Asian Food

I was craving for Japanese food last week. Sadly, there is no good Japanese restaurant here. They offer decent sushi, but hot food wise? It's terrible.
So, I browsed the internet (thank God, for internet), and found the recipe for what I want.

Hambaagu (Japanese hamburger)

Recipe from Just hungry
I didn't really follow the recipe to the dot because I was out of several items. But it still turned out decent, and quick dinner.

Croquette

Basically coat leftover mashed potato with flour, egg, and panko bread. And fry it.
Really awesome use of leftover mashed potato. It's a very versatile recipe. You can put veggies, meat or herbs, curry in the mashed potato before you turn it into croquette. I put veggies (carrot, corn and peas) and ground beef in the mashed potato.

Kwetiau Sirem

Surprisingly quick to make.

Somewhat of a direction to make:

1. Boil kwetiaw til soft (2-3 min). Put into a bowl, add about 1 Tbs of oil, oyster sauce, and sesame oil.
2. Heat cooking oil in a wok. Add minced shallot, minced garlic til fragrant. Add meat. Cook til cooked through. Add in vegetables.
   
3. Ad water about 1.5-2 cups. After the water boil, add in salt, pepper, and a bit sugar. Stir.
   
4. In a small bowl, mix 1Tbs cornstarch with a bit of water
5. Add the cornstarch mix to the wok. After the sauce thickens, add in 1 egg. Immediately stir it. Turn heat off.
6. Prepare bowl/plate with kwetiaw. Pour the sauce on top.
   

By the way, kwetiaw is he fen.

What's for dinner?

If you have several hours to burn (about 2 hours). I seriously recommend making these for dinner:

Short Ribs


Recipe: PW Short Ribs
Modi: Used bacon instead of pancetta (but I think it didn't change the flavor much), and simmer it on stove top instead of bake it.
This is seriously good. It's like the ones that's served in restaurant. And it took only about 30 mins of preparation, after that simmer it for 2 hours, no need to check it etc. I served it with creamy mashed potatoes and salad.

Pig ear and tongue


It's really easy. This is more or less the recipe (I didn't measure anything, just eye ball and taste check it)

Procedure:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Place the pig's ear and tongue in the water and par-boil for a few minutes to remove any scum and impurities.

2. Remove the pig's ears and tongue from the water, throw the water away. Place the ear into a small pot. Add enough water to cover the ear. Add the Shaoxing Rice Wine, or sake, soy sauce, sugar, star anise, salt/pepper, five spice and bring the pot to a boil. Reduce to a gentle simmer and cook for 1 hour, occasionally checking to see that the ear is immersed in the water. Add tongue, and simmer for another 30 min. When done, the ear will be very soft and very dark brown in color. A chopstick should easily pierce through the skin. At the end of the braising, reduce if not already the soy sauce mixture into a syrupy mass, put it in a small bowl for dipping.

3. Let the ear and tongue sit at room-temperature

4. Place them onto a cutting board and slice lengthwise into slivers. Serve cold.

Breakfast Strata

An awesome solution to bread leftovers (mostly bread butts, that nobody wants eat). Plus it can be prepared in advance, except the baking part.



I didn't use a specific recipe for this, and didn't measure the ingredients that I used :P
This is the basic idea:

Leftover bread cut or break into pieces (about 3/4") enough to fill the pan 3/4 full.
Whatever filling you want (I used ham, and a can of mushroom)
1-2 cups of grated cheese
4 eggs
1-2 1/4 c milk
salt and pepper to taste

1. Generously butter the baking dish
2. Fill the dish with bread and fillings (ham, cheese and mushroom). Mix it.
3. Whisk eggs
4. Blend milk, salt and pepper into eggs.
5. Pour over bread
6. Wrap it with cling wrap, and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning,
Unwrap the baking dish, put it into oven. Bake at 200 C for about 20-30 min or until the egg part set (not jiggly anymore).
Enjoy!

Simple Peanut Butter Cookie

I was in the mood for something fast and easy. Then I came across this recipe. It's really simple and only took 15 minutes from cracking the egg to finish baking it. I forgot to roll the dough in sugar, so, it's too sticky for me to criss cross it. But I think it's still good.
Pardon the half eaten cookie on the tray, forgot to take it out :P


Source

Recipe:
1 cup Peanut Butter, smooth or crunchy
3/4 cup Sugar
1 Egg
sugar for rolling (optional)

preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. Combine the peanut butter, sugar and egg in the bowl, mix until fully combined.
2. Take a teaspoonful and roll in sugar, then place on a greased baking sheet. Softly press the back of your spoon into the dough to spread, then use a fork to create the criss-cross pattern.
3. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes then cool. Enjoy!

P.S: I baked it a tad too long, so some of the cookie came out a bit burned and crispy. But some of the not burned ones are chewy.

Furikake

I love love love furikake. They are really yummy eaten with warm rice. But sadly, there is no furikake in Bergen. So, after reading Just Bento's furikake, I decided to make homemade furikake



Recipe:

• 1 piece of fish (I use cod marinated in pepper and lemon)
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 2 teaspoon of soy sauce
• 1 sheet of nori (cut up in small pieces)
  
• 1-2 teaspoon of sesame seeds
  

Heat up a dry non-stick frying pan. Dump in the fish, and break them up with a spatula. As they cook and dry out, keep breaking them up until they form fine flakes. Add the sesame oil, and soy sauce halfway through and keep stirring. Your objective is to dry out and crisp up the fish without burning it.

When the fish is fairly dry and fine, add the nori and sesame seeds. Stir this only takes about 10-20 seconds.

Remove from the frying pan into a bowl. Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to a week. But in our case, we finished it right away.

Pear pie

I bought a bag of pear for really cheap a few days ago. The pears were really ripe and need to be used right away. So, I used some of the pears for pear pie.



Pear Tart
Preparation time: 20-25 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes
Serves 4

Pastry:
200g of plain flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
140g of chilled butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk

Filling:
2-3 ripe pears pealed, cored and sliced thinly
1 apple, pealed, cored, and sliced thinly
1/2 cup of blueberries (it adds tartness to the pie, but you can omit it if you want)
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of plain flour
Cool whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and a little powdered sugar to serve

Add the flour, sugar, salt and butter to a bowl.
Using your fingertips, combine the dry ingredients with the butter, until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. This can be a little worrying, but don't worry the mixture will come together.
Add the egg yolk and milk to the mix and form the dough using your hands.
Cover the dough in clingflim and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30-40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C.
Place the fruits in a bowl and toss with the sugar and flour.

Remove the clingfilm and place the dough in between two sheets of parchment paper.
Roll out the pastry until you have a large disc (about 30cm in diameter).
Transfer the pastry disc to a baking tray and remove the top sheet of parchment paper.
Add the filling to the center of the pastry and using the sides of the greaseproof paper fold the sides up and over the filling.
Place on a baking tray and bake for 20-30 minutes.
Serve with a dollop of thick, cool whipped cream and dust with a little powdered sugar.

Recipe adapted from Donal Skehan's rustic pear pie.


The pie in the oven. Please pardon my dirty oven window.

This is my first time making tart. And the result is really really delicious. I think the recipe is very easy and forgiving.
So...what are you waiting for? Make this pie NOW!!
:))