Mercedes´ Dancing Soba

Mercedes is one of my favourite food bloggers – she also studied (and taught) macrobiotics at the Kushi Institute in Amsterdam, now she´s running her own cooking school in Almere in the Netherlands. I yet have to taste her fabulous dishes, but my mouth waters each time I read her inventive recipes which are usually influenced by her Caribbean roots 😀

Check out her dancing soba recipe!

I modified it slightly: Instead of soba noodles I used black rice noodles (made by the Terrasana company), for vegetables I used leek, garlic, carrot, green peas and young savoy cabbage, and I tweaked the ratios of the seasonings a bit (2 tbsp rice vinegar, 3 tbsp mirin and 2 1/2 tbsp tamari).

As a topping I made pan-fried cubes of dried tofu, which you first have to soak, then strain the liquid out (most of it, but not every drop, otherwise it soaks up a bit too much of the oil) and then fry it in a shallow layer of sesame oil until browned and slightly crispy.

Gorgeous looking and tasting soup….

Vegetables with arame and lemony kuzu sauce from Sweetveg

Today I am just going to link to a post from one great macro blog with recipes you should definitely try! This time the Sweetveg blog inspired me to try a modified version of the “Vegetables with arame and lemony kuzu sauce“.

I followed it quite closely, except I didn´t have celery stalks, so I just omitted those, and instead of the rutabaga (which you cannot find here) I used parsley root. I also used dried/soaked lotus root slices and dried/soaked/sliced shiitake mushrooms (both are suggested at the end of the original post to be used in this recipe). I´m not sure which cabbage was used in the original recipe, but I had the “curly” savoy variety which works great in stews. I  didn´t have daikon so I used black radish, which is just another member of the radish family and has a more sharp and earthy taste than the daikon.  The sauce I followed exactly. As a sidedish I made a rice/amaranth mixture with roasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Creamy white rice risotto with shiitake mushrooms

I love brown rice, I really do. It IS possible to make a brown rice risotto, there are recipes in macro cookbooks, and I even have one here on the blog. Nevertheless, there is something about a traditional creamy white rice risotto…..so I gave it a try and here it is, we loved it!!

Since I was making a vegan risotto, I didn´t use a chicken broth, which you can find in many recipes. Instead I prepared a stock using some leftover water from blanching vegetables, in which I soaked 4 shiitake mushrooms, for a couple of hours. The shiitakes give a wonderful earthy rich flavour to the broth as they soak. After taking out the shiitakes, I added one tablespoon of rice miso diluted in a little bit of water and I brought the broth to boil.

After completing this step I sauteed a large sliced onion on olive oil with a pinch of salt. When the onion softened I added one and a half cup of white risotto rice, stirred to coat with the oil and added a splash of mirin (that is instead of white wine which is required in several recipes). After the mirin soaked into the rice, I started adding the warm broth (you can leave the broth gently simmering with a lid off on your lowest flame to keep it warm during cooking). I added always only half a cup of the broth at a time and kept stirring continuously, watching for the liquid to soak in. You should not let the risotto get completely dry and without liquid, but also don´t add more liquid before the previous one is at least mostly absorbed. Risotto requires your constant attention and stirring, so don´t leave it just sitting there 😀 Don´t worry, the result is worth the effort!!

Meanwhile (or before you start making the rice) sautee your soaked and thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms in some olive oil until they become very fragrant and shrink considerably, they can almost start caramelizing. Set them aside, it´s ok if they cool down.

I put six cups of broth into my risotto (different recipes call for different ratios of rice and broth). The point is: the rice should get soft, but not overcooked, it should still have a bite, while being very creamy. This should take about half an hour. At the end I mixed in the sauteed mushrooms, some nutritional yeast for extra cheesy flavour (totally optional) and some extra salt and pepper.

I served the risotto with black olives, fresh chopped parsley and some steamed savoy cabbage.

Traditional Czech Christmas “kuba” the macro way – for your next holiday!

Yes yes, I know, Christmas is already far behind us and we´re all looking forward to spring coming. But sadly it takes me usually a long time to catch up on all the posts I want to write, so usually I´m writing about foods that I cooked about a month ago or even a bit longer ago… :-p My bad, but anyway, you can already make plans for the next Christmas holiday, it will be here sooner than you think!

Traditional Czech “kuba”, eaten for Christmas day lunch, is made with wild mushrooms (I didn´t have those on hand) and with plenty of butter and/or lard, so this is a more macro-friendly version…

I cooked pearley barley (polished barley) for half an hour. It was already presoaked, so maybe it would take a bit longer to cook without soaking. Nevertheless, the barley should still have a bite and not be too mushy or creamy! Meanwhile I sauteed a good amount of minced onion on oil with a pinch of salt and then sauteed it together with sliced soaked shiitake mushrooms, until the mushrooms got soft and well…nicely fried 😀 I seasoned them with some dried marjoram, caraway seeds, minced garlic (an essential kuba ingredient so don´t e shy!), black pepper and an extra sprinkle of sea salt. The flavour should not be too mild as you are making a casserole dish, not a separate vegetable dish with grain.

When the mushrooms and onions are done, mix them through the cooked barley, transfer mixture to a greased casserole dish, smoothe the surface out, drizzle with some extra oil and bake until the top is browned and a bit crispy. The dish is nice served with sauerkraut or other pickles.

A winter stew and pumpkin with a maple-miso sauce

The idea for the maple-miso pumpkin comes from my Dutch friend Sonya – you can check out her recipe and blog here.

So I cut a big slice of pumpkin and smeared it with a thin layer of shiro (white) miso mixed with a teeny bit of maple syrup and sprinkled it with dried rosemary. I baked it in the oven for about half an hour, in the last ten minutes adding a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds.

For the stew I took a pot and spread some ume plum paste on the bottom. Next I placed a post-stamp sized bit of kombu and one soaked and sliced shiitake mushroom. Then I layered thin rounds of red beet, carrot, turnip and onion. I added about 2 to 3 cm of water and simmered the stew for about half an hour on a low flame and a flame tamer.

The meal was served with a short and long grain rice and oat mixture sprinkled with dulse seaweed.

Okara shiitake stir-fry with buckwheat

Okara is one of those macro ingredients that most “normal” people have no clue about, and actually many macro people don´t use okara either…It´s a by-product of tofu production and it´s the cooked soybean pulp that gets strained before you put nigari into soy milk to turn it into a firm chunk of tofu. It´s quite neutral on its own so it can be used in many versatile ways, both sweet and savoury. So far I only tried the savoury applications, such as in this little recipe…

Sautee some onion with a pinch of salt on olive oil until translucent, then add two sliced (dried and well soaked) shiitake mushrooms, a bit of water, cover pan with a lid and let steam for a couple of minutes. Then add thinly sliced half or quarter moons of zucchini and cook some more. Be sure the mushrooms and zucchini both get soft. Add half to one cup of fresh okara (it is sold refrigerated) and again cook under the lid, stirring at times. Season with more salt or ume plum vinegar which gives a nice little sour kick. Serve the dish with buckwheat with mixed in fresh minced parsley. The parsley is totally optional but balances well the strong contracting heavy energy of the buckwheat.

Simple vegetable and shiitake stir-fry

This meal is so minimalistic that I wonder whether I should be posting it, but I guess we all need some very simple ideas and inspiration 😀

Heat some oil and sautee first half-moons of onion, then sliced (dried and presoaked, or fresh) shiitake mushrooms, let them soften, then add rounds of leek, sliced curly cabbage and half-moons of daikon.  Season with salt and pepper and serve with some brown rice.Voila!

 

 

Barley shiitake meal soup

This is a very filling soup which we had as main course for dinner. It´s more kind of a stew 😀 The recipe actually comes from Jessica Porter´s Hip Chick´s Guide to Macrobiotics, but I made some adjustments…

Bring 2 bowls of wate to boil, together with 1/3 cup of barley, a 5-cm piece of kombu, 4 dried shiitake mushrooms, a small bunch of dried burdock pieces (optional, but adds great depth) and 2 larger but thin slices of ginger root. Lower the flame, cover and simmer for about 40 or 45 minutes, until the barley is soft. Take out the kombu, slice into thin strips and return to pot (or discard or save for another dish). Take out the shiitakes as well, chop up into small pieces (or slices) and return to pot. Discard the ginger slices. Meanwhile sautee one sliced medium onion on a bit of water with a pinch of salt, until soft. Add 2 tablespoons of oat flour (I crushed oatflakes in a suribashi to get a coarse powder) and a few spoons of hot water from the soup to thin the onion-flake mixture into a creamy consistency, watch out for lumps. Add this mixture to the soup and boil for a bit longer. At the end add a splash of lemon juice and 1 1/2 tbsp of dark barley miso. Garnish with chopped scallions. Yum!!

Shoyu bouillon and melted mochi nishime

I consider myself a bit of a soup freak. I used to really dislike soup as a kid and always wanted to skip it and go straight for the main course, but in the Czech culture soup is pretty important and is not to be skipped 😀 Well…in the last years I learnt to make soup that I actually enjoy. No – I love soup! And I could totally live off it…

Like this shoyu bouillon… Normally I stick to miso soup in a thousand variations, but I wanted to give this a try. And it was a good idea I will repeat again soon. So simple! For two people, just boil water and add: about 5 cm piece of kombu, about 2 cm piece of broken up wakame (I crush it between my fingers), fine strips of leek, daikon cut in cubes and one fresh chopped shiitake mushroom. Boil for about 5-10 minutes, then take out the kombu (you can use it for nishime or for cooking grains/beans), add one 1 cm thick slice of tofu cut into small cubes and 2 tablespoons of shoyu (for 2 bowls of soup). Garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

For the main course I made sweet millet into which I added (in the last 5 minutes) diluted brown rice miso to simmer and in the end mixed in fresh chopped parsley; and nishime of turnip, carrot, topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke), onion, parsnip, sweet potato and celery root. At the end I mixed in diluted shiro miso to simmer for a few minutes, together with a small cube (about 5 X 5 cm) brown rice mochi, grated on a grater with bigger holes. The mochi melts and it all becomes a lovely naturally sweet gooey mess, ehm, mixture! I learnt adding mochi to nishime from a friend of mine and it was a great learning moment…