Wholesome recipes!

Here some more recipes!


Some are mine and some are copied by other chefs!






Soft aduki beans


A word about strange sea vegetables ( or seaweeds)


They are a good source of minerals and they are brilliant in soups and stews; they help cooking process and add flavour and nourishment. Treat a piece of kombu or wakame, etc...as a leaf or two of bay tree.
sea vegetables mentioned here in these recipes can be found even in supermarket or in the local health food shop I get most of mine from Steve in Greenwich market ( that little green health food shop!)

This is a sweet & satisfying dish - perfect for this time of the year.

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ingredients

• 1 cup of aduki beans (soaked for a few hours if possible), 1 strip of kombu, 3 onions (sliced)
• shoyu, rice syrup, sesame, freshly chopped parsley

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instructions

1. Drain & rinse beans. Place in a pressure cooker with kombu and 3-4 cups of water. Bring up to pressure (or boil if you don't have a pressure cooker) and cook for 45 minutes (or if boiling, cook until the beans are soft).
2. Meanwhile, heat up some sesame oil in a pot and add the onions. Sauté until soft and translucent. When the beans are ready, add them to the pot. Mix together well. If there is any cooking water left over from the beans add this to the pot and simmer until most of it has evaporated. Once you have a nice stew like consistency, not to wet and not too dry, add shoyu and rice syrup to taste. Serve with freshly chopped parsley.

FourGrain Medley

½ cup millet
½ cup quinoa
½ cup couscous
1 cup corn
3 cups water
2 Tbs toasted sunflower seeds
pinch of sea salt

Place couscous in a medium sized bowl. Bring water and salt to a boil. Add corn and simmer for 3 minutes. Pour off 1 cup water through a strainer and add to the bowl containing the couscous. Cover with a plate and set aside.
Return remaining water and corn to a boil. Stir in millet and quinoa. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until water has been absorbed. Gently mix grains and seeds together and serve.

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Rice. Is there anything new to say about this almost ubiquitous staple food? I’ve read that rice provides one-fifth of the calories consumed by humans, and when you consider that the world’s most populous countries, China and India, are rice-eating nations, that’s plausible. When I began researching rice, I was vaguely aware that it was domesticated long ago in China (10,000 years ago, in fact) but I had no idea that rice was a significant African crop, where it’s been cultivated for 3,500 years. In fact, the first rice grown in the U.S. came from Africa, and it was African slaves who taught Carolina plantation owners how to grow rice. Today, rice is an important crop in our backyard, California’s Sacramento Valley.
In Japan, the rice-eating country I know best, rice is considered essential, not just as food, but culturally. It’s sometimes said that rice-eating cultures are more communal because, historically, no farmer could grow rice on his or her own, building and maintaining the paddies and intricate water systems took the whole village working together. Consider how rice has been used in Japan, not just as a filling grain, but as an alcoholic beverage (sake), a condiment (rice vinegar), a sweet snack (mochi), a sweet drink (amasake), an essential element in miso, an ingredient in tea (genmai cha), in paper, in tatami floor mats, and on and on.
Finally, to “brown” rice, which I think is a bit of a misnomer. Creamy colored, or beige maybe, but brown, definitely not. To me, eating so-called brown rice ought to be a no-brainer. Right off the top, there’s the added fiber. And remember, it’s not just the outside layer that’s removed to create white rice, it’s the bran as well which is thought to lower LDL cholesterol. Compared to white rice, brown rice is higher in B vitamins, iron and has four times as much magnesium. And to me, it just tastes more interesting. If your family or friends think they don’t like brown rice, mix in vegetables, or wild rice, seeds, nuts, herbs.  Make it interesting enough and they won’t notice the difference. Or try basmati or jasmine brown rice, both flavorful on their own, or add brown rice to soup or to rice pudding. Really, jazz it up a bit and the difference disappears. Brown rice does take longer to cook, but the added time is well rewarded. After the jump, I give you my method for cooking brown rice, as well as a recipe for gomashio, the toasted sesame seed condiment which is a great companion to rice. It turns out, there is a lot to say about rice, and in future posts, I’ll talk about various kinds of rice, and the dishes you can make with them.

Kuri Gohan - Chestnut Rice

A popular autumn dish in Japan, this is a type of takigohan, where rice is cooked with seasonal vegetables.

Serves 4
Ingredients

300g Clearspring Sushi Rice
1 cup chestnuts
1tbsp Clearspring Tamaki or Shizengo Sake
1/2tbsp Clearspring Traditional Sea Salt
1tbsp Clearspring Soya Soya Sauce
1 pinch Clearspring Green Nori Sprinkle

Method

1. Wash the rice and soak in water for 30 minutes, then drain.
2. Soak the chestnuts in boiling water for 5 minutes to make them easier to peel.
3. Make a cut in the bottom of each chestnut, then peel off the shell carefully. 
4. Roast the chestnuts lightly and the remove the inner skin which will now be crisper and easier to remove.
5. Place the rice, chestnuts and salt in a saucepan.
6. Pour the sake and shoyu into a measuring cup and then add enough water to reach a total volume of 360ml. Now add this to the saucepan. 
7. Bring to the boil on a high heat with the lid on. As soon as it reaches the boil, reduce to a low heat and simmer for 11 minutes. 
8. Remove from the heat, and leave for 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with green nori sprinkle, then serve.

Chef: 

Atsuko's Kitchen

And now a sweet pudding I like this with carob or - why not- dark chocolate sauce drizzled on top...just enough to balance the sweetness...as real dark chocolate 70% cocoa- a little every now and then is healthy!

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• Sweet Autumn Pears

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ingredients

• Conference Pears
• Flaked Almonds
• 1 cup roasted Dandelion Root
• Barley Malt
• Tahini optional
• Sea salt
• Arrow root

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instructions

1. Peel the pears carefully keeping the stalk on if possible. Bring a saucepan of water to boil, enough to cover the pear/s. Add a few grains only of sea salt. Cook until tender but no more. Remove and drain straight away. Leave to cool.
2. Very lightly toast the almond flakes in a dry frying pan to bring out the flavour, without burning. Put aside.
3. Cook the dandelion root in the water the pears cooked in, for about 20 minutes until strong and rich. Add barley malt to taste ( and ginger is great if you’re not using it in the main course and an optional extra richness is to add a tablespoon of tahini sometimes or grated orange rind).
4. Mix the arrowroot powder with cold water and stir in until smooth and translucent. Stand the pear, or lie on a plate,or cut in 2 halves and pour the hot sauce over it – sprinkle the almond flakes and serve straight away. The pear is cool and the sauce hot. Mmmm.