meal

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!

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!

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.

Missing inspiration… The salad story.

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I am sitting in a coffee franchise, drinking a grande caramel latte and not knowing what to write about. Inspiration has been missing for the last two weeks. I have been pretty much settled in Amsterdam, working part-time, having social events and going to the gym two times a week. However at times I feel unfulfilled with what I have now. I know I am starting a new chapter of my life story, but I am a bit impatient to get where I want to be. This feeling of not going forward tends to occur when I’m having lots of free time to spare. I shouldn’t bitch about, because a lot of people are to busy to have time to spare.

First world problem, right? We should be more grateful for the things we have and I am grateful for having a warmhearted family, good friends and a good life up till now.

I have the future in my own hands and by being active and trying, I can create things that I like. So this dish was something I wanted after a Monday-morning in the gym. Something healthy and some ingredients that I still had stored in the kitchen.

Ingredients: (for 2 portions)

1 Lettuce
1 Red pepper (capsicum)
Halve a Cucumber
1 sweet and fruity Apple
200 grams of Feta cheese
50 grams of Cashew nuts
Quarter of a Lemon
20mL of Extra virgin Olive oil

(optional)
200 grams of Sliced Turkey breast meat
Some salt and pepper
Some oil or butter

Preparing the Salad

Take the sliced turkey meat and season it with salt and pepper. Heat up a fry or grill-pan, when it is hot enough add some oil or butter on the pan. Add the turkey breast in the pan and grill it till it is done. When ready put the turkey aside on a plate.

Get the lettuce and cut it in half from top to bottom and cut up each half of the lettuce from the top end to the bottom end in stripes. Throw away the bottom part. Take the Red pepper and cut it also in half from top to bottom. Remove the insides and the green top of the red pepper. Cut the red pepper also into stripes from top to bottom. Get the cut up veggies and rinse it in a colander. Wash the cucumber and slice it into disks. Take out the feta and cut it into cubes. Wash the apple and cut it in half from top to bottom. Remove the core, the top and the end. Julienne (a french name of cutting technique) the apple parts. Grab a big bowl and mix all the lettuce, red pepper, cucumber, apple, feta and cashew nuts all together. In a separate bowl add some Extra virgin olive oil and agitate it with the lime juice. Mix it well and the two liquids thickens.

Plate up, add the turkey and the salad mix. Give it a few spoons of the dressing-like mixture and it is done.

It is easy to make and I hope you like it. Like, share and Keep Experimenting!

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)

 IMG_3769-0

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.

Diner for one from bits of leftovers!

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Everybody should know that it is rather hard to cook for one. Most of the time you have more ingredients to cook with or you make too much for one. That’s why at times you make a lot and have to eat it two days in a row. At other times you still have some leftover products, these leftovers can be used with creativity to create tasty and waste-less food. It is a way of trying new things out. Experimenting on new dishes that can be improved at a second attempt.

As for this recipe an easy-peasy ‘Filled bell pepper and potatoes for one.’

Ingrediënts:
1 red bell pepper
1 small onion
150grams of minced meat
4 small/medium sized potatoes
pepper and salt for seasoning

Wash the potatoes first, peel it with a knife or peeler and cut them afterwards into small cubes. Peel the onion and cut it into rings or half rings. (whatever the way you like it.) Rinse the bell pepper and roast it on an open flame. (the gas pit can be used as a source) Roast the bell pepper until it is firm and soft. Often the skin of the pepper will turn char black and hot to pick up. Then cut the top off and remove the seeds and other unedible parts of the pepper.

Heat up two frying-pans, one for the meat and one for the potatoes. In both pans add a tiny bit of oil. The first pan add the onion first to glaze them well and afterwards add the minced meat. Season the meat with some pepper and salt to your tasting and let it heat up in the pan while occasionally stirring. When done fill the sliced open Bell pepper with meat. In the second pan just fry the potatoes until they are golden brown and well done. (If you want it to be less fried just cover the pan with a lid and it will steam-fry/boil the potatoes. When everything is done plate it and serve.

I hope you like it. Like, share and keep Experimenting!

The BLT Pasta Salad

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Who ever thought that Salads are just for people losing weight are surely mistaken.

Every once in a while I like to make a meal-time salad. When I want something not that heavy on the stomach, but also delicious and easy to make. This recipe is something I consider as a balanced meal, almost everything what you need is in it.

Ingredients: (for 1-2 person)
100-150gr of Pasta (Penne)
75-150gr of Greens (Lettuce, Arugula or any lettuce types)
200gr of Tomato (Cherry)
200gr or 20 pieces of Mini Mozzarella
250gr or 1 pack of Bacon bits
5-10gr of Pine nut
1 pinch of Salt
2tbls or 30ml of Honey
1 whole Lime
1 clove of Ginger

Take a pan large enough to cook the pasta in it. Fill the pan with enough water for cooking the penne. Average 1L per 100gr pasta. When the pan with water is boiling add the pasta and a pinch of salt. Cook for 20 min until it is ready. When ready drain the water from the pasta and set it aside.

While the pasta is cooking, take a frying-pan and heat it up. Once warm put the fire on low-heat and roast the pine nuts until golden. This takes just a few minutes. Set the roasted nuts aside and bake the bacon bits. I like my bacon to be a bit crunchy, so it take at least 5 minutes to have a crunchy outside and soft inside. When the bacon is ready drain the oil from the bacon and set it aside on a plate with a paper towel to absorb some of the fat still on it.

Wash the Greens and Tomatoes, fling of the water on the greens. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half. When done add everything in a bowl, the pasta, the greens, the tomatoes, the mini mozzarella, the bacon bits and the pine nuts. It is almost done, only the sauce or dressing left before tossing it. The salad or better shake the salad up.

The sauce is easy to make. Only the juice of the ginger is needed to give it a nice zing to the flavour, it’s optional.

Peel the ginger clove, grate the ginger in to pulp and sieve the juices out of the pulp. Take a sauce pan warm it up, add 2 tablespoons of Honey (add more if you like it sweeter or stickier), squeeze out the lime juice into the honey. Optional add ginger juice to the pan and stir the mix till it becomes fluid.

Now add the dressing to the Salad mix and mix it up so everything is drenched with the sweet, fresh and spunky sauce.

Serve immediately.