Hokkigai/clam

Bought Hokkigai/clam (北寄貝) in fish market in Rovinj, Croatia. Very small but sweet, blanch in boiling water for 45 seconds to open the shell. 

Soya marinated tuna

Found baby tuna in the market, the flesh is soft and taste mild. I cut them into slices and marinated in a little soya sauce overnight. The texture becomes firm and gelatinous, much more attractive, served with spring onion and ginger in olive oil.

Little blue berries

Bees came and fertilised berry flowers, the flowers fall off and reveal the little berries that are formed. Have to wait for them to change from green to blue, and hope to get them before the birds!

Mix vegetable pie

This pie filling is made with juicing residue: carrot, apple, celery and kiwi.

1. Make pie crust (150gm flour, a big pinch of salt, 75gm butter, one egg), line a baking dish.

2. Mix vegetable with 50gm almond powder, 2 eggs and 100gm sour cream, season with salt, pepper and 5 spices powder.

3. Pour into baking dish, cover the top with grated Gruyere cheese, bake at 200˚C until golden, around 25 minutes.

Shitake mushroom & zucchini "noodle" soup

Very tasty and colorful "noodle" soup.

1. Use a "julienne" cutter to cut zucchini into thin long noodle like pieces.

2. Cut shitake into slices, cook in oil with salt until soft, add stock and zucchini "noodle", season with salt and pepper.

Lamb in tomato sauce

1. Cut lamb leg meat into strips, marinate with paprika, salt, pepper, cumin powder and brown sugar.

2. Cut sun dried tomatoes into small pieces, celery into strips.

3. Heat 1/2 tsp cumin seed in oil until aroma comes out, add lamb meat, sear all sides. Add sun dried tomatoes, celery and 2 tbsp tomato sauce. Stir in a handful of coriander leaves before serving.

Broccoli cheese bake with soya milk residue

 
1. Cut broccoli into florets, put in a baking dish.

2. Mix around 50gm each of soya milk residue and flour, blend with 50gm butter, dilute with milk to form a thick liquid, season with salt and pepper, pour on top of broccoli.

3. Grate Gruyere cheese on the surface, bake at 200˚C until golden, around 30 minutes.

Using soya residue - Sticky rice flour sesame cake

The soya residue after making soya milk should not be wasted. 

1. Mix equal volume of sticky rice flour with soya residue, for sweet cakes, season with brown sugar, for savory one, salt, brown sugar, 5 spices powder and white pepper. Mix with water to form a dough.

2. Make round balls than flatten them, press both faces on a dish of sesame seeds.

3. Pan fry sesame cakes in oil at medium heat until golden. 

Soya milk

Just found out that a fine sieve can separate soya residue from soya milk, it is much easier to use than the traditionally method of squeezing a bag to get the milk out.

1. Soak 100gm of soya bean overnight.

2. In a blender, add soya bean and 500ml water, blend for 2 minutes.

3. In a wide pot, boil the mixture with another 500ml water, stirring all the time, remove from heat regularly when the foam rises up. Keep boiling at medium heat for at least 7 minutes.

4. Use a fine sieve to separate soya milk, press with spoon to have all the milk out.

5. Add brown sugar for sweetness.

Smoked salmon in sherry mustard sauce

1. Cut smoked salmon into thick pieces, sear all sides until just cooked.

2. De-glace pan with sherry, stir in a tbsp of mustard and 2 tbsp of sour cream, add a handful of chopped chives before serving.

Juiced vegetable residue

khol rabi with carrot/apple/kiwi

After pressing fruit, vegetable and herb to make a good juice, the pressed residue is not to be wasted.

It could simply be added to plain cooked vegetable, lentil, rice etc to improve colour and taste.

swede with carrot/apple/celery.

A good juicer - Moulinex Infiny Press

This juicer has a compression mechanism to press juice, much less brutal than those that uses a mincing action, and hence less noisy. With this pressing action, it can work on soft and hard fruit, vegetable and also herbs effectively. 

Blood orange, carrot, celery and ginger juice

The trick to avoid jamming the machine is to remove the little trap door at the bottom of the sieve, and throw in soft and hard fruit/vegetable at the same time instead of one type after another.

To make the juice even more flavourful, I add a pinch of salt in it.

Cherry blossom

A rare sunny day after more than 2 weeks of rainy cold weather, and the old cherry tree has burst forth into beautiful blossom.   

Stewed smoked mackerel

Remove mackerel skin, put in a pot with half a cup of balsamic vinegar, half a cup of sherry, 2 tbsp of brown sugar or fermented rice (for sweetness), cook at low temperature, turn over every 10 minutes, until sauce reduced.

Serve on a bed of mix grains rice.

Mix grains rice

When I cook rice, I like to add other grains or seeds to reduce carbohydrate level, the result is beautiful to look at, tasty and nutritious.

This one has half rice, half mixture of red quinoa, linseed, fennel seed and seaweed.  The easiest is to put the mixture in a wide bottom container, add 1.5 parts in volume of boiling water, steam until soft, around 40-50 minutes.

Apple flowers

 

It is interesting to see that wild apple tree has lovely carmine pink flower buds, but when open, they loss all colour and are pure white. 

 

Eating apple, on the other hand, just has a streak of pink on mostly white flower buds.

Veal liver salad

1. Cut veal liver into strips, season with salt, pepper and wine for 15 minutes.

2. Sprinkle salt and pepper on salad leaves, mix well and let them soften for 15 minutes.

3. Dry roast pine nut in a pan, stirring all the time, until golden.

4. Sear veal liver until just cooked, de-glace the pan with sherry, add a spoonful of sour cream.

5. Mix in salad leaves, add pine nut on top before serving.

Dandelion

A cheerful sight in spring, bright yellow dandelion flowers on a carpet of fresh green grass. All until they turn into fluffy white seed balls and spread their seed by wind everywhere, into the garden. They germinate fast and have deep root that is difficult to remove.

However, they provide precious nectar for bees when they come out foraging for food after hibernation.  

   

Quinoa soup

This soup is a meal on its own. Quinoa is a type of vegetable seed from Peru. It has around 20% protein and the rest starch, which makes it healthier to eat than rice.

1. Cook quinoa in water or stock, for around 15 minutes, it will double in size.

2. Add in carrot and zucchini, or any seasonal vegetable, with or without meat, cut into cubes. Cook until soft, season with salt and pepper. Add a handful of chopped parsley just before serving.

Bay tree

The bay leaves that we use in cooking, if we let the plant grows, can reach very tall and is a beautiful evergreen tree providing shade in summer and colour in winter. It flowers now, the whole tree covered with flowers and buds, and the little flower has a fragrance like that of the leaves.