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!