Sushi dinner at Koi, Woolwich

Koi
102 Woolwich road, Woolwich
9817 6030
http://www.koi-dining.com.au/

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Pig & Pinot dinner @ Chophouse (2)

The first dish: Jamon & Italian Buffalo mozzarella with roasted fennel, spring onion and almonds.

The second: Ceviche of Hervey bay sea scallops topped with Mt Lowe truffle, avruga and apple.

Side: Cauliflower Gratin

Side: Wedge salad. (hmmm the runny yolk!)

Side: Green beans

Dessert: Caramelised Banana Cheesecake with buttersotch & peanut brittle

Dessert: Swiss Milk Chocolate block

Chophouse
25 Bligh St, Sydney
1300 246 748
http://www.chophouse.com.au/

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Dinner at Tetsuya’s

Tetsuya’s
529 Kent Street, Sydney NSW
02-9267-2900

Food bloggers’ dinner – Bistro CBD

First course: Sashimi of kingfish, avocado, wasabi, lime and soft herbs – Simun Dragicevich (Bistro CBD chef)

Second course: Shish Barak, Middle eastern style dumpling – Fouad

Third course: “Pork you!” twice cooked pork belly – Billy

Fourth course: Braised Beef in PX sherry – Karen

Fifth course: “This and that” – Linda

****

Bistro CBD
52 King Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Australia

Late night cooking: Okonomi style corn fritters & Gyunyu Purin

Would you like some fritters? Yes? Cool, I’ll make some, let’s eat!
Despite it’s 1am.

Oh corn fritters. They are so simple yet can be such a satisfying dish, especially for some lazy weekend brunch. I love ones at Bill’s, and I always have a huge debate in my head – “Corn fritters or Ricotta pancake.” What makes me realise every single time is that using fresh ingredients definitely impacts on how the dish would turn out. Nothing wrong with using canned food for cooing, but when it comes to corn fritters, I must use fresh corns.

So tonight (yes, tonight), my brain protested its mental hunger and proposed “Corn fritters or no sleep.” The only rational thing to do is to accept its demand and get some sleep in return. You know, I’m a rational civilised adult after all. ;p As I was quite hungry, I also added a tin of tuna to my usual corn fritter ingredients.

Recipe adapted from Bill Granger‘s corn fritter on LifeStyle Food. I’ve also added some tuna flakes – which by the way made the fritters look more like an Okonomiyaki.

So why not finish them with oh-so-yummy Japanese Mayo like an okonomiyaki.

For the side, sliced granny smith apple (left over from previous apple hamburg steak) tossed with sea salt, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

And don’t forget a dessert.
When I was in college back in Japan (btw, I’ve spent my freshman year in Japan.), I was totally addicted to 森永牛乳プリン (Morinaga Milk Pudding) that was sold in the college cafeteria. My friends used to spot me there secretly buying out all of the puddings before they’d sell out. What’s so good about it is that it’s got such a simple and silky smooth sweetness that almost brings back some childhood memories, like some homemade dessert.

Soy milk, double cream and condensed milk mixed in 4:1:1 ratio, Gelatine + Agar, Vanilla extract, that’s it! Again, I don’t measure ingredients, go with the flow and adjust as you like. It tastes great as is, but adding some Japaneseness to it with Azuki (Sweet red bean) sauce is definitely a plus. And some whipped cream.

You can simply use gelatine or agar only, but the combination will create smooth, soft and wobbly yet firm enough texture. If you want to make it much richer, just use whole milk instead of soy milk. I chose soy milk simply because I like it.

My brain and stomach satisfied, and that’s when my bed time is.

Get stinky with it.

There’s absolutely no doubt that smell is a very essential factor in food experience, and I often find surprising that there exists a lot of food in which their smell can be almost too intense to be food. For instance, blue cheese – some of my friends say they could never enjoy eating it because of its smell. And I’m no exception when it comes down to a few unique food from different culture, such as Taiwanese stinky tofu. (I can’t help thinking that must be what BO tastes like…) I guess we generally process fermented or smelly food as alarming stuff to eat, of course unless it’s publicly recognised and known to be edible, like cheese or fruits like a durian.

In Japanese food, we do have a range of stinky food as well. (btw, these days it’s popularly accepted, but I remember that Miso (Fermented soybean paste) used to be treated as ‘exotic smelly food from Japan’) But the most popular stinky food from Japan must be Natto (Fermented soybean) Not only its smell (which is often referred as dirty socks..), how you eat is rather interesting. It’s so sticky and gooey that it produces sticky spider-web like strings as you mix – The more you mix, the stickier it gets. Natto is usually mixed with soy sauce and chopped spring onion, and pour over steamed rice.

So today, I bought a few pack of Natto from Japanese grocery shop and make something with it. I assume many of you would not like Natto, but there’re some recipes that reduce the smell of Natto yet bring out other flavour. To be honest, I’m not particularly a big fan of Natto – though I can eat. But I find myself enjoying it in this dish. Natto fried rice!

Ingredients:
1 Natto pack
Chopped spring onion
Soy sauce
Steamed rice (Preferably not freshly cooked one. Leftover rice is better in fact.)

With a little bit of olive oil in the pan, place natto and stir fry until slightly brown. Natto shouldn’t be pre-mix nor seasoned with soy sauce. Add chopped spring onion and rice, and continue to stir fry. When the rice grains are no longer sticking each other, add soy sauce right before you take the pan off the stove and evenly distribute.

How simple is that?
I’m not going to lie, it still got the Natto smell but much less intense. stirfrying Natto actually cuts down alot of stickiness and makes the flavour more mellow & milder. I know Natto is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you are “i’ve tried it before, not my favourite but I can eat.” type of person, you might enjoy this little easy & simple dish.

I just need to remember to open my window when I cook Natto though. ;p

Self Battle Royale with Apples.

Backlog backlog backlog. The last 3 months before tax year end is always the busiest time for me every year. On top of my current full time contract work, a few other projects are coming in and out and I’ve got to put my fun stuff aside during this time of the year!

One of the big food blogger events that I have missed is Battle Royale cook-off organised by Billy (A Table for Two), Ellie (Almost Bourdain) and Linda (Eat, Show & Tell) where 11 Sydney food bloggers participated to come up with idea for either a dessert using vegetable or a savoury using fruits. And I was invited to do a savoury dish, but unfortunately I was unable to attend due to high volume of work to do over the weekend. But I have tried and come up with this idea for the event, and I’ll share with you.

So what I was going to cook for the battle? Well, I was in a savoury team along with other fantastic cooks – Ellie, Helen, Minh, Richard and Simon. I knew from the beginning that I would have no way of winning against these guys. And coming up with some ordinary recipe with ordinary ingredients would be just too boring and predictable, right? I had to cook something that everyone goes “No you didn’t make that out of this fruit!” – regardless of what that would taste like ;p

What I have chosen is Granny Smith Apple. I know, I know, it sounds still too ordinary, but here’s my reason for it.
1) It’s got texture that can be easily controlled. Granny smith apple as is (uncooked) can have fibre dense texture, but once cooked it’ll turn into smooth soft texture.
2) It can be sweet & sour or even bland tasted so it’s rather easier to add flavour with other ingredients.

And here’s my Granny Smith Apple hamburg Steak with no meat. I’d say mostly all apple!

What do you think?

Ingredients
3 coarsely grated Granny Smith Apples
1 cup of grated tofu
1/2 cup of oatmeal
a bit of soy milk – just to combine oatmeal with other ingredients.
2 tea spoons baking powder
2 eggs
chopped and browned onions & mushrooms
2 cloves garlic grated
salt & pepper to season
1 table spoon of sugar
sprinkles of sesame oil
soy sauce and Worcester sauce

Sauce
Soy sauce
Sugar
Squeezed apple juice
Sweet balsamic reduction
Tomato sauce
Mirin
Konbu (Kelp) Dashi soup stock
Finely grated apple
Chopped butter sauteed chopped onions

Rough recipe (Sorry, I don’t cook with detailed measurement!)
Grate apples and squeeze out its juice. Keep the juice for sauce later on.
Combine all other ingredients with the grated apple and mix well.
Shape and panfry until brown.

Sauce
In a sauce pan, combine all ingredients and bring to boil. Depending on the sourness of the apple, add Mirin or sugar. Reduce the sauce until it gets desired thickness.

You know what, I was quite surprised how it actually turned out – in a good way. Because the apples I got was pretty bland tasted that I would usually call “Bad apples”, it pretty much contributed to help creating rather interesting texture to it. And in fact, apple/apple juice works pretty well with soy sauce when it’s combined and reduced.

I took it even further this time. Slice up the apple, slowly cook in a sauce pan with a bit of Dashi, sugar, salt and light. Once it became softer and translucent, place on a kitchen paper and pad dry. Then sand the slices in each hamburg steak mixture.

Doesn’t it look like it’s got a melting cheese in it? It’s lightly salty apple slices!
I was really keen to present this at the event and see how others think. I’m looking forward to the next one to happen soon!

Make sure to check out these posts and find out awesome dishes these food bloggers have come up with!

A Table for Two: http://www.atablefortwo.com.au/2010/04/28/the-food-bloggers-battle-royale-cook-off/
Almost Bourdain: http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html
Chocolate Suze: http://www.chocolatesuze.com/2010/04/28/battle-royale-food-blogger-style
Citrus and Candy: http://www.citrusandcandy.com/2010/04/sydney-food-bloggers-battle-royale.html
Raspberri Cupcakes: http://raspberricupcakes.blogspot.com/2010/04/beetroot-desserts.html
Eat, Show & Tell: http://www.eatshowandtell.com/2010/04/26/the-food-bloggers-battle-royale-cook-off/
Grab Your Fork: http://grabyourfork.blogspot.com/2010/05/recipe-lychee-pork-ribs-and-food.html
Here comes the food: http://www.herecomesthefood.com.au/home-cooking/foodblogger-battle-royale-cook-off-2010.html

Sweet (almost) midnight time.

Just tell me why I always get impulsive craving for food around midnight? I feel like I’m Cinderella trying to gobble up food before turning back to a fat pig at midnight.

The other day on my way home from work, I was thinking of heading to NorthBridge and get some Japanese grocery at Tokyo Mart. The plan was immediately dismissed as the traffic into the area had turned out to be nothing but nightmare. So instead, I went down to Artarmon and visited Anegawa grocery shop. (1 Wilkes Ave, Artarmon)

Anegawa is a relatively smaller Japanese grocery shop compared to other major ones, but they are favoured by many many Japanese for certain reasons. They often have rare stuff that other places usually don’t carry. For instance, fresh Yuzu citrus, Shiso leaves, Japanese white radish (sweeter and thicker) etc. And on this visit, I had to gasp and stop as I found a boxful of Satsuma potato. Of course I grabbed three of big ones.

Satsuma potato is basically a Japanese sweet potato. What’s so Japanese about it is that the kind is much sweeter than ordinary ones we would find at supermarkets and less watery after cooking. Satsuma potato has a texture like a cooked regular potato wheres others tend to become like a cooked carrot if you know what I mean. (i.e. those kinds that are also called yam or orange coloured ones.)

Some say Satsuma Potato is best to steam and eat as is – which I tend to agree, but this time I was crazily keen to make what’s called “Sweet Potato.” I know, it’s weird to say “making sweet potato using sweet potato.”, right? If you say “Sweet potato”, or rather ‘SU EEETO POTETOH’, it means a sweet made of satsuma potato in Japanese. I have absolutely no idea why I got this sudden urge and craving for it late at night, but my brain dictated me to go on. There was nothing that I could do about it ;p

I’ll show you what it looks like and its basic recipe. Or you can see images of the sweet potato on google.

Cut satsuma potato into pieces and boil or steam (up to you) until cooked. Then throw them in a bowl along with some butter and mush until it becomes smooth textured. Look at the yellow colour of the potato. It’s got the higher sugar content than other kind of potato that the potato looks translucent.

It is already sweet enough, but I can’t resist adding another flavour of sweetness. Instead of adding heavy cream and sugar, I chose to substitute with condensed milk. Everybody loves that, am I right?

Oh yeah. But not too much. I had to tell myself that I can drizzle it over later, not now.

Put the mixture on an oven tray with a baking sheet and shape it like a mini satsuma potato.

Now apply eggwash with a cookig brush. You wouldn’t want to add any liquid to the egg york, it’s pure egg york. Make sure to apply thickly and plenty of it because it’s not only for a glossy look but I want to make a ‘skin’ for the sweet potato. Place the try into 180C oven and bake until you get a golden brown skin on each one.

Ta-da. Straight out of the oven. It’s best to eat at room temperature, so let them cool for awhile.
At this point, the clock had stricken 1am and I decided to leave it till the morning.

And here’s the finished look. The skin actually holds the moisture inside, so the texture should be smooth and moist with yummy satsuma flavour.

It tastes pretty good as is, but I also love pouring melted butter over it.

I also know that, as you might have guessed me doing it, it’s great with some whipped cream. It’s definitely a perfect sweet to enjoy with a nice cup of tea. Highly recommended!

nom nom.

Quick update: a (soy) saucy night.

Man, it’s been more than a month already since the last one?! Why the hell time has gone so quickly?!

You know one of those times when you just have to focus on important things and sacrifice something fun & easy, right? I’m very much right in the middle of it, and I’ve been missing out alot of opportunities to have fun. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. So bear with me for not socializing much lately + slow blogging. (And again, I’m at least reading many of food bloggers’ posts!)

Anyways. Just a quick update.

Leaving work at 7:30pm, it was already around 8:30pm when I had finally arrived at Coles to do some late grocery shopping. Grabbed some veggies, herbs, picking up a pack of chicken wings, and my phone went *ding*

“what are you cooking tonight?” – SMS from Jose my neighbourhood friend. What a timing! And I replied, “Are you stalking me or something?” and continued to shop.

*ding* “Don’t forget to grab some chips.” and I was standing right in the middle of snack & soda aisle.

It was my neibourhood friends Kim & Jose again. They were inside Coles at the same time, spotted me shopping. Well, *clear my throat*, do not F with me, I’m Japanese and I’ve got Ninja blood in me. I quickly sneaked behind and gave them a smack. I bet Jose wet his pants ;p

We didn’t get to see each other for about a month so we ended up having a dinner at my place. That’s one of good things about having friends in walking distance neighbourhood, being able to see how things go back home and catch up if we feel like doing so.
Our dinner needed to be something quick and easy to prepare so we could get more time sitting on the sofa with a beer or two to catch up.

Pirikara (tiny bit spicy in Japanese) Honey Soy chicken wings and roasted veggies with Butter Shoyu (Butter Soy sauce)
These are gasping easy to prepare yet tastes great with beers! Oh and not to mention, it costs so little too.

10 Chicken wings
4 table spoons Honey
6 table spoons Soy Sauce
2 cloves minced garlic
1 table spoon minced ginger
1 table spoon rice vinegar (any kind of vinegar will do.)
Sprinkles of sesame oil
Sprinkles of red chilli powder
1 table spoon Chilli oil

Chuck everything in a zip-lock bag, rub and marinate well for about half hour. You can marinate longer, but adding vinegar to the mixture helps infusing all the flavour quicker into the chicken wings. In the meantime, preheat the oven at 190F.

Now onto the roasted veggies. There’s no recipe required for this. Potato, Onions, Pumpkins, Garlic cloves, whatever you like. Cut up the veggies, coat them with a bit of olive oil – no seasoning yet.

Place the chicken wings on the try with baking sheet, and roast both sides until cooked throughly. And on a separate tray, do the same for the veggies.

For the roasted veggies, sprinkle chopped parsley and top with a spoonful of pure butter. Drizzle soy sauce over the butter and dig in! Those never have tried soy sauce & butter combination, you’ve got to try! It’s very Hokkaido way to enjoy roasted potato (We call it Jaga-bata)

Yummy gooey supper with beers and friends. – A good thing.
Sticky PS3 controllers – not a good thing.

Late night cooking returned with Tori Ham

Yes, my late night cooking habit hasn’t changed, even when I didn’t blog for awhile. And this time the recipe I chose to do was Tori ham.

Tori ham (鳥はむ） is literally translated into English as “Poultry Ham” (usually chicken breast) although it’s not really a traditionally made ham. The original recipe was posted by someone on the biggest Japanese underground BBS, and rapidly turned into a huge buzz. Now Tori Ham has been quite well-known as the recipe to turn chicken breast into a moist & tender flavoursome dish.

So what’s all the hype about Tori ham? Although some sites featured Tori Ham as “The recipe born on the internet”, its cooking method is nothing new. It’s sort of Sous-vide a.k.a. vacuumed packed pouch cooking. (but again, not exactly.)

Fillet two large chicken breast (preferably cut in half and open), and tenderise with the back of knife. Place them into a bowl, and marinate with honey. Rub salt & cracked black pepper into the fillets (quite large amount of salt needed compared to ordinary seasoning amount), and place them into a ziplock bag. Let them marinated in the fridge for 1-2 days.

Remove the fillets from the bag, wash with water, and then soak in a tub of water for 30-60 mins to remove saltiness. Roll up the fillet tightly using a cling wrap, use cooking string to shape it if needed. Wrap the rolled fillets with cooking foil. Place the rolls into a pot of boiling water for about a minute, and immediately turn off the heat. Remove the pot from the gas top, and leave it for 4-5 hours with a lid on. Yup, leave the rolls in the pot with hot water and cook them with residual heat.

After 4-5 hours, remove the rolls from the pot. Juice from the chicken should be trapped inside the cling wrap. When you remove the cling wrap, make sure you keep the juice because you can use that to make a sauce later on! Let the rolls cool in the fridge before slicing.

Slice as you like, garnish and serve! This one was garnished with ground black sesame seeds, chopped spring onion. For the sauce, reduce the saved chicken juice in a sauce pan, and add a mixture of one table spoon water & potato starch to thicken. Hmm hmm, just right amount of saltiness in the meat, and the sauce is just soo good!

Another one with ground black pepper, sprouts and dijon mustard sauce. Tori ham is such an awesome bite with chilled beer for sure! Each step wouldn’t take longer than 5 mins, very easy and no fail – the only draw back is that it takes awhile until it’s ready to eat (1-2 days in the fridge + 4-5 hours to cook.) What was I doing in the mean time you might ask?

enough shown? (Brownie Semifreddo rolled in a crepe.) *sigh*