded cabbage 1 cup red lentils 1 cup stock 125 ml coconut milk more water if needed salt oil Heat about 1 tbsp of oil in a saucepan. Add 1 tsp of curry powder, 1/2 tsp of garam masala and cook for a couple of minutes on a low heat (don't burn it!)Add the chopped onion, about 5 tbsp of tomato paste and the half-cooked 1/2 cup of rice. Cook for 5 minutes more. Add one cup of water or stock, salt (if you are using water), and cover for 10 minutes. Stir the shredded cabbage, one cup of red lentils, 125 ml of coconut milk and another cup of stock. Cook on a low heat until the rice is well cooked and the lentils are falling apart. It must be a moist dish, so add more stock or water if needed.