Bite On It!

*dust away all the cob webs*

Hello! Gosh… it has been a long time since I update this blog! Well, life has certainly been busy  since my little girl is very mobile now… so I have to chase after her most of the time! I don’t cook many fancy dishes since I conceived as I have to rush through each afternoon before meal time. And since my little girl is eating what we are eating now, most of the dishes has to be non-spicy. It is either steamed fish/chicken or just soup most of the time.

We normally have lotus roots or corn soup since most of us like the taste and they are extremely easy to prepare. I will add more ingredients such as honey dates or almonds to make it more nutritional… like what I am sharing today… a very simple vegetarian soup which is full of flavors but less the cholesterol.

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Ingredients

• ½ section Arrow root (about 300g)
• 2 ears Corn
• 3-4 sticks Carrots
• 8-10 Water chestnuts
• 100g Groundnuts
• 3-4 pcs Honey dates
• 5-8 pcs Red dates (optional)
• 2.5L Water

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Method

1. Heat up water in a deep pot. Remove the arrow root’s skin and slice it into ½ inch thick and toss into the pot quickly to avoid it from turning brown.
2. Cut corns into small sections and carrots into cubes.
3. Clean the water chestnuts (cut away the top and bottom) but keep the skin on. Use a clever and smack it lightly so it will crack up.
4. In separate smaller pot, boil the groundnuts with some water to remove dirt and colors.
5. Toss everything into the pot and let it boil before turning the heat into small to slowly boil for 2 hours.

*Gasp* *sweep away the spider webs*

Can’t believe I have abandoned this house for so long… again! Yes, life with 2 kids is like that when I don’t have any helpers at home to do those long life chores…

It is not that I don’t cook now. Just much lesser than before. Normally I only do simple steaming, cooking a big pot of soup to last the whole day or doing one pot dish like what I am sharing today.

Curry is my favorite but my boy can’t take spicy food so I have literally cut out cooking a lot of spicy food since he started eating table food. That’s why you can see the recipes here has altered so much since its inception where I used to share loads of spicy dishes’ recipes.

Then I heard from some bento friends that Japanese Curry is not spicy at all and suitable for kids. These curry usually comes in cubes form and I was not a fan of using food cubes to cook but as curiosity kicks in, I decided to give it a try!

So, one fine day while I was shopping in the local Japanese grocer, I picked up a box of the recommended Japanese Curry (Vermont brand) taking the least spicy one…

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Ingredients

• 500g Beef/Chicken/Pork cubes
• 2 bulbs Onions (I used the Bermuda Onions – big and bronze in color)
• 2 large Potatoes – cut into cubes
• 1 stick Carrot (large) – cut into cubes
• 850ml Water (put less if you want thicker sauce)

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Method

1. Sauté the onions, carrot and potato cubes with some oil till light brown and add in the beef/chicken/pork cubes and stir for a while.
2. Add in the water and let it simmer on low fire for about 20 minutes so the meat will be soften before you add in those curry cubes.
3. Simmer for a further 10 minutes or so to let the sauce thicken and it is ready to be served hot with white rice. Yum~

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Normally there are English instructions given when you purchased this particular brand but other brands are in Japanese.

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May the year of the Golden Bunny brings you abundance of joy, good health, love and prosperity!

Gong Xi Fa Chai!

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xoxo

Angeleyes

Oh my! Has not been updating this poor blog for so long! *wipe away the cob webs*

Well, I have been busy doing lots of bento creations lately so kind of neglected this blog. I still cook and explored new recipes, just that I do not have much time to update them in here. Will try to be more consistent with my postings here as I have quite a few back dated recipes to share. Also, the kids have been taking up a lot of my time since baby is more mobile now.

Today, I wanted to share a very yummy deep fried pork cutlet or commonly known as tonkutsu recipe given by a very talented mom from Hawaii. I actually asked for this recipe more than a year ago *blushed* and only now did I cook this it! That was because I seldom do deep frying since the day my hubby took over the mop from me! So, each time I do frying in the kitchen, I must do a thorough clean up. Since I am such a lazy bum now, I have resorted to do steaming and broiling only!

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Ingredients

• 3 slices Pork chop/cutlet (about 1cm thick)
• 1 Egg
• Some corn flour (the original recipe asked for flour)
• Some Bread crumbs (panko)
• Sugar  ( I used brown sugar)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder (optional)
• 1 tbsp Water
• Oil for frying

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Methods

1. Clean the pork slices then tenderize the meat by using the back of the clever in a criss-cross pattern. Used some kitchen napkins and absorb all excess  liquid.
2. Sprinkle the sugar, pepper, garlic powder and salt onto meat and gently rub them on both sides.
3. Heat up frying pan with oil (enough to fill half the pan) and test with chopstick before frying.
4. Firstly, put the corn flour onto a flat plate and coat both sides of the meat.
5. In another plate, beat egg and add water. After coating the meat with corn flour, coat it with the egg mixture.
6. In another flat plate, fill it with bread crumbs/panko. After coating the meat with egg, coat it with the bread crumbs before frying it in the pan.
7. Keep heat at medium so the bread crumbs would not burn so easily. Fry till golden brown/cooked.

One thing I like to do is mimic dishes that I have eaten in restaurants or stalls which I really like. More so if they are easy to cook type of dishes which do not require a host of ingredients.

My uncle who lives in Ipoh (a town in the northern part of Malaysia) loves to go to this restaurant called Man Choong which serves quite good Chinese dishes. He is a regular there so we get good serving size each time we dine there.

One of their vege dishes attracted my attention sometime back and I so wanted to do that at home but do not have the ingredients. So, one day I went to get a can of dace with preserved black beans to just try out. I have stopped eating canned dace for a while ever since the scare of mercury and was banned but it has been some time now and I think the manufacturers already got those contaminted ones removed.

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Ingredients

• 300g Yau Mak Tam (Romaine Lettuce)
• 1/2 can Dace with preserved black beans
• Soy sauce for taste

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Methods

1. Wash and dried the yau mak tam.
2. In a wok, heat up some oil (I used the oild from the can of dace) and pour in half a can of dace and stir fry for a minute.
3. Toss in the yau-mak-tam and stir till well mix.
4. When the yau-mak-tam starting to look limpy, sprinkle some soy sauce and give a quick stir before dishing up.