Fresh Yam Salad

 

Ingredients:

Japanese Fresh Yam - remove skin and cut into thick shreds (sensitive hand better put gloves on)

Lettuce - salad size

Cucumber - sliced

Cherry Tomatoes - halves

Okra - blanch 1 min, pour to ice water, then drain and dry, slanted slice into half

Shredded Seaweeds

Rice Crispy or roasted sesame

Sesame salad dressing of your choice

How to Make:

mix all together with the amount of sesame salad dressing you prefer, then sprinkle with shredded seaweeds, rice crispy or roasted sesame.

Love this crunchy and nutritious salad. Enjoy!

Edamame soup

 

Ingredients:

Edamame 70-100g (boiled and cooked, then remove skin. The removed skin can be discarded or add to veggies stir fry)

Potato 100g - remove skin, then thin slice and small cubes

Vegan Soup base 250ml (just soak 1 small pc of Konbu Kelp together with 2 dried mushrooms in 1L water overnight, chinese mushrooms must prior rinse with corn starch and water)

Soy Milk 150ml (i use Marusan無調整豆漿）

Seaweed Powder

How to Make:

1. Cook potato to the vegan soup base and cook until soft, then add soy milk and the edamame and cook for another 1-2 min. Don't boil it! medium fire will do.

2. Add above to blender and blend till creamy. Season with salt and black pepper to your liking.

3. Pour to serving bowl and sprinkle with seaweed powder.

* if you like the soup to be more creamy, the proportion of soy milk to Vegan Soup Base can adjust by having more soy milk and less vegan soup base.

* if you like more condensed taste of edamame, you can add more edamame and less potato too.

* edamame is high in protein and very nutritious but could cause gas and bloating. So beware.

Enjoy!

Burdock & Carrot Salad

 

* credits to @jeffreyveggielife, my vegan cuisine teacher

Ingredients:

Burdock 90g - rub clean and slice

Carrot 90 g - clean, remove skin and slice

Seasoned Monkey Mushroom 80g - pan fried and slice (I used the one which is frozen and purchased from Kowloon City 廣益行)

大葉 (looks like Shiso leaves, but bigger in size) - roll it up and slice

Japanese Mustard (水菜） rinse and spin cut into salad size

pickled plums - remove seeds and mash it

Sesame - 3tbsp - grinded

Salad Sauce:

Soy Sauce x 2tbsp （I used Kikoman 萬字牌 特選丸大豆減鹽)

Brown Sugar (or monk fruit sugar) x 1.5 tbsp

mirin x 2 tbsp

How to Make it:

1. Cook the sauce. Once boiled, turn to medium low heat and cook for 5 min. Then set aside to a bowl.

2. Heat up a pan, add sesame oil and stir fry the burdocks and carrots in medium fire, can add 1-2tbsp of water, until they are cooked - "crunchy soft".

3. Add the cooked burdock and carrots to the bowl with the salad sauce. Sprinkle with 2/3 of the grinded sesame on top. Cover with cling wrap and place to fridge.

4. Once cooled and ready to eat, take out the bowl from the fridge, add the mashed pickled plums, the sliced shiso leaves, the sliced Monkey Mushrooms and the Japanese Mustard and mix well.

5. Use hand to plate on serving dish or bowl, sprinkle the remaining grinded sesame on top.

Enjoy!

Salmon in spinach mushroom cream sauce

 

Ingredients:

Wild Salmon fillets

Spinach 

Cherry tomatoes - cut into halves

Mushrooms - cut into halves

Single Cream x 200ml

Chicken Stock x 100ml

Flour x 2 tbsp

Butter x 2 tbsp

How To Make:

1. Rinse the salmon and wipe dry. Marinate with salt and black pepper and coat with a drizzle of olive oil.

2. Heat up a flat pan, when hot enough, add olive oil, then salmon skin down. shake the pan a bit to avoid salmon sticking to pan. Once the salmon skin is crispy, flip and cook the meat side for 1-3 min depending on how thick the fillet is. Salmon best to cook medium instead of fully cooked. Then set aside salmon.

3.  Add some olive oil to the frying pan and stir fry the mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. (In case the pan becomes oily or black after pan frying the salmon, then use a new frying pan).

4. Heat up a new pan, add butter and the flour and make a rouge. Then add single cream, stir and mix well. Add chicken stock little by little to ensure you get the thickness and consistency you like. Pour this cream sauce to the other frying pan with the mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. Add back the salmon to cook in the sauce a bit, then ready to serve.

Best to go with pasta or white rice. Enjoy together with a glass of white wine too!

Cordon Bleu

Ingredients:

Veal escalope x 2pc - trim neatly to a pair of rectangular shape

Parma ham x 2 thin slices, size of which similar to the veal escalope

Morzarella cheese or cheddar, sliced

Flour

Beated eggs

Breadcrumbs

How to Make:

1. Marinate veal escalope with salt and black pepper.

2. Line up as follows:

1 pc of veal escalope at bottom layer

then 1 slice of parma ham on top

then cheese on top

then 1 slice of parma ham on top

then the last piece of veal escalope

3. Press them well together like a sandwich. Heat up oil in a frying pan.

4. Coat the above sandwich first with flour generously, then shake off excess. Then coat with beaten eggs, then breadcrumbs. 

5. Deep fry until golden.

6. Drain oil. Cut into half and serve immediately!

Enjoy with your favourite champagne or white wine.

 

Spanish Red Prawn Hot Dog

 

Ingredients:

Spanish Red Prawns (frozen type)

Garlic 

Basil - thin shreds/slices

Mayonnaise of your choice

Hot Dog Bun

How to Make:

1. Rinse the prawns well. Separate head from body. 

2. For the head, cut away all sharp things. Keep aside.

3. For the body, remove the legs and shells (can keep shells to make sauce or soup). Pull out the intestine from connecting area between head and body with a toothpick but dont cut open the back.

4. Slice garlic thinly. Rinse under running water a few times or soak in water for a while, then change water, a few times. Drain water, wipe dry.

5. Heat up a frying pan with olive oil, medium fry pan fry the garlic slices until golden. Remove and drain oil.

6. Toast your hot dog buns. -Cut into half.

7. Pan fried the prawn heads with the garlic oil on both sides until shell looks crispy. Set aside. Continue to use the pan and the garlic oil to cook the prawn body until all cooked.

8. Place prawn body in the middle of the hot dog bun, back facing upwards. Place some crispy garlic around and basil shreds. Place on serving plate with the prawn head next to it. Squeeze mayo on top of hot dog bun and prawn.

Served immediately. Guest can squeeze juice from prawn head to the hotdog directly.

Enjoy!

Miso Soup with Pork

 

* though I am not a japanese, this soup is one of my comfort food, summer or winter alike.

Ingredients:

Dashi Soup base (can make from scratch using Konbu Kelp and Bonito Flakes or use Dashi Stock Powder teabags. If I do not have enough time, I use the Kayanoya brand, low sodium type. Can be purchased from City Super. ) x 800ml

White Miso x 3 tbsp

Dark Miso x 1 tbsp

Veggies of your choice - sliced daikon, carrot, mushrooms, tofu, spring onion or leeks)

Sliced Pork

How to Make:

1. Make the Dashi Soup base as per packet instructions. 

2. Once the soup is made, dash powder bags removed, add all vegetables until cooked. Switched off heat, add miso via a strainer/sieve and mix well. 

3. Check tasting and adjust accordingly. Bring soup to boil again, add sliced pork until almost cooked and switch off.

4. Put some of everything to soup bowl, top with some minced spring onion or leeks.

Enjoy!

中華冷麵 Cold Noodles

 

* Credits to @jeffreyveggielife, my J'shojin (vegan) cuisine teacher

Ingredients:

Marinated Monkey Mushroom (I used the one which is frozen and purchased from Kowloon City 廣益行) - sliced and pan fried in frying pan

Abura-age (油揚 - Deep fried Tofu Skin） (Can be purchased from Sogo or City Super tofu section in fridge)

Dried Seaweed - rehydrate in water and squeeze out water

Cucumber - shreds or slices

Tomato - thin slices

Noodle (choose a type good for this dish. Can be purchased from Sogo or City Super noodles section in fridge)

Eggs omelette (for vegetarian version, not vegan version) - slices

Sesame - grinded

Noodle Sauce:

Soy Sauce x 4 tbsp （I used Kikoman 萬字牌 特選丸大豆減鹽)

Rice Vinegar x 3 tbsp

Maple or Agave Syrup x 3 tbsp

Sesame Oil x 1 tbsp

Vegan Mushroom Powder (I used Vigor & Health 素高倍鮮G粉）

Vegan Soup base 200ml (just soak 1 small pc of Konbu Kelp together with 2 dried mushrooms in 1L water overnight, chinese mushrooms rinse with corn starch and water)

How to Make:

1. Cook the noodle sauce in pot until all mixed. Then cool down and place in fridge.

2. Noodles cooked as per packet instruction, then rinse in ice water.

3.  Mix the noodles in the chilled noodle sauce.

4. Place noodles nicely on noodle bowl, top with the above ingredients, then add a few more spoons of the chilled noodle sauce.

5. Garnish with sesame or grinded sesame.

For non-vegetarian version, can add sliced ham or chicken.

Enjoy this dish in this melting summer! 

Crispy Amadai with clam and seaweed soup

 Ingredients:

Amadai (a kind of fish the scales of which are edible)

Clams - 20pc approx

Dried Seaweed - rehydrate with drinking water.

Baby Carrots - blanched in salted water

Minced garlic/ white wine/ butter/ olive oil

How to Make:

1. Clean and fillet the fish, so that each fillet piece is in a nice squarish or rectangular shape. Keep the scale intact. Wipe dry and marinate with salt and black pepper.

2. Clams after rubbing out dirt and rinse, soak in water for a while (best with a metal knife inside). Then remove and drain the water.

3. Heat up a pan which can hold up all clams, add some butter, then minced garlic, then add the clams, 1/3 glass of white wine, stirred fry the clams a bit, then add 1/2 cup of water. Cook the steam until the clams are all opened. Remove the clams, cool them down and take the meat out, For the soup, pass through a sieve. Add the soften dried seaweed. Check the taste and adjust accordingly with salt and pepper.

4. Heat up a frying pan, add some butter+olive oil, place fish to pan, scale down until the scale become crispy and golden. Then flip and cook the meat side until it's cooked. Remove from pan.

5. Pour soup to a shallow soup bowl.  Put some clam meats to soup. Place carrots to the bowl followed by the pan fried fish on top of bowl. 

Serve immediately and enjoy together with a glass of white wine!

Uni & Caviar Quiche

 

Ingredients:

Hokkaido Uni

Caviar 

Short Crust Pastry (make your own pastry dough or buy ready made ones, both one. But make sure blind bake first)

Eggs x 4 

300ml single cream

100ml milk

50g cheddar cheese - grated

Edible Flowers (to decorate and garnish)

How to Make:

Blind bake pastry:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Clean a surface top, sprinkle lightly with flour, roll the dough with rolling pin to a size which can fit your baking tin (could be round or rectangular or square) with extra hanging from the sides of the tin. Lift up the dough and draped over the rolling pin and lay it across your baking tin. Press the dough into the corners of the tin using your fingers. Trim the excess with a small knife but leaving some portion outside the sides of the tin (as during baking, the dough will shrink).

3. Put a baking paper on top of your dough. Pour red beans or any other beans on top of baking paper - aim is to have even weight on top of the dough.

4. Put to oven for 15 mins. Then take out, carefully and gently remove the baking paper with the beans on top and discard them. Put the pastry back to oven for another 5 min. Then take out to cool down.

Baking the egg tart:

1. Preheat oven to 200C.

2. Beat eggs in a large jug, then mix together with cheddar cheese, milk and cream. Season lightly with salt and black pepper.

3. Put the blind baked pastry shell (still in the baking tin) onto a baking tray first. Pour egg mixture to the pastry shell and place to oven and bake for 30 min until the filling is set and golden.

4. Take out from oven and cool down in room temperature.

5. Once you can feel the egg tart on quiche is not hot, you can gently spoon uni on top, then caviar on top and garnish with edible flowers.

Enjoy with a glass of champagne or sake!