This blog will likely no longer be active after July 15th. I am returning to my home country and therefore will no longer be experiencing Japanese food. I doubt people will be interested in quarantine food or plain Canadian food.
Today I went for lunch with a former English teacher to a lovely little restaurant in Shimanto. We had the soup curry with mixed rice and a salad. It was actually a little spicy.
Dans l’attente de la floraison du safran. Les crépuscules sans fleur se succèdent sans que vienne le bon jour. Si ce n’est pas pour aujourd’hui, penses tu que ça sera demain ? Je ne sais pas, il faut attendre.
In a mini food processor, sprinkle the diced bread with the water and let stand until the water is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cayenne and salt and process until the bread and garlic are coarsely chopped. With the machine on, drizzle in the olive oil and process until the rouille is smooth. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate.
In a very large, deep skillet, heat the 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the leeks, onion, fennel and chopped garlic and cook over moderate heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook until they begin to break down, about 5 minutes. Add the bay leaves, saffron and pastis and bring to a boil. Add the fish stock and bring to a simmer. Cook over low heat until the vegetables are very tender, about 20 minutes. Discard the bay leaves.
In a food processor, pulse the vegetables and broth to a coarse puree. Strain through a fine sieve set over the skillet.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the lobster and cook until it turns bright red, about 4 minutes. Drain and rinse the lobster under cold water until cool enough to handle. Remove the tail, claw and knuckle meat and cut into 1-inch pieces.
Preheat the broiler. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet and broil them 6 inches from the heat for about 1 minute per side, until the slices are golden brown around the edges. Rub each slice with the remaining whole garlic clove and drizzle lightly with olive oil.
Add the potatoes and cayenne pepper to the broth and bring to a simmer. Cook over moderately high heat until the potatoes are just tender, about 10 minutes; season with salt and pepper. Add the clams, cover and cook over moderate heat until they just begin to open, about 3 minutes. Add the monkfish, cover and simmer for 2 minutes. Add the lobster, snapper and halibut, cover and simmer until the clams are open and all the fish is cooked through, about 4 minutes.
Set a baguette toast in each of 8 shallow bowls. Ladle the fish and broth over the toasts and top each serving with 1 tablespoon of the rouille. Sprinkle with fennel fronds and serve immediately.
So, I have been thinking about what to post in a week for the Hagging out challenge, which I was kindly accepted into by @graveyarddirt ♥
As it is, I have been unknowingly Hagging out for the whole of June anyway, foraging, tincturing, oiling and otherwise preserving.
In the past month, I have (among others, that I have not photographed) processed:
Elder flowers andsaffron:
Started a rose tincture yesterday:
But today and this week, I am working on something special, that may warrant a longer post for Hagging out challenge days:
A Kyphi-type incense of herbs, resins and more blended in a wet base of raisins, dates, honey and wine to form small pellets, dried over several weeks and preserved in benzoin and dragons blood powder.
“The authors argue that artworks from the Minoan civilization of ancient Greece are likely the oldest to depict domesticated saffron. For example, the dense patches of crocus flowers on the fresco ‘The Saffron Gatherers’ from the island of Santorini (approximately 1600 BCE) suggest cultivation. Another fresco on the same island, ‘The Adorants’, shows flowers with long, dark-red stigmas which overtop dark violet petals, typical of domesticated saffron. Flowers with these traits are also depicted on ceramics and cloth from Bronze Age Greece, and symbolically rendered in the ideogram for saffron in the ancient Linear B script. In Egypt, tombs from the 15th and 14th centuries BCE depict how ambassadors from Crete brought tribute in the form of textiles dyed with saffron.”
im curious to hear how ppl view these colors, so can u tell me which color u think they look more like? yellow or green? blue or purple? yellow or orange? pink or purple? blue or green?
