Broadening Horizon.... Miso Soup

I love sushi and don't eat enough of them. I used to purchase rolls (yep, I don't make them!) to share with my daughter when she was younger but she was never a big fan of seaweed. I therefore stopped buying them; I only treat myself (my husband likes them but not as much as I do) for special occasions. One thing I enjoyed when going for sushi was having a Miso soup. But then again, it tastes like the Miso soup you pay $$ for is processed. In other words, I could purchase the same (if not better) at a local supermarket and make my own for less money. So, I stopped ordering Miso soup when going for sushi. Then, reading La Fuji Mama blog on Miso soup totally changed my perspective. All of a sudden, Rachael made me realize that I could indeed make my own Miso soup. And that it was not that difficult. I trusted her (the same way I hope you trust me when I write that my daily cooking is not that difficult at all!) and decided to take her up on the challenge to make Miso soup this week.

First, it meant getting the proper ingredients. And since my Japanese is, to say the least, non-existent, I did something I generally don't do that is: a grocery list. Well, I really just put down on a piece of shredded children-drawing-recycled paper the few ingredients I needed to purchase to make dashi (broth) and then the soup itself. With it in hand (and all the other more common things I needed on my head-list), I headed for the supermarket. I found all the dry ingredients and the tofu but could not find the MAIN ingredient, ie Miso. Since I could not find Miso, I decided to take a trip to another supermarket that could carry all the ingredients. Un autre jour! No big deal! Except that that other day was Friday and that we were bound for a heavy snow storm in the city (the second one this year). While it may sound "light" snow compared to what Canada or some other states in the US can get, Philadelphians were getting ready stressed. 

In other words, they were all grocery shopping. As if they had to stock for weeks. It was really crazy. On top of that a lot of things happened to me that same day. I lost my Japanese ingredients list (so much for making lists!!)!!!!! Fortunately, I vaguely remembered the three main ingredients I was supposed to get: kombu, katsuobuchi, wakame, tofu and miso. It also happened that I forgot my purse at music class, which means that I had to give up my spot in the supermarket line to get my purse back and then to stand in line again. All of that with a two-year-old in a stroller...  Anyway, we made it home with all the ingredients... and since the weather was really bad on Saturday, I made Miso soup.

The process is easy (I followed Rachael's recipe for dashi and then used wakame, edamame, and tofu for the soup). The results was good. I am sure that Rachael's tastes much better but for a first experience at home, I was quite happy with myself.  Then it came to feeding it to my family! It was not a great success. Sadly. My husband, who I can say, has a much narrower palate than mine, never had Miso soup before. He does not like tofu (well, I don't think he has had good tofu ever). He did say that it was "good" but definitively not something he would crave for. As for my daughter, she ate a few spoons so as to try. But that was it. My son was already down for his nap so he did not eat Miso soup! Since I have plenty of Miso left, I'll make myself more Miso soups in the coming weeks. Super!
 
As I was explaining to my husband what ingredients were in the Miso soup he just had, I looked more closely at the Katsuobushi packaging and discovered ....a recipe for French Onion Soup! Well, an Asia version of soupe à l'oignon! That made us laugh!  Comme quoi, everything is cultural when it comes to cooking, n'est-ce-pas?

 

This whole experience made me want to try to open up my family horizon when it comes to food : Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African, etc. This is my new personal challenge for the coming months. Cooking something different from what my family is used to at least twice a month... It will give us a chance to talk about other countries, other people... and to taste new things! Any good food blog/cook book you recommend?

One of the first challenges is to find a good recipe to feed tofu to my family. I will ask my friend Minh from Hodo Soy Beanery  for help when it comes to tofu! He made me taste some of his tofu a few years ago when they were starting their company and that was an eye-opening experience. And since then, I do believe that tofu can be something different from this bland and spongy stuff....I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I think that we could all invest a little bit of time to expose our children to other types of food. It does not have to be fancy:  you could well start with a vegetable or cheese that you have never purchased... (but please, no offense, but if you want a French recipe for French onion soup, come back to me, right?) So, next time you go grocery shopping, challenge yourself! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (recipes from La Fuji Mama) 
For the dashi (stock):
- 4 cups (1 liter ) water
- 3 pieces/sprigs Kombu
- 1/2 cup loosely packed katsuobushi (bonito flakes)

For the soup:
- 3 1/2 cups (875 ml) dashi
- 3 Tbs miso
- a few sprigs/pieces dry wakame, cut into small pieces and soaked in cold water for 5 minutes
- 1/2 cup edamame
- Tofu (cut into small cubes)

• Soak kombu in cold water for 15 minutes
• Put water over medium heat. Just before boiling, remove from heat and drop the bonito flakes.
• Start soaking wakame in cold water
• After 3-4 minutes, strain the stock over a strainer covered with a coffee filter
• Bring 3 1/2 cups stock to a boil. 
• Take 1/2 cup of the stock and pour it over the miso and whisk so as to dilute the miso.
• Add wakame and edamame to the stock and simmer for 1-2 minutes
• Add miso  and tofu and reheat (but do not boil). Serve immediately

My Personal Comments:

• If you want to read about different types of miso, go to Rachel's webpage.
• You could add white fish, scallions, green onions, mushrooms to your Miso instead of tofu and wakame. I used edamame because that's what I had at home (you can't see it on the picture because they drowned!)

Olives, Ham and Cheese Savory Pound Cake

You are all familiar with traditional French dishes: Quiche Lorraine, Boeuf Bourguignon, soufflés au fromage, and now Gougères, etc. The reason is that they are offered in the US with some/or no variations. One dishI have not encountered a lot (if any) here, although there are very common in France, are Cake salés (savory pound cakes).
We use the English word "cake" in French to describe a loaf-shape pound cake traditionally made with eggs, flour, sugar,and fruits. The most common ones are the Cake aux Fruits Confits (candied fruits pound cake) and Cake au Citron (lemon pound cake). More sweet versions have been added : cake au chocolat, cake aux amandes et fruits rouges (almonds and berries pound cake), etc.... More interestingly, savory versions appeared in the mid-eighties.. and stayed. A Cake Salé is generally made in the Summer to bring along to a pique-nique or to eat as an entree for lunch/dinner along a big salade. French people love them and I was surprised that with the American tradition of eggs-for-breakfast and brunch, I had not seen many Cake Salés in the US.

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Gougeres (aka French Cheese Puffs)

Gougères (aka Cheese Puffs) are a favorite of mine. My mother would make some for us on a week night. We would eat a few small ones (or a big one depending on the size) for dinner together with a green salad (and generally after a bowl of freshly-made soup). I can't tell you how much I love gougères . I had almost forgotten about them (I am ashamed to say it)... until I saw some featured in a French cooking magazine a few weeks ago. It hit me right back. My mouth started watering and I made my first batch that same day.

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Banana Bread with Walnuts

Unlike my husband (and now my children) who have a sweet tooth, I am happy with savory. As my husband would say, the only dessert I would help myself for a second serving is Galette des Rois. Yes, I know, it's great not ideal to have a second serving of anything in the first place... but hey, that's OK because it's not like we eat Galette des Rois every day. Remember, it's a seasonal dessert!!
Since I started this blog, I have had to bake more to include dessert recipes... My children and husband are delighted.... and as a way to compensate for the extra sugar in the house, I have stopped purchasing cookies from the supermarket. On days when no homemade sweets are available, we fall back on Nutella on toast for the children' 4pm snack. And fruits for dessert for lunch and dinner.

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Boeuf Bourguignon

Boeuf Bourguignon is one of the dishes French people would cook for a Sunday lunch. There is something about Sunday lunch in France. It's a traditional family meal cooked with fresh ingredients bought at the Farmers' market on Saturday or Sunday (and more recently at the supermarket). It's a little bit formal : people tend to get their China out of the closet; nice tablecloth and napkins; a nice comforting four-course meal that lasts at least one hour. Classic main dish include poulet grillé (roasted chicken),  gigot d'agneau (lamb leg), rôti de boeuf (roast beef), rôti de veau (veal roast), boeuf bourguignon, choucroute, sole meunière, etc... basically, any dish that deserves a little bit of preparation and cooking time.

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Granola

Breakfast is my favorite meal...I remember a story my friend S. told me a few years ago. She was trying to sell her apartment in Paris. One day, a woman came in to visit, went straight to the kitchen and said, that she was not interested because "la cuisine n'est pas à l'est" (the kitchen window was not facing East)! We all have our priorities when it comes to an apartment location and layout but I found that her comment was a little bit pretentious (considering the beautiful place it was). Then, I thought about it more and realized that she had a point. How nice is it to be able to enjoy  breakfast, flipping through the pages of the newspaper with the sun shinning through the window? Or best, on a terrasse with a beautiful view of the ocean on a beautiful sunny morning with no kids?  Le rêve, non?

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Brown Rice and Beans

A few years ago, my friend M. told me about the book "Why French Women don't get fat" by Mireille Guiliano. Intrigued by the title, I checked out the book from the library (yes, I am big library fan) and read it. I was not too impressed by the recipes (sorry, I can't cook with Champagne on a regular basis) but two advices she had stick with me, mostly because they were relevant to the way I eat growing up and try to implement it with my family today...
1) Don't snack (or if you have to, snack on healthy food)
2) You can eat everything as long as it in moderation.

Since I already talked about snacks in a previous post, I am going to talk about how I apply the "moderation".  Busy as we are, we don't necessary have the time too cook from scratch everyday. We also want to please our children with food they enjoy eating but that is not nutritious such as French fries, ice cream, cookies, etc.
I believe there is nothing wrong in offering such food to our children as long as it is in moderation, which means : not everyday and in small portions.

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Quiche Lorraine

When I was living in San Francisco, I realized that one of the many differences in the French vs. American diet is oh, don't get me started how we eat eggs. Americans eat a lot of eggs... and so do French people (the latest statistics show that Americans eat about 255 eggs/year vs. 248 in France). However, it seems that Americans eat more of them. One evidence of that is packaging! In the US, it's very difficult to purchase eggs by the half-dozen (6 eggs). When they first introduced organic eggs, those were the only ones you could purchase by 6. Now that organic eggs have a larger market share, it has become even harder to purchase them by 6. A dozen is what you get! In France, you purchase eggs by the demie-douzaine.

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Mustard-breaded Turkey Breast

We don't go out much to eat. Not that I don't like eating out : on the contrary (but who does not?)... but you see, I enjoy sitting down for a meal and having a proper conversation with my husband and children. A conversation that is not interrupted by rugby-player-like catches, water floods, or just the usual "fais attention, prend ta fourchette, non pas les doigts dans la sauce". And even if my children behave, the idea of having to rush through my meal because, let's face it, 40 minutes of good behavior is what we can expect from young children, takes away the fun. I'd rather stay home and have a nice glass of wine with cheese while my children decide to clean the bathroom floor with a full bag of wipes sleep.
Besides, when we go out,  I am really appalled by the limitation of the children's menu. It invariably offers:  macaroni & cheese, grilled sandwich, chicken nuggets, hot-dog or/and pizza. Why? Tell me why?

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Shredded Carrots Salad - Carottes rapées

Before we start, let's focus on a few useful French food-menu words:
When French say une entrée, Americans say an appetizer. When French say le plat principal, Americans say entrée. I don't know why a main dish is called  "entrée" in the US...Could it be a size issue? Because the French entrées are so small that they are just regarded as a way to tease the Americans' appetite ... and that the real-size things only start with the main dish? Maybe... Anyway, just keep that in mind as you read the following...

With the French having the habit to eat a three-course menu (entrée-plat-dessert) or a four-course menu (entrée-plat-fromage-dessert), you have to be creative when it comes to preparing l'entrée. If you want things to be easy and healthy, you opt for crudités: a salad of raw vegetables (carrots, cucumber, celery roots, red cabbage, tomatoes, avocados, etc.) However culturally, a salade de cruditées has come to encompass a few cooked vegetables as well such as beets, corn kernels, artichoke hearts or palm hearts! Why? Allez savoir...

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