Archive rice | The Sugar Bar

Jan 20 2010

Prawn, Shiitake & Tofu Ankake Donburi

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!

22 comments | posted in Japanese, rice, savoury, seafood, shellfish, vegetables

Nov 19 2009

Onigiri with Plum Furikake

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.

13 comments | posted in Japanese, rice, savoury

Feb 7 2009

Japanese Sweet & Sour Fried Aubergine

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.

21 comments | posted in Japanese, rice, savoury, vegetables