Cooking techniques for winter

According to macrobiotics, food, people and everything around us is classified by its energetic quality. If we focus on food, there are foods that cool us down and foods that warm us up, known in macrobiotics as yin and yang.

Cooking is determined by the amount of time on the fire, the type of flame or temperature, the cooking utensils or cooking media, the amount of salt added and the amount of water. 

For colder andmore humidclimates or people in a more fragile or weaker condition, a more contractive (yang), strengthening and dry type of firing is indicated.

For example, long cooking using a pressure cooker, oven or cast iron pots. With less water and more savoury seasonings such as miso, tamari, shoyu or unrefined sea salt.

A more expansive (yin), refreshing and cooling type of cooking is ideal for hotter or drier days or more tense people. Shorter cooking times or cooking without the use of fire with little cooking time and more water are indicated.

To create a balanced kitchen it is important that we prepare our food in a varied way. 

Here you will find a list of firing methods grouped from the most expansive to the most contractive.

More expansive:

1. Sprouts
2. Macerated
3. Pressed
4. Short pickles
5. Scalded
6. Boiled
7. Short stir-fry or wok 

More contractionary 

1. Steam
2. Iron
3. Frito
4. Tempura
5. Stew 
6. Nishime
7. Long Sauté
8. Kimpira
9. Oven
10. Barbecue
11. Smoked fish
12. Pickles and long ferments (such as miso or umeboshi plum).

Knowing the energetic quality of the different cooking styles and their impact on our organism is the key to creating health according to our needs at any given moment. 

During the cold months, macrobiotics has many ways of cooking to generate vitality, two of which are kimpira and nishime.

Kimpira: Literally means 'golden peace' and provides a yang, contractive, strengthening, invigorating and deep warming effect on the body. It is highly recommended for post-surgery, childbirth or convalescence and urinary incontinence. You can prepare a recipe for kimpria here.

Nishime: literally translates as 'cooking without water' or 'squeezing vegetables'. To make it we mix vegetables with a little kombu seaweed. This gives it a remineralising and strengthening effect as well as warming the body. 

A good recipe made with the nishime cooking method and ideal for cold days is this vegetable and tofu nishime.

Vegetable and tofu nishime

Ingredients

Kombu seaweed

Fresh tofu

1 leek with its green part

1 carrot

A few drops of tamari

Barley stew 

A little water

Elaboration: 

1. Soak a 2 cm strip of kombu seaweed for 1 hour.
2. Cut the vegetables and tofu into large pieces of the same size.
3. Cut the soaked kombu seaweed into small pieces and place in the bottom of a casserole dish, preferably a thick-bottomed one.
4. Add a little water and place the leeks on the base, a layer of carrots on top and the tofu on top. 
5. Top with a little miso.
6. Cover and cook on a high flame for 5 minutes. Lower the flame and cook for a further 20 minutes.
7. At the last moment, add the drops of tamari. 

Nishime can also be made without tofu, just with roots and round vegetables. 

Recipe extracted from Macrobiotica. The book of the great life by the author Patricia Restrepo, director of the Macrobiotic Institute of Spain.