asia

Broccoli-Risotto à la Chinese Pesto Chicken

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I like to experiment with food and sometimes it will be a miss or a hit. I use dishes that I know and cook something new by combining the knowledge received from making various dishes and food experiences.

This time it is East meet West, an idea that is inspired by my fathers Chinese Pesto Chicken or just Ginger scallion chicken. It is one of the plain chicken dishes that we used to have at my parents place. Instead of having it in it’s Chinese form (Chicken, ginger/scallion pesto and accompanied with rice), I tried to combine it with an Italian dish the Risotto. Switching out the white rice with a risotto.

Ingredients: for 1-2 person
200grams of Risotto rice
50grams of Butter
1 Onion
1 small Broccoli
100-150 mL of Mirin
500 mL of Chicken stock
A pinch of Salt
A pinch of Pepper
75 gram of Ginger
5-6 Scallions/spring onions
1 piece of Chicken breast
20-25 mL of Sesame oil/vegetable oil

First the ginger scallion pesto. Take a cutting board and a good knife and start by peeling the ginger. Rinse the scallions and chop off the end part. (the roots) Cut the ginger and scallions in even parts and start to chop it finely into a paste like substance. (Use a food-blender if you do not want to chop it yourself.) When you chopped it all finely into paste put it in a bowl and add the sesame oil or vegetable oil to it. Mix it up and you  have ginger/scallion ‘pesto’. Set it aside for later.

Get the broccoli and cut it into small flower bunch. Give the cut broccoli a rinse and pre-cook them. Take a pan, boil some water and add some oil in it. When the water is boiling add the broccoli. Cook the broccoli until it soft with ‘a bite’ and pour it out into a colander to rid it from the water. Put it aside for later.

Chop and dice an onion for the risotto. First peel the onion and chop it in the length into two pieces. Cut it in a way in which you can dice it into bits.

Get a frying pan for the risotto, heat the stove and put it on. When it is heated add half of the butter in the pan and let it melt away. Add the chopped onions and saute it a little bit before adding the rice to the pan. Stir the pan a little and add in the Mirin. Let the risotto rice soak up the fluids and stir once in a while. When the fluids have dried out add a scoop of chicken stock. continue to do this process until the last scoop of chicken stock.

While repeating the process of adding stock to the rice, stir and let it dry out. Start heating a second fry pan for the chicken breast. When heated add a little bit of butter or oil in the pan. Turn the heat to low when the butter is melted and add the chicken breast. (slow cooking the breast meat for a tender breast.) Season the breast with a little salt and pepper. At around 2-3 min turn the chicken, when it gets plummy turn off the heat and let the chicken rest on a plate.

Around the time that the chicken breast is done, it’s somewhere near the last scoop of the chicken stock for the risotto. Now  with the last scoop of stock give the risotto some salt and pepper and add in the other half of butter. Add the pre-cooked broccoli and the ginger and scallion ‘pesto’ paste. Stir it all well and it will be a creamy with a rich body dish of risotto. When ready plate the risotto.

Now cut the chicken into stripes and add it to the plate of risotto. And it is done, Enjoy.

The broccoli risotto à la Chinese pesto chicken has a salty, creamy and rich body. Also the combination of the ginger/scallion and soft tender chicken makes it very tasty. The dish can be filling because of the rich body. If you can handle it have it for your own, otherwise share it with others.

Have fun trying this out, Share and Keep Experimenting.

Easy and fast Chinese dessert: Sweet potato soup

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No rants this time just an easy and fast recipe for a soup-dessert.
It is common in Asian to have desserts like these.

Ingredients for 4-6 person

3-6 medium sized sweet potatoes (around 800-1200 grams)
(there are different kinds of sweet potatoes so choose the one you like, red with white on the inside and orangery with orange on the inside)
A chunk of ginger about 100 grams
200 grams of Rock sugar candy (crystal chunks of brown sugar)
200 grams of Brown sugar sticks.
1.5L of Water

*most of the ingredients can be bought at a Chinese supermarket.

Peel the potatoes and the ginger and cut them up in small chunks that are easy to cook. Get a large enough pan to make it in. Light up the stove and put the pan on it. Fill the pan with water and add the sugars to it. Dissolve the sugar and wait until the sugar-water is boiling. When the water is boiling add the cut sweet potatoes and ginger to the sugar water. Let it all heat up and wait until the sweet potatoes are cooked soft. Stir once in a while while heating the soup. When the potatoes are soft and the soup is hot turn of the stove.
Stir well and serve it while it is hot. Before diggin’in let it cool a little bit to not burn your tongues.

Try it out and Keep Experimenting!

naffa: Taste of Vietnam, Amsterdam

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Nocsta and Friends: Food Adventure take you this time to yet another Asian Cuisine, to Vietnamese Food to be precisely. This time was with two lovely ladies, who I had met during my student days. In the past we got together multiple times to have sushi or korean food. It was the time when we were the early-adopters of the now mainstream sushi and korean food.

The ladies and I have decided to meet up on 14th of Jan at Amsterdam Central. That day was a rainy day like buckets pouring out of the sky. Normally I would have been more prepared and on time, but this time I made the ladies wait. :s I was fifteen minutes late, supposed to meet them at 19:00. We greeted in a quickly and were heading off in the rain to Taste of Vietnam at Herenstraat 28c. The girls were starved after a long day of work and I was ready to taste Vietnam as well.

Walking through the Jordaan in the city center of Amsterdam, I noticed a lot of shops and restaurants. the Jordaan a neighbourhood that I still need to explore.. It was dark, cold and wet so, we hurried to the place. In the far we saw the signpost of the restaurant, we quickly entered into a warm, light and bright restaurant. Upon entering we were lead to our table by the two employees. The restaurant was hosted by a guy and a girl, (the girl was kinda cute.)

While seating we ordered some drinks, ice tea for the two ladies and I just stick it to water. My friends were hungry so we took a look at the menu and ordered an entree to begin with.

The three entree’s were a shrimp roll, fried shrimps and a beef roll. We decided to share the entree’s, to have a taste of each dish. The first dish is the shrimp roll with veggies, shrimps and vermicelli inside, on the sides are three dipping sauce, peanut sauce, sweet and sour vinegar and Hoi sin sauce. The shrimp roll definitely needed the sauce to give it a flavourful taste.
The second is a deep-fried prawn wrapped in a crunchy skin, accompanied by a sweet and sour chili. Nothing special, but always nice to have a crunchy fried prawn.
The third is similar to the first roll, however it had more flavour to it with out the sauce. The beef in it was seasoned well and it was the better one of the two rolls.

On to the main dish, all three of us had chosen for a beef Phô. It tasted great, but the soup was a bit oily and not as clear as some other I had. I expected the noodles of the Phô to be bit thinner, but at least it wasn’t a thick rice noodles that was sticky and starchy. The ladies and I quickly devoured our foods and talked about how everyone is doing. The two were both happy in life, one was married and the other was engaged to be married by the end of this year.

It was fun meeting the girls again, I have not seen them for a long time. The food was nice, the service was good and the atmosphere of the place was great.

Try this place out and see for yourself the Taste of Vietnam.

Noodlesoup? Won Ton and Sui Kau noodlesoup, homemade style!

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Damn, Still neglecting my blog posts and recipe’s…
To be honest I have been lazy.. to do the work.
I’ll try to keep it up and post on the days that I spoke off.

This week (last week) is the Chinese Noodle soup with homemade Won Ton and Sui Kau. Won Ton noodle-soup or the Sui Kau noodle-soup are one of the Cantonese staples of lunch items. It is a nice hot broth soup with noodles, some veggies and meat(or shrimp) dumplings. The dish got everything that you need Fat, Carbs and Proteins (maybe even vitamins), what more do you want? Joking aside, it is a noodle dish that warms you up and gets you through the day of “hard” work.

Ingredients:

Won Ton
250 grams of Pork Belly or Bacon
250 grams of Peeled Raw Shrimps
1 pack of Won Ton Pastry
1 Spring onion (other recipes have Shii-take mushroom)
Salt
Black Pepper
Sesame Oil
Soy sauce

Sui Kau
500 grams of Peeled Raw Shrimps
(some recipes has bamboo shoots)
1 pack of Won Ton Pastry
Salt
Black Pepper
Sesame Oil
Soy sauce

Noodle soup
1 pack of Egg noodles or Won Ton noodles
100 grams of Chinese Cabbage
4-5 Won Tons
4-5 Sui Kau’s
A few drops of Sesame oil
Some flavoured broth or stock (powdered or fresh)

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Making the Dishes:

Won Ton:
Rinse the spring onion with some water and chop it into fine bits and put it aside for later. Put 250 grams of Raw peeled Shrimps on a chopping board and bash the shrimps with the back of a chopping knife (or a kitchen mallet/hammer.) Fold the the flatten shrimps bash them again until it turns into a paste-like-substance. Do the same with the Pork belly/bacon. (if it is to time consuming, use a food-processor/mixer to mix/grind it into paste-like-structure.) After having the pork and the shrimp made into paste-like-substance, mix it all in a big bowl with the spring onion and season the mix with salt, pepper, sesame oil and a splash of soy-sauce. Use your clean hands or a spoon to mix it all up. Cover the bowl of won-ton-mix and refrigerate it for one hour in order to let the seasoning takes it effect.

After refrigerating the won-ton-mix for an hour take it out and get ready to fold the Won Tons. Take the pack of Won Ton pastry and the won-ton-mix. Grab a spoon to scoop up the won-ton-mix with one hand and put one piece of Won Ton pastry on the other hand. Put the won-ton-mix on the pastry and fold it semi-diagonal and seal the pastry around the mixture in a ripple/zigzag way.

Sui Kau:
Making Sui Kau is somewhat the same as making Won Ton. The difference is a shrimp paste mixture instead of pork/shrimp paste mixture. After refrigerating the Sui-Kau-mix fold it in the same way as the Won Tons.

Once you made a bunch, it can be boxed and frozen for whenever you like to cook up Won Ton or Sui Kau.

 

Noodle soup:

First set up two pans one a big pan and one smaller pan. The big pan is used to cook the ingredients to nearly done. The smaller pan is used to add the flavour of the broth or stock to the Noodle soup.
Pour enough water into the pan, so that they are half filled. Heat up the pans with water and let them boil. *(I used powdered instead of fresh broth, so that is why the small pan is also filled with water.)

Take the Chinese cabbage and chop an enough amount for use. (A whole cabbage can serve about 5-6 noodle soups.) Take the chopped off cabbage and wash it with water, after cleaning, put the cabbages into the boiling big pan and boil the cabbages till they are done. When the cabbages are cooked or done, take them out of the pan and set them aside.

Next are the Won Tons and Sui Kau’s. A total of 8-10 pieces is enough for one bowl of noodle-soup. The same as the Chinese cabbage boil it in the large pan. It takes around 5-10min until the Won Tons and Sui Kau’s are done. Normally you will see them float on the water when they are done cooking. When it is ready scoop them up and set them aside.

Get a noodle bowl and drop some sesame oil in it, then add the cabbages in the bowl. set it aside for now.

Take the Egg noodle (per portion) and cook it in the large pan for 1-2 min. So that it is just undercooked. (This is done to boil off the excessive flour or fat on the noodle)

Put in the powdered stock or broth into the smaller pan with the boiling water (Self made or fresh stock/broth can be used, but the smaller pan shouldn’t be filled with water beforehand.) Add the Cooked Won Tons and Sui Kau in the small pan. This is to warm them up and give them some more flavour. Next is to add the undercooked noodles to the smaller pan and cook it all to well done. When everything in the small pan is ready, pour it into the bowl with the cabbage. The bowl should be filled with cabbage at the bottom with noodles and the dumplings on top. The result will look like the picture on the front of this post.

Have fun trying it out! Like, share and Keep experimenting.

Home made Pork / Beef Jerky (Asian style)

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One of my favorite snacks and most of the time it’s only obtainable in Asia. The freshly made meat jerky in Asia are just juicy, smoky and certainly delicious. They have it in variants of Chicken, Beef and Pork and in different flavours.

However it is hard to come by when you are living on the other side of the world. If you don’t know it yet. When flying to Asia back and forth, meat products are prohibited as souvenir to take back with. On some occasions it is possible for me to enjoy the meat jerkies from Asia, when relatives or friends with gifts pass through the customs.

In recent weeks I saw a FB videopost about a DIY homemade meat jerk and today I thought why not do it myself. So I watch the video of a youtuber and noted down the recipe, gathered the ingredients and made it myself.

I followed her recipe and changed bits of the ingredients.

ingredients: (Pork)
450-500 gram grounded meat (Pork)
100 gram sugar
2tbls or 30ml Fish sauce
1.25tbls or 20ml Soy sauce
1.25tbls or 20ml Dark Soy sauce
1.5tbls or 25ml Cooking wine
5 gram Five spice powder
2 gram Ginger powder

Honey

Preheat the oven at 150 degree Celsius.
Add the sugar, the sauces, the wine and the powders all in a bowl and mix it all together. When done, add the grounded pork in pieces to the sauce mix. Yet, again mix the meat and sauce mix until it becomes a paste-like-substance.

Lay out a baking sheet on a tray, put some meat-paste on the sheet, cover the paste and the tray with some transparent foil. Take a rolling pin and roll out the meat paste on the tray. Roll the paste evenly in 3mm thickness. remove the foil and put the plate in the preheated oven of 150 degree Celsius. Bake it 15min

After the first 15min get it out and pour out the excessive liquids and flip it over for an other 15min oven time. In the mean time whip up some honey water. Put a tablespoon of honey in a bowl and add some water. Mix it up until the honey is dissolved.

After the second 15min get the jerky out. Polish the jerky with some honey water and put it back into the oven for 4-5min at 180 degree Celsius. Do this again but by flipping it over and honey-water the jerky on the other side. After the second 4-5min, Get it out and enjoy your Homemade Pork/Beef Jerky.

ps. For Beef see below.

ingredients: (Beef)
450-500 gram grounded meat (Beef)
100 gram sugar
2tbls or 30ml Fish sauce
1tbls or 15ml Soy sauce
1tbls or 15ml Oyster sauce
2tbls or 30ml Cooking wine
0.5tbls or 7ml Sesame oil
7 gram black pepper powder
Honey