Images

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!

Company 30th Anniversary and Rollende keuken 2016 Amsterdam

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

The Rollende Keuken 2016 Amsterdam, Westergasfabriek.

Last week in the Netherlands was very Summer-like with temperatures of 25+ degrees and all the Dutchies were enjoying these fine days to the fullest. What’s best was at the end of those sunny days was the start of the food festival ‘Rollende Keuken 2016’ in Amsterdam. The timing of it was just right for us to enjoy the ‘outdoor food fest.’ My sister and I made arrangements to go to the festival and enjoy an evening of streetfood. 

When we arrived at the Westerpark-area it was packed with, Expats, Young Professionals and Students. I think most of them are there for the drinks and alcohol in addition for the nice outdoorsy weather to chill out. Food probably isn’t their priority, but it was one of ours. We had walked around to find food that suited our likings and stumbled on a Hot Mama stand with Korean style burgers.

  

The left pic shows a steamed bun with lettuce, kimchi and pulled pork meat that was made on the grill. It was good, just a bit expensive but everything was expensive.

The burger on the right was a beef bulgogi burger with lettuce, cheddar, some sauce and a tomato infused red bun. It was good, but not too special for my taste.

  

Our hunger was still not stilled and we wanted some more food. Paying more for overpriced food was not something we wanted to do, so we went for food that we both liked as well as being reasonablely priced. 

Most Churros found in Amsterdam are very bad, fatty and too sweet. All the bad stuff in one dish. The stand at the fest was making them fresh and from organic ingredients. So we tried it, it was incomparable with other churrosstands in Amsterdam. The Churros felt light in fat and it was not that sweet like the others, ‘those churros were your teeth would fall out instantly by having one bite.’ It was the best Churros up till now that I had in Amsterdam.

After that we still wanted something and just went for dessert. You can not go wrong with ice cream from Metropolitan, a food-truck stand of the shop in the center of Amsterdam. The shop is a regular place for me and my housemates. Chocolate, ice-cream and various sweets a place for all sweet-tooth’s. We ended with that and got picked up, to go to her place for me to borrow her car for the weekend.

30th Company Anniversary at Van der Valk Schiphol A4.

Sunday was the day of the event, dress code: Ties and Dresses, a banquet and a day of anniversary enjoyment. I took the car and went to pick up my passengers to the event. The event was held at the Van der Valk Hotel near Schiphol at the highway A4. We arrived at the location and already saw flags hanging out with the company logo. As we were rolling over the parking lot we were seeing packs of Asians moving towards the entrance. Everyone, the guys wears nice suits, shiny shoes and a tie, while the ladies are all made up, wearing dresses and on high heels. It was different to see all my colleagues dressed at their best, very different from their regular wear.

Once entering the building we were welcomed by familiar faces, who would give us our name tags and brought us to our seats. The setup was big, because every branch in the Netherlands was their to celebrate the 30th year anniversary. The program of the day was mostly speeches, first and foremost a speech of the company founder, eventually every regional manager made their talk. Later in the afternoon a play was done by the founders about the founding of the company as well as a quiz-show with all the branches competing against each other.

At the turn of night was the start of the banquet, tbh. I expected better quality of food, but I give them the benefit of a doubt. The reason was that we were with over 600 people at the event. The dessert was the best I had that day, see the picture below. It isn’t an Asian celebration with out a prize rain of lottery prizes. Too bad I didn’t won anything, maybe next time.

All in all it was fun! What’s more to come? I don’t know, but I will 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!

Amsterdam Coffee Festival!

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

The Amsterdam Coffee Festival

Last weekend was the first dutch coffee festival of the year. It was setup at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. The ACF is the Walhalla for all coffee-lovers and also fun for coffee-enthusiast like me. Various Roasting companies and coffee-sellers were attending. Specialty coffees everywhere as well as awesome coffee-machines.

A big hall with lots of stands and a stage for the Dutch Barista Championship.

     

The picture below is a coffee machine of the method syphon. It uses the vacuum technique to extract coffee from fresh grinded beans.

Some stands were selling complementary products like sweets to have with coffee. For instance Cakesmith selling cakes. These products are nice to have when having someone over for coffee or when you are on a coffee-break.
  
Other Stands are specialized in making something special out of coffee, like Expresso Martini Bar. Where they combine coffee and martini and create a cocktail. A fancy drink for in the happy-hour’s or while going out.

Coffee Pairing and Gastronomy: The Scandinavian Embassy Pop-up Restaurant.

The Scandinavian Embassy: A Coffee hotspot in Amsterdam near Sarpathi-park was at the Festival. They were having a coffee and food pairing-pop-up restaurant.

‘A screenshot of the three-course menu that the guest were having in the food & beverage-tasting.’
   

For starters we had Espresso-smoked oyster followed by a Mussel with coffee infused vinegar and lastly a Clam with coffee cherry infused butter accompanied with a Chilled Danish espresso. The way to taste the experience was to have a shellfish first and a sip of espresso afterwards to bring out the seafood, flavours and coffee combination. It was a rather unique experience to have coffee like that.

Next up was the main dish a Gin flambe scallops. Originally it was to have this dish with a strong extracted coffee, but there was a mistake of the barista and we had a different kind of experience one of a mild extracted coffee.
 
As desert was a tartar of beetroot and herring with yogurt and salt accompanied with coffee and a distilled drink poured in the first glass of espresso, giving it a boost to your taste experience.

The food-pairing was definitely an experience, but it was not suited for all visitors of the Festival. Because it is food as in gastronomy, fine dining of flavour and taste-combination.

It was fun to experience the different aspects of coffee.
Looking forward to the next Festival.
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!

naffa: Taste of Vietnam, Amsterdam

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

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.