lup cheong

Remember this lup cheong that I bought in Yokohama?

I tried one in fried rice for our breakfast this morning.

I'm happy to say that it tastes like the lup cheong I grew up with.

Now to look for some mochi rice and chicken stock so that I can make a dish that my mom used to make for us

manapua

It's been awhile since I've baked bread, but the weather has been quite summery during the daytime, and I had some time on my hands yesterday, so I finally got around to trying my hand at manapua or char siu bao.

Manapua is a food I had growing up and I really like the baked version.

I used the same bread recipe that I use for anpan.

For the filling, I used some char siu, lup cheong (which I took out of the freezer) and green onion.

While you are waiting for the dough to proof, render the fat out of both the lup cheong and char siu separately, drain on a paper towel.

Chop the lup cheong and char siu separately into a dice and let cool.

Mix each with thinly sliced green onion and put into your dough before the 2nd proofing (at step 10 on the anpan recipe).

I baked these for about 18 minutes.

NOTES: The yeast was past the expiry date and I think I should have kneaded it longer. The dough was a little too wet to handle even if I added flour when I worked with it.

Next time, I would add a little more filling too.

Flavor-wise it was good and still had a nice crumb. I would make this again (with newer yeast this time).

goya

The temperature is supposed to drop to the lower 10s Celsius (50s Fahrenheit), so I picked the one and only goya that grew this year.

It got bigger than a week or two ago...from around 10 centimeters to 17 centimeters!

With part of it, I sauteed it with some lup cheong. It was delicious, the sweetness from the lup cheong helped to cut the bitterness.

And with the rest I made goya tsukudani.

I really wanted to make stuffed goya, but I didn't have any cilantro growing and the goya was a little too teeny to stuff.

I saved the seeds from this goya...hopefully next year I'll have more goya to show you.

It is Friday here, the temps have dropped quite a bit over here, though they are talking about summery weather in a couple of days, WT?! Hope you have a nice weekend.

lup cheong rice

Earlier this year I made a rice dish using xiang chang (the fresh version of lup cheong, a chinese sausage), which I wrote about here.

Well, on my last trip back to Hawaii, I brought back a can of chicken stock (which is really hard to get in Japan) and some lup cheong (dried Chinese sausage).

I washed 1/2 a cup of mochi rice and 1/2 a cup of white rice.

For the liquid, I used a half cup of stock and half cup of water.

Then I threw in the last piece of xiang chang (fresh chinese sausage) I had and some pieces of lup cheong into the rice cooker.

And when it was done, I added a handful of green onions.

This tasted just as I remembered it, thanks for the recipe Mom!

xiang chang mochi rice

Xiang Chang is the fresh version of Lup Cheong, a sweet Chinese sausage. (Lup Cheong being the dried version.)

I wanted to try making a dish that my mom used to make in her rice cooker using mochi rice (glutenous rice).

I couldn't find a recipe for it on the web, but found a recipe in a local cookbook I had.

It called for cooking the mochi rice then stirring other ingredients.

The original recipe called for bacon and shiitake, both of which I didn't have.

I instead used what I did have and put in some eringi and the xiang chang.

The recipe adds oyster sauce and some shoyu and I did just that, but there was something lacking...flavor.

After having this for breakfast with a sunny side up egg, I emailed my mom and she told me that she adds chicken stock when she cooks the rice.

I have one more piece of xiang chang in the freezer, I'll add chicken consomme blocks when I cook the rice this time, I hope it will turn out nicely.

I gotta share with you a funny story about this dish. When I served it to Satoshi the other day, he takes a bite and says, "tastes like mochi rice". I told him, "that's because it is"...oh, well, I thought it was funny.

*we're off on a little excursion...I'll moderate comments when I get back.

foodie flurry thursday in kobe

The weather has taken a 180 and is back to cold. Yesterday Satoshi had the day off, so I suggested we go to Kobe, and on the way to the station there were lots of flurries.

In fact, for most of the day there were flurries (woot!)

The place I wanted to check out for lunch was the Syaarii Bar (shah-ree). I had seen these foods items on the same show but different episode from the one I learned about kimu-taku gohan on.

Syaarii (sometimes written shari) is the term that one uses at the sushi bar to mean rice.

We had variations of their main 3 types...the mokamusu, a crispy rice wafer filled with rice, which kind of looks like macaron...we tried the karikari (crunchy) ume (pickled apricot) with shiso (perilla) and the sobameshi (fried rice with chinese noodles, a famous Kobe food).

The syaarii moka, which are like mokamusu but with the addition of savory toppings, we tried the mentaiko (spicy pollack roe) salad & hanryu (korean) yakiniku (grilled meat).

The syaarii roll are rice and savory toppings wrapped with a thin soy sheet, the taste was like the wafer but was pliable. We tried the puripuri (plump) ebi fry (fried shrimp) & yawaraka buta no aburiyaki (slightly grilled tender pork).

Everything is well seasoned and for the mokamusu & syaarii moka, the rice is separated by plastic sheets so as not to make the shells soggy.

We also had some vegetable consomme with it...total 2220 yen (about US$22), a little pricey but a neat food experience.

Since we were in the area, I wanted to check out Kobe's Chinatown.

I had recently seen some lup cheong on one of my Flickr friend's photos and wanted to find some here, I don't know why I haven't check this area before because I found some under the name of xiang chang.

The best part is that this meat shop, Ekiseigo, makes their own, fresh! You should know that xiang chang is the fresh version of lup cheong. Lup cheong is smoked and cured.

Anyway, I cut my two pieces into halves and froze three of the pieces.

I'll use the one I have out in something soon. I hope it tastes like the lup cheong that I know...2 pieces for 940 yen (about US$9.40)

Satoshi on the other hand, still hungry from lunch, had an egg roll made by the meat shop...150 yen (about US$1.50)

The last part of our adventure happened at Mariage Frères, a French tea salon.

It was my 2nd time here but Satoshi's first.

He chose the Savarin--a brioche soaked with Marco Polo tea (a fruity tea) then topped with white chocolate, strawberries & pistachios, and a pot of Assam Nonaipara.

I chose a raisin scone which came with Marco Polo tea jam , Darjeeling Imperial tea jam and some butter, and a pot of Pleine Lune (a black tea with spices, honey & fruits). The tea jams are jellies made from sweetened teas...total 3200 yen (about US$32).

All in all it was a great day, lots of good food and lots of flurries.

It is Friday here, I hope you have a good weekend.

Syaarii Bar
Mosaic Harborland 2F
Kobe, Hyogo
Phone: 078.360.2336 (UPDATE: 2013 this shop is no longer at this location)

Ekiseigo Seiniku Ten
Chinatown
Kobe, Hyogo
Phone: 078.331.5058

Mariage Frères
BAL Kobe
Kobe, Hyogo
Phone: 078.391.6969

cha han

In Japanese, fried rice is called cha han.

They use bits of savory char siu, shrimp, egg, and other goodies. And while this version is delicious, you just can't beat the version we have in Hawaii.

Hawaii's fried rice uses the sweet, red char siu, egg and veggies.

Sometimes you can find fried rice in Hawaii with bits of portuguese sausage or lup cheong (a type of chinese sausage) too.

(My friend on Flickr also told me that she can get these NOH packets in France! which pleasantly surprised me.)

For my fried rice, I sauteed some diced onion and diced carrot in a little oil and then added the diced up char siu.

Then I added the cold rice and broke it up in the pan.

Then I added a scrambled egg and mixed it letting the liquid evaporate.

Add a handful of chopped green onion and a couple of grinds of pepper.

Since I was having this for dinner, I added an over easy egg.

It was a nice way to use up the char siu I had made.

sam choy's blc

Saturday morning the sky was clear, no clouds and the air was crisp. It looked like the makings of a beautiful sunrise.

We met some of my aunties and uncles at Sam Choy BLC (Breakfast, Lunch & Crab) for breakfast.

Every year about this time, my aunty on the mainland sends some monies to another aunty for my dad's birthday breakfast. (Thank you!)

I was surprised at how slow business was there and how high prices have gone. I had the fried rice with 2 eggs (US $6.50 + tax). The fried rice has pretty much everything in there (spam, lup cheong, char siu, kamaboko, green onion). This dish was really filling and delicious. It was nice to be able to take my leftovers home. (In Japan, they don't have "doggie bags", for fear of food poisoning complaints.)

It was nice to be able to visit with some of my relatives on this trip home, while celebrating my dad's birthday.

Sam Choy's BLC : UPDATE 2013, this restaurant is no longer in business
580 N. Nimitz Highway
Honolulu
Phone: 808.545.7979