The Sugar Bar » rice

Line’s Engaged, but I’m still there.

diva — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:17:19 +0000

If anyone’s been wondering where I’ve been, or why I haven’t been as ‘sociable’ on Twitter and blogs, please do not be offended. I’m at the moment rushing one last paper that was given to us over the Easter break and it’s been taking up more time than I expected. The arguments are in my head but we’re sort of getting nowhere. Ideas aren’t transforming into words which is a real pain as you writers out there will know. Pen’s bleeding all over the paper but I’m as eloquent as a duck. It’s not even writers’ block really. What would you call this – writers’ constipation?

I promise I’ll be back on the game give another week. Paper’s due on 6th of May and thereafter, I’ll be back with twice the enthusiasm, banter and general nutter-ness as per usual. Have a great weekend everyone and Happy May Day!

Here’s a little something to keep your eyes busy – one part of a new lunchbox I bought from Paperchase yesterday (about time I got a cute one over the functional clip-and-lock bollocks I’ve got in the pantry cupboard) – seasoned rice with sansai vegetables, pickles and sakura denbu. Yes the latter’s the pink fluffy powder you see there and it’s made from codfish. Brilliant, no?

Two Egg Inari Sushi

diva — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:27:16 +0000

On my days off, I am faced with mountains of readings, seminar prep work and the banal job of tidying and cleaning my apartment. That’s just dead boring. Academia has turned me into a boring fool so of course, I turn away from the books, humour myself and my tummy with one day of absolute food whoring. What that entails is travelling through London for ingredients (rain or shine – that means I gotta have a wet weather plan ready), quick coffee stop to rest shopping-bag-tired me with extra time factored in to browse some interesting shops I find along my way, journey back home to cook up a storm (or not) before the sun sets and all hopes of decent food photos are dashed.

A very long sentence that was. But it aptly reflects how much I do within the space of about 2-4hours zipping back and forth via bus or tube with a gianormous shopping bag. Pretty much a whirlwind of things happening, to do and yet-to-do, which is probably why slow walkers and confused tourists with huge suitcases frustrate me a little when I’m rushing against time (the sun set remember?). And when some hoity toity lady with a Louis Vuitton bag decides to squeeze past me onto the tube, nearly trodding on my toes with that knife-like stiletto heel and catching the wire of my iPod earphones resulting in me having to discreetly follow her until I can safe dislodge that caught wire from her handbag WITHOUT appearing like I’m trying to pickpocket her, I’m just that close to giving up and jumping into a taxi like a true diva. But that I don’t do. I bite my lip, pull my cap lower and blast up the rock music. Simply have to live within my means, don’t I?

I love going out for sushi but unknown to many, sushi is a bit of an occasion food. It’s a treat and unless it’s bento-style, we don’t really have it unless there’s something to celebrate or someone to reward it with. But it’s also a very tasty, clean food that’s popularly marketed now as a ‘health food’ or an ‘on-the-go’ kinda snack. Sometimes, I have sushi for lunch at work or if I’ve had time to prep it the night before, that goes into my bento as well. It’s not messy to eat, looks great, tastes great and cheap to prepare as well (depending on your toppings of course). And because it’s a very special treat-food, it makes me feel like I’m taking care of myself well. But what with the cold, I’ve found myself sticking to hot soups and stews of late and therefore neglecting any cravings for sushi. I can safely say my day off is now very productive – I food-shopped, I made sushi enough to feed me for 2 meals and I totally whored it out.

Was watching something the other day and this sentence stuck with me: “Food is medicine for your body.” That’s very true as food is what feeds your body, repairs the muscles, looks after your bones and organs, etc. It is essential and something that shouldn’t be avoided like the plague but celebrated and enjoyed. Of course, don’t overdo it and become a million stone baby. A good balance is what should be had. So anyway, here my post dedicated to bringing some colour/happiness (despite the grey) to the kitchen and to enjoying the simple pleasures of food which should be an occasion in itself!

In a previous How to Prepare Sushi post, you might have seen my plain inari sushi, naked but for a humble sprinkling of black goma seeds. This time, I opted for a blast of sunshine in the form of 2 types of egg topping.

Recipe yields 8 sushi.

Two Egg Inari Sushi
Ingredients
sushi rice (recipe here)

Tobiko roe is a lot smaller than ikura roe with a bit more of a crunch. Plain tobiko has a lovely bright orange colour but you can find them coloured with wasabi, squid ink and yuzu orange – the first two being my most favourite.

Ikura roe has a salty, oily flavour. If you’re a first timer to it, you might be put off by its strong taste of the sea and aftertaste. Gari sushi pickle will help remove that aftertaste and cleanse the palate.

Have used these lovely Burford Brown eggs for a denser flavour and colour

Ingredients for Scrambled Eggs

To cook scrambled eggs for bento or sushi topping I recommend using a pair of chopsticks to get that fluffy scrambled texture. Japanese scrambled eggs will differ from the usual British grub scrambled eggs which tends to be a little wetter, milkier and held-together rather than beaten and fluffed up to resemble minced meat.

Beat the eggs in a bowl. Add the sugar, sake and a little salt to taste. Beat. Pour into a heated saucepan which has a few drops of vegetable oil in it. Cook initially on a medium heat.

When the outer edges starts to cook and pull away from the sides of the pan, turn the heat down to low. Using your chopsticks, stir quickly and continuously as though whipping the eggs. When you can see the eggs quickly losing its wetness (this cooking process can happen quite quickly depending on your cooking hob), you may want to pull the saucepan away from the heat but still stir the eggs until its all cooked through and has lost all wetness. Be careful not to expose it to too much heat or cook for too long as the eggs can start to colour from being fried and become too dry.

To assemble the sushi:

Have age wraps, sushi rice, scrambled eggs and fish roe neatly prepped in front of you from left to right respectively as you’ll move from the first ingredient onto the next left to right. I use a wooden chopping board to make the sushi on as well before transferring into a bento box or plate.

Gently split open the prepared age wraps down the middle. If you’ve made these age wraps from scratch, slice them down the middle and open it carefully from the sliced side. Don’t open them all the way or you’ll split the bottom of the age ‘bag’. Spoon about 2 tbs of sushi rice into the bag and gently press and mould into the bag. As I fill it, I give the bag a gentle tapping against the chopping board to give it a nice flat bottom so that it doesn’t topple over. Ensure your rice is evenly filled so that the inari sushi can stand fairly stable on its own.

Using a pair of chopsticks, fill half the inari with scrambled eggs. Make sure you fill round the sides of the scrambled egg half so that none of the rice can be seen. If there are any empty pockets between the age and the rice, you may fill it with scrambled egg as well.

Using a spoon for the ikura and chopsticks for the tobiko (I find chopsticks are easier to handle the smaller roe), fill the other half of the sushi and make sure you’re careful to fill the sides as well so that the age doesn’t end up pulling away from the rice or have any empty pockets showing.

Fill the rest of the age wraps and you’ve got 8 yummy two egg inari sushi.

How to Prepare Sushi Rice

diva — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:51:30 +0000

I made inari sushi for my lunch bento last weekend (simple the quickest and the easiest!) and wasn’t intending to blog it at all. The pictures of it were merely to pass the time because I was bored of my readings and needing a bit of a breather in the form of cooking and gazing out the window whilst waiting for whatever’s on the hob to be done cooking. But everyone’s been asking about my bento (it’s not prettily dressed up, no time for that!), how to make sushi rice and where they can buy it readymade, etc. so I thought a quick post on it would be pretty useful. I don’t normally post ‘how to’ stuff because I don’t see myself as being qualified to write from a detailed and instructive position. Sushi rice, however, is dead easy and after lots of practise, I can quite possibly prepare it half asleep! You only need these simple steps (and ingredients) to get the foundations set for all the sushi possibilities.

Once you get the hang of it, you won’t be wanting to buy readymade or cracking your brain to figure out the compositions, etc. I’m sure.

Recipe yields 4 servings

Sushi Rice
Ingredients

Cooking the rice:
To cook the rice, soaking and washing are the first important steps to getting the right texture. Of course you can use an electric rice-cooker that does the cooking time estimation and water measurements all for you which is real simple. But I like to cook mine old school in a saucepan.

Place rice in a heavy-based saucepan and cover with water. Let it sit to soak for 20 mins. Pour away the water and rinse in cold water (use your hands to sieve through the grains and remove any unwanted particles, kinda like searching for gold nuggets), then drain. Repeat the rinsing process twice, then drain. You may choose to wash the rice twice but I always wash mine thrice out of habit.

Add 400ml water to the pan (cooking rice efficiently means using the right amount of water to cook it). Put a lid on, bring to the boil then reduce heat and let simmer until all the water is cooked off, about 10-12 mins. Turn heat off and leave for about 5 mins with lid on for the rice to steam a little more to perfection.

Before using the cooked rice, use a wooden rice spatula to stir and fluff up the rice.

The sushi dressing:
Put the rice vinegar in a small saucepan or milkpan and heat gently. When warm, add the sugar and salt and mix to dissolve. Bring to the boil then remove from heat. Set aside and allow to cool.

Add the sushi dressing to the cooked rice and carefully mix in. If the rice is still a little too hot to handle between your hands, set the lid 3/4 over the pan of rice and allow to cool a little more until its comfortable for shaping, etc.

Sushi rice, done.

Prawn, Shiitake & Tofu Ankake Donburi

diva — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:38:38 +0000

I made a very similar dish earlier on Monday. I had just gotten home from uni, starving, cold, and just a tiny bit cranky. In such a volatile state, it was very likely I would’ve succumbed to the lazy option of a bowl of cereal. Oddly enough, I prepared a prawn & tofu stew of sorts using mirin, sake, miso, smoked pancetta (yea, odd one out) and lots of negi. It worked and I think a part of me was shocked it had because honestly, cranky cooking isn’t always a very wise thing to do.

I wanted to recreate the flavours for a donburi. Why I was so motivated to have a donburi was also due to my newly purchased bowl. You can check it out in the pictures. It’s even got a cute little ceramic cover like those claypots you normally see at Chinese restaurants. Was unbelievably chuffed all of yesterday about my bowl. I even got it out and showed it to the flatmate and her boyrfriend too. I was all giggles and big grins. And you know what else I absolutely love about my new bowl? If I wanted to have pickles with my donburi, all I need to do is to flick over the cover which is helping to keep my just-cooked meal nicely warm, put the pickles on the underside of the cover which when flipped, acts as a little side-dish. How awesome is that! Most donburi bowls I find are a little too large so I end up filling it up to only halfway which looks a little silly. And if I fill it all the way, it’s too much food for me to consume at a go (actually I lie, sometimes I can eat a horse if you could bang it up into a soup and therefore downsize it into mouth-friendly portions- sorry if that was crude). This guy is just purrr-fact.

In my walk-in kitchen – and I call it that because it’s so ridiculously small and crappy I could cry – I own very little. 1 cereal bowl, 2 plates, 2 Cath Kidston mugs (1 given to me for my birthday), 1 milkpan and small frying pan (given to me by S’s mum for my birthday as well), 1 glass mixing bowl, 1 colander, some cooking utensils and cutlery. That is literally owning next to nothing. And I don’t complain because the kitchen has very little to offer as well: no oven, 2 ridiculously tempermental electric hobs, zero work space, 1 crapbag microwave/grill, next-to-zero pantry cupboard space – and that is something we can’t change since we’re all moved in and literally living in the coolest, trendiest bit of Central London. So gifting myself this humble bowl makes me very happy and even happier to use it. (I thought about an ice cream maker but that in comparison to my small kitchen would be a monster of gadget.)

But anyhow, another recent purchase was the Everyday Harumi cookbook, just one of the cookbooks I’ve had on my Amazon wishlist for a while now. The pictures in here are seriously good and the recipes so easy to follow (very similar to things my mum would cook at home – a very heartwarming cookbook). It’s too bad for the others that they didn’t get purchased but I thought was a longtime coming. After flipping through it, I was glad to see a recipe for something quite similar and incorporating an ankake sauce. This sauce is made by thickening seasoned dashi stock with a potato starch and water mix. It is very tasty and goes so wonderfully well with rice; therefore making donburi one of the best comfort foods for me. When the day is as grey as heck from morning til evening, surely a bowl of rice will bring a little sunshine into my cupboard-sized bedroom?

I haven’t followed Harumi’s recipe exactly. In fact, I’ve used some different ingredients but I’ve basically followed her ankake sauce recipe quite closely. I think this dish is spanking good and you can try it with loads of other types of ingredients. Smoked pancetta cubes was a bit of an odd one out. But I do love pairing it with prawns and seafood in general – as you can see from my past King Prawn Pancetta Fried Rice post. Very comforting, very easy to make. I have a feeling my mama would be proud.

A little word about potato starch – you can find this in Asian supermarkets. I got a packet which cost a little over a quid from my Japanese grocer – a really large packet actually so it’s good to invest in it and just keep it in the pantry for future use. Also, potato starch is a lot stronger than cornstarch as a thickening agent so you don’t need large quantities to get the required texture. It mixes a lot easier than cornstarch I find, so you don’t get those bitty pockets of starch like if you used cornstarch or worse, plain flour.

This recipe yields 2 servings.

Prawn, Shiitake & Tofu Ankake Donburi
Ingredients

Prepare vegetables. Clean mushrooms, trim the stalks and either finely slice them or leave them whole and star the top with a knife. This ensures that it gets cooked through (similar concept to brussel sprouts) and also looks pretty. My mum prepares it with the star for oden hotpots but I generally like to cook my shiitake mushrooms this way.

For the ankake sauce: In a small bowl, add the soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar to prepared dashi stock. You may use any type you’ve got on hand but I prefer using a sardine or bonito one as it gives a bigger flavour than kelp stock I find. Mix together thoroughly and set aside. In another bowl, mix together the potato starch with a tbs of cold water. You’ll need to give it a quick mix again before using as this will settle whilst you let it stand.

In a large frying pan or wok, heat some oil. When hot, add the garlic, pancetta cube and red onions. Sauté. Then add the negi/spring onions, mushrooms and prawns.

Add the ankake sauce mixture. When it comes to a boil, add the potato starch mix to thicken the sauce, stirring so that it becomes thicker evenly without bits of jellified starch.

Separate hot cooked rice into two donburi bowls, serve the ankake over it. Garnish with chopped negi/spring onions and sesame seeds. Finally, take a deep breath, savour the gorgeous smell and tuck in!

Onigiri with Plum Furikake

diva — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:17:35 +0000

Busy people call for fast food. And that’s probably a reason why my mum gave me Nigella’s Fast Food cookbook last Christmas. Not that I’m a crazily busy person but I have a tendency to forget to eat or whip up the strangest and most unfulfilling meals for one if I’m busy with essays and deadlines. In the cover of the book, mum wrote me a very sweet note, part of which she mentioned that dad and her realized I hadn’t been given anything substantial for a few Christmases now. Hence, she hopes I’ll enjoy the cookbook and continue with my cooking and baking journey.

Sweet, eh?

And surely, this post has nothing to do with Nigella? Onigiri doesn’t seem Nigella-ish at all. There’s no large knobs of butter or fat in it. Uh-oh, problem here? Not really. Nigella’s Fast Food brings recipes quick and easy to prepare that don’t compromise on taste or eyeball-appeal actually. I’ve not tried many of the recipes from it, but the ones I’ve attempted are pretty damn good. Which brings me to the point of this post – easy, quick, pretty comfort food for busy people (or lazy ones). Make this the day before, pop’em in the fridge and you’ve got your portable lunch sorted for the next day or any mid-day cravings.

Onigiri, or Japanese rice balls, are popular little snacks you find in bentos or all wrapped up individually available in convenience stores (of Japan) or sushi bars (of London). And it’s the best late-night snack, in my opinion. I dislike late-night snacking and therefore I don’t do supper. But evening college, somehow, has got me late-night snacking loads and not wanting anything greasy, or boring like a piece of toast, all I want is a flavoursome rice ball, a cuppa tea (if I can handle the caffeine) and then bedtime.

I hadn’t made anything that reminded me of home lately and definitely haven’t gotten very hands-on in the kitchen. Holed up in my room, I’m constantly doing my readings, checking my emails and Blackberry, contacting people to do this and do that or what have I not done, running to uni to use the printer or getting books out of the library, getting distracted by Twitter, etc. Sorting out my 3 main meals (actually 4 really) becomes quite tricky and a chore after a while. I hate to say it, but sometimes I’m relying on things like instant pot noodles, instant soup packets, instant instant instant. And it makes me feel a little gross inside. Anything instant is surely a little wrong somewhere.

So getting back into the kitchen was a great feeling. And having the hot freshly cooked rice in my hands, moulding it as I went along was very refreshing and kept my thoughts from straying back to my work and my readings. Cooking can be relaxing and gave me a bit of a breather. Looking at my cute triangular handiwork at the end of it was pretty rewarding too and I went back to my readings after feeling more awake and revived than if I’d just had a double shot espresso. Effective!

But eating it is still the best bit.

I quite like onigiri with shiozake filling (salted salmon flakes) but I didn’t have any of this available and I wanted my onigiri just uncomplicated for a simple lunch or late-night snack. I love adding nori seaweed strips to them but I was making this to keep in the fridge for a few days into the week so the seaweed would’ve gotten soggy by then. Thought these looked cute without any anyway. Alternatively, keep your seaweed strips separately and add to onigiri before eating. For more information on onigiri, I find Just Hungry a good website for that. It’s also got an FAQ page for the curious.

***A tip for shaping your onigiri: use the flesh between your thumb and index to form the triangular points. If you put touch the index finger of your right hand to the left’s and the thumb of your right to your left’s, it gives you a triangle yes? Support the rice ball with your left palm, and use that bit of your right hand to shape one corner. At the same time, use your left and gently start to form the other corner. Then turn anti-clockwise, and let your right hand continue to form that pre-shaped corner.

Easy Onigiri
Ingredients
For 4 regular sized onigiri:

Use only fresh, hot cooked rice. You’ll find it hard to shape rice that’s cold or a day old. Make sure hands are clean as well, obviously for hygiene reasons and to ensure that no other flavours go into your onigiri.

Wet hands with cold water. This will help keep the rice from sticking and make it easier to shape. Take nearly a cupful of rice and place into your hand. Form a little dent in the middle if you are using a filling and put about a tsp into it. Gently close up your palm and wrap the rice around the filling and form into a ball.

You can form your onigiri into balls or shape them into triangular ones. Wrap with nori seaweed or leave it naked.Make sure you work quickly or the rice will start to stick to your hands. Place on a plate to let cool whilst you work on the others.

Wet hands with cold water between each onigiri to prevent sticking.

I leave this to cool to room temperature before wrapping them up in a sandwich bag or placing in a bento box to keep in the fridge.

Japanese Sweet & Sour Fried Aubergine

diva — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:22:01 +0000

Earlier this week, England was completely snowed under and it was pretty amazing. It was freezing; my mates made rude snowmen and married them to a sex doll; everyone was falling over and occasionally pummelled to the ground by snowballs; the rugby pitch was dotted randomly with massive (and I really mean massive) snowballs as though aliens had descended on our campus in an effort to join in on the snow fun. The days after that weren’t too fantastic though. Trains weren’t always working, flights were cancelled, some people were snowed in their houses and the snow turned to sludge. One of my mates even pulled a muscle in his leg from walking in such a tense manner to uni. If there’s something I really don’t like about snow is that it turns to sludge – ugly, brown, slippery mess. What is that all about?

Snow’s gorgeous because it’s so pretty. It makes everything look so clean, kinda like someone dusting baby powder onto rooftops, cars, street lamps, etc. It’s pretty, even if snot keeps running down my nose and onto my upper lip (beautiful isn’t it?) as I admire it all. After cursing at the sludge for days, after 3 days of smelling the stench of spray protector (you gotta take care of leather boots in this weather) and suffering from very dry, chapped lips, the sludge fought back! I didn’t fall over thankfully, but I slipped in the middle of the street in broad daylight. The thing about me slipping, is that I make godawful noises. Well, not awful but very peculiar – kinda like a cross between an emu’s call and the screech of a dying chicken — EEEK. At that moment, I was so close to wishing the sludge would just rise up and drown me so no one would notice my embarrassment.

That very day was the day after I went mental in town, shopping to my heart’s content and spending a bloody fortune on clothes. I’d decided to wear a new man-size white shirt over black leggings under my black coat. What happened was that upon slipping on the sludge, that sneaky dirty ex-snow had dared splash up and secure itself as an ugly brown splodge on the ends of my shirt. You can imagine how upset I was and how much I banged on about the bloody sludge. This happened all through my seminar and through lunch. Gosh, I was annoying.

Good thing is that a little vanish and washing powder got all the stain off the shirt but I’m still slightly traumatized from the whole experience. The drama queen in me hasn’t been subdued yet. And somehow, when that drama queen awakens, I get damn hungry. I’ve been craving simple food lately. Something really easy to make, really packing in flavour but clean on the palette. I fried a salmon fillet just yesterday and all that grease in my mouth (I know it’s good omega oils) made me feel a little sick. I had picked up an aubergine earlier this week, so I thought this meal was just perfect for my hunger pangs and would actually cut through whatever grease was left in my system. Besides, I’m never one to refuse a bowl of rice and there’s something that makes me feel so happy when a bowl of rice is served with just one dish. Simplicity at its best.

I don’t really know what this is called but it’s one of the side dishes my mum makes once a week for dinner and it’s just delicious. It’s my favourite side dish and this always goes down real easily with bowls of fragrant steaming rice and daikon pickles. It’s not a hit with my elder sister so it’s not strange to see me wolfing down her portion as well. This is a fantastic alternative to the greasy sweet and sour of Chinese takeaway or lack-lustre storebought bottles of sweet and sour sauce. One, it’s not orange (why is it orange anyway?). Two, it’s so easy to prepare. Three, it tastes bloody good. It’s comfort food. Just make sure your rice is steaming hot, the heating is on and something good is showing on TV.

Sorted!

This recipe serves 2.

Japanese Sweet & Sour Fried Aubergine served with Japanese white rice garnished with bonito flakes
Ingredients

About 25 minutes before cooking, prepare the aubergines. Soak them in salted water immediately after slicing and leave to soak.

In a small bowl, prepare the cooking sauce by combining the vinegar, dashi, soy, sugar and mirin. When ready to cook, heat a fair amount of oil in a large frying pan or wok. Note that aubergines tend to absorb oil very quickly so I would recommend having the vegetable oil ready at hand lest you need to add more to the pan.

Fry the aubergines until they are lightly brown and softened but not golden brown or crispy. Reduce the heat then add the cooking sauce to the pan. If it starts bubbling furiously, lower heat again. Let it simmer until all the cooking sauce is cooked away, thickened and absorbed into the aubergine. Once this is done, remove from heat, drizzle the sesame oil over and add a couple of pinches of white sesame oil to the pan. Stir through and leave covered if your rice isn’t ready. Or, serve immediately with a bowl of steaming white rice and bonito flakes.

Ochazuke (お茶漬け), topped with Sesame Seeds & Nori, and Yakitori (焼き鳥やきとり)

diva — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:44:23 +0000

Ever since I was able to begin helping my mother in the kitchen, rather than simply prancing around in a frilly apron and getting to lick the spoon, I was taught that the preparation of a dish was more about what it did for the person eating it than the effort and thought that went into preparing it. Of course dishes have their own significance, whether it is for festive reasons or for chasing away bad luck for the new year. But, with my Chinese background, it has come to my understanding that every dish is created for the person eating it for a particular reason – to bring happiness, to clear excess air, to cleanse the system after festive eating, to improve blood circulation, to bring radiance to the skin and brightness to the eye, etc. Eating isn’t great because it’s necessary for survival. It isn’t amazing because it’s just scrumptious. It’s marvellous because it’s so clever.

Nothing goes into a dish for no reason. And so, with this mentality in mind, I whipped this up for lunch. After weeks of poor nutrition and sloppy eating, I wanted to make something that would fill me up, be healthy enough, have sufficient amount of protein and vitamins in it, cleanse and cut through all that grease in my system and have a comforting warm broth to chase away the wintry cold. Ochazuke is usually made with leftover rice, just like chahan or egg fried rice. Nothing goes to waste in winter! Get a bowl of rice, top it with whatever you fancy and pour hot green tea over it. Delicious and ready in a flash. Not to forget, it’s good for you. Genius, isn’t it?

Although this dish is very simple, I hear what makes it so good is using good quality ingredients for toppings. I think my efforts came to a B+, good enough for me really! What would make it so much better would be a couple more exciting toppings like umeboshi and some furikake. Despite that, my ochazuke was still utterly comforting and healing. Delicately flavoured and very visually appealing in my opinion. When I make this again, I hope to use grilled eel for the topping as I bet that would make the broth taste insanely good! If you’re wondering what sort of green tea I’ve used, it’s a 旨み濃いめ緑茶: a blend of sencha (煎茶), karigane (かりがね) and matcha (抹茶).

This recipe is good for 1. I highly recommend not being lazy and warming your bowl in the oven before serving, as this makes eating it twice as good!

Ochazuke (お茶漬け)
Ingredients

Wash rice. Soak the rice in water for 20 minutes. Wash and drain. Rinse well. Add rice to the prepared water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then cover and let simmer for 10 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed. Remove from heat and let sit covered for 25 minutes.

Once ready to serve, prepare the green tea of choice. Remember not to use boiling water. Follow the instructions on the packet. Transfer rice to a deep bowl. Top the rice with sesame seeds and seaweed. You can vary your toppings. I’ve kept it simple, clean and easy. Place prepared meat on top and sprinkle with salt. Pour the hot tea over the meat, until it just covers the rice. Serve.

Yakitori (焼き鳥やきとり)
Ingredients

Some recipes have you mix the ingredients together to form a sauce and then boil it so it thickens. You can get yakitori sauce in a bottle as well. But I’ve decided to go for just basting the chicken as it is with a thin sauce since this will go with the ochazuke rather than plain white rice. I didn’t want it to get really saucy and messy since the whole point of the dish is something tasty but clean. I didn’t want the sauce to affect the broth of the ochazuke.

Chop up the spring onions into 1.5 inches long, keeping the white bit from above the roots to about halfway up the green leaves. I find this bit to be the most flavourful. Chop up the chicken into nice bite sizes. Alternating chicken meat with spring onion, skewer them.

Set the grill to about 190d Celsius. Brush and drizzle the prepared yakitori sauce over the skewers and place under the grill. Brush on the sauce every 3 minutes or so. Once the top side is nicely brown, flip over the skewers and baste with the sauce. Repeat the basting process until the skewered meat is cooked through and the chicken is nicely brown. This should take about 20-25 minutes to cook. If you prefer not to cook them under a grill, cooking them over a bbq should be pretty good too.

Japanese Power Breakfast, or Mum’s Power Rice and Sweet Potato Miso

diva — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:12:16 +0000

My mother is a fan of the popular book ‘Japanese Women Don’t Get Old — Or Fat Either’. Although I have yet to read it, I would think it’s quite an interesting read mostly because I consume quite a lot of Japanese food and I absolutely adore the cuisine. As most of you already know, I hardly have time to cook or bake of late due to an office job (which seems to be sapping more and more of my life energy and murdering my precious brain cells second by second) which I am highly unaccustomed to. Sitting around all day at a desk is really soul-sapping and too inactive a lifestyle!

Today, sitting at a desk without a LAN point (meaning zero internet connection and therefore zero access to research), without any assignments — I was at my lowest point. Not to mention, my tummy wasn’t feeling too well and I felt awfully lethargic and confined. In other words, I was in a lot of pain. Thankfully, I was able to leave 2 hours earlier than usual to come back to the comforts of home and to the smell of mum’s cooking. Despite not having anything to do all day, I was still strangely knackered when I stepped through the front door so it was a great joy to be able to have homecooked food prepared by none other than my own mother.

I’ve been in Singapore for about 3 weeks now and have been plagued by discomfort in the tummy quite a bit. After discussing this with Mum and Abby, it seems it boiled down to my inability to adapt to the type of milk found here. And since I take quite a lot of diary products daily, my body can’t seem to adjust as quick as it should or recover quick enough. I am currently now off diary for about a week. It seems quite a difficult task — no cereal with milk in the mornings, no milk in tea or coffee, no cheese on crackers, no yoghurts. It’s going to be very tough!

It is now a mind over matter type of situation. I am gutted; but I desperately want to get well soon so I can get back on track with my yoghurts and cheeses and milk with cereal! I can’t do without them for long. I suspect withdrawal symptoms will start to show if I stay away from them for too long.

Anyway, Mum’s solution to my upset tummy was the Japanese Power Breakfast from the book I mentioned above. Ironic I know. But it was quite the dinner. I could hardly finish everything in my bowl and it did ease the bubbly tummy a little. The meal was followed by my sister Abby’s Amazing Ginger Tea which also did make everything so much better. I feel so much more relaxed and albeit, in a lot less pain.

I don’t know exactly the recipe for the 2 dishes in this post but they’re pretty simple to get the hang of I reckon. Abby’s Ginger Tea requires a handful of fresh pandan leaves, weaved and secured together; some maple syrup; about 5 strips of fresh ginger, thinly sliced; a teaspoon of vanilla essence and about 700ml of water. Place everything in a heavy-based saucepan and bring it to a boil, then simmer and adjust ingredients to taste. This will delight the senses with its wonderful aroma. The ginger is beautiful in clearing the system of excess gas and detoxing in general.

Mum’s version of the Power Breakfast is tofu, beans, boiled egg, cherry tomatoes and spring onions on rice with Japanese sweet potatoes in miso soup. It is quite like a watery Teochew porridge which I really love because I prefer having a bite to the rice in my porridge rather than the creamy thick congee you usually find in Cantonese restaurants and eateries. Prepare all the ingredients in a large rice bowl and ladle hot soup over it till all the rice is covered.

It’s a simple, beautiful dish. The egg and miso come together quite well and the vegetables make the whole dish taste so crisp and clean, non-greasy and easy on the stomach. Full of the ‘good stuff’ and in no way lacking in taste, this bowl of awesome deliciousness has left me craving for more and hoping to replicate this some time soon by myself — for myself!

Yet again, despite my awful pictures (taken in the evening when I’m absolutely shattered with hands shakey from hunger and tiredness), Mum has beaten me in her culinary creations. I am determined to make something mind-blowing this weekend. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully, my stomach’s settled down for good by then too.

King Prawn Pancetta Fried Rice

diva — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:28:32 +0000

I know it’s not cool to post about mundane things or unremarkable dishes. And this isn’t just an excuse to post but after surfing the net and bouncing through foodblogs, I realized that there are a number of people who’ve created fantastic fried rice dishes and yet a number who are quite troubled when it comes to finding the perfect fried rice recipe.

As boring as fried rice may sound, it is quintessential ‘fast food’ and also therefore, sometimes lacking in flavour if not cooked right. Born in Singapore – the land of fried rice – I suppose you can say I was exposed to some of the best plates of rice ever. But equipped with a rather dead tongue, I have no idea how to recreate those flavours and it is also unfortunate that I haven’t got a wonder cook somewhere in the family (ok I do, but you know what I mean by wonder cook when I say wonder cook) to pass down a secret recipe. I bring good tidings, however, and that is that I’ve come close to the ultimate plate of fried rice I used to have in school.

I must have spoken about this briefly once in my Chahan with Shiitake Mushrooms, Greens & Chives post; mainly, about the use of preserved salted fish to flavour the rice, often cooked with a range of vegetables and a combination of cha siew or Chinese roast pork and crispy roasted pork belly. This plate of meaty wonder is then served with loads of fresh, crisp lettuce slices and a fried egg, with the yoke just cooked so its still molten and melty in the middle.

Using the same concept of a flavour booster (the salted fish) and a main meat (pork) and a topping of lettuce, I’ve come close in areas of taste to the hawker fried rice of my childhood. It may not compare in terms of authenticity or ratings but it’s pretty damn good if I can say so myself. What I’ve done, however, is switch around the booster and the main meat, using seafood as the main meat and pork as the flavour booster.

Intrigued?

Smoked pancetta or smoked bacon bits can be used but I find pancetta, cooked alongside chopped garlic in a pan of mild-flavoured oil, such as sunflower oil, infuses more un-overpowering flavour into it than bacon. You may think otherwise, and choose to stick with bacon, that’s fine really. I can never be made to choose which is better anyway because I love pancetta with equal fervour as I do bacon. The prawns act as great absorbers of grease as well if you find pork too oily a meat. Prawns add a great sweetness to the dish and I would highly recommend it over other seafood like squid and fish.

Although the key ingredient here is pancetta, the fish sauce I believe was the second star of the day. Having a beautiful flavour and completely different taste to Chinese soy sauce or Japanese shoyu, it melts wonderfully into the rice, marries the king prawns and gives this fried rice a backbone!

King Prawn Pancetta Fried Rice
Ingredients

In a saucepan, cook the rice in measured amount of water.

In a large frying pan, heat the oil. Add chopped garlic and pancetta and fry together to flavour the oil. Next add the king prawns and fry till it gets a lovely golden brown near crisp outer layer.
Once the rice is cooked, add to the frying pan with the lettuce. Fry till the rice loses most of its moistness. Toss rice with fish sauce, seasoning and oregano as you fry.

Once done, serve on its own or with your favourite vegetable dishes.

Chahan with Shiitake Mushrooms, Greens & Chives

diva — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:36:25 +0000

Egg Fried Rice, Chow Fun, Chahan; all pretty much the same thing. But not one of the three can in any way categorize the best fried rice dish that my mum makes. It’s too good to really put a name to it and I’m glad enough to simply know its taste. Mum’s tip is to use leftover cooked rice from the night before. This sounds as though it can’t be as fresh but the best thing about leftover cooked rice is that it has more of a bite to it then freshly cooked or steamed rice which has the danger of becoming way too moist and tender for frying.

If you don’t usually have a lot of rice lying around, it’s perfectly fine to prepare the rice right before frying. Just make sure to let it steam out some of its moisture. It’s about a month before I’ll be back home for mum’s cooking, so for now it’s me, myself and I cooking for me, myself and I. And yes, my version of fried rice which I must admit isn’t amazing but good enough for a meal in minutes.

Back in primary school, the stall dishing out fried rice was the most popular. Egg fried rice cooked with garden peas, carrots and dried salted fish — every one’s favourite pick-me-up after a boring maths class or strenous physical education class. The salted fish was key for great flavour and the egg fried to perfection — some bits mashed up into the rice and some left as large bits you could sink your teeth into. The egg was flavoured before cooking with the rice but sometimes came off as a little too greasy and salty.

My version is slightly healthier than my primary school fare. Probably not as good. But the cool thing about chahan is you can pretty much vary the ingredients most of the time and tweak it here and there to suit your tastebuds. As long as you know the basics, you’re sorted. This recipe is so simple and quick. For a more Chinese twist, you can use hwa tiao jiu instead of sake.

This recipe is good for 1.

Chahan with Shiitake Mushrooms, Greens & Chives
Ingredients

Cook the rice in 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan.
As it cooks, heat some oil in a hot frying pan. Add the garlic and fry till golden brown. Add the mushrooms and sesame oil to flavour. Lower heat.

Mix the egg into the cooked rice (this should be warm and not hot as you don’t want the egg to cook just yet). Add to the frying pan. Turn up heat and let the rice mixture start to sputter and cook, making sure to toss them about in the frying pan. Add the salad leaves of choice and half of the chopped chives.

When the egg has more or less started firming up as it fries, add the sake and soy sauce; then season to taste. Fry until the rice has lost most of its liquid. Serve on a plate and garnish with the last of the chives.