Panzanella

Niseko in summer ... beautiful. The abundance of vibrant fresh vegetables ... amazing !!



After a stop at the bakery we had a bag full of bread ... we then stopped at Viewplaza where we were so inspired by what we saw and decided on a panzanella for dinner. With another couple of bags full of vegetables, and a baby basil plant we were set.



The bread was chopped, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper before being toasted in the oven until golden. All of the other fresh veggies were washed and chopped.



The dressing was made from wine vinegar, chopped garlic, lemon juice, dijon mustard and seasoned with salt and pepper and a good splash of virgin oil was mixed through.



The salad, bread and dressing were all combined before we settled into the couch to enjoy this simple, but extraordinary combination.



Summer Panzanella

1 loaf of bread, cut into cubes
3 large tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 Spanish onion
2 garlic cloves
3-4 baby peppers (capsicum) in various colours
Dijon mustard
Caperberries
salt
pepper
olive oil
Picked baby basil leaves

1. Toss the bread cubes in olive oil, salt and pepper. Toast at 170C until golden brown.
2. Wash and prepare vegetables. Cut tomato, cucumber and peppers into cubes.
3. Peel and slice red onion into long, thin slices.
4. Cut a few caperberries in half.
5. Make dressing by chopping the garlic clove. Add to bowl with lemon juice, vinegar, salt & pepper before slowly mixing in olive oil.
6. Toss all ingredients in a bowl with the dressing, and finish with picked baby basil.

Simply pork and cottage cheese meatballs

Well back after some great holidays, but for us it's also great to be able to cook for ourselves as well.

This is a recipe from Simply recipes who makes us so hungry each time we read the blog. After we read the ricotta meatball blog we knew what we were having for dinner and after a bit of shopping we were armed with the goods.

With the preparation done, our two bowls of stuff were ready to go

The bread cubes were mixed into the mince and seasonings, then the eggs and ricotta (well, cottage cheese in our case, still delicious just maybe not as rich) were added to the mince.

First visit to the oven, until they were golden.

Before being rolled around a little ...

and covered in tomato sauce.

Summer salad greens from viewplaza,

and a pot of soft white polenta

and what a great dinner !! Sometimes one of the greatest pleasure is just being able to cook and eat at home!

Good use of the Gourmet Traveller! and the dinner table was set.



We served the meatballs over soft white polenta, which is a type of corn meal, super tasty!

Pork Ricotta Meatballs in Tomato Sauce Recipe

adapted from Simply Recipes.com

Ingredients
300g ground pork mince
300g beef mince

80g cured Japanese pork product (not exactly sure what it was, but it looked and tasted delicious!)
1 loaf soft & fresh white bread, cubed, crusts removed first
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 tub of cottage cheese
3 eggs, lightly beaten
Olive oil
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

if fresh basil is not available, add a tablespoon of dried basil to the tomatoes before adding to the meatballs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Method
1 In a large bowl, add the pork, beef mince, unidentifiable cure pork productand bread cubes, parsley, oregano, fennel, red pepper flakes, and salt. Use your hands to mix until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Do not over-work.

2 Whisk the beaten eggs and cottage cheese together in a separate bowl until there are no more large clumps of ricotta. Pour into the bowl of the meat mixture. Mix with your hands until just incorporated. Again, do not over-mix.

If you want, to test seasoning, you can take a small bit of the mix, form into a patty, and heat in a small skillet on the stovetop until cooked through. Depending on how this test patty tastes to you, add more herbs, chili, or salt to taste to the meat mixture. Keep meat mixture in refrigerator while doing this.

3 Preheat oven to 200°C. Coat the bottom of a large roasting pan with olive oil. Form meatballs in your hand, about 1 1/2-inches in diameter, using about 3 Tbsp of the mixture to form each meatball. Arrange in pan so there is some space between them. If too crowded they will steam and not brown.

4 Roast meatballs in the oven for about 30 minutes, turning the meatballs after about 20 minutes, until the meatballs are beginning to brown.

5 Remove pan from oven. Use a metal spatula to dislodge meatballs from being stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the crushed tomatoes to the pan. Carefully cover the pan with aluminum foil (carefully because the pan is still hot!) Return the pan to the oven. Lower the heat to 150°C. Cook for an additional hour to 1 1/2 hours.

Sprinkle basil into sauce before serving.

Makes about 24 meatballs.

Serves 5-6.

Soft White polenta Recipe

1/2 c white polenta
2 1/2 c milk
Parmasean
Salt & white pepper
Knob of butter

Bring the milk to the boil, sprinkle the polenta into the milk while stirring (you need to sprinkle and stir rather than just dump it in to avoid lumps).
Cook out for about five minutes untill the polenta has thickened up enough to hold the stirring lines.
Finish off by stirring in the knob of butter, a good whack of grated parmesan and salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

With any left over polenta, spread onto a flat tray and let set over night. The next day cut into chips and grill or deep fry. Yummy!

We enjoyed the rest of our meatballs the next day in a crust baguette with shredded cabbage. Yum!

Birthday piggin. Samui

Anyway where were we? Oh yeah back in Samui it was our friend Mike's birthday. We decided there could be no better way to celebrate such an occasion than to sacrifice a small animal, and so a plan was formed. We made calls and we found the specialist we were after, satisfied he could deliver further calls were made to inform all of our intentions. And so the day of celebration arrived, we began the morning with a trip to the markets to buy a few ingredients for the dishes we were contributing to the day - bbq'ed asparagus with a sherry bacon vinaigrette and grilled wild mushrooms wrapped in banana leaf with chilli and Thai basil. After some quick prep work it was onto the scooter and off to the other side of the island where the soiree was taking place.


After arriving at Glen and Kellys place and a quick drink we finished up our prep and awaited the arrival of the guest of honor...oh and Mike. Without warning it arrived, set on a long wooden plank and wrapped in butchers paper,



we all so desperately wanted to peel back the paper and take a peek but without the birthday boy all we could do was wait and anticipate. You know the saying idle hands, well ours soon set to work with a marker turning present into card with a few budding artists amongst us adding some final flourishes.





Finally Mike arrives not only to our relief but also the trio of dogs who were patiently guarding the aromatic parcel sitting on the table.

With Mike here it was all on, first the unwrapping of the present, paper was torn away to first reveal a golden brown snout followed by two crispy ears and down a superbly crackalicious body to the curly tail.



Fifteen kilos of perfectly roasted pig, yum! First cut is given to Mike before the savagery began.





Asparagus and mushrooms were put onto the bbq followed by corn, twice baked potato's and deviled eggs prepared by the insanely energetic Vern, Jess and co as well as Kel's mad coleslaw and fresh bread rolls from down the road.



The pig was amazing, the chef had deboned the beastie before rubbing the inside with Thai spices and then building a wooden frame to hold the shape as it roasted.


Seriously we're starving here

There was much feasting and drinking, then games with more drinking and silly hats as well as some impromptu magic, some more drinking and then some drink fueled eating, a good time was had by all.




Half down, half to go.... and yes I ate that ear. Tasty

I hope it's a birthday you remember Mike, it was a pleasure to be part of it.



Asparagus with sherry bacon vinaigrette (adapted from webers book of grilling)

It's a pretty loose recipe. Make with quantities suited to your taste.


Take some bacon and dice fairly finely, saute over a med low heat so the fat renders out of the bacon, don't rush it and cook until the bacon is golden and crispy.

Strain the bacon and return the fat to the pan.

Add diced garlic to the fat and saute until golden, at the end of sauteing the garlic throw in some picked thyme leaves for a few seconds to release the flavor and aroma.

Strain the garlic and thyme and add to the bacon. Keep the fat.

Whisk the bacon fat into some sherry vinegar until you have a loose dressing add the fried bacon, garlic and thyme then season.

Pour over freshly grilled asparagus or broccoli rabe.



Mushrooms in banana leaf with chilli and Thai basil.

Another simple one. Again quantities to taste.


Take a sheet of banana leaf and quickly run over an open flame, you will see as the leaf changes shades of green. This makes the leaf pliable and more giving as it is folded.

Onto the leaf add a handful of mixed mushrooms, some crushed garlic cloves, roast chilli powder, sliced shallot, a good handful of Thai basil and a squeeze of lime.

Fold the leaf around the mushrooms and secure with a couple of toothpicks if your not quite up to the leaf folding you can then wrap the leaf wrapped mushrooms in a sheet of al foil, you'll still get the leaf aroma in the mushrooms.

Place the package on the grill and cook. Unwrap at the table to get the full spectrum aromas.

Bloody good pavlova

Here's a pretty mean looking pavlova Kim whipped up one night for staff meal.  A pretty fine job done with a complete lack of fresh fruit.  There was whipped cream, Organic Niki cherries, some tinned peaches we found lying around and some frozen mango puree.

Bloody good!  But took us about 3 days to eat as it was bloody huge!

Staff Meal Pavlova

4 large egg whites, at room temperature

few drops of vanilla extract

1 tsp white vinegar

2 tsp cornstach

1 cup, + 2Tbsp sugar

pinch of salt

Cream

Tin of peaches found lying around

Frozen organic Niki cherries, thawed and pitted

Frozen mango puree, thawed

or any other fruits you have lying around

1. Pre-heat oven to 175C.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  

2. Put egg whites and salt into kitchen aid mixer on medium and beat for a few minutes, or until light and foamy.  Increase speed and beat for a few more minutes until you have firm peaks.

3. Gradually add the sugar while still beating.  Continue mixing for another 5 minutes or so until it's nice and shiny.

4. Sprinkle the vinegar, cornstach and vanilla over the whites and gently fold in.

5.  Place the mixture onto the parchment lined tray and smooth over with some sort of flat implement.  

6. Place in oven on middle rack and then close the door.  Immediately turn down to 150C and bake for 1 hour.  Then turn off the oven, resisting the temptation to open the door.

7. Ideally, you would then like to leave the pav. in the oven for 4 hours to dry out.  We didn't quite have that luxury of time, so our pav had about 10 minutes.

8.  In the meantime, beat some cream.  Sweeten a little with sugar and vanilla.

9. Slap on the cream, then artistically decorate with your chosen fruit.

Getting ready for winter ....

Since arriving in Hokkaido in October, we have wanted to take advantage wherever possible of the amazing local produce. We have been busily bottling and preserving whatever we could get our hands on to get us through the long, cold winter.

Wandering to work one day, out the front of the Reading Room was a table covered in amazing baby Roma tomatoes and white eggplants. After arriving at work and expressing our excitement to M1 we were back with a handful of ¥ ..... there's a great little sign advertising "Locally grown Organic Niseko produce" and an honesty box, asking you to pay what you think the vegetables are worth to you... How cool! But as we arrive back, a little truck pulls in unloading more veg. Conveniently it's the farmer himself, so here the relationship begins with Dennis.

We buy the entire contents of the table, and have arrangements for delivery of whatever else he can spare for us.... There's white eggplants,



& Mini red & yellow Roma's.




We made a delicious eggplant, chili & fig chutney. (Which we're now using on the charccuterie plate) and did some tres cute little jars of pickled eggplants. This recipe was found in Stephanie Alexanders the Cook's Companion and is so delicious. It says they will keep for a few months, but ours are disappearing at an alarming rate on antipasto, panini's, pizza's and everything else!



Pickled Eggplant
adapted from Stephanie Alexanders the Cook's Companion

1kg eggplant (we were lucky enough to have organic white Hokkaido eggplants)
¼ cup kitchen salt
100ml red wine vinegar
about 200ml extra virgin olive oil
For layering1 hot chili, sliced finely or chili flakes
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
mint leaves or thyme sprigs
fennel seeds (optional)

Slice eggplants into 5mm thick rounds. Spread out on a tray, sprinkling each layer with salt. Place another tray on top and something quite heavy, like a large jar of olive oil, and leave in the fridge overnight. This is to remove excess moisture from the eggplants.
Rinse slices very briefly in cold water, and the dry really well.
The slices can then be grilled with a little olive oil. We don't yet have a grill so we fried them in a pan until they were nicely golden on both sides. Remove from the pan and allow to cool a little.
Transfer the eggplant to a stainless bowl or tray and drizzle over the red wine vinegar. Leave the eggplants for 1 hour, to absorb all the vinegar.
Layer the eggplants with tongs or a fork into hot, sterilized jars adding the chili, garlic & herbs alternately. Press down very well and cover with olive oil. Release the slices from the side of the jar with a fork to remove any trapped air. Press down once more and fill to the top with oil.
Seal the jar and leave for at least a week (if possible :)) before eating.
If air has been correctly excluded and the jars are perfectly clean this pickle will last for months. Keep in a cool dark cupboard to prevent deterioration of the olive oil.
Makes 1 x 500g jar.

Then with the tomatoes, 80kg in total, we were constantly drying and semi-drying. Our combi oven certainly had a workout .....



We would love to be using these super sweet dried tomatoes for so many more things, but they only have about a 10% yield after dried, so they've been saved exclusively for our salad on at Sekka. Next year we just need to get in much earlier and have Dennis grow us about 500kg :)

Okonomiyaki Ju, Niseko

Tonight another inside tip has sent us off in search of our first okonomiyaki restaurant, one where okonomiyayi is the star of the restaurant, not just one item in in a list on many on a food court menu. We love a good yaki and many a time have whipped one up at home from my step mom Akiko's recipe, and we loved hearing about the restaurants in Japan that served this dish and nothing else with all sorts of great toppings. Okonomiyaki ju has the goods apparently, the owners are from Osaka, the spiritual home of the okonomiyaki, so it's a genuine piece that we're going to try tonight. Located at turn off to Hirafu from Niseko it's kinda all by it's lonesome out here, but this doesn't seem to have slowed business, there is only a few tables spare when we arrive. Leaving our shoes in the rack and having a good laugh at trying to fit into the inside slippers (you think there'd be one pair of size 12 slippers somewhere in Japan) we plonk down at a table. The table has a flat grill in the center to keep the goodies warm and set with essential okonomiyaki tools ....



There's an English version of the menu so no pantomime tonight, we are both immediately drawn to the beef tendon and kim chii combination so we know that's going to feature soon in our future... the other we go for is the thinly sliced pork belly, but now we're face with another choice the standard okinomiyaki base or a negiyaki, a thinner base topped with spring onion, lemon and tempura flakes or nariyaki, a thin base with garlic chive, lemon and tempura flakes. Decisions decisions... in the end we go for the beef tendon on the negiyaki and the pork belly on the okonomiyaki. The order travels not far, in fact only two meters away to three huge flat grills where the magic is performed..



Sitting on one corner slowly bubbling away all night is a pot of the beef tendon, mmm!



We watch as the okonomi is the first to go on the batter then the pork, along side the negi batter is poured topped with the tendon and kim chii then a mountain of spring onion, pickled ginger and the tempura flakes, these are then left to cook as we sit and squirm in hunger with the delicious wafting around and our food with in touching distance.



As soon as the okonomi and negi are half cooked, they're flipped onto their sides.... when they're just about done, an egg is cracked onto the grill, and the okonomi flipped over onto that.. as this is done our table grill is turned on to warm for the arrival of the treats. Another short squirm later and they are flipped. The okonomi is topped with Japanese Worcester sauce, aonori, kewpie and bonito shavings so fine the dance and wave in the heat given off from the okonomi with the still soft egg sitting below... negi is topped with a slice of lemon and then both are brought to the table and placed on the grill. I was concerned that they might over cook on the grill but after the first bite there was no concern that they would be around long enough for that to happen. The negi is the first tried, the tempura flakes have been cooked in to a crispy golden crust covering the negi, the tendons are melt in the mouth and the kim chii is not so strong that it overpowers but just lets you know it's there, good times!



The okonomi is a beast of a completely different kind, with its thick batter, Worcester and mayo, it's so rich and so savoury, filling your mouth umami.



We seem to enter a fugue state, all the conversation ends and only the need to consume another mouthful exists, all to quickly we finished, really we should have known we were full but there was the possibility we were still hungry so we opted to find out by ordering a mix okonomi, this comes with pork, prawn and squid. It's just as delicious as the first two, but it is only a few bites in when we realise in fact we are full....really full! Seems sad to leave something so delicious uneaten so we give it our best shot.



All done and ready to explode we leave already making plans for our next visit, what flavors and styles to try. You know it's good when your can't eat any more yet you're already planning to....



Okonomiyaki Ju
263 Soga, Niseko
Hokkaido, Japan
Tel: 0136-44-2336
Open 4:30pm - 10pm Weekdays
12noon - 10pm Weekends & Public Holidays
Closed Wednesday and every 3rd Tuesday

Akiko's Okonomiyaki Recipe

[[ Okonomiyaki ]] serves 4 - 5
1. standard flour 250g
2. water 500cc
3. 1 egg
4. salt & pepper
5. cabbage 300g or more ; shredded
6. 1 or 2 spring onion ; sliced
7. Japanese seasoning sauce (such as Bulldog Chuno, Otafuku)
8. Katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)

mix 1 - 4 and add 5 & 6.
Those are the basic ingredients. Add some meat, sausages, ham, shrimps, surimi, squid, whatever you like for flavor 'cause "okonomi" means "as you like".

Heat a little oil in frying pan and pour all of the mixture in (my style) or serving size for one person (okonomiyaki shop style), and reduce heat. When the edge sets and the surface becomes slightly dry, turn. When cooked throughoutly, spread 7. and sprinkle 8.

# tips #
shop style - add Tenkasu (little lumps of batter floating in the oil after
you fry Tempura) in the mixture.
mix Beni-shoga (red pickled ginger)
sprinkle Ao-nori (green Nori flakes) on top with 8.

Japanese mayonnaise (such as QP) goes well with okonomiyaki, chili can be
added.
The Watsons put the mixture of [tomato sauce + Japanese mayonnaise +
Worcester sauce] on top.
Lettuce is OK instead of cabbage, different texture.