Raw cabbage salad

Spring cabbage, being grown in cold winter months is sweeter than those grown in summer. I like particularly this conical variety, sweet and crisp, great to use as raw salad.

1. Cut cabbage as fine as possible, and an inch of ginger also cut as fine as possible, add a handful of dried fruit, like raisin, fig or goji berry.

2. Marinate with around 0.8% it's weight of salt, juice of one or two lemon, mix well and rest for at least a few hours for longer.

3. Before serving, mix with olive oil and a handful of walnut.  

Green juice

Planted salad and parsley seedlings in end March, just a month and they are ready to serve.

On top of using parsley in cooked dishes, I also like to juice it, beautiful flavorful dark green juice. I mix it with other vegetable and fruit, like this one with cabbage, zucchini, grapefruit and ginger.

Cuttlefish in olive oil

cuttlefish

It is the season for cuttlefish, fishermen bring them in every morning, still alive. 

They are so fresh, I like to just quickly blanch them in water with ginger and salt, for a couple of minutes. 

cuttlefish in olive oil

When cool enough to handle, cut into bite size pieces, season with salt, black pepper and olive oil, tasted sweet and crunchy.

Spring onion stew

spring onion

These spring onions look wonderful and super fresh in the market, very tempting to eat them. However the onion family is too hard to digest and I cannot eat them raw or close to raw.

stew spring onion

So I used this stewing method, cooking in soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and spices, just like stewing meat. The result tasted fantastic, though lost the bright green look.

Spring bitter greens, Rovinj, Croatia

Rovinj vegetable market

In Southern Europe, there is a tradition of eating bitter green vegetable in spring, to clean the liver after a winter of heavy rich food. 

radiccho lettuce

These could be cultivated ones like radiccho lettuce, or wild ones like dandelion leaves, wild asparagus.

dandelion leaves

I prefer to cook the bitter leaves with other vegetable to tone down the taste, good choices in season are deep dark green Savoy cabbage and parsley.

Wild asparagus is not too bitter and could be eaten on its own, or with addition of a handful of parsley.

wild asparagus & parsley

Only the top half of wild asparagus are tender enough to be eaten.

wild asparagus tea

One of the old ladies in the market told me that the bottom half could be used to make tea, have the same health benefits.

Restaurant Trost, Vrsar, Croatia

It is welcoming to see, at the entrance of the restaurant, a display fridge with the seafood available for the day, what a great way to choose what to eat.

Inside the restaurant is an old fashion charcoal grill, for the chef to grill the selected produce in front of your eyes.

Langoustines, squids, rock fish, simply grilled to perfection, juicy and tender, with just a drizzle of olive oil and salt on top.

langoustines

rock fish and squids

River Gacka, Croatia

River Gacka

It is one of top ten best trout fly-fishing rivers in the world. 

River Gacka is in south east of Istria, Croatia, the water comes out of springs, flows along flat fields in Otocac town and surrounding area, before disappearing underground again.

The water is crystal clear, bluish green with aquatic plant growing at the bottom and along the banks.

It is easy to see rainbow and brown trout in the river, popping out every now and then to catch flies. There are a lot of other birds life too.

Old world charm, Croatia

Brod Na Kupi area

South east of Istra, Croatia is this hilly area Brod Na Kupi, famous for trout fishing.

Kupa river

The rivers are pristine clear, deep bluish green with weed flowing at the bottom.

Church St Ana

On top of a hill is this little church St Ana, simple and graceful.

Houses have grass field around, they like to grow vegetable in these long strips, a traditional way to practice rotation, let the patch rest as grass in following year.

Eating wild fish and green, Croatia

Rovinj

In Spring, when the weather in France is still uncertain, a lot of light showers and gloomy cold days, it is a great pleasure to go to Rovinj, Croatia to meet friends, enjoy clear blue view, crisp air, and some wild food.

 

John Dory

It is a delight to go to the market every morning to check what the local fishermen have caught, and to pick up some wild asparagus and other local weeds from the old ladies in the small market.

 

Sea bream & Snapper

I like to dry the fish well and sprinkle salt on both side, leave it open in the fridge until noon, then bake at 200˚C, around 10 minutes for small to medium size fish.

 

Wild asparagus and allium

Wild greens are quickly cooked in olive oil, then mix with salad leaves, using generous amount of cider vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper as dressing.

Simply cooked, simple meal, very delicious.

Fruit tree flowers

It is great to see flowers bursting out of young fruit trees: apricot, peach, cherry and plum in this period, glad to know that they survived the winter and the clay soil. 

Even happier is to find bees already coming out feeding, or setting fruits for me.  

Sowing seeds

Just finished sowing seeds of vegetable I like to have this summer in small boxes, to be kept warm in the green house.

 In the seed catalog, for each type of vegetable, there are so many different varieties to choose from, a mind boggling job. I like to choose those that have good colour: e.g. Atomic red carrot, Ox blood beetroot, Burgundy okra; and great taste: Apple pepper, Thai 5 stars cucumber etc.

Fermented wheat

The tradition is to ferment white rice to make the sweet sour rice dessert 酒釀, but I am curious to see what happens when other grains are used, the ferment should work on any starch.

So I try with whole wheat grain, actually an old variety called Kamut, which has more flavor and nutrients. The fact is wheat has 12% protein on top of carbohydrate and rice has only carbs!

cooked Kamut

1. Soak wheat grains in water for 24 hours, change water a couple of times.

2. Cook wheat grain in fresh water, cover to a cm above the grains, until soft, stirring now and then, around 15 minutes.

3. Pour out excess water, let it cools to around 30˚C, add rice ferment, mix well, cover with lid and keep in a warm place, like in the oven or wrap up with duvet.

4. After 48 hours, the grains tasted sweet and sour, success! Keep in fridge to slow down fermentation.

warm up fermented Kamut dessert

5. I like to have it at breakfast, warm up with a little water then stir in an egg.

Zucchini Parmesan soup

In the evening, I like to eat light, a good bowl of soup to warm up in the still cold Spring evening is a good choice. This one is simple to make yet tasty and full of nutrients.

1. Cut dry shrimps, zucchini and aged Parmesan cheese into pieces.

2. Gently fry shrimps in butter until fragrant, take them out. Add zucchini and stir-fry until soft, add enough water to cover and bring to boil, season with salt & pepper.

3. When zucchini is soft enough, blend to a smooth texture, mix in shrimp and boil for a minute, serve and sprinkle Parmesan on top.

Poached smoked herring

Smoked herring is one of my favorite small oily fish, readily available and tasty.

1. In a shallow pan, add a cm deep of milk, or water with 2 tbsp sour cream, flavor with ginger and black pepper, simmer for a few minutes.

2. Add slices of smoked herrings, simmer gently until warm through, about 3 minutes.

Cepe and soybean soup

It is time to use up preserved summer produce to free up space ready for new harvest.

These cepes were picked while hiking in Gothenburg, Sweden last August; soy bean was a late harvest of the small variety from Inle Lake, Myanmar, cooked in its pods and then frozen.

1. Soak dry cepes in water for at least 3 hours, cut into bit size pieces.

2. Sweat carrot, cut into cubes, until soft, add cepes and soaking liquid, bring to boil then add soybean, season with salt & pepper. Thicken with cornstarch then pour on top of lettuce, cut into thick strips.