curry...

Last month I wrote about Kazokutei's Java-style curry udon.

Well, they sell their curry in re-heatable pouches, so I picked up 2 for our lunch the other day.

You can pour this over rice or noodles, your choice. We had this with udon.

Cook your udon as stated on the package. Heat up your pouch of curry. Pour over udon and garnish with some green onion.

Semi-homemade. A very filling and delicious lunch.

Since there were several mouthfuls of curry leftover, the next day's breakfast was an omlette covered with a spoonful (or two) of curry as inspired by Ono Kine Grindz's tweet.

Overall, this curry was spicy and delicious, though the 4th ingredient is lard, so it won't be something we eat all the time.

simple salad

I tried this really simple salad recipe (in the photo it is the salad on the right) from Made Healthier. For the dressing I used my favorite, lemon oregano vinaigrette. Since the only honey I had open was a blueberry one, I used it in the vinaigrette. The dressing came out really nice.

I wanted to show you the packaging for the lemon. It shows the picture of the farmers that grew it. Nice way for you to appreciate your food and the people who grew it.

I also made the gobo salad with fresh gobo. I used this gadget by OXO to julienne the gobo and carrots.

On my way back from the market, I happened to be looking up at the trees and noticed this fuji(wisteria) hanging down from it. It was about 3 feet from where I was standing, so I had to zoom up on it.

For breakfast today, I mixed the rest of the salad into an omlette, topped it with some pre-made pasta sauce and had some baguette with herb garlic cream cheese.

dashimaki tamago

Well, the weather has turned wintry overnight. I think the temperature dropped 5 degrees yesterday. The blustery winds didn't help either...Brr.

I had some dashi (stock) left over from my okara (soy bean curd lees) "creations", which I posted about here and here, so to use up some of it, I made dashimaki tamago (a type of rolled omlette).

Here's my recipe:
1 ladleful of dashi (stock)-can be either katsuo (bonito) or kombu (kelp) or combination of both
1 teaspoon of shoyu (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon of mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
2 eggs

1. Put all ingredients into a bowl and beat with fork or chopsticks
2. Heat special egg pan, when ready, add 1/3 of egg to the pan
3. Rolling the egg from the rounded end of the pan (pink arrow on photo), in the direction of the other end of the pan (green arrow)
4. Move completed roll back to the rounded end of the pan and pour a little more of the egg mixture into the pan.
5. Re-roll the omlette.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all of egg mixture is gone.

NOTE: If you add sugar to the mixture, the egg mixture will brown quickly, so you'll have to keep an eye on it.

I didn't add sugar to the omlette today, instead I added chopped green onions. You can also add iwanori (a soft type of seaweed) or shirasuboshi(Kanto name)/chirimenjakko(Kansai name) (dried young anchovies (Eastern Japan)/(Western Japan)).

Also, I grated daikon (long white radish) and put it on top of the omlette.

Before eating, I poured a little shoyu (soy sauce on top). It went well with rakkyo (pickled shallots), ume (pickled plum), iwanori (soft seaweed) and rice.

A note about the rolling technique: I think you are actually supposed to be able to roll the omlette along with just a pair of chopsticks, but since my chopstick skills are a bit lacking, I usually use a spatula in one hand and a pair of cooking chopsticks in the other to guide it along.

Hope you have a great week!

foodie kind of weekend

It has been raining and windy the past couple of days. Yesterday Satoshi had to work, since he was out of the house, I asked him to bring us home some dessert. Here's what he brought home from a shop that specializes in seasonal fruits, Shinjuku Takano.

A tart with a custard cream-like filling and fig, chestnut, asian pear and persimmon on top.

Mont Blanc, a yellow cake bottom with chestnut cream piping and nuts all around.

A pannecotta with Australian mango diced up top.

And a whole persimmon filled with a custard cream.


Today's breakfast was masala chai, scones and an omlette with sage, basil and parsley in it.

I had seen this post on Jasmine's blog, Confessions of a Cardamom Addict, earlier this year for Masala Chai. Her recipe calls for the spices to be whole then lightly crushed. I only had these spices in the ground form, so I had to ad-lib a bit...

Masala Chai adapted from Jasmine's recipe : serves 2
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 star anise
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 grinds fresh black pepper
2 scoops of Darjeeling tea
3 g sugar (1 sugar cube)

Lightly crush star anise and put all the spices and tea into a disposable tea bag.
Add 1 cup of water and bring to a boil, add the tea bag and allow to steep to desired strength.
Add milk and sugar.
Strain through a fine sieve.

Enjoy!

NOTES: I really enjoyed this chai! Not sweet like the ones served at Starbucks and LOTS of flavor! Gosh, I wonder how it would be if I actually crushed my own spices...


Tonight's dinner was pizza. I had wanted to make a better crust since the last time--it was quite bready. I used the recipe on the yeast packet box, and found a recipe for the topping in a book my brother gave me called "The Essential Baking Cookbook". The topping is a potato, onion, capers and cheese pizza, no sauce, just olive oil.

NOTES: I pricked and pre-baked the crust, and it still poofed up a bit, I put the topping on and baked it for 20 minutes. The recipe called for goat cheese, but I couldn't find any, so I used camembert. It was still a bit bready, so I'll have to figure out if I should cut the amount of dough used for the pizza. Other than that, it was delicious!

Hope you have a great week!