21.12.09: 日式豚肉飯 (Japanese pork belly on rice) - the recipe

Ingredients

• pork belly: 3-4 slices per person. We got them pre-sliced from Japanese grocery store, alternatively, you can buy a slab of pork belly and DIY the slices.
• mushroom of your choice: again, about 3-4 pieces per person
• water: a small bowl 
• soy sauce, mirin: amount to your own liking (add in little by little will be the safest bet)
• white onion, thinly sliced: a quarter of a medium size onion per person (don't be shy on the onion, trust me, the more the better!!!)
• bonito flakes, sesame seeds: flexible, to your own liking
• Japanese barbeque & mayonnaise: as much or as little as you like

Steps

1. Pan fry the pork belly for a little while (you will be able to smell the aroma of the cooking pork belly).
2. Add some water and soy sauce to the partially cooked pork.
3. Let the pork cook, but don't over boil
4. Add some mirin, bonito flakes and sesame seeds- these will give the dish a mixture of sweet, fishy and seedy taste.
5. Add the sliced white onion- it's a must and gives the dish a real oniony taste.
6. (optional) Add some mushroom of your choice, we used abalone mushroom (鮑魚菇)- the mushroom will soak up the sauce. You may choose other vegies if you don't like mushroom.
7. Put rice into bowls, and top up with the pork, onion and mushroom. Squeeze some Japanese barbeque sauce on top plus a dab of Japanese mayo. Add more bonito flakes on top to decorate.

Tip: Don't pour in the left over sauce from the cooking of the pork- it's full of pork belly fat, and it will also make the rice dish overly watery.

豆乳 shabu shabu

After having this delicious 豆乳 shabu shabu in Japan, we decided to try it out at home tonight.


It's pretty simple, you just need (1) unsweetened soya milk; (2) meat of your choice (get those thinly sliced beef, pork or chicken from Chinese / Korean / Japanese grocery shop); vegies (tonight we had 金菇菜, cabbage is another nice choice); and (4) udon or japanese ramen.

  

The soup base- just pour in the soya milk, and add some meat of your choice- tonight we put in some left over chicken and pork balls. We also added some tofu. Let it boil (on low heat) for a little while to get the flavour of the meat into the soup.

Once that's done, you are ready to shabu shabu. Pour some sesame sauce (which you can easily get from Japanese grocery shop) into your bowl, and use that as a dip for the meat and vegies that have been cooked in the soya milk.

At the end of the meal, save some room to have a bit of the soup- it's smooth and super rich in flavour. Awesome stuff!


Ideally we should have a hotpot stove so we can eat at our table... but until we get one, the stove will need to be it for the time being.

10 October 2009- dinner with the gals

Had the girlfriends over on Satuday and made them the Lamb Moussaka & Nicoise Salad with Salmon.

All the ingredients:



The moussaka before being assembled (quite a bit of effort to get that far, took about 3 hours of prep, most probably because I'm very slow with the chopping and the eggplant frying also takes a bit of time... Of cos photo taking also took up some time... Hahaa...):



While waiting for the mossaka to bake (with the help of my girlfriends, we pulled this sald together- thanks to hubby for frying the salmon for us):



The baked moussaka:



Our meal:



I was a bit nervous about the bechamel sauce cos it was quite thick... Despite this, once baked the moussake turned out just right. The meal was satisfactory, as we had cleared all the food at the end of dinner.

Will need to start practising other dishes for next dinner party, hopefully around Christmas time.

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Steak Dinner at home

It's been a while since we've had some home-cooked steak... and after work today, hubby decided to stop by Coles to get some steak for dinner.

It's been that long since we last bought steak home, that when we got to the fridge area, we were struggling to remember the cut of meat that we once had probably like 3 times a week.... Although our gut feeling tells us it's rib eye, we weren't able to see any rib eyes on the shelves... and finally settled with this scotch fillet steak which looks like rib eye (I thought to myself... maybe they've just had a name change...).

Ta-da... hubby's wonderfully cooked steak (I love how he so effortlessly makes those grill pattern on the steak, looks so professional!):-

Compared to the rib eyes that we used to be able to buy easily from Coles, the meat of this scotch fillet steak still smells good when cooked, but the meat itself is not as tender as rib eyes...

Hopefully we will see those rib eyes make their way back to our local Coles...

曰本班戟 okonomiyaki

自從mid July一星期內連續食咗好幾餐老公仔煮嘅超好味曰本班戟(okonomiyaki)之後，我哋都有一排冇食E樣嘢啦。

E張係七月其中一晚嘅製成品：

尋晚老公仔煮咗個中式okonomiyaki，雖然只係用咗D好普通嘅材料(i.e.西蘭花，蛋 & 貢丸)，但係好好味....

我好欣賞E個中式okonomiyaki，因為：

1. 個粉漿做得靚。點解要提個粉漿？佢煮熟係靠scientific look & feel，而唔係好似我咁...樣樣都要量過，磅過... 所以佢1take過做到個靚漿,好勁呢...

2. 個汁好特別。通常會用買番嚟嘅燒餅醬，但係上次用完未買番，所以佢就on the spot用水，糖，soy sauce，紫菜 & 木魚片嚟煮個醬... 哈！又幾點wor...

3. 由start to finish，半個鐘有得食- 冇得頂啦... 如果俾我煮，起碼要多兩、三倍時間，而又未必放得入口。

今晚我下廚- 煎三文魚腩

今曰好想食我嘅至愛~ 三文魚，而禁啱老公仔今日又想休息唔煮飯，所以哈哈，就等我下廚煮煎三文魚... （其實，E餐飯全靠老公仔verbally教我，如果冇佢教，效果應該冇gum好）

材料：

• 三文魚腩（x2）
• 芫茜
• 白胡椒粉, 鹽 & 橄欖油 (for seasoning)

做法：

1. 三文魚用水冼，然後用紙dry （條魚要保持乾身）
2. 幫D三文魚抹上適量橄欖油（等D白胡椒粉&鹽易D上條魚）
3. 加鹽
4. 加白胡椒粉
5. 加芫茜
6. 起鑊（D油一定要夠熱），然後加D三文魚落鑊。每邊魚煎approx一分鐘，然後就可以上碟。

老公仔嘅comment: 第一次煮，算做好，個presentation靚，隻蛋佢好surprised因為佢冇教到我，哈哈.... 佢重話隻蛋好點，cooked just right。

嘩，我今晚勁開心！因為我煮嘅嘢唔係每一次都放得入口架嘛...