Takenoko Tai Gohan ~ Bamboo Shoot Fish Rice

This is the first recipe of 'One Dish,' and what makes me like the show. It's simple, not difficult to make but it's flavorful. On the side note, I really need to search for this show's files for my collection... so difficult to find...

What you need:
Bamboo shoots
1 Sea bream fish, inner parts taken out and dried
3 cup white rice
540 cc dashi
2 tbsp sake
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tsp salt
Some greens (I use corriander leaves)

How to:
1. Cut the bamboo shoots to bite size, set aside.
2. Slash the fish body and damp salt on the fins and tail. Poke the fish with 3 iron sticks and sprinkle salt on both side. Place the fish on direct fire (using your stove) and grill it until half-cooked.
3. On a big nabe bowl, place the rice and all the liquids, stir until liquid well mixed. Then place the bamboo shoots and lastly on top, place the fish. Close the lid. Roll a small piece of aluminum foil and use that roll to cover the lid's hole. Cook for about 20-30 minutes on small fire until you see the rice is cooked. After you off the fire, let it be for another 15 minutes.
4. Place the greens on top as garnish.

In the show they also have sakura salt. It's very pretty if you have that. How to? Place pickled sakura and some salt and bake it in the oven until crispy and dry. Then crush it and you have a pink color sprinkle.

Points:
1. I don't have that huge nabe bowl, so I just use regular pot with a lid. Presentation-wise may be questionable but it works fine.
2. I used yellow tail fish, red snapper is too luxurious for this, I guess. But if you have Tai around, you should try use that.
3. I used the packed ones, not the fresh one like they have in the show


Enjoy!

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!

Tuna Pasta

Remember all the leftover veggies that you bought intended for the Minestrone soup? Well, this is one of the idea of how to finish them off... tuna pasta!

I use sambal belibis, despite it has MSG in it (sobs sobs, my fave chili sauce has MSG in it), but I can't help it, I like my tuna pasta hot and sweet...

What you need:
1 Zucchini - halved and sliced
1 sweet corn - cut
Leftover celery stalks - sliced
1 canned tuna - strained
1 handful pine nuts
3 pinches dried chili
tomato sauce, sambal belibis (opt. your fave chili sauce with garlic based, or can omit this), white wine
Your fave pasta (I like fusilli)

How to:
1. On a wok, saute pine nuts and dried chili until fragrant
2. Add on tuna. Stir until tuna is dry (I like dried tuna)
3. Add on all cut veggies
4. Splash a bit of white wine and close the lid until veggies are cooked (mainly the zucchini)
5. Add on tomato sauce and sambal belibis
For 1 person portion:
1. Boil 50 gr of dried pasta until al dente, then strain
2. On a wok, take the tuna sauce as much as you like, stir fry it until a bit dry then add on the pasta. Mix it until the pasta is well covered with sauce.

Tips:
1. If you don't like spicy food, you can omit the chili sauce but at the beginning, add on chopped garlic, saute it together with the pine nuts and dried chili
2. Other than sambal belibis, can also use sambal jempol. I detest sambal ABC so won't recommend it.

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!

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.

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!