French beans with sesame dressing

A popular japanese home-style side dish. You can also substitute french beans with spinach, carrots, burdock, lotus root, broccoli or aubergine.

Ingredients

200g French beans
6 Tbsp Black or white sesame seeds
2 Tbsp Dark soy sauce
3 Tbsp Sugar

Method

1) Blanch french beans in a pot of salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Drain and leave to cool or plunge into ice water and drain.
2) Cut french beans into 4-cm lengths and set aside.
3) Toast sesame seeds and grind unti fine. Add soysauce and sugar. Mix well.
4) Toss french beans and sesame dressing. Serve and enjoy!

Yakisoba

Yakisoba (a.k.a. stir fried soba noodles) is a favourite of virtually every Japanese, young or old. It is street hawker fare, it can be found at every matsuri, every event, every cause for celebration.

This is a dish that can be easily replicated at home and no strict rules means you can put in anything you like to eat and it is still 100% fail-proof.

I find the yakisoba sauce included in these yakisoba kits the most tasty, although you can invest in a bottle of yakisoba or just splat in the tonkatsu sauce or worcester sauce available in your fridge. A generous squeeze of mayonnaise is recommended too in some cases.

My recipe for today:
(serves 4)

4 packs of yakisoba noodles 
5 pieces of bacon
2 stalks of green onions
a small section of burdock
4 leafs of purple cabbage
a handful of beansprouts
4 eggs
a pinch of salt
sesame oil
vegetable oil
50ml water

Brown bacon, add vegetables, then water. Once vegetables are cooked, add in noodles and yakisoba sauce. Toss till all ingredients are evenly covered with sauce. Leave to cook and fry egg on the side.  Serve.

早乙女 大トリ御膳

I am tempted to make these for weeks now. Taichi asked for them when he went on NHK’s Kiyoshi to kono yoru.

Ok, ok, I am being nosey. I had to know if they are really tasty or was Taichi really hungry >_<

Simple recipe, simple taste. A kind of taste that appeals greatly to children. Sometimes, I forget Saotome Taichi is still a kid.

If you really must know….it’s all in the ginger.

Zaru Soba – Zen of Eating

Born and bred in the tropics, I never knew summer in all its essence. Me and everyone around me down spicy chilli and steaming hotpots on 33ºC days.

Then I discovered summer, and summer food! Lite, refreshing, cold…

Since I am a total soba fanatic, needless to say zaru soba is one of my favorite meal plans. Translated, it means cold soba in dipping sauce.

Zaru = basket, that is how it is traditionally served.

I mentioned before that soba is also very rich in Vit B which helps to elevate depression. It is also the quickest way to put together a meal with the least amount of ingredients.

Ni Tamago hanbun

Kansai people love their ramen. Apart from the soup base and the texture of the noodles, the next thing to make a kansai-jin go absolutely nuts would be that seemingly innocent-looking egg adorning the bowl of delicious noodles.

Trying to replicate that egg at home, however, proved to be a more daunting task than one thinks. The essence lies in creating oozingly liquid-soft yolks.

ni tamago

 This isn’t the best food pictures I have ever taken but I do promise you that the yolk was oozing and creamy. Still, it can hardly compare to how the professionals did it, it is certainly very far from my usual standards.

These eggs are always soaked in a soy-based solution till the whites are browned and the yolks get slightly translucent. I like my eggs originally plain. That’s why these are called ni tamago hanbun (literally half done)

What’s for lunch?

It is amazing what instant ingredients can churn up.

A couple of tortilla wraps, a can of turkey and beans, a few kinds of cheese and voila! Lunch!

Accompanied with a tall glass of coca-cola…

This is what I call a leisurely lunch on a hot afternoon.

Curry Udon (kare udon) My Style

This is a dish that will only appear on a school lunch menu. That is to say, for japanese, the memory of this dish fades with age.

I am not a udon person, I am a ramen worshipper. Being an edo-ite, I also lack total empathy for people who like fat squishy noodles in clear broth.

So I conclude, the only way you will ever find me eating udon noodles is when it is totally soak in curry sauce! That’s how I got the urge to cook them for dinner today.

Onions, carrots, chicken, curry paste, water and green onions.

I still can’t get over the texture of the udon noodles, but at least the curry was great!

Hot Soba!

Being sick wasn’t any fun, especially when I lost my appetite with it.

After a week of plain porridge with a dash of shoyuu, which did nothing to boost my feeling of general well-being, I decided to try this.

I needed something to warm me up and give me essential vitamins and this dish is packed with everything necessary and taste great! But, I have to admit, I strayed from the original recipe so I can make it into my comfort food.

The basics of this dish remains the same; soba tsuyuu, mirin, dashi, shio, negi and goma. I used cha soba instead of the normal kind to get some oxidants if any.

Soba is chock full of Vit B and is said to lift depression. Perfect for my downwards sliding state of mind. Minced pork provided the sustanence and lastly, instead of cracking in an onsen tamago, I added raw tobiko.

Clear soup, chewy noodles, puri-puri no tobiko….I was in heaven! Needless to say, I felt better and stronger after the lavish dinner and a good night’s sleep.

Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls – 3rd time lucky

Yes, I did say I was abandoning any more attempts to get this dish right. Trying to get the rice paper wrapping right was tougher than rocket science.

But, macho girl here hate losing the battle so onwards march for the third attempt.

And voila! I got it right this time!

This, however, is totally my own concoction. Beef, sprouts, chinese parsely and sweet black sauce. Chilli on the side for the spicy lovers and … my secret sauce within that makes all the difference!

Cheap & Delicious in 5 minutes

Basic components:- Glutinous rice flour + water
Cooking time:- 5 minutes

It’s muah chee to Singaporeans & Malaysian
It’s mochi to the Japanese

It’s not New Year, this girl ain’t going to start from scratch and pound freshly cooked glutinous rice till it becomes mochi.

This girl, however, is quite willing to cook up flour and water, and roll it in a chopped peanut and sugar mixture.

Here’s a secret tip for you….don’t forget the toasted sesame seeds for that X-factor.