Katsu Don

Katsu Don has been one of my favorite Japanese dishes. It turns out that making it is not so hard and really good.

Ingredients for the tonkatsu:
5-6 pieces skinless & boneless porkchops
flour
2 eggs, beaten
panko bread crumbs
salt, pepper and meat tenderizer (optional)

Method:
Sprinkle salt, pepper and meat tenderizer on the porkchop
Put flour and tap the excess flour
Dip it into the egg
Put the panko onto the pork, and pat them well
Put it into the oven 425 F for 8-10 minutes each side
Once done, sliced each tonkatsu about 1-1.5 cm wide.

Tonkatsu, fresh from the oven

Ingredients for the katsu don:

1 sachet Dashi No Moto powdered soup stock, mix with 1 1/2 cup of water

4 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs mirin
1 tbs sugar
1/2 onion
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Method:
Put the stock into the pan in medium heat
Add in sugar, soy sauce and mirin

Put the onion and simmer for a few minutesPut in the tonkatsu slices into the pan, simmer for a few minutes on low heat

Pour the eggs over and cover the pan with lid. Simmer for few minutes.Then it's done! Place the pork on top of Japanese rice. Enjoy! :)

Bimbimbap

Last week, I also made korean bimbimbap. it's mixed rice with vegetables. I don't know why but this week's theme is korean food. Usually I'm comfortable in cooking chinese and indonesian food. The bimbimbap recipe can be found here. It's easy to make, healthy and yummy, so you might want to try it out :)

Before adding the sunny side up egg

For the rice, instead of purely white rice, I mixed 2 cups of white rice and 1 cup of korean mixed grain rice that contains barley, brown rice, red bean, black bean, etc etc. It has more fiber and healthier. One thing though, I did not use ground beef per her recipe, but I made bulgogi instead. My sister gave me the recipe a long time ago from her friend, but I did not have the chance to try it until today.

Topped with sunny-side up egg before it get mixed around

Here's the recipe for bulgogi:
1 lb thin sliced bulgogi beef
3 Tb soy sauce
3 Tb sugar
1 Tb minced garlic
1 1/2 Tb cooking wine (white, sherry or mirin)
1 Tb orange juice or apple juice
1/2 ts ground sesame seed
1/2 ts black pepper
2 Tb green onions, chopped
1 Tb sesame oil

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl to make the marinade. Add the beef slices to the bowl and thoroughly coat.Let it sit in the fridge over night or at least 6 hours. On high heat, cook meat on a skillet or frying pan (no oil necessary) until meat is brown.

Korean Tofu Soup

I really like korean food especially their soft tofu soup and bulgogi. I also like kimbab (korean style sushi) while I was in beijing. Check it out here! My favorite Korean restaurant in the bay area is so gong dong tofu house at Milpitas. Their tofu soup is very rich, a lot of tofu, perfect flavor for my tastebud. They also give a lot of good appetizers such as tofu salad, seaweed, fish cake, kimchi, soft tofu. Anyway, the point here is, since eating out at Korean restaurant is kind of pricey, I decided to try cooking one for myself.

I got the recipe from here. I also added enoki mushroom. I think it's really delicious, almost the same taste as the one in Korean restaurant, even my hubby says so. Hehehe.

Okonomiyaki

Ever since we came back from Japan, especially Osaka, Richard and I always 'ngidam' okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake). When we were at osaka, we always ate more than 1 okonomiyaki everyday, and when we were going to Kyoto/Hakone and Tokyo from Osaka, we always bought 3 of it to our shinkansen train. Back in the US, we want to try to make it on our own because there's no okonomiyaki place that sells it as to our knowledge. Maybe there is one in Japan town SF, but it's so far away.

This is street okonomiyaki from Osaka for JPY 300..it's a delish!! yummy yummy..

So we began to research the ingredients and sauce needed to make okonomiyaki. It's pretty simple actually, and healthy. I used 1/2 cabbage, tempura batter, egg, bacon, bonito flakes, seaweed powder, mayonaise and okonomiyaki sauce. Although the result was not as good as the one in Osaka (duhhh.... Osaka is the heart for okonomiyaki and takoyaki), but overall, it tastes delicious!

This is our okonomiyaki :)

First Cooking

A couple of weeks ago, I cooked this soup for my husband for the first time(of course I have been cooking for him before, but this is the first one as a married couple!) :) We want to try to live a healthy life so we thought eating more soupy soup will be good since we don't use oil and frying --> less fat and cholesterol. A lesson learnt from my experience eating in one of Chinese restaurants in Indo is to put bacon in your soup. So I tried it.. and it adds more flavor to the soup.. and it smellsss bacon!! i like bacon, so i love it a lot.

Nothing fancy about this soup. I boiled chicken bones for several hours to get the stock, add some onion, carrots, daikon and napa, and some seasonings (salt, pepper and sugar). This soup is perfect for winter season!!

Nasi kuning + Ayam Kalasan + Soun Labu

Today I cooked ayam kalasan, soun labu kuning & nasi kuning for my bible study. I think they taste really nice and complement each other. Ayam kalasan is sweet, soun labu is salty and of course yellow rice will never go wrong with any dishes :) Below is the pics and recipes.

Yellow rice --> white rice + yellow rice Kokita mix

Ayam kalasan ala ci lilyRecipe ayam kalasan:

ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut into smaller parts

1 coconut water plus water

4 shallots

4 garlic

1/2 palm sugar

white sugar

salt

4 bay leaves

2 galanga

Method:
minced shallots and garlic, stir-fry using vegetable oil.
Add chicken and the rest of ingredients.
Cook until tender and until the water has mostly evaporated.
Fry or (deep fry) just a little bit.
Eat with indonesian chilli --> more delicious :P

Soun Labu
Recipe courtersy of ci lily again:
2 bawang putih, 1 merah chopped..
3 cm kencur
1 tsp terasi
garam
1 soun
1-2 labu
kunyit powder
santan

tumis bawang, masukin labu, airin dikit, masukin santan, ksh bumbu2nya, masukin soun terakhir.. sampe mateng semua.. kelar deh..

ENJOY :)

Mie goreng

I cooked this mie goreng for my sister, Vicky's bday surprise. I learnt the recipe from Ci Lily years ago and I think this is one of the earliest recipes that I can cook well. Thanks Ci!

Living in the same house, it is very hard to surprise her especially when I need to cook for a lot of people because she will be wondering for whom I cook that much for. Plus after cooking, the smell of food, oil, etc etc is basically overwhelming the house. Luckily that day, she was so busy at work so Denny and I could find time to cook at noon and hide them inside the oven. (The oven is not on btw, it's just to hide the food from vicinity). According to many people, this noodle is very delicious and yummy. Hehehehe....


Recipe courtesy of ci lily:

Ingredients:
Dry noodle, 6
Baso, 1 pack, sliced thin
shrimp, 10-20
1 pack of bean sprout
chives
4 eggs
shallot
sweet soy sauce
oyster sauce
fish sauce
oil

Method:
Boil the noodle for few seconds until the dry noodle soften a little bit. Don't over boil the noodle because we don't want a soft noodle at this point.
Rinse the noodle with cold water, set aside
Add oil into wok
Stir fry the shallot until brownish
Add eggs
Add baso and shrimps
Put in sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce and fish sauce. Just estimate the sauce up to your taste.
Add in noodle
Put in the chives and bean sprouts. The noodle will now have a balance texture from the water from the veggies,
Mix together well. If the noodle is still hard, add more water.

Eat with chili. Enjoy!

Pangsit Goreng

I used recipe from Ci Kiki's blog with slight modifications:

Mix together:
1 lbs of ground pork
6-8 shrimps
5 garlic
2 green onions
2 cups of tapioca starch
2 eggs
salt, pepper, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil

Put around 1/4 tbs of the mixed meat and wrap it using wanton wraps. Deep fry.

For the hot sauce, courtesy of Ci Lily
Mix together:
Sambel bawang
Tomato ketchup
Sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)

Es Teler

I bought half and half two weeks ago wanting to make es teler, and is about to expire. I never make any es teler before, but often eat that when there is a special occasion. So last 3 weeks, I think, the church celebrated Max's 1st bday and there was es teler. Actually, I did not go to that church on Sunday because I have class in another church. So the next day, we helped Petz to do her wedding stuffs and she brought es teler to my house. And since then, I am inspired to make one on my own.

Finally, after the half & half and all those canned fruits sitting on my fridge and drawer, I am able to make one. It does not turn out as green as expected, but the taste is so gooddd.... I immediately eat two bowls of this!! :P


Thank you to ci Kiki who shares this recipe on her blog.