Tangy hiziki salad

At the summer conference I attended several amazing cooking classes, the most memorable ones being led by the originally-Spanish and now in Japan residing Patricio García de Paredes. The recipe for this hiziki salad is a slightly adapted version of his “hiziki ceviche”.

First soak a small bunch of hiziki seaweed, at least for half an hour, then cut the “strings” of seaweed into bite-sized pieces, transfer to a small pot with boiling water and boil for about five minutes. Drain and rinse and set aside to cool down. Meanwhile slice a (preferably red) onion into very thin halfmoons, remove the bitter ends, because the onion will not be cooked. Place onion into a bowl, sprinkle with a large pinch of salt (maybe half a teaspoon) and massage for a minute or two with your hands until the onion becomes limp, then set aside for at least half an hour so the sharpness is reduced and digestibility improved by slight fermentation. All previous steps can be prepared ahead of time. When the seaweed is cooled and onion ready, rinse the onion well (otherwise it would be way too salty), mix both in a bowl, add chopped fresh parsley (and fresh cilantro if you have it), some more salt to taste, a bit of oil (I added pumpkin seed oil, but you could use toasted sesame oil), a generous squeeze of lemon and some optional cayenne powder (my addition). The original recipe also called for shoyu and a sweetener, but I omitted those. Salad is best if left for a couple of hours in the fridge or at room temperature, so flavours can meld.

I served it as part of a dinner with sweet millet and gomasio, kinpira of dried burdock,carrots and parsley root, and a condiment of carrot tops sauteed in mustard and a bit of water.

Baked teff dumplings with horseradish kinpira and sauteed greens

 

Long description but simple meal!

All I did was that I cooked up a batch of brown teff (the world´s smallest grain originating in Ethiopia), in a 1:3 grain to water ratio, with a pinch of salt. Then I mixed enough rice flour into the hot grain so that the porridge-like consistency got transformed into a tougher dough and I let it cool.

Meanwhile I prepared kinpira by slicing carrot, parsley root and soaked dried burdock into matchsticks, I sauteed them for a few minutes on a bit of oil with a pinch of salt, in a heavy-bottom pot. When they softened, I added about 1 cm of water into the pot, covered with a lid and let the veggies cook for half an hour on a low flame, using a flame tamer. Towards the end I added a splash of tamari and about 5 cm of finely grated horseradish which I actually mixed in when the flame was already off and just let it steam through.

I also cut up some carrot tops, curly cabbage and white cabbage and sauteed them on a tiny bit of oil with minced garlic and a pinch of salt, just shortly so that they stay crisp.

When the dough cooled off, I formed round dumplings (you might need to wet your hands slightly to prevent sticking), lined them up on a greased baking pan and baked them on 200°C until their surface got crispy. They were a bit bland as I didn´t add any flavour to the dough, so we ended up spreading some coarse mustard on top 😀

 

Complete meal idea

I just thought that this looks really pretty and that it´s quite a nice balanced macro meal, so here you are 😀

Grain: rice+25% sweet rice, with gomasio

Vegetable dish 1: kinpira made from dried/soaked burdock, carrot, a splash of tamari and ginger juice and finely cut carrot tops

Vegetable dish 2: chopped red cabbage sauteed under a lid with a bit of water and a tablespoon of ume vinegar and a bit of dried thyme

Protein: chickpeas with chunks of hokkaido pumpkin and some salt to taste (not in picture)

Greens: raw rucola and corn-salad lettuce

Pickle: sliced takuan (daikon pickled in rice bran)

Last macro meals before my move…

In the beginning of March we were busy with relocating to Slovenia, and we are still settling in…Here I have some meals which I cooked still before our departure but didn´t manage to post them until now…so with a bit of delay… 😀

Rice pressure cooked together with barley with a sprinkle of shiso powder – shiso is a plant with red leaves, the sprinkle also contains seasalt and ume plum vinegar so it has a pleasant salty-sour taste. Kinpira made of dried burdock, carrot, stems of kolrabi and tamari. Steamed pointed cabbage and kolrabi leaves. Arame seaweed cooked together with onion halfmoons, sesame seeds, seasoned with tamari. And of course miso soup…

A couple of days later I cooked rice together with amaranth and millet (with gomasio on top). Accompanied by brown lentils flavoured with ume plum vinegar (I love the combination of legumes and ume plum). And a lovely sautee of fennel, onion, leek, butternut squash, zucchini, green beans and cauliflower, on some olive oil with a mediterranean herb mixture…Usually I don´t make such “southern” dishes, but from time to time I like something with a touch of the south…

Czech sauerkraut soup with tempeh and one more dish…

Yep, I am back on track with my macro cooking after the ten day rice fast!! 🙂 Feels sooooo good to be back in the kitchen preparing all the yummy food, and not just grains with grains, but also soups, beans, veggie meals and ummm, yeah, some dessert…once in a while 🙂

The traditional Czech sauerkraut soup is something I really love and sometimes I attempt to make a macro version. This time I decided to also record it for you 😀 The original version calls for potatoes and sausage, but obviously I omit those without any negative side effects…

You will need:

1 medium to large onion

1 medium to large carrot

1 small or half of a bigger parsnip

about 300 g naturally fermented sauerkraut

caraway, salt, paprika powder, a few leaves or one twig of sage

mirin, ume plum vinegar, tamari

dark miso

about 1 tbsp brown rice flour

tempeh cut into small cubes

oil (optional)

First sautee onion chopped into halfmoons on a bit of water (I am limiting my oil intake, but feel free to use a little amount of oil of your choice)and to soften add a bigger pinch of salt . Stir while adding rice flour and more water if needed, to create a very light bechamel type of soup base. Then add a generous sprinkle of caraway and paprika powder (the soup should be light red in the end) and a twig with a few leaves of sage (dried or fresh), at the end of the cooking you can take the sage out if you used the tough twig or if you don´t want the leaves floating in your soup. Add diced carrot and parsnip and drained sauerkraut (if you like it less strong, flush it a few times with water to get rid of the salt and acid). Cover veggies with water and let boil gently for at least half an hour. Add more water depending on desired soup thickness. Season to your liking with tamari, mirin, ume plum vinegar and diluted dark miso (I used a full tablespoon). Top with cubes of tempeh either dry-roasted on a pan or deep-fried in oil, and afterwards sprinkled with tamari (best is to buy a oil/vinegar spray).

The next day for lunch I had rice cooked in a pressure cooker together with amaranth (1:1 ratio), sprinkled with gomasio. I made a kinpira out of diagonally cut carrot, burdock root and parsnip, seasoned with tamari. And to add some lightness and yin I shortly sauteed chopped green beans and leek and made a sauce out of 1 teaspoon of white shiro miso, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of mirin 🙂

November 1st: A meal of fish and Chestnut-amasake dessert

On November 1st I made a meal of Pacific cod, short grain brown rice pressure cooked with hato mugi (aka pearl barley aka Job´s tears), kinpira, and blanched veggies. The cod was steamed in a steamer basket, after being coated with salt and black pepper, olive oil, dried basil and rosemary, and at the end I squeezed some lemon juice on top (I always add lemon juice to fish – it helps balance the strong yang quality of fish meat). The blanched vegetables that day were kale, paksoi and green beans. The kinpira was traditional: “shards”of carrot and burdock root, cooked with a tiny amount of water, first on high flame for a few minutes, then under a lid on low flame for around half an hour, seasoned at the end with tamari.

As a dessert I served chestnut – amasake cream. I might have not been the first one who came up with this, nevertheless I regard it as my own recipe, because I didn´t look it up anywhere 😀  I roasted a couple of chestnuts in the oven (15 minutes should be enough, I can´t tell the temperature, because our “micro-oven” doesn´t have any temperature settings…), then I blended them in a blender with a bit of water (just to make the blender able to function…) and a generous amount of brown rice amasake (which is fermented brown rice, using a “koji” culture, it is used as a sweetener, a healthy one indeed!), then I transferred the purée to a pot. I added a bit more water and a pinch of salt, cooked the mixture for a while,  then mixed in diluted kuzu starch, brought to boil while stirring continuously and cooked for 1-2 additional minutes. Super easy! And soooo yummy – it actually reminded me of ice cream thanks to its rich creamy texture…

 

 

29.10.

 

On 29th October my boyfriend arrived from his vacation, so I wanted to surprise him with a bit of a more fancy meal. He loves miso soup, so I had to make that one – this time with fresh daikon, plenty of onion slices and with mugwort mochi (I think I mentioned already that mochi is a Japanese product made by pounding sweet brown rice into a firm sticky block, this one was flavoured with a herb called mugwort, it´s a dark green mochi!!).

The main course was pressure cooked brown rice with buckwheat (about 3:1 ratio), tempura of sweet potato and carrot slices (see previous post for the simplified recipe), sauteed cabbage, leek and fennel (without oil, just using a splash of mirin towards the end), a pressed salad from pointed cabbage

-thinly slice cabbage and place in a deep bowl, sprinkle about half a teaspoon of salt for two big handfuls of cabbage (it´s a bit hard to tell the exact amount of salt you need, but don´t use too little, you need the salt to start the fermentation), massage in for a minute or two using your hands, put a small plate on your salad in a way that it sits directly on the salad and put something heavy on the plate (you can of course use a salad press if you have one…I don´t). Let sit for at least half an hour, but preferrably for a couple of hours. The salad will release some water and it will be slightly fermented, just to break down the tough and hard to digest cellular structure, plus it gives the salad a pleasant fresh taste. You can rinse the cabbage in case you find it too salty.

and a kinpira…

-cut an equal amount of carrot and burdock root (can be found in some health shops, but it´s quite rare, you can also find them in nature) into quite thin matchsticks, quickly sautée on a high flame using a tiny bit of water, add sesame seeds if you like, put a lid on, change to very low flame, and slowly cook for 20-25 minutes. Be sure your kinpira doesn´t burn, but don´t lift the lid too often…at the end season with tamari.

For dessert I made a white rice pudding – I cooked a cup of white organic dessert rice (a sticky short-grained rice) with 4 cups of fruit juice (I used water mixed with fruit concentrate, in Holland called “diksap”), add chopped up dried fruit (I used a handful of organic dried apricots) and perhaps a squeeze of lemon (if you want to, you can also add lemon or orange peel, and vanilla essence or powder…). Bring to boil and cook under a lid for half an hour. Turn off heat and let sit for a few more minutes and better even longer so that the water soaks in a bit more. You can mix in a spoon or two of almond butter – I didn´t have any so I just sprinkled some roasted almond flour on top of my servings. If needed, add a natural sweetener, like maple syrup, or rice malt. Next time I have to be more careful with the liquid (I used too much) and maybe I will try and make this dessert in a pressure cooker for a more dense texture.