Pickled Bitter Mustard Soup

I usually see people using pickled bitter mustard for double boil soup with pork ribs. But the soup that I used to have during my childhood is not a double boil type, so it's much easier to make.

What you need:

1 pack 200g pickled bitter mustard

300 gr lean pork (healthier choice, can change this with pork ribs)

400 ml bonito stock

5 cloves of garlic

1.2L water

How to:

1. On the pot, saute garlic until fragrant, and add on pork.

2. When pork is half done, add on the pickles, stock and water

3. Leave it to simmer for about 40 minutes

4. If the soup is too tasty for your liking, add on water until you get the taste that you like

My favorite is to add on rice into the soup.

Enjoy!

My Version of Gulai Singkong

I made a different version of the cassava leaves dish, quite sometime ago (here and here). This time, I made gulai singkong, not as healthy because of those coconut milk, but I got a feeling it'll be different if I use milk instead. If you google the recipe (example, here), you'll see the long list of ingredients to my horror. So, I decided to cut all those out without taking out the flavor. Let's see if you agree to it :).

What you need:

500 gr Cassava leaves - boiled for about 7 to 10 minutes, strained and cut

100 gr anchovies (the small ones)

500 gr coconut milk

water (as needed to thin out the coconut milk)

6 pc lime leaves

3 tbsp oil

Condiments:

1/2 round garlic (about 5-6 cloves)

2 medium sized red onion - you can cut all those small shallots, but I don't like peeling those tiny shallots, waste energy

10 gr macadamia nuts

5 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 pack of chili padi (about 50gr)

How to:

1. On food processor, add on all the condiment ingredients and blend it until smooth

2. On a pot, heat up oil and saute the condiment and the lime leaves until fragrant

3. Add on anchovies, keep on saute-ing until well mixed
4. Add on Cassava leaves, coconut milk and water
5. Simmer the cassava leaves until the gravy reduced and thickened, and the leaves are soft

For a very Indonesian lunch, you can have it together with pepes tahu.

Enjoy!

Scallop Porridge

Porridge is one of those easiest thing to cook. But you'd always wonder how to make a really good porridge. What's the proper rice:water ratio? What are other stuff to put into? I happened to come across a variety show which cover this simple dish in a very short segment and the recipe is just nice. Mind you it's not that cheap coz it use dried scallops but it tastes good! The texture is just right, not too thin or thick and like any porridge, it's light on your tummy!

What you need for 4 person portion:
300 gr rice
2 tsp vegetable oil (I use sesame oil, instead)
2 tsp salt
3 L water
12 pc dried scallops (medium size) ~ soaked and shredded

How to:
1. Place the rice on a strainer and soak it and lift up the strainer and place the rice on a bowl.
2. Coat the rice with oil until well mixed.
3. On a pot, put water and start to boil it under slow fire, add on the coated rice, salt and the scallops
4. Cook the rice for about 40-50 minutes. Pointer: by the time the rice blooms that's when you off your fire.
5. Serve hot and with toppings like: Century eggs (Pi Tan), fermented tofu, pickled lettuce, chinese doughnuts.

Pumpkin Treats

Halloween is around the corner! It means pumpking season is at its best! So, we need to celebrate it by having:

Pumpkin Cheesecake

And my fave Pumpkin Pie

When you live in the US, pumpkin pie is everywhere, and you can just buy the nice one from Costco bakery. But it's not the case if you don't live in the US. So, you just have to whip one for yourself. An easy way to whip it up for a 7" round pan is:

What you need:
Crust:
150 gr digestive biscuit - crushed
70 gr butter
Filling:
290 gr canned pumpkin puree
180 ml milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
4 tbsp brown sugar

How to:
1. In a bowl, mix digestive biscuit and butter until well mixed and spread over the pie pan. Make sure to cover both the bottom and the side and with spoon pad over to solidify the crust. Put the pan in the freezer while working on the filling.
2. Pre-heat oven to 200C
3. On a mixing bowl, beat in egg, sugar and cinnamon until light
4. Add in pumpkin puree and continue to beat until well-mixed
5. Add on milk bits by bits and keep on mixing
6. Pour in the filling into the pie crust
7. Bake at 200C for about 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 160C and continue to back for another 40 minutes

Enjoy!

Okra Ponzu

I love Okra or Lady Finger, but this is the first time I cook it myself. Why the hinder? Simple reason, it's hairy. And what I don't understand, why the name is Lady Finger? Have you ever see a lady with hairy fingers? I know my fingers are definitely not hairy... LOL... Lame joke... I know...

What I find it interesting from this dish is that the regular ponzu, which is rather salty, becomes somewhat lightly sweet when cooked with okra. It's just nice! I personally love the taste! You can also make this as a side dish or even, cold dish.

What you need:

1 pack of Okra - cut about 2cm length

Dried chili - optional, for the kick

Seasoning: Mirin, Yuzu Ponzu

How to:

1. On a wok, heat up oil and dried chili until fragrant

2. Add on Okra and mirin and close the lid for about 4-5 minutes (you can do a bit of net surfing, some whatsapp or start cleaning up)

3. Open the lid then add ponzu. Start stir frying, and done! In less than 10 minutes!

Enjoy!

Beef Patty with Mushroom and Leek Sauce

What do you do if you have leftover of about 250plus gr of ground beef? The easiest way out is... either hamburger steak or beef patty which are actually 99% the same thing LOL

This patties are quite versatile. You can eat them with pasta (make cream pasta), mashed potato, or rice (like the pic).

What you need:

Patty:

250-300gr minced beef

1/2 leek, chopped fine

20gr bread crumbs

1 egg

Salt, pepper - as needed 

Mushroom Sauce:
1 pack sliced white button mushroom
1/4 leek, julienned
1 onion, thinly sliced
Dried chili - as needed
Bonito stock - as needed
Seasoning: Worcestershire sauce, mirin, sake, sweet soy sauce - as needed

How to:
1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients until well mixed and smooth
2. Scale and mold the mixture to your preference. 50gr makes small patties and will make about 8-10 patties.
3. Pan fried the patties until well-done and set aside.
4. In a same pan, stir fry dried chili, leek and onion until soft and fragrant.
5. Add on mushroom stock and seasoning.
6. Cook until mushroom is cooked.

Tips:
1. Careful not to make the patties too thick, you'll end up with dry patties because it'll take longer to cook.
2. Recipe can be changed to minced pork.
3. Mushroom sauce can be changed to demiglace sauce or beef stroganoff sauce.

Enjoy!

My First Kurokke

It's been a long while since the last time I do deep fry and true enough my deep frying skill shrinks so much compare to before (lack of practice off course)... So, this time I made kurokke/クロッケ (Japanese Croquette). Made the basic one because I have no confident to pull those fancy creamy kurokke LOL. So, I pulled up the recipe from the net (here). Yes, as the recipe suggests, it's easy, true, it's just my deep frying skill now sucks that my kurokke look like... below, not as shinny as I want them to be.

So, what's kurokke? For Indonesian, it's basically Japanese perkedel LOL... that's the basic one. The difference Indonesian use egg for coating, Japanese use pankon (bread crumbs). I didn't really follow 100% of the recipe because I don't follow recipe, that's all LOL...

What you need:

750gr potatoes - peeled, cut, steam for 20min and mash them

100gr minced beef

1/2 leek - julienned

30 gr grated cheese

Salt & pepper - as needed

Cake flour - as needed

1 no egg - for breading

Pankon - as needed

How to:

1. Cook beef and leek until soft and cooked, seasoned it with salt & pepper, set aside.

2. Add #1 and cheese into mashed potato, mix them until well mixed

3. Mould the mixture into patties. 70gr each will make about 9-10 kurokke.

4. Coat them with cake flour then do the breading station --> egg --> pankon

5. Deep fry them until golden brwon

Point from the website:

1. Coating them with cake flour supposed to prevent the kurokke from exploding when deep fried

Point from me:

1. Don't be stingy with oil. Pankon fried faster than the softer bread crumbs so deep frying has to be fast. If your oil is not deep enough and only cover half of your kurokke, the side will get burnt fast and you'll have kurokke with black sides.

2. Don't add butter into your mashed potato, it'll become too soft and not easy to be fried. It makes the kurokke tastes nicer though. Decision, decision haha...

3. If you don't have tonkatsu at home, you can mix tomato sauce, mirin and Worcestershire sauce. It should do the job. Or try it with mayo and lemon for different flavor.

Enjoy!

Ebi Chili aka Sambel Udang

Yeah, my fave Japanese cooking show made this ebi chili. It looks ridiculously nice because... the prawns are damn huge! It'll cost a bomb in here, so, I ended up with the cheapskate on sale tiny puny shrimps LOL. I didn't follow the recipe in the show because... I'm lazy and I have my own idea of what my ebi chili should taste like, but the procedure is almost the same (minus the food processor thingy, that's because I'm too lazy to chop LOL). But, it's OK, taste is more important ne?

What you need:

1 pack of shrimps or tiger prawns - butterflied, take out those black parts, if you're lazy, just buy the already peeled ones, w/o the heads, but it doesn't look pretty (see pic above)

4 cloves garlic

2 pc small shallots

1 red chili

for breading - potato startch, salt, sugar, pepper

100ml bonito or chicken stock

100ml milk

seasoning: sugar, sambal belibis, sambal jempol, tomato sauce

How to:

1. in a plastic bag, add in the breading ingredients and shake the bag until well combined. Then add on the shrimps (by batch) and continue to shake the bag until the shrimps are nicely covered. Shake off the excess flour when you take out the shrimps from the bag.

2. Pan fry the shrimps on a skillet and set aside.

3. Add in garlic, shallots and chili into food processor and blend it until they're chopped and well mixed.

4. On a wok, saute #3 until fragrant and browning. Add on the seasoning until you get the taste you want and then add on the stock.

4. Once the sauce is ready, add on the shrimps and milk and mix well quickly until all shrimps are well covered with the sauce.

Tips:

1. Shake off as much as flour as possible from the shrimps when you take them out from the plastic bag because too much flour will make the sauce thickened. If the sauce too thick, you don't have any gravy to smother your rice with. But then again, it depends on your taste, I personally like thick sauce, so it's no problem for me.

2. If you can't find any sambal (chili sauce) at your supermarket, you can make your own by doing the following:

• In food processor, place in about 200gr of combination of red chilis (big and small for the kick), garlic, and blend it.
• On a wok, add in about 50gr of oil and heat it up. Once heat up, add in the mixture and start stirring until it's cook and you can smell the chili (it'll kick your sense of smell). For a bit of seasoning, add on salt and sugar to your taste.

3. I use all the sambals because I too lazy to make my own. The down side of using bottled sambal is that you can taste bit of bitterness (probably it's because it's bottled). So, to get rid of that taste, tomato sauce comes to play. Tomato sauce adds color (make it red) and it tones down any weird and funny taste when you use too much bottled sambal. But nevertheless, I still love my sambal jempol and sambal belibis.

Enjoy!

Sweet Pea and Pork Stir Fry

Sounds normal? Hehehe, yeah it's one of those super simple and clean taste dish. I made this because I want to clear the sweet peas from my fridge. And I have a bottle of yuzu ponzu to try! Yuzu ponzu is soy sauce with yuzu flavor. It's refreshing and you can just use it directly as salad dressing. I got 1 small bottle of the Mizkan brand as a free gift few weeks ago.

How to:
150 gr shabu shabu pork
1 pack sweet peas (about 150gr, I think) - slit the sides
30 gr bonito stock (liquid)
2 clove garlic - smash it but don't chop
sake, dried chili, yuzu ponzu

How to:
1. On a wok, heat up oil and add in the garlic. When the garlic browns, add on sweet pea and stir fry for a bit then add on the stock and sake and close the lid for about 3-4 minutes or until the liquid is dried up. Throw away the garlic.
2. Then add on the pork and dried chili. Stir fry until the pork half-cooked and add on ponzu to your liking. I didn't add too much (maybe about 3 tbsp), but you can taste the hint of yuzu and slight saltiness. Don't add too much because you'll loose the sweet peas' sweetness.

Enjoy!

My First Cake Salé

Anybody know what is cake salé? Honestly, I never heard of this until last Friday. I just went to Kinokuniya and did my browsing at the recipe book aisle (yes, the Japanese one, not the Western one) ritual and I stumbled upon 1, 2 cake salé cook book (they call it ケークサレ), and they're colorful and full of pictures! Off course, my first instinct is... what's this? Muffin in loaf? Savory type of loafs? Anyway, I just had to have the book first :p...


... and I'm not that far off. According to my google search result, (there's no wiki for cake salé, or maybe there's one but it's in French), cake salé is a savory loaf. You can find loads of recipes from the blogs, but most of them are in French... and Japanese (I tried searched by ケークサレas well). 1 article that I found describe cake salé as muffin without sugar and add on the richness. But this means that you'll find most of the Western recipes has lots of fattening stuff, cheese, cream, buttermilk etc etc.... this is not what I want. I want something nice and healthy enough for my breakfast or snacks, moderate amount of fat still can be tolerated but not the overwhelming everything add on, which is why I love my cook book.


So, Japanese being Japanese, they just have to Japanize the recipe, not the base but the variation. So, we have combinations like: smoked salmon + shimeji; sakura ebi + ginger; vegetable curry; gyoza; okonomiyaki; leeks + miso, and the list can go on forever. So, with so many combinations, yes, it does have some recipes with cheese, but it makes up only 20% of the whole book!

So, which recipe did I choose for my cake salé debut? It's the shredded pork (I use shabu shabu pork), spring onion and Chinese lettuce pickles (the recipe says to use 榨菜 but I can't find it at the supermarket). No cheese, and I substitute the cream with all milk. Texture may be slightly different, but I just wanted to get an idea what it tastes like and... it's not bad! Actually it's quite nice that I end up eating 2 pieces, pronto haha...

So, stay tune for more cake salé from me... ;)

Yakitori Yakitori...

Sizzling hot, tasty, yummy, most of the time crunchy on the outside but mellow on the inside and sinful! That's   yakitori! One of nice yakitori joint in Singapore is Shirokane Tori-Tama (I've been spelling the name wrongly) at Robertson Quay. If you see the rating on the Internet... it's low (way low)... why? There's only 1 reason, people are whining that it's expensive... but... hello? Since when yakitori is cheap in Singapore? Oh, you mean, the yakitori take away? When going to a proper yakitori joint in Singapore, be prepare to spend at least 40-50SGD at least and 100SGD plus with sake. Don't whine that you don't know about this when you enter the joint. And, it's not that fantastically cheap also in its origin country. But at the very least, Tori-tama is still one of the better place which serve good proper yakitori, especially chicken parts. Which ones I like best in this place? It's their kawa (chicken skin) and their neck meat. They do it well and nice! And for those whiny people, guess what? The joint is fully booked on Fridays and weekends and that kawa will be sold out by ... 8pm?

Easy Potato Chives Cakes

In the light of detox program (still eating the good food but minus all the unhealthy stuff), I'm making ministrone soup, again. But, this time I don't want to eat it with bread, so what should be the companion for this soup. At first, I'm considering of making polenta cakes or corn bread (yeah! maybe I'll make this next time). But, I have 1 pack of potatoes in my fridge.. hmmm... Making croquette (noo, not the Japanese one, the Indonesian one) is very time consuming and I'm... lazy... so I opt on the easy one, potato patties.. It's still look like croquettes somehow, but yeah... it's easy... that's the keyword...

What you need:

700 gr potatoes - steamed

30 gr Edam cheese - shredded

1 pack chives - chopped fine

Bread crumbs

How to:

1. In a bowl mashed the potato and combine the cheese and chives until well mixed

2. Round them into small patties, about 60gr each and cover them with bread crumbs.

3. Sprinkle bit of on the top and bake at 160C for about 35min.

Simple right?

It makes a very light meal and definitely makes your tummy happy.

Enjoy!

Pork Chop Marmalade

Accidentally deleted the post, so this is just a repost. I did this recipe twice already and it keeps give me the satisfaction of cooking it. Simple dish with simple and clean taste. Let the dish speaks by itself. :)

What you need for 2 portion:
3 small potatoes - cut half
6 no snap peas - slide the sides
1 big clove garlic, smashed (I use 2 because the garlic that I have in the pantry are not big ones)
4 pc spare ribs
Sauce:
100 cc Sake
100 cc Soy sauce
50 cc water
150 gr marmalade
Seasoning: salt, pepper

How to:
1. On the wok, add oil and fry the garlic until slightly brown pan fry the potatoes until the flat side turn slightly brown. Using paper towel, absorb the oil, add water and close the wok with a lid.
2. While waiting for the water to be fully dried up, prepare the snap peas.
3. Once the water dries up, add on snap peas and add water again, close the lid.
4. Prepare the spare ribs, sprinkle salt and pepper both sides.
5. Once the water for the snap peas dries up, set aside the potatoes and snap peas. Using the same wok, grill the spare rib. Ensure both sides are slightly browning. Add on sake, soy sauce and water. Place the marmalade on top of the spare ribs. Close the lid for 15 minutes.
6. For presentation, the show adds some greenies.

Enjoy!

And Yet, Another Easy Pasta...

I don't normally cook during weekdays and today is exceptionally cold so I came back home... hungry and still cold. So, I need food, good food, and fast! It's logical, yeah? LOL Minimal washing is a must and must be cook less than 10 min. If you happen to see the cute, small, and colorful bell peppers, do try them out because they're crunchy and sweet! Honestly, I don't really fancy bacon because it turns tough when it's cold and sometimes it's way to salty to my liking. But bacon works very well to bring out the sweetness of the peppers.

What you need for 2 people:

1 pack small bell peppers (usually they mix the color, mine just happen to have lots of orange)

8 strips of bacon, sliced into strips

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

dried chili

your choice of pasta about 150-200gr (I use full wheat spaghetti)

How to:

1. Heat up the pan and add on the most fatty part of the bacon strips and stir fry it until the your pan coated with the fats (yeah! good stuff!). Then add on dried chili and garlic, add on little bit of oil if you feel the bacon fats is not enough. Cook until the garlic is golden brown.

2. Add on the bell peppers. Stir fry until half cooked then add the rest of the bacon and close the lid for about 3 minutes.

3. Take out the lid and add on the pasta. The pasta should absorb most of the liquid leftover when you take out the liquid almost immediately. So by the time you're done, which should be very fast, you have a pasta that's not too dry but also not too wet, just nice!

Hold on:

Q: what about the seasoning?

A: why do I need salt if the bacon already take care of that part? And the friend, pepper is already optional because dried chili already takes care of its job. :)

Note: 50gr of dried pasta yield to 100gr of cooked pasta... interesting? hehehe...

Enjoy!

Takenoko Tai Gohan ~ Bamboo Shoot Fish Rice

This is the first recipe of 'One Dish,' and what makes me like the show. It's simple, not difficult to make but it's flavorful. On the side note, I really need to search for this show's files for my collection... so difficult to find...

What you need:
Bamboo shoots
1 Sea bream fish, inner parts taken out and dried
3 cup white rice
540 cc dashi
2 tbsp sake
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tsp salt
Some greens (I use corriander leaves)

How to:
1. Cut the bamboo shoots to bite size, set aside.
2. Slash the fish body and damp salt on the fins and tail. Poke the fish with 3 iron sticks and sprinkle salt on both side. Place the fish on direct fire (using your stove) and grill it until half-cooked.
3. On a big nabe bowl, place the rice and all the liquids, stir until liquid well mixed. Then place the bamboo shoots and lastly on top, place the fish. Close the lid. Roll a small piece of aluminum foil and use that roll to cover the lid's hole. Cook for about 20-30 minutes on small fire until you see the rice is cooked. After you off the fire, let it be for another 15 minutes.
4. Place the greens on top as garnish.

In the show they also have sakura salt. It's very pretty if you have that. How to? Place pickled sakura and some salt and bake it in the oven until crispy and dry. Then crush it and you have a pink color sprinkle.

Points:
1. I don't have that huge nabe bowl, so I just use regular pot with a lid. Presentation-wise may be questionable but it works fine.
2. I used yellow tail fish, red snapper is too luxurious for this, I guess. But if you have Tai around, you should try use that.
3. I used the packed ones, not the fresh one like they have in the show


Enjoy!

Blueberry Pancake

I craved for pancakes but all my recipes are mega size recipe and you know you only want to eat pancakes for 1 or 2 times only, not for the whole week... so... Internet as again is my best friend and I found this recipe: http://cookpad.com/recipe/252539/ ... supposedly it's a multipurpose recipe because on the bottom, it shows what you you can do with it... but... I only need to use it for pancakes, so here's the sort of translated version and I modify a bit for my convenience.

What you need:
1 no egg
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil (I use grape seed oil)
130 ml milk
150 gr cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
80gr frozen blueberies

How to:
1. Weigh wet and dry ingredients into separate bowls. The bowl used for dry ingredients must be bigger.
2. Add in the wet ingredients into the dry one and whisk it until well mixed. Lastly add on the blueberries and mix well.
3. On a small pan, brush some melted butter and cook the pancake. 1 side take about 1-2min depends on how big is your fire.

Yield: 3 jumbo pancakes

Strawberry sauce.. I used the previous strawberry balsamic vinegar sauce from the French Toast post.

Enjoy!

Tuna Pasta

Remember all the leftover veggies that you bought intended for the Minestrone soup? Well, this is one of the idea of how to finish them off... tuna pasta!

I use sambal belibis, despite it has MSG in it (sobs sobs, my fave chili sauce has MSG in it), but I can't help it, I like my tuna pasta hot and sweet...

What you need:
1 Zucchini - halved and sliced
1 sweet corn - cut
Leftover celery stalks - sliced
1 canned tuna - strained
1 handful pine nuts
3 pinches dried chili
tomato sauce, sambal belibis (opt. your fave chili sauce with garlic based, or can omit this), white wine
Your fave pasta (I like fusilli)

How to:
1. On a wok, saute pine nuts and dried chili until fragrant
2. Add on tuna. Stir until tuna is dry (I like dried tuna)
3. Add on all cut veggies
4. Splash a bit of white wine and close the lid until veggies are cooked (mainly the zucchini)
5. Add on tomato sauce and sambal belibis
For 1 person portion:
1. Boil 50 gr of dried pasta until al dente, then strain
2. On a wok, take the tuna sauce as much as you like, stir fry it until a bit dry then add on the pasta. Mix it until the pasta is well covered with sauce.

Tips:
1. If you don't like spicy food, you can omit the chili sauce but at the beginning, add on chopped garlic, saute it together with the pine nuts and dried chili
2. Other than sambal belibis, can also use sambal jempol. I detest sambal ABC so won't recommend it.

Enjoy!

Rolled Cabbage Minestrone

I saw the dish quite some time ago from the Japanese variety show. It looks doable and yummy... and healthy. But alas, the show never really show the recipe, so I have to estimate what do I need to get the result :). So, I seek to dear google to get the basic minestrone recipe and pick up part of a recipe from another variety show, and here we go:

What you need:
1 green Zucchini ~ cut small cube
2 carrots ~ cut small cube
2 stalks celery ~ cut small cube
1 sweet corn ~ cut
400gr minced meat
6 big cabbage leaves ~ blanched
100 gr cabbage ~ cut big piece
300 cc chicken stock
6-7 tomatoes ~ cut big piece
300 cc chicken stock
seasoning: thyme, salt

How to:
1. On a wok, boil cabbage and chicken stock until soft and stock reduced with closed lid. Pour into food processor and blend it. Pour the puree into a flat plate and put it in freezer for 10-15 min until you scrap it but not completely froze.
2. In a bowl, mix minced meat with the cabbage puree until well mixed. You need to knead the meat until it changes its texture to very smooth texture.
3. Take about 80-100 gr of the mixture and wrap it with the cabbage leave. You may have to cut the excess leaves to close the roll. It makes about 5-6 rolls and set aside.
4. On a wok, boil tomato and chicken stock until soft with closed lid. Pour into food processor and blend it. Strain it with cheese cloth (if you don't have it, use the fine strainer will do).
5. On a big soup pot, sautee the cut veggies until fragrant, pour in the strained tomato puree, add water or more stock if you'd like to have more liquid. Place the rolled cabbage on top, cover it with baking paper and let it boil under small fire for about 30-40 minutes.

Tips:

1. You'll definitely have a raw veggie leftover because you have to buy the whole celery and only use 2 stalks, for example. So what you can do is cut the veggies in small cubes, put into plastic bag and freeze it. You can use it in future for... just about anything. Another minestrone, or a stir fry?

Enjoy!

My Version of American Breakfast

Lately I've been craving for some fluffy egg breakfast, but I'm not in the mood of making poached egg etc, so I go with the fastest way, scramble egg LOL... and add on some veggie (whatever I have in the fridge) and a bread of your choice, you get a decent American breakfast :)

Looks hearthy, right? You can mix and match your bread too :). For the first one I use the cheese bread that I bought from Taka, and the second one is just the regular wholemeal toast. It's not easy to find the super thick toast, unless... you reach the bakery just when they start slicing the bread and you request the thick one cut specially for you, never try this before, but it's possible :).

It's interesting to know that are veggies that can survive in your fridge for weeks w/o getting wrinkled or wilted. So far I find bell peppers (any color) that you wrap nicely with cling wrapper will last weeks. Tomatoes, any kind, washed and dried, will last too. And surprisingly, mushrooms, the white button mushrooms, if you cling wrap it or put in the dry Tupperware will last too. So, yeah, these are yummy veggies that you don't have to worry that much whether they'll go bad soon or not.

As for the fluffy scramble egg, I just add milk to the egg and stir. Don't add too much milk as it'll get too watery and you'll end up with a dry but watery scramble egg because you have to cook it longer to get rid off the excess water.

Stirred Fry Cassava Leaves with Silver Fish

I made the almost the same dish before with anchovies, so this is the rather healthier version of it. Healthier in the sense of less sodium used and I change the recipe slightly.

What you need:
100gr Cassava leaves - blanched for 5-6 minute and sliced
150gr silver fish
5 cloves garlic
5 cloves shallot
1 green chili - seeded, thinly sliced
2 tsp chili oil

How to:
1. On a chopper, add in garlic and shallot and chop until they form into paste
2. On a wok, saute the chopped garlic and shallot with chili oil until fragrant
3. Add on Cassava leaves and cook it until the leaves become softer, add water necessarily
4. Add on silver fish and cook until fish well done
5. Add on salt to your taste

Enjoy!

Another Version of Bistik

No doubt Bistik is one of my fave home cooked dishes in any forms. This time I sort of combine the pork chop recipe and my regular bistik. And this is the result, yey!

What you need:
350 gr lean meat, sliced about 3mm thin - I use pork but you can also use lean beef
3 small potatoes - cut cubes
1 pack sweet peas - slit the sides
Sauce: 
1 onion - thinly sliced
1 red chili - seeded and thinly sliced
Seasoning: sweet soy sauce (kecap bango), chili oil, Worchestire sauce, sake, soy sauce, pepper

How to:
1. 1 day before, marinate the sliced meat with sweet soy sauce, worchestire sauce and pepper
2. On a wok, put bit of oil and pan fry the potatoes until the sides browned, then add some water, close the lid for about 3-5 minutes. Then add sweet peas and bit more water, close the lid again until sweet peas are soft enough.
3. Cook the meat just like you cook the meat for yakiniku. The meat is thin enough so that it can be cooked fast. Once done, don't throw the marinate sauce because we're going to use it for making the sauce.
3. To make the sauce, on a wok, saute onion and red chili with chili oil. Once onion and chili are soft, add on  the marinate sauce and the rest of the ingredients. Cook until the sauce slightly thickened.

Well, I also made my own chili oil, very easy to make and cheap too.

What you need:
1 pack of chili padi, cut the tip
6 tbsp oil (I use grapeseed oil) -- You can add more oil, but I like the cooked chili more than the oil, and the lesser you put, the more concentrated it taste, so you don't need to use a lot in future.

How to:
1. Put the chili into chopper and chop away until the chili breakdown to really small pieces (I like it to be as smooth as possible)
2. On a wok, heat up oil and cook the chili until the chili fragrant is out. By now you should see the oil turn into red color.
3. Keep the chili oil in a jar. I'd prefer to store this in the fridge so that it can last longer.

Enjoy!

Mun Tahu... My Version

I've never made Mun Tahu before, it's always Mapo Tofu (with House's ready to use sauce), so I resolve to the Internet for the recipes... and boy how disappointing the recipes are. As far as I'm concerned, Mun Tahu is sort of the white color version of Mapo Tofu, so why I find recipes with oyster sauce in it? And I'd expect to find recipe which actually uses pork, but that didn't even come close, the whitest meat they use is chicken... ... ... OK, scrap all of them, I'm making my own version, which at least close to what I'd imagine...

What you need:
300 gr minced pork
1 pack silken tofu (I use organic tofu, easier to eat)
1 red chili, seeded and thinly sliced (optional, I use it just for the color)
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small pc ginger, finely chopped
1/4 leek, julienned
100ml stock (I use dashi stock, chicken stock is OK too)
seasoning: mirin, salt, pepper

How to:
1. On a wok, saute garlic, ginger and chili until fragrant
2. Add on pork, use spatula to break down the meat to small pieces, cook until well done, add on mirin so that the meat won't turn out too dry
3. Add on tofu, and leek. Use spatula, break the tofu per your liking
4. Season it with salt and pepper and it's done

Point:
1. Ginger eliminate the porky smell
2. If you like the meat to be softer, on a bowl, mix the meat with about 10gr of maizena
3. You can substitute the leek with spring onion (they add color too)

Enjoy!

Poached Pear

Finally! I made the poached pear again after so many years... This time it's with white wine. I used a Chardonnay because I like it better than Sauvignon Blanc and it's cheaper than Port wine, yeah, I'm those type who doesn't really splurge on wine, and it's for cooking, not for drinking...

Beautiful isn't it? Such an eye candy without any garnish... perfect with ice cream...

What you need:

1 pack of pear (I use the small pears, 1 box has about 8 pieces)

1 bottle of white wine

25-30 gr sugar

How to:

1. Peel the pear skin

2. Arrange the pears standing in the sauce pan and pour in the wine and sugar

3. Boil for about 1 hour on low fire or until the wine reduce by half

Points:

1. Regular recipe would state about 150gr of sugar. I find it too sweet especially if your pear is already sweet to begin with.

2. If you cut the pear into pieces not poaching them in whole, you'll need to use lesser wine because cooking time can be cut tremendously.

3. The benefit of leaving the stem aside for aesthetic function is because you can lift them around by just holding on to that stem. Mine didn't break at all when I move them around.

Enjoy! 

French Toast

I'm feeling like having a French Toast, and been itching to try this recipe from the Japanese variety show that I watched some time ago. It's simple, cheap to make (especially if you already have jam in your fridge), and the most important, it's rich, filling and melt in your mouth! 

What you need:
1 Baguette - cut diagonally with about 3cm thick, 1 Baguette can make about 4-5 servings
For custard bath:
250 gr milk
2 no egg
20 gr sugar
Butter for frying
For sauce:
50 gr strawberry jam
2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar (use the regular tablespoon, not the measuring spoon)
8-10 piece of mint leaves, chopped

How to:
1. Whisk custard bath ingredients until well mixed on a rectangular shaped container. This is easier for you to later dip the baguette.
2. When you dip the baguette pieces, press the side so that the liquid penetrate the whole piece quickly. But, don't leave it for too long, or it'll get soggy.
3. If your pan is a tefal based one, then you don't need butter to pan fried the french toast under low to medium fire. But using butter will add to the richness though, so it's your choice. Remember, control your fire, else your french toast will be burnt, fast.
4. Make the sauce by mixing all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
5. Assemble: place the French toast whenever you like in your plate, glaze them with the sauce, and dig in!


Enjoy!

My First Mochi

When you want to do an experiment, Daisho is the good place to go, they have the packs of mochi mix, dango mix and other Japanese sweets ingredients and they're all at 2SGD. So, it won't really hurt if you fail LOL...

So, how does it fare? For first try, I think it's not bad, it's not as elastic as the usual mochi (because I didn't put lots of oil) but it's quite soft which is quite important because I won't eat them if they're hard to eat. It'll be more delicious if I use the home made red bean paste (made that before, it's a labor of love, sob)

What you need:
230 gr non glutenous rice flour
200 ml warm water
100 ml oil - set aside
100 gr red bean paste
100 gr soya powder

How to:
1. In a bowl, combine flour and water, mic with hand until well combined and you can tear the dough
2. Tear the dough to big balls and place them on damp cloth, cover them and steam for 20-25 minutes
3. Take out the dough along with the cloth and start knead them and tap some oil to make it easier to handle.  If you happen to have the big pounding stone bowl (along with the pounder), then you can use that, but I find that kneading do the job faster for making small batch. Keep kneading until dough become smooth and quite shiny.
4. Tear small piece of the dough, with small roller (if you have, if not big one also can do) roll it flat. Take 1 tsp of red been paste, place it on center then seal the dough and make it into a ball. Roll the ball into the soya powder until throughly cover. Repeat the process

It's not difficult to make, but you have to deal with hot water, and hot dough :)

What I want to try now is eat this with ice cream hehehe...

Egg Benedict

This weekend brunch menu is Egg Bennedict. I took the recipe straight from the Japanese variety show. And here's the result. Now I know what impact can Vegemite (that weird taste spread) make into your Hollandaise sauce. It gives a soft cheesy salty bite to the sauce. Nice for salad dressing too. 

Recipe makes for 2 portion

What you need:
2 eggs - Poached
1 English biscuit - halved, toasted with butter
1 thick slice of ham - grilled
Water cress
Hollandaise sauce:
2 big egg yolks
30 cc white wine
125 gr butter - melted, still hot
15 cc lemon juice
Seasoning: Salt, White pepper, Vegemite

How to:

1. On a stainless steel bowl, whisk egg yolk and wine until light, use bain marie to get to sabayon form.

2. Once reach the sabayon form, add on butter, keep whisking, until reach a similar to slightly thinner than mayonnaise consistency

3. Add the rest of ingredients and whisk until well mix and set aside the Hollandaise sauce

4. For poached egg, on a medium size pan, heat water to about 90C (not boiling). *For cheaters like me: add on vinegar, it'll make the egg easier to stick together* Add in the egg, and with spoon stir to 1 direction SLOWLY until the egg white fully formed and the yolk are covered with egg white. Using small strainer, take it up. Repeat the process.

5. Assemble: English biscuit - Ham - Greenies (I use mixed greens) - Poached egg - Hollandaise sauce

Cheats:

I failed on the Hollandaise sauce because it's too watery (greedy, add too much wine and my sabayon can't get thickened). So, I cheat! I quote what the chef said in the show, 'Hollandaise sauce is a warmed mayonnaise.' Get the picture? You're right! So this is what I did:

What you need:

100 gr mayonnaise

5-7 gr white wine (basically just a splash)

splash of lemon juice

Seasoning: Salt, White pepper, Vegimite

How to:

1. Heat up mayonnaise in microwave for about 15 sec (just hot enough will do)

2. Add on white wine, whisk until airy

3. Add on the rest of ingredients and keep on whisking until all well mixed and light airy, and you're done! Save all the washing, and you can keep the left over!!! :d :d.

Points: If you use Kewpie mayo, you'll still can taste Kewpie unique mayo flavor, so it'll be a little bit different from original recipe, but if you use the generic brand, you should get the same taste. Why? Because basically mayonnaise is egg yolk and oil whisked *insert troll face, LOL*

Enjoy!

Pork Yogurt with Scallop Potatoes

Inspired from the chicken yogurt hot plate that I ate at the Indian restaurant on Friday. The chicken was marinated in yogurt and it's so tender and soft, so why don't we try it on pork?

What you need:
200 gr lean pork meat, cut big chunks or cubes
1 potato, cut thinly (about 1mm)
1/2 bunch chives, chopped
1/2 onion, sliced thinly
1 tbsp dried chili
150ml plain yogurt
seasoning: thyme, salt, pepper

How to:
1. Marinate pork in yogurt and thyme (about 2 tsp) for 2 hours (24 hours will be best)
2. On a wok, heat up oil and add in dried chili. Once fragrant, add on onion and chives and cook until soft
3. Add on potatoes, cook until half done
4. Add on pork and the marinate sauce, cook until pork is well done and add seasonings

Enjoy!

Just Another Curry Rice

I guess there will be a never ending quest in adding extra stuffs into your curry concoction. This time it's what I saw in the drama that I'm currently watching. On the last scene of the first episode, the main character is serving curry rice to his siblings and they're raving about the curry rice, and he told them, 'it's miso and honey'. Me: OOOOHHHH, I never thought of that, sasuga, curry block endorser!

So, here we go and I gobbled this baby while watching the drama's 2nd episode haha... and it's the best curry rice that I've made so far...

Ingredients:

Curry Sauce:

2 big carrots - sliced

2 Russet potatoes - cut chunks

1 medium sized onion - cut chunks

150 ml chicken stock

200 ml water

1 apple - peeled and mashed

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp miso paste

1/2 curry block (from the block packet for 4 people)  - thinly chopped

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 red chilli - seeded and thinly sliced

Topping:

100 gr pork lean meat - cut strips

1 red bell pepper - charred, filmed and sliced

1 yellow bell pepper - charred, filmed and sliced

2 tbsp corn starch

seasoning: salt, pepper, dash of dried basil

How to:

1. On the soup pan, heat up the oil and stir fry onion and red chili until soft, and add on carrot and potatoes.

2. Pour in water and chicken stock and bring to boil.

3. In a bowl, mix in apple, honey, miso and curry block until well mixed and add them into the pan and stir in until it's dissolved

4. Change to small fire, simmer it until potatoes and carrots are soft.

5. On a bowl, mix in the pork with the corn starch until the meat all coated

6. On a wok, heat up the oil and dried chili until fragrant.

7. Add in meat and stir fry until well cooked

8. Add in bell peppers and seasoning, stir fry a bit and done.

Enjoy!

Nectarine Compote

You saw the fruits that you like is on sale and you happily bring home 2 boxes of it only to find out that they're too dry. Have you experienced this? this is what happened to me with my 2 boxes of totally not juicy nectarine. The first thing that I tried with these fail fruits is nectarine crumble and it didn't worked so well because, well, they're already dry and crumbles need juicy fruits to become a nice one, which explains why apple makes a very good crumble. So, how to make these fruits edible? You can try make it into a compote! So, what is compote? When we hear the word Compote, the first thing come to mind is pear compote, but if we dig more recipes to it, we'll see lots of varieties of fruit compote. So, Compote means fruit plus liquor, be it wine or hard liquor, boiled until the liquid is reduced to certain consistency. Off course if you have nice fruits, making it into compote will result in a very wonderful one, but if you have a fail fruit, this dessert also will do because it'll soften the fruit and you'll have liquid to help the fruit glide down your throat :d, and it's easy to make too ;)

It's so glossy and soft in color, right?

So without further a do:

Ingredients:

4 nectarines cut 6 wedges each

500 ml water

100 gr sugar

2 lemon, take the juice only

40 ml cointreau

How to make:

1. In a sauce pan, boil all except cointreau under small fire. After about 10 minutes, add on cointreau and let it simmer until the syrup reduced by about half.

Tips:

- can be served warm/cold.

- add on oats and vanilla ice cream, it'll become another different dessert.

Enjoy!

Weekend Desserts

I love it when there's some fair at either Taka or Isetan because that means there will be some yummy desserts floating around there. This time it's Hokkaido fair at Taka and they have Petite Merveille. It's not local Hokkaido, it's from Tokyo, but... I couldn't care less, they have yummy stuff. Their 3 main products are Mel Cheese (petite size cheesecake), kabocha purin (pumpkin pudding) and choco rolled cake. I sampled the cheesecake because I don't feel like buying 1 box of it, but I brought home the purin and the rolled cake.

They also have the kabocha purin that's layered with fresh cream, but I opted for the plain one because of guilt LOL... But the kabocha purin by itself is already so fluffy and soft, well, basically it just melt in your mouth on every single bite and without you realize it, you finish the whole ramekin (don't worry it's not that a big ramekin too). And, yes, you get that tiny porcelain ramekin too, so for 6SGD each, they're not really that expensive at the end, especially when the taste makes up for it too.

Well, what about the rolled cake? As, usual, it's fluffy, and the cream is not that really creamy so it's easy to eat. My fave, poured rum over it and you get a very yummy dessert :) :) :)...