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Goya Chanpuru -Stir Fried bitter melon

Published by Arpitá

Goya chanpuru is local dishes from Okinawa-south tropic island in Japan-, which use Goya-bitter melon-.
Goya contains lots of vitamin C, and this vitamin C is less destroyed by heat. Goya is very bitter as it self, but stir fried with oil, you can reduce bitter taste.

Normally Goya chanpuru is fried with pork and egg, but you can just stir fried with any vegetable and taste with soy sauce, salt and pepper.
This time we fried with Okura-lady finger and free range egg.

Summer Vegetarian Pizza (no onion,no garlic)

Published by Arpitá

We often get fresh vegetable from our neighbors.
One of our favorite and kind a special dish is pizza. Here is our basic recipe of pizza dough and
pizza.

Ingredients:

Pizza dought
Bread flour (white) —200g
water —-130ml
Salt —-4g
Dry yeast —-2g

Directions:

  1. Mix all the ingredient.
  2. after 30 min, knead the dough well.
  3. When the dough become double size,punch down the dough and divide into 3 pieces. make ball , and leave it for 30 minuites.
  4. Stretch the dough

Ingredients:

Pizza topping
-tomato sauce-
Tomato
Salt
Oregano
-Topping-
Zucchini
Egg plant
Mini tomato
Olive oil
Black pepper
Cheese

Directions:

  1. Making tomato sauce. chop fresh tomato into cubes, add salt and boil down to halve quantity. Add salt and chopped oregano.
  2. spred tomato sauce on the pizza daough.
  3. preheat the oven to the maximum temperature.
  4. place the cheese first, and put mini-tomato,egg plants,zucchini, and again cheese on the top. Sprinkle olive oil not to dry veggies.
  5. bake pizza in maximum temperature.

Most Popular Breakfast

Published by Arpitá

It has been long since Japanese traditional Breakfast became western style.
The bread is square white bread.
Croissant is not popular at all, we can call square white bread as our national bread.　Most of the bread in the supermarket and convenience store is made with egg, but only white bread is made without egg(nor milk).
Usually white bread is vegan.
Still,-I don’t know the situation in other countries- but sadly Japanese white bread from the big factories contains a lot of sugar, salt and food additives.
I think we better buy bread from local baker who doesn’t use unfamiliar additives.

Cucamber Amazu Ae-Cucamber with Shiso and Sweet Vinegar

Published by Arpitá

Ingredients:

Cucamber Amazu Ae
Cucamber —2stk
Shiso leaves(Japanese basil)—-5 leaves
Rice vinegar—-2tbsp
Sugar—-2tsp
Salt—-1tsp
(White sticks on the photo are agar chips, I put this time but it’s an option.)

Directions:

  1. Slice cucumber and cut shiso leaves and smashed with salt by hand.
  2. Wring cucumber dry.
  3. Mixed sugar with vinegar and add cucumber.
  4. Put in a fridge for 30 min.

Amazu is sweet vinegar which made of rice vinegar and sugar. Japanese summer is very hot and humid, and people tend to loose their appetite. Amazu Ae is light refreshing taste and easy to eat.
Cucumber can cool the body, and the rice vinegar is good for digestion and get rid of the tiredness.

Sweet Corn the best way to cook

Published by Arpitá

Now our neighbor gave some sweet corns, it is top season for sweet corn now.
And the way to appreciate is simple cooking.
Well, it is possible to eat raw sweet corn.
But I will show you most popular way to cook Boiled Sweet Corn in Japan.

Ingredients:

Boiled Sweet Corn
Fresh Sweet Corn —2 sticks
Salt—-1/2 tbsp

Directions:

  1. Husking the corn,but leave one leaf.
  2. Boiling water and put the salt in Frying pan.
  3. Drop the corn into boiling water. Cover the pan.
  4. After 3-4 minutes, you can see the corn become transparent.
  5. Turn off the heat and keep the pot covered.
  6. It will ready after 3-4 minutes.


There are three kinds of sweet corn.
1.Golden corn
2.Silver corn
3.bicolor corn

All of them are F1 hybrid seeds. It is not GMO, but hybrid.
It is not nice, but I think it’s fine to eat it.

Homemade Miso

Published by Arpitá

Packaging homemade Miso. This is not for commercial sales but we are dreaming of it. Someday… Anyway, making Miso is a very satisfying job.

We did this in Berlin at friend’s house. Process of Miso fermentation takes at least 12 months at home in Natural room temperature. So we visited there twice and yes, now it’s ready!

We visit Berlin and Denmark quite often, so if you want a workshop how to make Miso, or Japanese traditional cooking, please contact us. We did a making Miso workshop once at Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin last year. It was really fun.

Eggless Cheese Tart for Vegetarian

Published by Arpitá

 


Ingredients:

Eggless Cheese Tart (15cm Tert Shell)
Cream cheese —175g
Fresh cream—-140g
all-purpose flour—-28g
Sugar—-56g
Lemon juice—-2tbsp
Apricot —-1

Directions:

  1. Keep cream cheese out of the fridge to make it soft, and beat cream cheese with sugar.
  2. Mixed well with fresh cream and add lemon juice.
  3. Using a spatula, and add all-purpose flour and mix.
  4. Transfer the cheese filing into the tart shell.
  5. Cut fresh apricot and arrange them on the cheese filing.
  6. Bake at 170C for 40 minutes until the surface become light brown

This baked cheese cake has rich taste, because of the fresh cream.
If you prefer light taste,you can use yogurt of half of the amount of fresh cream.

Umeboshi – Ume plum sour bomb

Published by Arpitá

It was time to harvest Ume plum (Ume in Japanese).

We pick Prunus mume deferent time depends on purpose. You can pick it when it’s green, if it is for syrup. Yellow-green for Umeboshi or Jam. When it is completely ripe(yellow and soft), it is for jam.

Ingredients:

4Kg Umeboshi – Prunus mume sour bomb
Prunus mume (Yellow-green) —4Kg
Salt —-800g
Red Shiso Leaves —-300g
Salt for shiso —-30g

Directions:

  1. Gently wash half ripen ume(half yellow half green),get rid of blemished one.
  2. Wipe off water with clean cloth, and take off　stem end　with tooth picker.
  3. Sterilize inside the container with alcohol. You can use glass jar or big pod as a container. Put Ume and salt alternately in the container. Put salt on the top, you don’t have to cover perfectly, but better put salt on the
    surface.
  4. Put 2kg weight, and put lid or covered with cloth.
  5. Wait 2-3 days until completely covered with liquid.
  6. Preparing red shiso leaves. Wash well red shiso leaf, and take off the water. Sprinkle salt(15g) and massage well with hand and squeeze well. Throw away black water comes form leaves, these are lye. Mix salt(15g) with red shiso leaves.
  7. Spread red shiso leaves on the ume, and leafReplace weight to 1kg.
  8. Wait about 1 month, and dry ume and shiso leaves in sunny day. It takes 3 days. Turn around 1 time in a day while drying
  9. Put them back in a jar with liquid ( it is called ume-zu) or you can just separate them and keep in a dark place in a house. You can start tasting but better wait 2 to 3 month, then salt goes into ume more.

Potato Saute with Sweet Soya Sauce

Published by Arpitá

Ingredients:

Potato Saute with sweet soya sauce
Potato(small size) —10 pieces
Rapeseed oil—-1tbsp
Soya sauce—-1tbsp
Sugar—-1/2tbsp
Mirin(sweet sake)—-1tbsp
Potato starch—-1/2tbsp
Water—-4tbsp

Directions:

  1. Boil potatoes well until it becomes soft
  2. Heat rapeseed oil in a pan and sauté cooked potatoes lightly.
  3. Make sweet soya sauce, mix soya sauce, sugar,mirin in a ball.
  4. Add sweet soya sauce to potatoes, and cook few minutes.
  5. mix potato starch and water and pour evenly to the potatoes and stir quickly.
  6. stop heating when the starch water become thick.

We got new potatoes from farmer near by and he also told the potato recipe!

Mirin is Japanese seasoning which originally made only from rice. It’s kind of sake but lower alcohol content and higher sugar content. When you choose mirin, you better buy Hon-Mirin, it’s pure mirin and
more effective than the other mirin which contain alcohol, suger, etc…

You can buy Hon-Mirin here!
I recommend these product, which use only natural ingredients with good quality.

Hon Mirin Kujyou-made only from rice
九重味淋 お米だけでつくった本みりん 壜 500ml

Ume Syrup -Prunus mume syrup

Published by Arpitá

Ingredients:

Ume Syrup 2.5L
Ume(immature) —1Kg
Rock sugar—-1Kg

Directions:

  1. Clean 5L Jar with hot water, and dry.
  2. Use immature green Ume. Clean with water, using hands, don’t brush them.
  3. Wipe off water with clean cloth, and take off　stem end　with tooth picker.
  4. Put them in a freezer for 24 hours, until completely frozen.
  5. Put Ume and rock sugar alternately in a jar.
  6. In 10 days, you can start drinking,Take off ume within one month. Dilute with water or sparkling water and drink.

This is the way which I learnt from ume farmer. There is several way of making ume syrup,
but I think this is the best for tast and you won’t fail!
You can make ume juice using any sugar like brown sugar, but I recommend you to use rock ice,
because you can enjoy more pure flavor of fresh green ume, and refreshing taste.
Please don’t forget taking away ume within one month, otherwise destroy taste and probably ume become rotten.
You can keep ume syrup in Juice jar in refrigerator for 1 year.

Japanese Loquat Leaves Tea (Biwa cha)

Published by Arpitá

I got Loquat leaves, and made Biwa cha.
Loquat doesn’t need any insecticide, chemical spray to avoid sickness.Even they grow wild in Japan. Around our place some house has loquat tree.
How to make tea is very simple. Pick up the leaves, old leaves have more health benefits, I heard. Just washed them, and dry and cut or crush into pieces. And boil with water for 5-10 min with little simmer until you get red brown color tea.


Loquat leaf contains an antioxidant(Amygdalin, B-17), support immunity
,good for liver. The taste and color is quite similar to rooibos tea, it also contains antioxidant.

You can buy here!
I recommend these product, which use only natural ingredients with good quality.

Loquat Leaves Tea / Osawa-オーサワのびわの葉茶

Green Smoothie with Matcha

Published by Arpitá

Summer in Japan is really hot. Our breakfast in summer is green smoothie, since we travel in France and helping camping site which running by family. They serve green smoothie Straight from their garden, and it was very refreshing and very green. They often used Kale for smoothie, but in Japan, fresh Kale is very rare. So we invented our own smoothie. We always eat same breakfast to support nutritions in a day. I’m concerning about calcium everyday. Because calcium cannot be stored, we need a certain amount of calcium each day. In addition, if you are over 40 years,you cannot decrease the calcium in a body(bone) anymore, if you lack of calcium, body use calcium from your bone,bone will loose calcium and cause osteoporosis.

I choose “Komatuna-Japanese mustard spinach” for green which contain lots of calcium and use sesame and nuts, and put some bit of Matcha for nice flavor.

Here is the recipe of our summer breakfast smoothie!!

Ingredients:

Green Smoothie with Matcha For 2 persons
Komatuna(Japanese mustard spinach)—-2 bunchs
Banana—-1 big size
Soaked almond—-20 grains (Soaked in the water 12H, I put some vinegar to avoid bacteria)
Walnut —1 heaped tbsp
Soya milk—-1 to 1+1/2cups
Raison—-2 tbsp
Matcha powder—-1/4 tsp
Grind sesame seeds—-4 heaped tbsp
Fresh lemon juice—from half of the lemon

Directions:

  1. cut Komatuna and banana
  2. put all ingredients except lemon juice and sesame graind into mixer
  3. put lemon juice and mix with mixer
  4. put grind sesame seeds in cups and pour smoothie and mixed well before eating.

Lemon juice makes soya milk thick. So I put lemon juice after mixing all the ingredients to avoid stop the mixer.

Adults need 650mg calcium in a day. From this smoothie you can get 400mg of calcium.
Still you need to get calcium from other meal but it helps a lot.

Vegan Pancake with Vegan Banana Ice Cream

Published by Arpitá

Ingredients:

For 4 pancakes
all-purpose flour —50g
fine whole wheat flour—-50g
baking powder—-2tsp
pinch of salt
beet sugar—-1tbsp
natural soya milk—-150cc
umezu * (or vinegar or lemon juice)—1tbsp

Directions:

  1. whisk together two kind of flour,salt,sugar in big bowl. put soya milk and vinegar into small bowl.
  2. whisk together until it become thick.
  3. put 2 into 1 and roughly mix.
  4. bake on a pan.

Ingredients:

Banana Ice Cream
banana(well ripen)—-4 sticks
raisins—-2 tbsp (soaked in water to make it soft)
natural soya milk —- 1/2cup
agar powder*— 1 tsp
maple syrup—- 2 tbsp

Directions:

  1. Warm up natural soya milk and dissolve agar powder(don’t boil), mixed maple syrup.
  2. Add bananas and raisins to the food processor and blend.
  3. Add 1 to 2 and blend.
  4. place in an container and freeze for 1 hour. after 1 hour smash ice-cream with fork. and freeze 1 hour more.
  5. If it becomes too firm to scoop it, keep in room temperature for a while. don’t break your spoon!!

You don’t need to add any sweetness in ice-cream, but maple syrup  give some nice flavor to banana, I recommend.

Making pancake is such easy. The point is add vinegar or lemon juice to the dough, it will prevent the gluten from flower. The second point is the dough itself is little bit thick than non-veg pancake dough.

*Umezu(Plum vinegar) is salty and sour water that can be made when pickling Umeboshi(Japanese pickled plum).

*Agar powder is substance of gelatin, and made from algae. It is traditional ingredients for Japanese sweets.

You can buy here!
I recommend these product, which use only natural ingredients with good quality.

Umezu
Uminosei Kougyoku-Umezu
海の精 紅玉梅酢 500ml

Ingredients:organic Japanese plum, organic Japanese red basil, salt

Agar powder
Kantenpapa Inashyokuhin Tokuyou kanten cook
かんてんぱぱ 伊那食品 徳用かんてんクック 4g×20p

Ingredients:algae(made in Japan)

ABOUT

Published by Arpitá

We are Arpitá and Takeshi, who basically live in Japan, and often stay in Denmark for this coupe of years. We are vegetarian(vegan), practitioner of yoga.

There is few vegetarian Japanese, and we would like to show our vegetarian life in Japan in this blog. hope to enjoy!!

Yuzu – Japanese Citrus Fruit –

Published by Arpitá

December is the harvesting time of Yuzu,  Japanese Citrus fruit.
Because it is a Citrus,  probably it cannot grow in Hokkaido or Tohoku(Northern part in Japan).
We don’t really buy it in supermarket(at least I have never bought), it is a thing you can get from your friends, if you live in Japan
We use this useful fruit for many purpose, seasoning ingredient, making jam, for aroma therapy.
It has very unique aroma.  And quite a few recipe is depending on this.

 

Lotus Root Sandwich

Published by Arpitá

I got many lotus root from our friend.
So I made sandwich.Lotus root starts from April until winter.
In spring, the new root is still small and extra soft. It is a little bit expensive vegetable in Japan. Traditionally we eat Lotus root for special occasions.

Homemade whole wheat bread
Rucola
Lotus Root(vinegared for a couple of days)
Fennel leaf
Soy mayonnaise, Olive oil, salt & pepper