Steamed Tofu with Seaweed

This recipe is inspired from yesterday's Japan's Hour show on Channel News Asia. I saw the two ladies having the tofu soup, steamed tofu, fried tofu, etc, even the dessert is from tofu. I forget where was the tofu shop on the show, but the tofu soup and steamed tofu made me craving on tofu. So here is the recipe that looks like the one in the show. The outcome is similar to chawanmushi and the custard also taste like chawan mushi, so with some substitute here and there, you'll have your own chawanmushi.

Ingredients:
1 packet of silken tofu
5 gr wakame seaweed (soaked for 5 min with water, strained)
300 ml unsweetened soya milk
2 eggs
Seasonings: sugar, salt, mirin (mild taste, so don't go overboard)

How to:
Cut tofu to desirable size, put in the big bowl (fit in the steamer) together w/ the wakame seaweed.
Beat egg and soyamilk, together with the seasonings until quite fluffy and pour over tofu and seaweed.
Steamed for about 30 minutes until soft custards form.

** For Chawanmushi feel, substitute wakame seaweed chicken, shitake or matsutake mushrooms, fishcake. If you want to loose the tofu, change it with 2 more eggs.

** If your steamer is big enough, you can portion it to individual bowls, it'll look nicer.

Bakwan Mie

I”ve been craving for some fried stuff since yesterday. So, I made this wonderful easy treat. Enjoy J

Ingredients:
2 packs of instant noodle (or you also can use egg noodles) ±170 gr, boiled and cut to small pieces w/ scissor
100 gr frozen veggies, thawed and dried
50 gr white mushroom/shitake mushroom, cut small ** optional
Batter:
100 gr plain flour
50 gr corn flour
1 egg
3 tbsp beer
150 ml water
Seasoning: sugar, black pepper, salt
Sauce: Sweet soya sauce + sweet Thai chili sauce, mix

How to:
Whisk the batter and seasoning together in a large bowl until smooth and make sure the mixture is not too thin (should be able to make a ribbon with the tip of the whisk)
Add in the noodle, veggie and mushroom, fold until all incorporated
Heat up oil to medium low heat and scoop 1 big spoonful of the mixture to it. Fry until golden brown.
Serve with the sauce on the side

Easy Pasta II

Another easy pasta recipe, only take 15 min max to prepare and cook :).

Ingredients:
1 pack of young asparagus - discard the 4cm bottom, cut the rest 4cm length
20 pc cherry tomato - halved
1 pack enoki mushroom
1 pack king oyster mushroom – sliced
1 garlic - chopped
Cooked pasta for 3 person (after boil the pasta, mix pasta with splash of olive oil)
Seasoning: lemon pepper, basil flakes, salt, sugar, pasta sauce (I like Prego’s mushroom tomato sauce), white wine

How to make:
Stir fry garlic until fragrant and golden color
Next, toss the asparagus until half cooked then put both king oyster and enoki mushroom and cook until soft
Put tomatoes in and all the seasonings to taste (suggest put just about 3 tbsp of Prego sauce) and toss all ingredients. Splash a bit of white wine and up the heat for about 1 min and toss in the pasta for about 1 min.
Serve hot

Tips:
For better taste, always toss your pasta before serving on your panfry in med-high heat for 1-2 min.
For storage, always store your pasta separate from the toppings (pasta tends to get soggy if store together in 1 container in fridge)

Wonton Soup - Non Seafood

Another kind of wonton for those who are allergic to seafood.

Wonton filling ingredients:
300 gr minced chicken
300 gr minced pork
2 bunches of chives, thinly sliced
5-6 big dried ear mushrooms, soak in hot water until soft and diced to small pieces
3 tbsp of corn flour
Wonton seasonings: sugar, salt and pepper to taste
2 packs of wonton skins (about 40 slices)
Soup seasonings: sugar, salt, pepper and apple vinegar to taste (I like to put LOTS of apple vinegar, but for those who got gastric, please restrain on pouring the vinegar to your content)

How to make:
In a big bowl, mix all the wonton filling ingredients and seasonings together until well blended
Take 1 tbsp of the filling and place it in the middle of wonton skin. Fold the wonton skin and seal the skin with water. Avoid excess air inside the wonton by pressing the skin surrounding the filling.
Repeat step 1 & 2. This recipe yields approx. 40 wontons.
Boil wonton with water (chicken stock is also recommended), add soup seasonings and enjoy while it’s hot.

Storage: My ideal of 1 bowl of wonton soup contains 5 pieces of wonton. Afterall, it's 5 jumbo wonton. So, I will pack the wontons by batch of 5 with plastic wrap and place it in freezer. The wontons will get sticky and glued to each other if you stack all of them together in 1 container. If you still want to stack it in 1 container, layer each stack of wonton with plastic wrap.

Naeng Myeon

I’m a fan of Naeng Myeon, Korean version of cold noodle. Basically it’s a buckwheat noodle with cold beef broth with lots of ice and hardboiled egg. Some may also serve it with thinly sliced cucumber and pear. This is my version of Naeng Myeon. Trust me, it tastes similar to those in the restaurant and this is based from one of my mom’s home recipe. It’s always served hot in my house plus it use fried shallots to make it more Indonesian, it only took my laziness to discover the alternative serving is the same thing as Naeng Myeon. Why is that? Because I’m just too lazy to heat the soup in the microwave hahahaa….

Ingredients
300 gr of beef (preferably thinly slice beef or any cut will do, but just remember that you’re gonna eat it COLD, so choose wisely)
2 small sized white radish (I was told that the big ones are OLD and tough, so must choose the small ones)
1 bunch Chinese celery, chopped ** optional
hard boiled eggs per your taste (usually 1 bowl use 1 egg)
1 packet of somen (Korean buckwheat noodle is not that easy to find here, so I substitute it with somen because somen has its chewy consistency)
** 1 packet of somen usually for 4 person estimated
Seasoning: Soya sauce, sugar, apple vinegar
Mustard ** optional

How to:
in the boiling water, put in beef and radish and let it simmer until both are tender
season it with the seasoning. I put lots of soya sauce because I want to have lots of broth. But remember Naeng Myeon is NOT salty, soya sauce is more to make it fragrance and coloring. Personally I like lots of vinegar because it makes the broth taste refreshing.
remember to serve it cold
If you don’t like Chinese celery, you should use pear or cucumber, but remember must use the hardboiled egg, it makes the broth creamier when eaten together J If you have mustard in your pantry, you can serve it on the side per the traditional version. Mustard will make the dish more refreshing in taste, but it’s not a must.
**
Chinese parsley is good for lowering your high blood pressure.
Beef is good for those who have low blood counts
Vinegar is good for your skin and diet (especially apple vinegar)
Radish is cooling
Buckwheat noodle has lots of fiber so if you could get a hand of those bunch, you should definitely use it instead of somen

Chicken Cordon Bleu

I take Chicken Cordon Bleu's recipe by Tyler Florence from Foodnetwork.com and make a few modifications (see all the bracket). Result *grin grin grin*. It's MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER than the ones I've tasted in restaurant (and I paid quite the price tag mind you).
So below is the recipe plus modification:

4 double chicken breasts (about 7-ounces each), skinless and boneless

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 thin slices deli ham (I use apple baked ham, but think honey ham is better)

16 thin slices Gruyere or Swiss cheese (I use Danish Mozerella taste very mild and tender, and off course it’s still Mozerella, just nice)

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (DO NOT OMIT this, your chicken will taste and smell wonderful with this, but I put the thyme inside the chicken and only the left over sprinkle on top of the crust)

1/4 cup flour

1 cup panko bread crumbs (I use the regular bread crumbs, recommend: Kraft mixed bread crumbs, mix with the flour and it’ll make a good crust)

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 eggs

2 teaspoons water
(To make your chicken nicer, marinate it w/ lemon for 30 min before start with the rest.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lay the chicken between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Using the flat side of a meat mallet, gently pound the chicken to 1/4-inch thickness. Take care not to pound too hard because the meat may tear or create holes. Lay 2 slices of cheese on each breast, followed by 2 slices of ham, and 2 more of cheese; leaving a 1/2-inch margin on all sides to help seal the roll. Tuck in the sides of the breast and roll up tight like a jellyroll. Squeeze the log gently to seal. Season the flour with salt and pepper; spread out on waxed paper or in a flat dish. Mix the breadcrumbs with thyme, kosher salt, pepper, and oil. The oil will help the crust brown. Beat together the eggs and water, the mixture should be fluid. Lightly dust the chicken with flour, then dip in the egg mixture. Gently coat in the bread crumbs. Carefully transfer the roulades to a baking pan and bake for 20 minutes until browned and cooked through. (I add another 15 min, coz I scared it’s not done yet, but if your crust is thicken harden already the chicken won’t be tough and dry) Cut into pinwheels before serving.

This chicken goes well with salsa. I just do a simple salsa which made from:
4 medium tomatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
1 lemon, take the juice
seasoning: sugar, lemon pepper
Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Meatloaf

I took this meatloaf recipe from foodnetwork.com under title 'Italian Meatloaf' and I modified it to meet whatever available in my kitchen and suits my budget more :d. Result, still fantastic, it's crispy on the outside (I purposely add 10 more minute to make sure the crust hardened). Without further ado, below is the recipe:

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 red pepper, seeded, small diced (** for those who don’t like paprika (it’s a good stuff btw, u don’t know what you’re missing) substitute with 2 tomatoes, water taken out, small diced)
1 onion, diced 10 cloves chopped garlic (Use more garlic, the more the better, it’s good for your blood pressure)
250 gr ground beef 2 eggs
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (use 3 slice Kraft cheese cut small is good enough)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar (the more the better, if you like this, and plus you can add some more upon serving)
1 packet basil leaves, chopped 1 bunch parsley leaves, chopped (*** can use either basil or parsley, if you want to use both, reduce the portion to avoid green meatloaf)
1 tsp salt (* optional, I omit salt)
1 tbsp black pepper
1 cup marinara sauce (substitute with 2 tomatoes, diced, mix with tomato ketchup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175C). Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat and add the peppers, onions and garlic. Saute until just soft, remove to a plate and cool.
When the peppers and onions are cool, combine all of the remaining ingredients together except for the tomato. Pack the meat mixture into an oiled loaf pan, if you do not have a loaf pan, form the meat mixture into a loaf shape on an oiled oven tray or baking dish. Top with the tomato.
Bake for approximately 50 to 60 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer registers 160 degrees F in the middle of the meatloaf. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Slice and serve.