cucumber curry

Can you put sliced cucumbers in curry?




I say YES. I put them in my Japanese curry, along with carrots and pork. (I also mixed two different curry powders in, plus a little bit of peanut butter!)

And that curry was yummy.

spinach

I love spinach. I was a picky eater as a child, and there weren't that many kinds of vegetables that I liked; however, spinach was always delicious to me!

I don't like to eat raw spinach. At home my mom would stir-fry it and simply seasoned it with some salt and chopped garlic, and this has been what I like to do with spinach all these years that I've been cooking for John and myself.

These days I also like to put spinach on many other dishes!



In a Korean-inspired ramyeon and tteok soup.



In yakisoba.

Mmmmm... spinach.

bibimbap

The other day I made my first bibimbap!




I know there are more complicated ways of preparing the vegetables and meat(s), but I went for the slightly simpler route... I cooked the ground beef and seasoned it with a little bit of soy sauce, sugar, and pepper, and then boil carrots, soy bean sprouts, and shitake mushrooms (separately) in water that I dropped in a little bit of sesame oil. When the vegetables and mushrooms became slightly tender, strain and season them with sugar, hondashi, and sesame oil. I then chopped some kimchi and yellow pickled radishes, and also fried an egg to put on top of everything. All these delicious food ingredients on a bed of rice, with some bibimbap sauce (I got a little bottle from the Korean market... it was a combination of fruit puree and gochujiang)... and use your spoon to mix everything all together... voila!




Mine was a fairly simple version of bibimbap, but it was yummy and I loved it!

I've seen people use sliced beef (instead of ground,) other types of vegetables (such as cucumbers or other slightly pickled vegetables) and mushrooms for bibimbap. A lot of people also prefer a raw egg in the center (instead of a fried sunny-side-up.) But one of the great things about bibimbap is that you can use whatever meats and vegetables that you like!

The second time I made bibimbap I just boil and season all the vegetables and mushrooms together and laid them on rice. I figured I'd just mix everything up very soon after anyhow. :p It was not as pretty, but still delicious.

I love bibimbap!

korean jajangmyeon kit

The other day I was at the Korean market I spotted a Jajangmyeon kit. It looked very inviting, and I had been reading about it, so I thought I'd give it a try.

There were four packets in the kit - two packets of the noodles, and two packets of the sauce. The cooking instruction was simple and easy to understand:

One thing I did different from the instructions was that I boiled the sauce pouch first, and after that I used the same pot of boiling water to cook the noodles (because then I didn't have to wait for another pot of water to boil!)

The finished jajangmyeon was actually quite good!

Mmmmm. 

Since this I had also tried making jajangmyeon from scratch, but I had not yet made it even comparable to these store-bought kits. Hopefully I can make decent jajangmyeon soon and post about this fun adventure!

korean seasoned mung bean sprouts

I am NOT a big fan of bean sprouts of any sort. They taste "too raw" and the "sproutiness" scares me. My mom makes these little fresh spring rolls with bean sprouts in them all the time and almost everyone swears they are delicious... everyone except me that is, because I do not like anything with bean sprouts in them.

And those of you who have gone to eat pho with me know that you get to have all the bean sprouts to yourselves because I wouldn't add them to my soups at all.

As much as how I dislike bean sprouts, I was of course skeptical to try the seasoned bean sprouts that were offered as one of the side dishes at a Korean restaurant. I tasted a few sprouts and they were super yummy! I have since then been enjoying these bean sprouts every time I go to a Korean restaurant. 

Per my previous blog post, I have been learning about and tasting all sorts of Korean food. I am hoping I will be able to make a few dishes well, and when that happens I will certainly share my thoughts!

So back to the bean sprouts... I read up a few different versions of the Korean bean sprouts recipes and made my own last night!

They turned out very well!

They were tasty! When I talk to my parents next I will tell them I cooked bean sprouts and I enjoyed eating them. They will be proud!

After rinsing 1 1/2 lbs MUNG BEAN sprouts under the water, boil or parboil them for a couple minutes.

When I was at the Korean market there were both mung bean and soy bean sprouts. After reading up online I went for the mung bean ones for this dish.

Boiling or parboiling the bean sprouts helped remove a lot of the rawness/"sproutiness" that used to scare me!

After boiling the sprouts for a couple minutes, strain, and let cool.

You can cool down the sprouts faster by running cold water through the boiled sprouts, but I planned to use the "cooling time" to work on the seasoning, so I just let the sprouts sit in the strainer.

While the sprouts cool, lightly toast about 1 Tablespoon white sesame seeds.

I found an old jar of white sesame seeds in our cupboard, and while they were a bit stale, I was able to eliminate the stale scent after placing them in a hot pan for 30 seconds!

To make the seasoning "dressing," mix 2 Tablespoons sesame oil + 1 Tablespoon sugar + 1 Tablespoon minced garlic + the toasted 1 Tablespoon white sesame seed + (2 Tablespoons chopped green onions). Set aside.

I believe most recipes call for regular (or light/white) sesame oil, but I used black (dark) sesame oil because that was all I had at home. The darker sesame oil had a more pungent toasty fragrance, which I didn't mind, but regular sesame oil probably would have been even better.

Also, I didn't have any green onions at home, so I didn't add any to this batch. Chopped green onions would probably add another little layer of flavors to the dish.

After the strained sprouts were cooled, sprinkle about 1 teaspoon salt over the sprouts. Mix and let stand 5 minutes. The salt will slightly season the sprouts, and help "pulling out" excess water from them.

After allowing the salt to do its "thing" with the sprouts for 5 minutes, squeeze the sprouts to get rid of excess  liquid from the sprouts.

In a mixing bowl, toss together the strained and "squeezed" sprouts and the prepared seasoning/dressing. Chill and serve!

Simple and delicious!


Ingredients At a Glance!
1 1/2 pounds mung bean sprouts
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
(2 Tablespoons chopped green onions)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 Tablespoon sugar 
1 Tablespoon toasted white sesame seed

"Look Mom! I eat bean sprouts!"

braised beef tendons

John and I have been using our electric pressure cooker quite a bit, and I am really enjoying the super speedy cooking power it provides. Many dishes that require hours and hours in the slow cooker/Crock Pot can now be cooked in very short amount of time! So yes I love my electric pressure cooker!

I think one of the hardest things to cook is beef tendons, especially when I want to make it super soft, flavorful, and melt-in-your-mouth. I believe it takes at least 7-8 hours if people want to cook beef tendons the conventional way, but with our pressure cooker it only took about an hour and a half!

John is usually in charge of our pressure-cooker cooking. This last batch of braised beef tendons he made me was super delicious!



3 oz. rice wine + 3 oz. soy sauce + 6 oz. water + a small handful of rock sugar + little bit dark soy sauce for "coloring" + ginger slices + spicy broad bean paste with 2 lbs. cut-up beef tendons (boiled for a couple minutes to remove excess blood(!) prior to placing in pressure cooker) = yumminess!

Yummy on rice or noodles!

Thanks John! :D

i can cook the filled rice balls now

A couple days ago it was 冬至(dong1 zhi4), which was the "arrival of winter," when most Taiwanese (and Chinese) people will cook up some glutenous rice balls 湯圓(tang yuan) to celebrate this day every year.

I love these boiled rice balls with sweet peanut or sesame filling. They are almost like little hot mochi balls... I'd eat them all winter long!

I have not had homemade rice balls for a while. I should really consider hand-making some this winter.

You can easily purchase them in packages of 10, (like these,) in the freezer sections at the Asian markets, which is very convenient for me to do. The reason I haven't been cooking them much is because I never cooked them right, so most of the time the finished rice balls are torn and the filling will be all over the pot, and the inner side of the rice balls would still be hard!

BUT! But this "arrival of winter" I read up a little bit on cooking/boiling these frozen rice balls, and the result was great!



I boiled a pot of water first. As the water came to a rolling boil, I placed the frozen rice balls into the pot, allowed the water to boil again, and turned the heat down to low, and boiled the rice balls until they all floated on the surface of the water. After the rice balls started floating, added a little bit sugar to the water, and cooked an additional couple more minutes and they were done and every little rice balls were intact! :D

These rice balls were soft and slightly chewy... perfect texture of "tang yuan" for me!

kimchi pork

One of the dishes I like to make (to go with rice) these days is stir-fried pork with kimchi.




It's very easy to make. Slice pork thin (I usually cut boneless pork shoulders into thin slices,) and marinade quickly with a tiny little bit of soy sauce and sugar. Cut kimchi into thin strips (do not discard its juices). Heat a little bit of oil in the pan to cook the pork. As the pork start to brown, add kimchi and stir-fry together. Continue cooking until the pork is fully cooked and the kimchi is heated. Yum!

sukiyaki for christmas

We made sukiyaki for Christmas!

I love sukiyaki. Every time we go to Japan I'll try to have sukiyaki for a meal during the trip. This Christmas we thought we'd have sukiyaki, because sukiyaki is indeed a festive dish, and we already had ham for Thanksgiving.

And who knows, I actually own a cast iron sukiyaki pot!

It even has the cool wood lid on it!

First we melted some butter (traditionally you'd use beef fat, but either will do) and started caramelizing some onions first. Umm. I think I put in a bit much!? But they were tasty!

Then in with the sukiyaki stock.

John got some prime beef. Yummy. I wish we could slice it as thin as the kind we had in Osaka.

Yummers!

We also put a couple different mushrooms in the sukiyaki. The skinny tall kind with little heads, and big kind called "King Trumpet Mushrooms." There were also tofu, tofu skin (age), vegetables, and udon noodles.




And how cute is the packaging for the King Trumpet mushrooms?!

I was also going to make some mochi, but didn't have enough time, so I bought some Korean rice sticks instead... they were delicious in the sukiyaki as well!

Oh my. I love sukiyaki! I think I'm going to make it again soon.

i love it when john makes dinner

John is recovering steadily, and he has been working and using his foot well. While he spends a little more time at home these days, he has been making us dinner most of the nights!

He makes yummy dinners!

Sometimes he makes rice, and we'll make some Taiwanese sausages with garlic, and "tomato eggs." Other times he will make rotisserie chicken thighs and we'll have that with kimchi or other Asian pickles. Still other times we will have noodles with yummy sauces, or curry. I can go on and on with this!

Even though we don't change our dinner menus super often, John did try some new items for our dinner table sometimes.

The other day he made us pork tenderloin with rosemary. He also put in some special ham in the tenderloin. Tasty.




And another day he made us a chicken-mash-biscuit bake. It was with chicken soup, mash potatoes, and biscuits.



I love cooking, and I also love it when John makes us dinner. These days we close the caffe at 6pm, and therefore we have a little more time preparing and cooking food. I love it!

tuna alfredo and biscuits

My mom asked me if I cooked anything special for John after his surgery. Umm... sort of. I made him tuna fettuccine alfredo and biscuits for dinner that night.





Pretty interesting "recovery" foods huh.

bamboo shoot stew

I was at the Asian market and saw tall cans of bamboo shoots. Normally I got the short and stubby bamboo shoot tips (the ones that look like little pyramids,) but these ones in the tall cans seemed to be whole bamboo shoots of a skinner variety. I bought a can out of curiosity.

Couple days ago I wanted to make my soy sauce stew with chicken and quail eggs, and decided to put in the whole can of these bamboo shoots.



I put in soy sauce (both regular and dark), rice wine, water, rock sugar, chives, five-spice, couple whole star anise, red peppers, and a spice/herb pouch, and cook everything in the slow cooker on high for about 5 hours.



I love how the bamboo shoots turned out! John did think the bottoms of the bamboo shoots got a bit rough, though. They were, however, exactly how I thought bamboo shoots ought to be. Maybe next time I will cut the whole bamboo shoots into sections.

Gonna go to the market and get a couple more cans of the bamboo shoots to add to my stew. I think I'll get the short kind this time, though.

in/on my chili

I usually like chili without beans, and when I eat chili I HAVE to put cream cheese chunks in/on it. I know it sounds weird, but seriously, chili with cream cheese is super tasty.

sticky rice with shitake mushrooms

I love sticky rice... both round(short)- and long-grain kinds. (From what I know, round-grain sticky rice is normally used for making mochi, or rice cakes, and long-grain sticky rice is usually used in "actual" rice dishes.)



I made some long-grain sticky rice with fried scallions and shitake mushrooms, but the result was still a bit more mushy than I'd like it to be. Generally for this kind of sticky rice dishes the rice:water ratio is 1:0.6, but I guess I should lower the water ratio a little more next time.

Anyhow, with some sweet chili sauce on the slightly-mushy sticky rice, I'm still loving it!

pressure cook it!

I made some fatty pork (pork belly) in the electric pressure cooker. The meat turned out amazing!


Fatty pork and quail eggs on rice.

I seared the sides of the fatty pork first, place the slices in the pressure cooker, and added soy sauce, sake, water, dry chives, garlic, red hot peppers, and sugar. The pork was cooked on high pressure for 75 minutes, and then I added some (a can) of boiled quail eggs and cook for another 10 minutes.

Mmmmm. This was probably one of the best fatty pork stew I've tasted! Next time I'll probably shorten the cooking time to 65... just so the meat doesn't fall apart as soon as I pick it up with my chopsticks!

give me some pressure

John got me a Cusinart Electric Pressure Cooker this past weekend!

He tested it out by making a Guiness beef stew.


Very simple and easy to use.


It only took about 20 minutes of cooking time for the stew.


Delicious!

Very impressive and convenient cooker! I think I'll be pressure cooking a lot.

tofu with soy sauce and chives

I saw the tofu in the fridge and figured I should use it up soon.



I first cut each piece of firm tofu in a box into halves (so it's thinner,) and then cut each of the halves diagonally so you get triangles.

Heat some oil in the pan, and fry the tofu pieces. It's hard to get these pieces "brown," but as long as you heat them well it's good.

After the tofu pieces are heated, pour in a couple tablespoons of soy sauce, and a tablespoon of sugar. Make sure each tofu piece is well coated with the sauce. Try to turn the pieces a couple times if you can.

As the soysauce-sugar mixture is reduced (watch out! soy sauce+sugar will burn easy), pour in a couple tablespoons of rice wine, and then sprinkle dry (or fresh) chopped chives and allow it to reduce. Voila!

I was not in the mood for spicy food (!) but if you are, adding some chili pepper flakes or a teaspoon hot chili sauce/oil would be great, too.

daikon cake makes me happy

I make a savory daikon cake for the first time! I've always like daikon cakes. I buy them in Asian markets and order them at dim sum restaurants.

I decided to make my own, for the first time!

I first stir-fry some fried shollots (approx. a handful), 6 soaked and chopped shitake mushrooms, and some chopped bacon (approx. 4-5 uncooked black pepper slices). When everything seems cooked I season the mixture with a pinch of salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, and some white pepper.

I then mix a bag of rice flour (approx. 1 lb.), a peeled and shredded daikon (approx. 2 lbs.), and just under 3 cups of water to make a thick "batter."

Mix the cooked ingredients and the batter, and it's ready to be steam cooked!


Some of the daikon chunks were not shredded completely inside the food processor, but it's ok. They add more texture and all.

I know poeple line dampened cheesecloth inside bamboo steamers, pour the batter mixture in, and steam for about 45-60 minutes until the cake is set. I steamed mine inside a rice cooker for an hour. Seems to work OK.


My first daikon cake!


Inside the cake.

I think I may have put either too much of the cooked mixture, or too little rice flour batter in my daikon cake, because the cake is a bit crumbly when I slice it. But it's really tasty!


I like to pan fry the (broken) slices until the outside is slightly crispy, and then dip them in sweet chili sauce and eat a bunch of it. Yummer!

Next time I'll try to make a smoother daikon cake.