Hakutsuru Sake ~ Sho Une

My knowledge on the world of liquor is minimal, but I know which one is yummy, and this tiny blue bottle of sake is wonderfully yummy. It's so smooth, clean and I hardly taste a hint of alcohol, though its alcohol content is quite high, about 15%. You can easily drink down the whole bottle without realizing that you're already drunk with this one.

So, the next quest... grapefruits hai? According to my AnAn magazine copy, it's 1:4 Sake and Juice LOL...

Maybe I also should try sochu... yummm...

Yummy mushrooms...

Lately I easily got put off when I see the price tags of meat, any kind of meat, and lets not talk about the price of seafood, in the supermarket. The only consolation that I can think of is the mushroom section. Although, it's still expensive, but mushrooms come with lots of varieties nowadays, and not to mention that they're nutritious as well. You can opt of Portobello (the not so cheap mushrooms) as your meat sub. I particularly like Japanese mushrooms from enoki (they're the cheapest, but very useful), nameko, bunashimeji, shitake to maitake, and there are still lots of them that I haven't tried yet (mushroom is also not that cheap in SG but it's at least it's not so painful to see the price tag). This time I got to try Yanagi mushrooms, the organic one. They don't give out the strong smell so I stir fry it with tofu and leek :). Taste? Light and yummy. It goes well with rice too.

For me, the easiest way to handle mushroom is to stir fry it because most likely mushrooms will go well with whatever you throw into your wok. You can also make simple egg dish with mushrooms, eg. steamed egg like in cawan mushi, omellete, egg pancake. They are simple dishes that require minimal effort and most important, washing :).

Stir Fry Long Bean with Minced Chicken

I'd think I posted this recipe years ago, somewhere, but I can't find the old posting so I assume I never write this before. I think I took the recipe from tabloid Nova (those were the days when I basically copied down all Nova's recipes online and made a scrap book out of it) and the dish makes its premiere among my American friends when I was still in the states and they fell in love with it. But  along the way, I made modification per my convenience but the essence is still the same.

Yield: 2-3 person

What you need:

200 gr long beans - cut 5cm length

150 gr minced chicken

5 gr corn flour

6 cloves garlic - finely chopped

1 small red onion - finely chopped

2 red chilies - take out seeds and sliced

Water

Seasoning: salt, pepper, sweet soy sauce, mirin

How to:

1. On a bowl, mix chicken, flour, salt and pepper until well mixed

2. On a wok, heat up the oil, add in garlic, chilies and red onion, saute until fragrant and soft

3. Add in the chicken mix and use spatula break them until small pieces (bite size)

4. When the chicken is half cooked, add in long beans, splash some mirin and water, then close with the lid for about 5 minutes

5. Once long bean cooked, add on sweet soy sauce and pepper, and if you like the gravy to be thinner, add bit more water

Tips:

1. The original recipe use minced beef, but for healthier choice, I use minced chicken

2. The original recipe also use tomatoes, I forget to buy some, so I use chilies :p. If you use tomatoes, you'll need less water and you'll have more color on your dish :).

3. I use red onion instead of shallots because I don't like cutting shallots (they're small so you need to peel some while you only need 1 red onion to do the job). Shallots may taste sweeter but I don't see much difference in using shallots or red onion, they're the same to me :p

4. Though this dish has tomatoes in it, I don't think I'll mix this with pasta because I don't think sweet soy sauce will go well with pasta :p...

Enjoy!

A Different Shirasu pasta

Well, this is just another version of shirasu pasta, but definitely different from the previous recipe, and you can serve this with rice as well. Initally I made this to be eaten with rice, not pasta, but according to my logic, anything cooked with tomatoes will go well with pasta, and so far I haven't been proven wrong...

Yield: 2-3 person


What you need:
1/2 pack cherry tomatoes, halved
1 pack bunashimeji mushroom
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
250 gr fresh silver fish (that's why this is different from the previous recipe)

1/5 stalk leek, julienned (optional, this is just to give you the green color)

1 pinch dried chili

Seasoning: salt, pepper, tomato sauce

Pasta of choices: fusilli or spaghetti

How to:

1. On a wok, heat up the oil with dried chili (it'll give you a nice fragrant, not necessarily spicy)

2. Saute garlic until fragrant and add on tomatoes and bunashimeji

3. Once they are half-cooked, add on the fish and leek

4. After all are cooked well, add in seasoning, and taste

5. After you get the taste that you like, add on the already boiled pasta and toast around until it's well mixed

Tips:

1. You can change the mushrooms to enoki, eringi, nameko or white mushrooms, but I don't think I will use shitake, or oyster mushrooms because they give different feels

2. I like to use cherry tomatoes because they're not so watery compared to the big ones, and off course cherry tomatoes look prettier on your plate because they'll still retain their shapes after they're cooked too ;)

3. Fresh silver fish is cheaper compared to the Japanese shirasu, talk about 9SGD for small pack compare to 4SGD to the huge pack. But I'd think this will depend on where you live as well.

4. I like to use lots of garlic because it'll cover up the fishy and mushroomy smell. Don't get me wrong, I like mushroom but sometimes the smell can change the overall food's atmosphere (what am I talking... just imagine this, you have enoki in the pasta but it smells that you keep thinking of miso soup while you're eating the pasta, weird right?)

5. Do try wheat pasta, I like them better than the regular pasta because they're more chewy and have more body when cooked with tomato based sauce. And when you're at it, also try the organic ones, they're much lighter compare to the non-organic ones ;).

Below is what it looked like if you use spaghetti, I didn't use mushroom at the below version but nevertheless, the idea is the same.

Enjoy!

The 20SGD (19.50SGD to be exact) Rolled Cake

Well well, it's a slow weekend and my and daddy dearest just went to Orchard to waste time. Off course when you're in Orchard, you just have to venture to Isetan's basement (my sanctuary aside from Liang Court's Meidi-ya). This week, they're having Kyushu fair, which means all the stuff from Hakata are there for you to buy (the price are wow-ing though). Highlights are 26SGD strawberries (so glossy and hairless), Ume shiso hijiki for your onigiri for 13SGD in a small box (it's very very yummy if you like ume), handmade barley miso for about 13SGD per small box (I so wanted to get a box of this, but I scared it'll go wasted before I finish it), and off course the yummy fantastic fried small crabbies, shrimps, scallops, silver fishes and squids (each small box is 6SGD, I bought the fish before, it's sooo yum that I finished it at 1 go).


So, in the midst of those yummy stuff, I stumbled upon boxes of cakes... rolled cakes... they look oh so yummy (off course, what we're talking about here), and 1 pic catch my eyes... iron chef France (I always forget his name, but he'll be forever remembered as iron chef France). I didn't read what's on the board... too many letters, so I just asked the sales guy what's this n that, and which one is the best seller. Well, it's not that simple if you ask in Japanese (LOL). So, according to the sales, the grown ups love the green tea, children and ladies enjoy the chocolate, while overall best seller is the maple syrup, but if you want everybody to enjoy the cake, the plain is always the safest choice. And off course, I went home with the best seller, mapple syrup.


So, yeah, they always have to have the box. It's not as fancy as the boutique cakes that I had on my Japan trip, but taste matter more than the box, right?

Standard wrapping (ya, this is part of why it's 20SGD, LOL)

And now we have the main point, see those yellow square? It's purin!!! This is why I bought it in the first place hahaha... As usual, moist cake, neat cut, neat spread of fresh cream, love it!

Side profile...

On the plate, 1 more step to the mouth, and the verdict?

I have no regret spending 20SGD for this cake LOL, it's smooth, fluffy (as usual), can taste that there's no preservatives, fresh cream is not the kind that will make you lethargic after consumption, and it's not so sweet, the maple syrup is not overwhelming, just nice, the purin is not that firm as I thought, but I don't have coz you see the brown shade on one side of the square? They really use purin (their standard of creme caramel) as in complete w/ the caramel.

Miso Soup

'ミソスープ作る手は　優しさに溢れてた
大きくない僕だから
寒くしないように　温めてくれた
そんな優しさ　会いたくなるね'

Well, that's Miso Soup song from Tegomasu, basically the song is about how miso soup reminds the person of his mom's TLC. Well, I'd think there'd be a pack of miso paste in most Japanese household, so miso soup is kinda basic home cooking for them. But, what about us? We've seen the 1001 varieties of miso soup served in restaurants. Is it difficult to make, though? NOPE, but you do need to have a good miso paste and good tofu, else, it's not satisfying at all. My favorite miso soup will be those with mushrooms, especially nameko. Nameko is slimy and in miso soup, it's soften up the flavor and it doesn't have that mushroomy smell.

Yield: 2 person

What you need:

1/2 pack of nameko

1/2 carrot, thin quarter slices

1/4 leek, julienned

1/2 pack tofu, cut 1cm cubes

500ml water

2 tbsp miso paste or about 1/2 soup laddle

1 tbsp soyu (optional)

How to:

1. Boil water and carrots

2. Add on miso paste. Using laddle, place miso paste on the boiling water and using chopstick, break the paste bit by bit. If you want to break it faster, use the small strainer.

3. Add on nameko and leek, these cook very fast so you don't need to wait very long before you off the fire.

4. On a bowl, place the tofu and pour in the soup, and you're done.

Tips:

1. Miso soup is the base for other soups. Add on pork belly and konyaku, and you have a tonjiru.

2. If you want to have a fancy version, change water to chicken stock or bonito stock.

3. You can play with other ingredients eg. bamboo shoots, wakame seaweeds, and other type of mushrooms eg. enoki, bunashimeji, etc.

This is what I call a good lunch *hohoho*

Enjoy!

Healthy "Gratin"

I'm inspired to make potato gratin with bunashimeji mushroom after I ate mushroom bread 2 days ago. The bread topping is bunashimeji mushroom mixed with potato and topped with cheese (am pretty sure there's some mayo mixed in there too). The topping tasted like gratin and I've been having some since then. BUT, there's only 1 problem... I have to loose weight (nuoooooo...) and gratin is a very sinful dish with lots of cream and cheese. So, this is where the experiment begins. I still want to eat my gratin, but I need to find healthier alternative. So, that left me with 1 choice, soy milk custard. Doable? Definitely because to me, anything milky plus egg is custard. It definitely won't be creamy fantastic like the original gratin, but so long it tastes good, I'm in, plus you won't feel guilty.

Yield: 12" ramekin

What you need:

500 gr potatoes, sliced round (scallop potatoes cut)

1 bunch parsley, chopped, leave some not chopped for topping

bread crumbs (I made my own, blender some baguette croutons)

2 packs bunashimeji mushroom, cut the root and separate

1 onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsp dried chili (optional)

custard: 

1L soy milk
3 no eggs (3 eggs will make soft custard, 4 eggs will firm it up)
seasoning: salt, pepper, sugar, nutmeg (optional)

How to:
1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. On a bowl, mix all custard ingredients until all well mixed and frothy. Set aside.
3. On a wok, stir fry dried chili and onion, until the onion is quite soft, then add in the mushroom. Cook until mushroom is half cooked. Set aside.
4. On the ramekin, place in order, potatoes, mushrooms, parsley, bread crumbs, repeat until the ramekin is filled.
5. Pour in the custard mix until you see that the ingredients are well soaked (don't over pour)
6. Bake for about 40-60 minutes (it takes quite long to bake soy milk custard, especially the soft custard mix, the firmer custard mix should bake faster)

Tips:
1. Definitely must try this with milk, cheese and cream plus mayo for topping.
2. Stir frying the mushroom with dried chili will reduce the smell and I use parsley to further reduce it down (another function of parsely aside from making your dish pretty)
3. Try with different type potatoes (I mix Russettes and red potatoes because they're on sale :p but must definitely try with Yukon Gold)

Enjoy!

PS: This is as far as I'll compromise, there's no way I'll trade my cheesecakes with tofu cheesecakes... euuwww...

My First Gyoza

I've been making wontons... for years, but never ever try to make gyoza despite numerous times of salivating in front of TV on Gyoza shows (Japanese love their gyoza so they have gazillion ways of making it, and the idea seems to never end). I've learned from those show that making gyoza can be cheap or expensive depends on how much you'd like to splurge. The basic is the same as wonton, well, it's Japanese wonton duh :p. I still don't know how to make the skin, but so long as the supermarket sells ready-use wonton skin, I won't try to make one either :p... This time I just make the traditional gyoza filling (those that any ramen stalls have, no fancy stuff added) because I don't like to splurge so much for my first gyoza. And the result? Well they already goes smoothly inside my tummy and I'm quite satisfied with it. And the best part? They're not oily!

What you need:
1 pack Wonton/Gyoza skin (usually have about 40 slices)
350 gr minced pork
1 no small cabbage, chopped to small bites
1/2 bunch chives, sliced to very small bites. Chives' after cut edges are sharp so you may want to slice it very thinly, else it'll tear your gyoza skin (lessons from years of making wontons)
5 cloves garlic and 1 medium size ginger, peeled and chopped fine (use food processor to get very fine texture, you don't want to accidentally bite a huge piece of ginger inside your gyoza)
1 egg
1 tbsp mirin
Seasoning: salt and pepper
about 70ml chicken stock -- for cooking
Sauce:
Ginger, julienned
Soy sauce, mirin, vinegar


How to:
1. In a big bowl add in all ingredients except the skin and chicken stock. Using hand, mix them up until it's well mixed and you don't see lots of liquid on the bottom of the bowl (best if your bottom of the bowl is dry).
2. Place 1 tablespoon of the filling and seal it with water as glue. Some recipe will tell you to use egg but I find it too sticky and wet.
3. Repeat the same step, you should get about 30-40 gyozas depending on how you scoop out the filling with the spoon.
4. On a skillet (I use small one,and must have a lid), add on 2 tbsp oil, when it's hot, place about 7 (small skillet only fits about this much) gyozas and wait until the bottom slightly crispy then pour in the chicken stock and close the lid until all liquid gone and your gyoza is done!
5. Sauce is done by mixing all those ingredients together in small bowl.

Tips:
1. You can change chicken stock with just water, but it'll boring. In those shows, I've seen chicken stock, pork bone soup, milk, soya milk... basically any type of liquid exist in the cooking world used to cook the gyoza. All these will make a difference in terms of your gyoza's finishing look like. Some restaurants will have 'ears', they're usually the crispy part caused from the stock (this, I have no idea how they do it).
2. DO NOT open the lid when you cook it. The lid serve as a steamer to cook the wonton so they'll be just nice once the stock is totally vaporated, and at the same time, your gyoza butts will be crispy and slightly burned, perfection!
3. If you want to experiment with the fillings, make sure those like water chestnuts are chopped finely because hard fillings will easily tear the skin.
4. Best eat with? Beer! Sake! Ramen! That's why gyoza is a staple in any Ramen stalls around.
5. Alternative sauce, you can use Worcestershire sauce, surprisingly they go well together :)

Enjoy!

Another Different Crumble...

You do know that you can play with your filling for your crumbles? If you feel like splurging you can have a bowl of berries for your crumbles. This time, I used pear for my filling, it gives a fresh texture to your regular apple crumble, and off course I still add some blueberries because... I like colors :d

The idea is same recipe, so many different outcomes (maybe I will try some other fruits next time... peaches?)

Egg Fuyoung with Bakwa

Bought too much bakwa (aka dendeng) during Chinese New Year and you still can't finish them all? You can try turn it into egg fuyoung, they make a very tasty one ;). My egg fuyoung is basically... egg pancake, I don't use flour because the last time I tried that (years ago experiment) it turned out to be disgusting, so yeah... Well, egg fuyoung must always come with sauce. As far as I know, there're only 2 kinds of sauce, the read and brown one. I find red sauce is more fore traditional egg fuyoung (you know, those with cabbage, and carrots... maybe I should make this some times too, haven't eat it for years already), so I make the brown color sauce but with red base because I like ketchup :p...

What you need:

100 gr bakwa (should be about 2-3 slice, they're heavy), cut small squares (about 7mm big)

1 bunch chives, cut 5cm length

1/4 no big leek, julienned

1 no onion, thinly sliced

Egg mix:

5 no eggs (about 220gr)

40 gr soya milk

40 gr chicken stock

20 gr mirin

Seasoning: salt & pepper

Sauce:

1/2 no onion, thinly sliced

7 tbsp tomato sauce

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (if you like it more tangy, you can add more) 

1 tsp dried chili (I just add them in because I like the fragrant)

3 tbsp brandy (yeah, I like liquor in my food)

20 gr water

How to:

1. Stir fry bakwa and onion until soft. The best thing with using bakwa, you don't need to use oil because they're already oily and they won't burned more than they already are :p

2, Add the rest of the veggie and cook until soft. Add salt & pepper. Don't over cook, and DO NOT add extra water.

3. Pour in egg mix and start cook the egg w/o breaking the edge. To prevent the bottom from burning too fast, occasionally use spatula to lift a bit the mixture from the bottom of your panmake. This is to make sure you can flip the mixture later.

4. Once you see that your mixture is in the condition of flippable aka it's cooked enough so that it's won't be so messy when you flip it over. Use 2 spatula from both side of the mixture to flip it over. It's quite heavy so be careful not to break it. I'm not good with this step myself and my wrist is not strong enough to use the pan itself to flip the egg, so that's why I need 2 spatula. Alternatively, you can use another same sized pan and flip it over, easy but that's extra washing to do and provided that you have 2 pans at hand.

5. After the flip, just make sure that the bottom is cooked enough and it's done.

Sauce:

1. On the same pan, add 1 tbsp of oil and dried chili, and saute the onion until soft

2. Add all liquid and cook until they're bubbling

Enjoy!