easy dinner

It has been really humid the past couple of days. Yesterday afternoon it poured with thunder and this morning we awoke to cloudy skies and more humidity, not very inspiring cooking weather.

For dinner, I decided to make something easy.... Donburi (dish in a deep bowl). I found a relatively easy recipe in a cookbook I have been using a lot lately, "Orange Page's Natsu ni oishii kondate"

Oroshinose-yakinikudon (grilled marinated meat bowl with grated daikon on top) Serves 2
2 bowls of cooked rice (about 400g)
200g thinly slice beef sirloin
3 cm daikon (long white radish)
3 leaves of shiso (perilla)
shiroi irigoma (white sesame seeds)

1/2 tablespoon sesame seed oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
ichimitogarashi (ground red chili pepper) to taste

Sauce:
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1/2 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce

Prep: Cut meat into bite sized pieces. Peel daikon and grate. Wash grated daikon and drain well. Mince shiso.

Method: In a frying pan, put the sesame oil and heat on high. Place beef flatly and sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides. Cook in pan until beef changes color then add sake and ingredients for the sauce. Let the sauce coat the beef well and take out of the pan.

Plating: In a donburi bowl (deep bowl), put the cooked rice and place the cooked beef on top. Add the grated daikon and shiso on top of the beef. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and some ground chili pepper.

NOTES: This dish was delicious. The sauce didn't overpower the beef and went well with the cool grated daikon.

Another thing that I did was "toss together" a little salad. This recipe was also from the same book on the same page as the recipe above.

Celery no kim chee ae (Celery dressed with kim chee) Serves 2
1 stalk of celery
80g kim chee
1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon of shoyu (soy sauce)

Prep: Take the leaves off the stalk and break the leaves with your hands into easy to eat pieces. Slice the stalk of celery to 2mm (thinly). Slice the kim chee to 2-3 cm pieces.

Method: In a bowl add the mirin, sesame oil and shoyu, mix. Add in celery and kim chee.

NOTES: The leaves of the celery were quite bitter, but I liked the crunch of the celery stalk and kim chee.

Enjoy!