easy food

The Anago Donburi

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This recipe has been in the concept box for over some weeks and I finaly made time to write it.

I had already told you about my adventureous sidetrack in last weeks post. Getting back on track, a Donburi or an easy ricebowl recipe. The recipe is somewhat taken from http://www.japanesecooking101.com/

Ingredients:

20 mL of Sake
1 filet of Anago or (Unagi vacuum sealed)
125 grams of Japanese rice (short grain sushi rice)
120mL Soy sauce
80 mL Mirin
60 grams of Sugar
40 mL of Sake

This recipe is divided into three pieces: The rice, the anago and the sauce.

I used a steamer to cook the white rice and if you do not have one, it is also possible to use a rice cooker or a regular pan. First I washed the rice grains and at the same time boiled some water in the steamer. When the steamer is ready(steaming), put the washed rice in a Ceramic bowl or a metal bowl and add enough water (1cup:1,2:cup rice:water ratio). Put the bowl with rice and water into the steamer and let it steam for 10-15 min. When ready turn off the heat and keep it warm in the steamer.

Preheat the oven on 220 degrees Celsius, meanwhile cut the anago in even pieces and sprinkle some sake over it. Next put it on an oven plate. When the oven is ready, insert the oven plate and let it bake for 20-30 min.

For the sauce add everything in a saucepan, the soy sauce, the mirin, the sugar and sake. Stir the sauce and let it warmup until boiling point, when it had boiled turn down the heat and let it simmer to reduce. It will thicken and gets concentrated.

When everything is ready, it is time to assemble. Firstly scoop the rice in a bowl, secondly add a spoon of sauce on the rice, thirdly add the Anago on the rice and finally pour enough sauce over the Anago and rice.

I hope you like it, have fun and Keep Experimenting!

Tada, Pasta Carbonara

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Just like the title says, Tada random recipe out of nowhere!

It is not literally true, but there haven’t been much on this blog recently. You could say that I am inactive, not realy proactively in creating new content. The thing is: There are just lots of things in my personal life that prevents me from creating new contents, but also very important in life. It has consequence on my lifestyle. And I like to get rid off some of it, but it might take some time.

In the mean time I’ll post when I have the time to do so.

Pasta Carbonara
Ingredients

150 grams of Pasta (macaroni)
100 grams of Pork belly meat or bacon
20 grams of Parsley
30 grams of Butter
125ml of Cream
30 grams of Grated Cheese
1 egg
Some Salt & PepperSome Oil

Get a pan and turn on the stove. Put enough water into the pan for the amount of pasta you are cooking. When the water in the pan starts to boil add pinch of salt, some oil and the pasta. Let the pasta cook and stir once in a while.

Next chop up the bacon into bits and parsley as well. Set the parsley aside for later on. Now start heat up a frying pan and bake the bacon in their own fat. It takes a while before the fatty bacon can be baked in it’s own fat, be patient. When it happens fry the bacon until it is crunchy on the outside. Take the bacon of the heat, pour out the oily fat and set the bacon aside.

Take a look at the pasta, when they are soft enough pour it out into a colander and catch a half cup of the pasta liquid for the next part.

The preparations are done and the next part is to create your pasta.

Take a frying pan, heat it up and melt the butter in the pan. Put it on low heat when starting to add the bacon into the pan, followed up by adding the egg, the cream, the pasta liquid and the pasta. Stir everything well and taste the flavour add Salt & Pepper, if it is too bland. When the sauce starts to bubble, add the chopped parsley and the grated cheese. Stir the pan a few times and remove it from the heat when it becomes one. Plate the Pasta and it’s ready.

Buon Appetito! 

It is easy to make, however some steps have to be done to make it great.

I hope you like it, have fun trying and Keep Experimenting!

Chocolate…. and Pan, cakes.

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Last post was a dessert with Pancake and ice cream, in this case it was done with pancakes in Dutch style (flat, thin and as big as the plate.) It can also be seen as the French-style Crêpe.
This time instead of the regular Dutch variant, I tried out the American styled pancakes, which is smaller, thicker and a bit fluffier. Tbh, I have never made it this way and it is easily done with a bit of knowledge on cooking techniques.

Ingredients:

200 grams of Flour or Pancake-mix
20-30 grams of Chocolate powder
2 Egg Yolks
2 Egg Whites
400 mL of Milk
Some Butter or Oil for baking the pancakes
Some Honey or Maple Syrup or any Syrup for the pancakes. (Whatever you like)

First off separate the egg yolks from the egg whites into two bowls. Take some kitchen foil to cover the bowl with egg whites and refrigerate it for a bit. Take the bowl with the egg yolks and add the Flour and Chocolate powder with a sieve. After sieving the powders, add the milk to the bowl and use a whisker or a hand-mixer to create a pancake batter. Clean up the mixer of the residue and get the bowl of egg whites out of the fridge. Now use the clean whisker or hand-mixer to stiffen up the egg whites to stiff peak. Once the egg whites are stiff enough scoop the egg whites into the pancake batter with a spatula, carefully fold the egg whites into the mix. Once the egg whites are mixed in, it is time to bake the pancakes.

Heat up a frying pan, when heated add some butter or oil. Use a ladle to scoop one scoop of mix and gently pour it in the middle of the frying pan. Use the ladle to form the pancake into a round disk. Flip the pancake with a wooden spatula, after the lower-half part is done baking. After it is ready, plate the pancake and continue to bake a new one.

When you have a stack of pancakes, plate up a number of the pancakes and pour on some syrup on top. et Voila your pancake is done for consuming!

It is the first time I have done it this way and it went well because I have done and understand the techniques, that was used. Adding air to the batter/mix is the method to create fluffy American style pancakes.

Try it out, have fun doing it and Keep Experimenting!

Throw it all in!

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The Story of this dish is that I was out of inspiration and still wanted to ‘whoop’ something up. I started to work out more again and wanted to have something filling and also healthy with out much fat in it. Greens was one of the condition, so lettuce, cucumber and arugula. The second condition a colourful dish so I added capsicum and corn. The third was it needs to be filling so I threw in some chick peas and kidney beans. Next was to add some flavour to it so some goat cheese. Then I thought honey goes great with goat cheese, but it would be too sweet. The thought-process was ‘Ok, lets make it mustard-honey and add a little bit of lemon juice too for some acidity and freshness.’ By then it was this piece of hideous art.

Below are the Ingredients for one person, but I made more than the amount specified below and had some leftovers. Because I used mostly whole products or packages.

Ingredients: For 1 person

70 grams of Lettuce
35 grams of Arugula
1/2 Red bell pepper
1/2 Cucumber
70 grams  of Crispy corn
70 grams of Chickpeas
70 grams of Kidney beans
100 grams of Goat cheese
100 grams of Wall nut
1 tablespoon of Mustard
2 tablespoons of Honey
1/2 Lemon

To make it, is simple just cut everything up into bite size. Throw it all together and plate it like how you want to serve it. Rinse some of the vegetables before cutting it.

The Honey-mustard sauce, is made by heating a sauce-pan and add two spoon of honey first and then add the mustard. The honey will turn more liquid when heated. Stir the honey and mustard. Do not let it cook just make it warm enough for the two ingredient to mix. Finally add some lemon juice to the pan. Stir again and add it to the salad.

Have fun with it and Keep Experimenting!