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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Pepes Tahu ~ The Lazy Way

I had a sudden craving of pepes tahu. For those non-Indo people, pepes is something like the lor mai kai dish, but instead of glutenous rice, it's either tofu, mushroom, or even fish and condiments, all wrapped with banana leaves. It's one of my fave Indo dish, but I never thought of making it myself because of the ingredients (you won't have problems if you live in Indo). Google 'pepes tahu' and you found tons of recipes with all different combinations of those ingredients, from the mega simple one (here) or the more complicated one (here).

The must have items in pepes are daun salam, lemongrass, and kemiri. OK, lemongrass is not that hard to find but there's no way I'm gonna search high and low for daun salam and kemiri, let alone pay the ridiculous price for those items. But... I still want my pepes :p. Hence, it's modification time. I still retain the essence of the making process, BUT, I sub all the ingredients with the easier to find and not necessarily cheap but it's all in my pantry. And, the taste? it's not that much different from the ones that I used to eat, only it tastes cleaner LOL...

Ingredients:

500gr tofu - using spoon crush it. I like it to still have some big chunks

3 red chilies - seeded and thinly sliced

3 green chilies - seeded and thinly sliced

2 eggs

1 bunch Thai basil leaves - plugged w/o stems and this is the sub for daun salam

1 tomato -- seeded and thinly sliced

2 tsp salt

Condiments:

1 whole garlic (about 10 cloves)

1 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 - this is the sub for kemiri, fancy eh?

1 red chili - seeded

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

For wrapping - baking paper or aluminum foil (they're cheaper than banana leaves and can do the job)

How to:

1. In your food processor, add in all the condiment ingredients and grind them until it turns to a paste. If you have the energy (which I don't), you can use that old fashion stone bowl and pound them. The difference between the 2 method is that by using food processor, your condiment will be more watery compared to the traditional way. BUT, why would you want to waste your energy if you can squeeze the water out a bit and use OR, just bake ur pepes a little bit longer?

2. Mix in both condiments and all ingredients except basil leaves and tomato in a big bowl until well mixed.

3. To assemble: On cut baking paper, place basil leaves on the bottom then add the tomato slices and top it up with about 100 gr of the tofu mixture and wrap it tight. I'm lazy so I make jumbo (about 200gr each) size ones.

4. Bake it for 45minutes at about 160C. They look like below when they're done:

*I staple the sides using yeah, the regular stapler. It's a legit item in the kitchen, you won't eat them anyway.

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...

Buta Miso ~ Pork Miso

Now I know why Japanese are very proud of their miso and why miso have different prices. You don't need any thing else if your miso is good enough and your dish will taste just nice. This dish is very easy to do and you can vary it with other stuff too.

What you need:

1/2 no onion, thinly sliced

30 gr chives, cut 4cm length

100 gr pork shabu shabu meat

1 tbsp miso
2 tbsp mirin

How to:
1. On the pan, saute onion until cooked and fragrant
2. Add in miso and mirin, mix until miso is well dispersed but still retain the color
3. Add in meat, if you feel that you need to add some water, do add on mirin instead
4. Once the meat is half cooked, add in chives, mix in until it's all cooked

Tips:
- If you feel that the miso taste is too strong for you, you can add some water, but the color will change to what you often see in miso soup, like below. For this version, I only use chives, pork, miso and mirin. I didn't even use oil. I like the top better than this one, but you can give it a try if you feel like having a milder version.

Enjoy!

Bistik ~ Indonesian styled Steak

When we're talking about Indonesian home cooked dishes, apart from local dishes, most of Indonesian that I know will know bistik. It's originally a Dutch dish (it must be, the word itself gives the implication). From generation to generation, the recipe varies and each household will definitely carry different recipe. But, essentially, the taste shouldn't be too far off between recipes. The dish itself is usually comprised of sliced marinated slices of meat, then either deep fried or pan fried and served with fried potato wedges and boiled carrots and green beans.

Most bistik is made from beef, but there are some made from pork as well. The difference? It's in the sauce. Beef bistik has stronger and sharper flavor compared to its pork counterpart. What I like? Pork bistik using beef bistik sauce because the thing about beef is that it's harder to cook and you often end up with over-cooked and tough beef. When I went to Sumber Hidangan in Bandung, they serve their bistik a bit differently. They're using beef and pork patties instead of the slice meat,which is I find it interesting because it looks like Japanese Hamburger Steak (pic below):



It gives me an idea, what if I use what I usually make for my Hamburger Steak but instead of the troublesome to make demiglace sauce (unless you're using canned ones), I just use bistik sauce instead, shouldn't be difficult right? Yep, it's super easy.

*yield about 5 person

What you need:
1 pack Hamburger Helper (the Japanese one, NOT the Western one)
300 gr Pork (best is 50-50 of beef and pork --> the pack will indicate to use 250gr, but it's OK to add more)
1 no Onion (half thinly sliced for sauce and half finely chopped)
200 gr carrots, cut 4cm block
200 gr green beans, cut 4cm long
5 no potatoes, cut wedges
Sauce seasonings: butter, sweet soya sauce, Worchestire sauce, sugar, pepper

How to:

1.     Steam carrot and green beans and set aside. You can also microwave them, cling wrap the tuppleware and poke some holes on it and micro for 1-2 minutes for green beans and 3-4 minutes for carrots. Alternatively, you can boil them as well (I don't really fancy boiling veggies because you tend to loose the nutrients).

2.     Deep fry the potato wedges and set aside.

3.     Follow Hamburger Helper recipe (My version below may not be the exact translation on what's in the pack)

1.     In a bowl, soak the Hamburger Helper with 120ml (1/2 cup) water for about 5 minutes.

2.     Add on meat and onion in this case, and mix them until firm and well mixed (should take about 4-5 minutes) and make patties. It should results in 5 patties weighing about 100gr each.

3.     Pan fried those patties until well done.

4.     Sauce: After cooking the patties, in the same pan, add on butter. Saute the sliced onion until cooked and fragrant. Add on all the sauce seasonings to your taste. After you get the taste that you like, bring the sauce to boil and you're done.

5.     Assemble: On a plate, with the patty in the middle, line up your veggies and pour in the sauce.

* I don't use potatoes for my picture because I eat my bistik with rice :D.

Tips:
Storage: You can freeze your cut carrots and greenbeans and steam them as you need them. You can also freeze your hamburger patties as well and pan-fry them when you like the have them.
If you don't have Hamburger Helper, you can make your own Hamburger Helper by mixing:

1. Breadcrumbs (the softer type, not the panko type) (about 50-70 gr)
2. Seasoning: salt, sugar, paper and herbs (if you like --> it can be dried or freshly chopped herbs)
3. Chopped onion

Enjoy!