What shall I cook today: Miso Eggplant, Leek and Mushroom Noodles and Vegetable Sticks with Miso Dip

So with the new year, I've resolved to prepare more vegetables for my family. It's a sustainable meal and also much more healthy. Twice a week, I try to preparing vegetarian. I needed new recipes. Also, I just bought a huge tub of miso so I was looking for additional miso recipes.

LEEK AND MUSHROOM NOODLES
(Serves 2)
This meal is inspired with the leftover leek in my fridge.

2 cloves Garlic, sliced
1 Leek
Dried Mushrooms / Fresh Mushrooms
Spinach or Thinly sliced Swiss Chard or any other leafy greens
1 oz butter
Ramen or Egg Noodles
2 Tbsp Light Soya Sauce
1 Tbsp Mirin
1 Tbsp Sesame seeds
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

1/ Thinly Slice veges
2/ Slice white part of leek thinly
2/ If using dried mushrooms, soak them in hot water
3/ Melt butter in wok. Add garlic
4/ Add leek, mushrooms and greens
5/ Add Soya sauce and mirin
(At this point you can set the veges aside and cook later)
When you're ready to eat,
6/ Boil noodles until al dente
7/ Add noodles to vegetables and stir fry for a short while until sauce is absorbed
8/ Sprinkle with sesame seeds

MISO GLAZED EGGPLANT
I found this recipe on Pickled Plum. I've adapted the recipe by omitting sugar.

4 Small eggplants or cut a large eggplant into 4 segments
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 Tbsp Red Miso
2 Tbsp Light Miso
2 Tbsp Mirin
1 Tbsp Sake
1 tsp sugar or omit

1/ Cut a criss cross pattern on the inside of the eggplant.
2/ Put oil in a pan or wok on high heat. Put eggplant with the criss cross pattern downside first. Sear until brown.
3/ Turn the eggplants and put on a lid. Cook for further 3-4 minutes
4/ Combine all other ingredients to make the marinade sauce.
5/ Put eggplants on aluminium foil on top of a tray
6/ Glaze eggplants with marinade
7/ Put under broiler
8/ Sprinkle with sesame seeds

EASY VEGETABLE STICKS WITH MISO DIP
I always love this appetizer they serve in yakitori restaurants. The japanese always cook with color in mind and I also try and make vegetables appetizing for the family.

Crunchy Vegetables like carrots, daikon, cucumbers cut into similar sized sticks
Cabbage and Cos Lettuce would also be good
Light Miso 3-4 Tbsp
Lemon Juice (from 1/2 lemon)
Mirin (1 Tbsp)

1/ Prepare vegetables
2/ prepare sauce by combining the remaining ingredients. The lemon juice cuts the saltiness of the miso and add a touch of mirin.

Singapore Chilli Crab

It's the start of the dungeness crab season in the Bay Area. Last year, the dungeness crab season was closed due to domoic acid levels. This year, it's been given the go-ahead by the California Department of Public Health* (The dungeness crab season starts Nov 5, 2016 and ends July 30, 2017)

So I made my first crab dinner of the season. Listed number 35 on the World's 50 most delicious foods (compiled by CNN), Singapore Chilli Crab is a quintessential Singapore dish. As a girl,  I remember going to seafood restaurants by the beach, housed in bungalows, sitting in the garden enjoying the sea breeze and wonderful dishes like chilli crab, satay and black pepper crab.

In Singapore, Sri Lankan crab is used and it is a bigger and meatier version of its Dungeness cousin. The crabs are cooked with garlic and ginger, and simmered in a chilli tomato sauce. The sauce is so good as the juice of the crab gives the gravy its 'umami' flavor.  It is usually served with deep fried buns, to mop up the gravy.

Most Singaporeans don't make this dish as all they have to do is go to one of the many seafood restaurants in Singapore and order the dish. (Jumbo, Red House, No Signboard Seafood) but living in the Bay Area, one has to attempt the chilli crab dish at least once or twice during the crab season.

My Chilli Crab recipe is adapted from Christopher Tan's cookbook: Singapore Cooking 

6 Ibs Dungeness Crab
5 tsp oil
2-3 shallots, thinly sliced
8 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 Tbsp minced ginger
5 Tbsp Siracha garlic chilli sauce
7 Tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1.5 cups water
3-4 eggs, beaten

1/ Cut the crab into quarters. (be sure to remove all the fibrous tissues) Crack the claws lightly with a pestle
2/ Heat oil over high heat in a large wok. Stir fry the onions until soft and transparent. Add garlic and ginger and fry until fragrant (be sure not to burn). Add crabs and stir fry until they turn bright red. This may be tricky with a lot of crabs and you may have to place a lid on top to cook the crab faster. Omit cooking the crab viscera (located at the head of the crab)*
3/ Add all the other ingredients except the eggs and cook for another 2-4 minutes. Make sure the crab is cooked. The meat should be opaque, not translucent and the shell should be red.
4/ At the end, stir the beaten eggs into the gravy so that it thickens and serve with buns to mop up the gravy.

* Note that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) advises that consumers not eat the viscera (internal organs, also known as butter or guts) of crabs caught north of Point Reyes. So if your fishmonger can't tell you where the crabs were caught, it's better to be safe and omit the viscera during cooking. CDPH Shellfish Biotoxin Information Line (800) 553-4133 for updated crab consumption advisories.

Discovering new ingredients at a Vietnamese Supermarket

So here I am at Vietnam town, San Jose. I brought a group of moms to Maxim Supermarket (995 Mclaughlin Ave) to familiarize them with vegetables and sauces of an Asian kitchen.

My favorite part of the Vietnamese supermarket is the herb section. Herbs are essential in Vietnamese cuisine.  The varieties of mint, basil and coriander are different to the Western variety. Notice the banana blossoms on the top left corner

This is the Saw Leaf Herb, named because of the jagged edges. It is usually served with Vietnamese Beef Pho. 

Galangal or Blue Ginger, is used extensively in South-east Asian cooking, especially curries. 

Saw Leaf Herb on top of my beef pho

Vietnamese Basil in the foreground and Rau Ram in the background, a herb that is used in South-east Asian cooking, known for its aromatic scent

And of course, navigating the sauce section can be tricky and confusing for the first-timer. 

 Here are some of my inputs:

Fish Sauce - Thai or Vietnamese? The Thai version is stronger in flavor and the Vietnamese version is slightly more delicate. So if you're cooking Vietnamese, definitely go for the Vietnamese brand but if you prefer more robust flavors, reach for the Thai version.

I love the seafood section. There's so much variety. And they gut, clean and scale the fish for you. 

And my last word of advice, EXPLORE and be ADVENTUROUS! Go, bring home some herbs and incorporate into your cooking.

Easy katsudon recipe for a simple lunch or school lunch

Do you have any leftover chicken, pork cutlets or rice? Turn leftovers into a nice piping hot Japanese meal. Katsudon is a staple dish for many Japanese households. Made of pork cutlet with a runny egg on rice, it is the ultimate comfort food. But the real secret to this dish is the savoury sweet sauce that flavors the egg and blends all the ingredients together. 

For those not familiar with Japanese cuisine, it could be a little daunting, getting to grips with all the ingredients. So we've broken down the katsudon recipe into 9 ingredients:  

- Dashi Stock (1/2 cup) Dashi is a soup stock made from bonito fish. It is also usually flavored with kelp and mushrooms. These are available in little sachets that you can use when needed. It's always good to have this in your pantry as it is useful for other Japanese dishes like Miso soup and Chawanmushi. Make a half cup of dashi for the katsudon recipe. 

- Mirin (1/2 Tbsp) Mirin is a sweet seasoning made out of rice alcohol. This is another staple that you should have in your fridge if you like to make Japanese food

- Sake (1/2 Tbsp) Japanese rice wine. It's always good to have a bottle of sake around. 

- Soya Sauce (1 Tbsp)

- Sugar (1/2-1 Tbsp)

- 2 Eggs (beaten)

- Garnish: Spring Onions or Seaweed (sliced thinly)

Steps: 

1/ Pour the dashi stock, mirin, sake, soya sauce and sugar into a small saucepan and boil. Turn the heat to medium and let simmer for a minute

2/ Add pork or chicken cutlet into the sauce

3/ Add egg mixture. Cover the saucepan with lid and cook until egg is just cooked but still runny

4/ Pour cutlet and egg mixture onto a bowl of steamed rice. Garnish with spring onions or seaweed. 

Making Miso Soup

I love miso soup and I asked a couple of my Japanese friends how they do it at home. I wanted to avoid making miso soup entirely from a packet but I didn't have time to make traditional dashi from scratch.

So here's my 'home cooked version' of miso soup. It doesn't take long to make a good miso soup at home.

Simply put, miso soup is made of dashi stock + konbu (seaweed) + miso paste.

1/  Make the dashi. Put the 'fish sachet' in a pot of water. Use 1 sachet for about 500-600ml water. If you're making more, you might want to put two dashi packs in. Bring to boil. 

DASHI

Dashi stock is basically fish stock made out of bonito flakes. The traditional way of making dashi usually takes an hour. I have found easier options in Nijiya or Mitsuwa supermarket.

This is a packet of pure dried shave bonito. I place the fish flakes in a tea bag holder (see below) This keeps the fish flakes in the packet and you can discard the packet after it has sufficiently flavored the soup.

This dashi pack is called "Iriko". It comprises of sardines, bonito, yeast extract and sardine extract. One packet should be enough for 600 ml.

This wafu dashi is in powdered granule form. It is an all-in-one dashi soup stock. (it has bonito extract and even kelp powder). No coloring, MSG or artificial addtives added.

2/ Add the konbu 

KONBU

You can add real konbu seaweed (sold dried in packets) or in powder form. 

3/ Add miso paste. 2Tbsp for 600ml and  3-4 Tbsp for 1 litre. Adjust taste. Miso is salty so add gradually.  

MISO PASTE

White miso paste is used for miso soup. My japanese friend tells me that most of the brands are the same. I picked up this brand at Nijiya as it had dashi and miso and it worked well. 

I found this miso paste at Lion supermarket in San Jose. I picked it up as it had no MSG and was GMO free. This paste is a little darker but also works well with miso soup. 

Other Ingredients

I usually add shimeiji mushrooms, soft tofu and very finely chopped spring onions. For an added seafood taste, I love to add clams. The best of course, is to use fresh clams. However I recently found out from my Japanese friend that you can buy frozen clams in small packets in the frozen section in Nijiya. It doesn't replace the taste of fresh live clams but its really convenient to open a packet after a long day at work. 

Provencal Fish Stew

Fall is here and it's time to enjoy warm comfort soups. I decided to make a simplified version of the French fisherman's soup: Bouillabaisse. It's nice to take a look at Julia Child's video. Check out her enormous cleavers.

I tried a simple version of Boilliabaisse from Ina Garten's cookbook, Make it Ahead - Provencal Fish Stew with Siracha Rouille. You can make the fish stock, the base of the soup and the rouille earlier in the day and when guests come, you can add the seafood.

Make the Fish Stock 
duration: half an hour
I used an enormous fish head for my fish stock. (It cost me $5 for this 1.5 pound fish head)
You can add fish bones as well. The more the merrier.

1/2 pounds fish bones and heads
2 cups dry white wine
4 cups water
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped and peeled carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 bay leaf, 1 sprig of thyme
3 sprigs parsley

1/ Get your fishmonger to remove the gills for you. Clean the head of any blood.
2/ Combine all the ingredients in a large pot. Bring to boil and turn heat to medium low. Simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the stock and set aside for next stage

Make the base of the Fish Stew (adapted from Ina Garten's Make it Ahead) 
duration: one and a half hour

6 Tbsp olive oil
1.5 cups chopped onion
1.5 cups (3/4 inch diced) Yellow Bell Pepper
2.5 cups (3/4 inch diced) fennel bulb
1 tsp saffron threads
pinch of red pepper flakes
4 oil packed anchovies, drained and minced
1/4 cup minced garlic
1 cup dry white wine
3 cups seafood stock (see above)
1 can (28 ounce) diced tomatoes
1 strip of orange zest
3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
1.5 pounds fresh fish
36 fresh mussels debearded
prawns and squid

1/ Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat
2/ Add onions, bell pepper, fennel, saffron and red pepper flakes and cook for 15 minutes, stirring  occasionally until vegetables are tender.
3/ Add the anchovies and garlic, cook for one minute. Add the wine, bring to boil and cook for 2 minutes
4/ Add the seafood stock, tomatoes, orange zest, orange juice, 1 Tbsp salt and 1.5 tsp black pepper. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer uncovered for 25 minutes.

(At this point, if you are preparing this for a dinner party, you can store the soup and take it out later when friends arrive)

Make the Sriracha Rouille (adapted from Ina Garten's Make it Ahead)
Duration 10 minutes
This garlicky mayonnaise goes so well with the fish stew. Serve it on toast or spoon it directly into the soup

3 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp saffron threads
2 large egg yolks (room temperature)
1.5 Tbsp lemon juice (room temperature)
1 tsp Sriracha chilli
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/ Puree the garlic, salt and saffron in a food processor
2/ Add egg yolk, lemon juice and Sriracha and blend for 5 seconds
3/ With machine running, pour olive oil in a thin steady stream.

This recipe is easy to prepare when you have a blender. The texture of the rouille was thick like butter. You can make this ahead an put it in fridge.

Prepare seafood and cook in Soup 
Duration 20 minutes

Mussels:
This was the first time I cooked mussels. The important thing was to keep it alive. As soon as I brought them back from the supermarket, I placed them in a colander filled with ice cubes. Placed the colander on top of a shallow plate (to collect any water) and placed it in the fridge. When ready to cook, clean mussels, de-beard them and chuck the dead ones.

Prawns:
Peel and de-vein prawns

Squid:
Get your fishmonger to remove the hard bits of the squid. Cut into slices

Fish:
I bought different types of fish. Catfish and halibut

1/ Reheat the soup base
2/ Cook the fish in the broth first. Be careful not to overcook.
3/ Add squid and prawns and mussels
4/ Serve immediately!

What to do with my tomato crop?

So I planted heirloom tomatoes in my garden box in the springtime. It's one of the easiest vegetables to grow for a novice gardener. Now in July, the tomatoes are ripening aplenty. And I am getting a bounty of tomatoes. I have to constantly think up more recipes to use up the tomatoes.  

A recipe I always fall back on is Shakshuka. 

(Adapted from Ottolenghi and Tamimi's cookbook, Jerusalem)

This is my adapted recipe: 

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

2 tsp tomato paste

2 large red peppers (diced)

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1tsp ground cumin

5 large, very ripe tomatoes, chopped

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add garlic, onions, pepper, cumin and 3/4 tsp salt. Stir and cook until peppers soften. Add the tomatoes and gently simmer the sauce. Cook until you have a thick sauce. Season accordingly.  It's that simple. You can either make small dips in the sauce and cook a few eggs in the sauce (be sure to watch them and don't overcook)

Or you can put the shakshuka sauce into jars and give it to friends as a gift (to make for breakfast).  Or freeze them for another lazy sunday morning. It's all good. 

How to get you kids to like vegetables

I have a picky eater in my house so I am constantly trying to re-invent vegetables.
Recently my husband gave me a tapas cookbook and I discovered a wonderful stuffed mushroom recipe which I adapted slightly.

I fry some pancetta in my frying pan. Then I cut out the mushroom stalks, dice them and add it to the pancetta in the frying pan. Then, in a separate bowl, I stir some breadcrumbs, lemon rind and chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. I add the pancetta mix to the breadcrunbs and fill up the mushrooms and mini bellpepers. Pop it into the oven to bake for 15 minutes. Who says Sunday dinners had to be roast meat? My kids loved it!

How to train a picky eater - fishcakes

Happy New Year! One of my new year resolutions is to entice my children with wonderful ingredients. 

It's Jan and I find myself with lots of left over mash. Costco makes wonderful creamy mash (only for the festive season). This makes a good short cut to comfort food for busy parents or career gals and guys. It's a good idea to stock up on this in your fridge / freezer. 

Here's a simple recipe for the kids and yourself to enjoy!

1/ It really just takes 10 minutes to steam some nutritious cauliflower and carrots. Blend the vegetables into a pulp. 

2/ Combine left over mash, blended vegetables, 1Tbsp capers, 4 anchovies, 2 Tbsp lemon juice, 2 hard boiled eggs, 1 fillet cooked salmon (or any fish), chopped dill, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix and mash. This is the perfect way to disguise those vegetables. I usually involve the kids in this process. They love mashing the ingredients together. They totally forget that there's vegetables inside. I also talk to them about the new ingredients like capers and anchovies and they're hooked.

3/ Shape into patties, dust with flour, dip in a beaten egg and coat in matzo meal or panko breadcrumbs. Fry in oil. Serve with cucumber salad and a dollop of sour cream. 

More leftover turkey recipe ideas for post thanksgiving

Tons of leftover turkey post-thanksgiving. What do you do to spice up the meat? I make turkey and fried potato with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. 

1/Chop potatoes into one-inch cubes. Fry with olive oil. 2/ Add one tsp ground cumin, one chilli (sliced) 4 cloves crushed garlic, salt to taste and a squeeze of lemon. 3/ Top with leftover turkey. 4 Accompany with salad leaves. 5/ Top with a poached egg

Bang Bang Turkey Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson's book FEAST
Dress chicken with a spicy sauce and accompany with salad
Nigella's spicy sauce contains hot oil (4 Tbsp), 3Tbs peanut butter, 2 Tbsp chinese chilli bean sauce(I used laoganmama), 1.5 Tbsp black vinegar and 1 Tbsp castor sugar   

What to do with pumpkins

So you're just finished with halloween and you have an enormous amount of pumpkins in your pantry. What do you do? Besides making pumpkin soup, here's another way to use up the orange squash. 

Steamed Fish with pumpkins

1-2 big banana leaves (you can get this frozen in the asian supermarket)
1 Trout, cleaned and descaled
2 Shallots
2 cloves garlic chopped
3 cilantro roots, chopped
1Tbsp soya sauce
2 lemongrass stalks, halved crosswise and crushed
8 thin slices galangal
200g pumpkin, cut into wedges
1 handful of basil to garnish

1/ Rinse the fish and rub the inside and outside with salt

2/ Coarsely pound shallots, garlic, cilantro root in motar and pestle

3/ Add soya sauce and stuff mixture in fish cavity

4/ Lay banana leaves in a shallow bowl and place the bowl in a steamer

5/ Put lemongrass and galangal on the banana leaf. Lay the fish over and arrange pumpkin around it

6/ Steam for 20 mins

Recipe adapted from Thailand, the Cookbook, by Jean-Pierre Gabriel)

Bruschetta Breakfast

This simple assembly brings to mind my travels in Andalusia, spain. It's super-easy to whip up, for a quick snack. 

Here's how:

Take two slices of bread and spray with olive oil. I used to use store-bought olive oil spray until I had enough of the packaging waste. Now, I use my Misto spray a lot. Place toasts in broiler and toast till brown on the edges.

Take one tomato...and yes, I'm using a bread knife. Apparently, bread knives are good for cutting tomatoes. Slice tomato in half

Place one half tomato facing down on chopping board so it is does not move about. Carefully place your fingers on top and firmly hold down tomato; and slice across (making about 4 slices)

Slice the same tomato horizontally and then, vertically across. 

Slice a small piece of garlic and rub it on the surface of the toast (I observed this technique in the coffee shops in Andalusia)

Drizzle (good quality olive oil) on top of chopped tomatoes and sprinkle some fresh cracked pepper and salt. Assemble your bruschetta and sprinkle with some chopped parsley