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.

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... ;)

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!

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.

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!

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!