recipe

The Anago Donburi

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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.

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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!

Easy-peasy Simple dessert!

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ 2 Comments

Easy to make at home, it’s just pancake, ice-cream and chocolate. Not much of a recipe, but I am out of Inspiration for a while. Maybe next time I make some thing more special.

Ingredients:

200 grams of Flour or Pancake-mix
400 mL of Milk
2 Eggs
Any flavour of Ice cream (I chose Chocolate)
50 grams of Chocolate (for sauce)

Add the flour, eggs and milk in a bowl and mix it till you have a pancake batter/mix. (fluid with no chunks) Heat up a flat frying pan to bake the pancakes in. When heated add a bit of oil in the pan to prevent the pancakes from sticking to the pan. Use a ladle to scoop one scoop of pancake batter and pour it into the frying pan. Move the pan a little, in which the batter is fully covering the pan. Flip the pancake after it sturdy and bake it off till it is done.

Put the pancake on a plate and continue making new pancakes until the batter is used up. Melt the chocolate in an Au-bain-marie method, when done start plating the dessert.

First up a pancake, then add some scoops of icecream and top it off with some melted chocolate.

Have fun and Keep Experimenting!

Throw it all in!

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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!

Panna cotta with mango puree

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

The start of the year has not been good to me. Being sick and taking things slow (unproductive). Three months have gone by and I have more or less settled down in Amsterdam. Still I am nowhere near where I want to be. I am now at a crossroad where I can continue to do the things I am doing. (work, social life and living on my own) Or continue to aim for the things that I want in life. (the patisserie/dessert and coffee shop dream, being a barista/ sweetsmaker, cooking-enthusiast.) So, what is my next step?

It gives me a sense of happiness/fulfillment when I make things for the people around me. If the people I serve like it, ‘succes’ and if they don’t ‘too bad, next cooking experiment.’ This time I just picked a dessert which was easy to make and made it into the mess like in the pic. ;P

Ingredients

500ml cream
4 sheets of gelatin
30 grams of sugar
2 packs of vanilla sugar (8 grams a pack, it is sugar infused with vanilla flavour)
2 ripe mango

Start by getting a small bowl and fill it with cold water. When filled take out the gelatin sheets from the package and drown it piece by piece in the bowl of water. Let it stand and start with the cream. Light up a stove and put a pan on it, pour all the sugar and vanilla sugar in it and add the cream to it. Dissolve the sugar and let the cream heat up, up to the point before boiling. (it is when you start to see air bubbles starting to come up.) While heating the cream try to stir the cream for evenly heating.
After it is heated up, turn off the stove and remove the pan from the stove. The soaked gelatin should be jelly like, take it out of the water and squeeze out as much water from the gelatin. Add the squeezed gelatin to the warm cream and stir it in until all is dissolved.

Pour the pan with cream and gelatin into cups and let it cool off and refrigerate the cups. (cover the cups with foil before refrigerating) Let it form in the refrigerator for six hours or even a day.

The next day peel the mangoes and cut out the meat of the mango. Use a half a mango for mango cubes and the rest of the mango meat is used for the puree. This can be done with a blender.

The rest is to plate up. To get the Panna Cotta out of the cup is done by holding the sides of the cups against a running hot water tap. It warms the sides of the cups and melt the gelatin a bit but just enough to separate the cup and the panna cotta. Plate it up and done. Enjoy your Panna Cotta with Mango puree. Like, Share and Keep Experimenting!

Missing inspiration… The salad story.

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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!

Where is the Holiday Spirit? Here, near Deez Nutz!

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

I don’t like this time of the year especially in the Netherlands. The thing is that around this time in the Low-lands it is cold, windy and very wet; the days are short, getting up and going to work when it is dark, leaving work and getting back home in the same darkness. It is as if everything is telling me to hibernate and skip this time of the year. It really sucks to go outside, the grey-and-sad-looking sky, crying it’s many tears down on to the planes of our small, small ‘Kikkerlandje’ (A Dutch saying).

However it is also the end of the year with it’s Festive holidays and Joyable gatherings. The many birthdays of my family in these months, the Oh-so-critisized Traditional Childrens-holiday of ‘SinterKlaas’, The Commercially known holiday of the birth of Christ ‘Christmas’ and the End of the Year celebration of ‘Oud en Nieuw’ on the day of switching to 2016.

It is the time to spend some time with family and friends and I am blessed with them being in my life. So to have some ‘Yummie in the Tummy’ I present a triple recipe in one with some seasonal ingredients of autumn and winter. Prepare yourself Winter is coming!


Muffin-sized cakes: for 6 cups
Apple-Cinnamon-Pecan
Matcha-White Chocolate-Macadamia
Chocolate-Cream Cheese-Oreo-Hazelnut

Ingredients:

Apple-Cinnamon-Pecan
150 grams of Flour
80 grams of Sugar
100 grams of Butter
20 grams of Cornstarch
8 grams of Baking Soda
10 grams of Cinnamon
80 mL of Milk
50 grams of Pecan nuts
2 Large-sized Eggs
1 Apple
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Matcha-White Chocolate-Macadamia
120 grams of Flour
80 grams of Sugar
100 grams of Butter
20 grams of Cornstarch
8 grams of Baking Soda
15 grams of Matcha (green tea powder)
80 mL of Milk
50 grams of Macadamia nuts
2 Large-sized Eggs
100 grams of White Chocolate

Chocolate-Cream Cheese-Oreo-Hazelnut
120 grams of Flour
80 grams of Sugar
100 grams of Cream-cheese butter
20 grams of Cornstarch
8 grams of Baking Soda
50 grams Cocoa-powder
80 mL of Milk
50 grams of Hazelnut
2 Large-sized Eggs
50 grams of Oreo-cookies

   

The Easy way of making these Cakes.

Have every ingredients out on the cooking table and have the butter and cream-cheese butter at room temperature. Measure the ingredients and set them aside. Peel the apple and chop it up into small cubical pieces, add lemon to it to prevent browning. Chop the chocolates, oreos and the various nuts and put them separately into small bowls for later. Pre-heat the oven at 180-190 degrees Celsius.

First up, take a mixing bowl and put in the butter. Use a hand-mixer to mix the butter to a soft and creamy substance. Add the sugar, milk and eggs and mix it again. The mix should be clear of lumps and mixed well. Next step is to add in the powders. Use a sieve and add all the powders: flour, cornstarch, baking soda and the recipe’s powder (cinnamon, matcha or cocoa-powder.) Sieve in the powders to prevent forming of lumps and mix it all with the handmixer. A thick batter-like substance should be seen. Final step is to add in the apple and pecan-nuts (or the white chocolate and macadamia-nuts, the oreo-cookies and hazel-nuts.) Use a spatula to mix in the Last ingredients.

When it is mixed in, lay out the cups and pour in the cake-mix. Put the cups with the mix in the oven for 25-30 min. Check up on the cakes at 25min with sate-skewer and depending on the mix type it can be done or need a little bit more time. (When you poke the skewer down to the bottom of the cup and pull it out; the skewer should be clear or a little bit oily. If it is otherwise, it isn’t done yet.)

The Long way of making these Cakes

I did not have the time to use this method, because it was already late at night and I did not wanted to disturb my house-mates with the hand-mixer noise. It would have made a more lighter and fluffier cake.

Measure the ingredients and prepare it like the first part above. (peeling and chopping.)

Next would be melt the butter in a pan to have melted butter. Separate the egg yolk and the egg white.

The egg-white would be hand-mixed to soft peak, then sugar would be added and mixed further to stiff-peak (meringue.) In another bowl are the melted butter, milk and the egg-yolks mixed together. When both bowls are ready, I would use a spatula to scoop up some of the meringue and gently fold it into the butter-milk-and-yolk-mix. Continue until all of the meringue are folded into the mix. Next part would be to add the powders gradually with a sieve and fold it in as well. It have to be added gradually or else all the work to add air into the mix will be done for nothing. Finally, add the last ingredients such as apples and pecan nuts and fold it all again. The added air and folding technique will make the Cake-mix more airy and gives it more of a rise in the oven. Because of the rise of cake, it is best to fill the cups half-full otherwise it might droop out of the container/cup.

Put the cups with mix in the oven for 20-30 min at 180-190 degrees Celsius and check up on it at 20min timer to see if it is ready or it need more time to bake.

I will have to try the Long-method in order to see the results for myself. But for now have fun trying, Like, Share and Keep Experimenting!