Posts
Commercial Trends in Digital Art
6 years ago
Showing posts with label fairly easy recipe. Show all posts
It´s spring at last! Yay! Even sun-allergic me is happy about that! Yeah, I know, after spring comes summer and that means I will be complaining about the heat but in the meanwhile I´ll just enjoy my favorite season with all the pretty and incredibly well smelling flowers and people starting to cheer up and everything.
And among all those pretty trees and flowers I have a favorite:
The huge peartree in our backyard. Look, isn´t it pretty? Ours is a five story, turn of the century house with super high ceilings and the tree is as tall as the house! Amazing, right? Unforunately the sheer size of it makes it problematic:
a) It´s lowest branches are still too high to reach so I whave to wait for the pears to be super ripe and fall down, then hope I´m faster than the bugs or squirrels that are waiting for fallen fruits as well.
b) It´s so tall that it can´t be groomed properly. Doesn´t sound too bad, just let the tree grow as it likes, right? But! Fruit trees only bear fruit if maintained properly. So in the past few years we only got pears every other year. There should be fruit this year, though, and if that´s the case, I promise you some nice pear recipes.
Looking forward to that.
In the meantime, let´s do something completely different.
In 1993, I was 14, I went to Great Britain with my mom. My only time traveling with my mother, believe it or not, and we actually had a lot of fun. And enjoyed the food. Yes, british food has a terrible reputation but I don´t think it´s that bad. Just look beyond Haggis and you´ll find great puddings and pasties and whatnot.
My point being: when we got back we got a british cookbook and this is my favorite recipe from it (long lost since).
Toad in a Hole
Ingredients:
225 g Flour (all purpose)
1/2 ts Salt
2 Eggs
250ml Milk
8 little Sausages
1 big Onion
1 ts Bakingpowder
How to:
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Mix the flour with the bakingpowder and the salt.
Mix the eggs with the milk.
Slowly pour the egg/milk mixture into the flour mix and stir well. It should be pretty runny and after resting for about half a minute the batter should be all bubbly.
Set aside for 15 minutes.
Bubbly batter
Fry the sausages in a pan until they are well browned. This time I had four big ones over from our first barbeque of the season so instead of eight little ones I used these.
Cut the Onion and fry it until all yummy looking brown as well.
Sausages
Handsome Onions
Grease a pan. I remember the book telling me to "arrange" the sausages and the onions and I still have no clue what that is supposed to mean. I put the onions on top of the sausages, that´s all the "arranging" I do. If you can think of something better... feel free to tell me!
Steaming onions and sausages
Pour the batter over sausages and onions.
Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes. Or until everything is nice and golden brown.
Half eaten before I could take a picture...
This is a very easy, very tasty recipe that I recommend for lazy days. Not much to prepare, nothing challenging... Best eaten with a bit of mustard.
So I dare you to try something british. Come on, be brave. It´s good.
Have fun.
Thanks for reading.^^
a*
Happy The-Day-After-Christmas, everyone. I hope you all had a good one.
My Christmas was nice. And a few days before I had a Japanese day with my lovely friend Mako.
First we went out to lunch to a Japanese Restaurant called "Akari". I had the Teishoku menu, chicken katsu, which came with Miso soup, pickled veggies, rice and tea.
It was really good. Mako had yakisakana (grilled fish) and that was good too. It was not cheap but still under 10€ each which I think is doable every now and then.
After that we went to Mako´s place. She and her husband live about a five min walk from where I used to live with my mother so going there was already fun and I even felt a bit nostalgic.
We had tea, cookies and then M proceeded to teach me how to make perfekt Chawan Mushi, a traditional japanese dish that I once tried to make and kinda failed. 
Ingrediences:
4 Eggs
about 500ml water
Dashi (japanese Bonito Soupstock)
Sugar
Soysauce
You can put in whatever you feel like, we went with:
Shitake Mushrooms
Prawns
fake crab meat
we also sprinkled Yuzu, a japanese citrus fruit and herbs called "Mitsuba" on it.
What did we do? Well, actually, Mako did. I just stood around, got in the way and tried to memorize everything.
Soak Shitake in water unless you can afford to buy fresh ones. Then let them simmer in a pot on low heat in soysauce and a bit of sugar. This, once again, is according to your tastes. It was a lot of fun to see Mako cook the same way I do, just throwing things in...
Soak Shitake in water unless you can afford to buy fresh ones. Then let them simmer in a pot on low heat in soysauce and a bit of sugar. This, once again, is according to your tastes. It was a lot of fun to see Mako cook the same way I do, just throwing things in...
Stir the eggs together.
Bring the water to a boil and mix in the Dashi (which should be available at any asian supermarket. It´s pretty essential thing in the japanese kitchen). Mako also saltened the Dashi which seems like a good idea to me.
Once the water has cooled down add the eggs. It should still stay liquid, so the water can be warm but really not hot. Get off any foam you get. No bubbles allowed!
Take small bowls (unless you have proper cool Chawan Mushi Bowls), place whatever you want inside in. We had those yummy, yummy Shitake (mmmh), fake crab meat and Prawns.
Once the water has cooled down add the eggs. It should still stay liquid, so the water can be warm but really not hot. Get off any foam you get. No bubbles allowed!
Take small bowls (unless you have proper cool Chawan Mushi Bowls), place whatever you want inside in. We had those yummy, yummy Shitake (mmmh), fake crab meat and Prawns.
Fill the bowls with the egg-Dashi-mixture.
Cover bowls with tinfoil.
Steam for 15 Minutes.
Eat & Enjoy.
Sounds easy, right? Well, the trick is, to get the royale like stuff to not get bubbly inside. When I tried I had a gazillion bubbles in it and even though it was tasty enough, the housewife that´s hiding inside me wasn´t satisfied at all. I guess, the trick is, how you steam it. I´m guessing some kind of device to keep the bowls above the water instead of putting it in helps. Here you can get chinese steaming baskets for cheap at asian supermarkets. Or you do it the fancy way and buy a pot with a steaming basket like the ones they have at IKEA.
Don´t let any water touch your food while steaming. That makes bubbles on the surface. Not altering the taste but stealing satisfaction.
I´ll be sure to try this at home very soon. It´s easy, doesn´t take a lot of time, and you can vary as much as you like. Add chicken, salmon (or any other fish), other veggies...
And I was told not to let the egg-Dashi-mixture get too watery or too eggy. Mmmhhh... Okay.
まこ、茶碗蒸しの作り方を教えてくれて本当にありがとうございました！
Shitake simmering & being yummy!
Eggs being whisked.
Mitsuba. I haven´t seen it here so far but I´ll keep looking.
Eggs and fake crab meat. Yes, I am aware that this stuff is probably made out of fish heads or something but hey, it´s so good!
Bowls halfway filled.
Bowls filled.
The one perfect, non-bubbly bowl we got. And we forgot mitsuba and yuzu. :/
Excuse the rather crappy pics, I had to take the small camera instead of the DSLR...
I hope I can make another post while I´m off because, hey, it´s the holidays, right? Food galore!! I´ll try my best.^^
Remember the chickenbroth I made? Well, here´s what I did with the chicken the day after:
Ingrediences: cooked chicken
peas
corn
chickenbroth
flour
butter
cream
This is a traditional german dish called "Hühnerfrikasse", something I grew up loving because both my grandma and mother made this themselves and regularly. If you tell germans you`re making your own Hühnerfrikasse everyone stares at you in disbelief as if it was complicated. But if you´ve been reading this blog, you know by know that I´m not really in for complicated stuff so... It´s easy!
For the sauce or whatever you want to call it, the liquid part of this, we need a roux: But some butter in your pot, maybe a tablespoon or maybe a little more, let it melt. Then throw a big tablespoon of flour on it. Get the pot off the flame and mix well. It has to be a thick butter-flour-pulp. Now comes the part that`s a bit tricky: Keep the wirewhisk in your "good" hand (the one that you write with), have chickenbroth ready. Now stir the flour-pulp like mad and add a bit of the broth. Only stirring will prevent the flour from clotting and being gross.
Don´t use too much broth, you´ll still want your sauce to be kinda thick and you still have to add the cream. Which is what´s next: you add the cream. I usually substitute cream with something with less fat and less lactose (like the german creme fine)... Now leave it all on low heat and see whether you like the thickness and richness of it. Add broth or cream if needed.
This done you pretty much have your stew ready. Only little stuff left:
This done you pretty much have your stew ready. Only little stuff left:
Cut the cooked chicken from the chickenbroth into small, bite-sized pieces, throw it in the sauce. (I kinda just rip my chicken apart. It adds to the thickness of the stew) Add as much peas and corn as you like and tadaaa! ready!
Well, okay, you still have to add salt and pepper if you want to get rid of the blandness. I also added some of my selfmade mustard this time and it fit perfectly.
You can eat this on rice, with noodles or like we did this time, with puff pastry cups (which are easily found in well stocked german supermarkets. We used to have them with Hühnerfrikasse for new years eve when we were kids so we kinda got nostalgic seeing them and had to have them).
Anybody has any good tips for this? Something new I haven´t tried yet? Suggestions are welcome.
You can eat this on rice, with noodles or like we did this time, with puff pastry cups (which are easily found in well stocked german supermarkets. We used to have them with Hühnerfrikasse for new years eve when we were kids so we kinda got nostalgic seeing them and had to have them).
Anybody has any good tips for this? Something new I haven´t tried yet? Suggestions are welcome.
Mmmmh, chicken!
puff pastry thingies.
Nikujaga & Gyouza
Posted in beef, fairly easy recipe, gyouza, japanese, kimchee, korean, onions, pickles, potatoesFinally some cooking again.
Ingrediences:
Nikujaga (Beef-Potato-Onion-Stew)
750g Potatoes
400g Onion
200g thinly cut Beef
Vegetable Oil
400ml Dashi
75ml Soysauce
3 TS Sugar
2 TS Mirin
1 TS Sake
Gyouza (Potstickers)
"Japanese Style"
250g Groundbeef
Springonion
Soysauce
1/2 big Mushroom
Ginger
Corn
"Korean Style"
250g Groundbeef
Springonion
1/2 big Mushroom
Kimchee
So I had lovely Gesa over last weekend. We hung out, watched silly stuff on Youtube, saw "The Good The Bad The Weird" (my sixth time), cooked and had an overall good time.
We made Nikujaga, one of my favorite japanese homecooking dishes ever. I´ve been told that you can get married for a good Nikujaga so... I´m trying.
I got this recipe from Kurihara Harumi`s book but everyone should know by now that I hardly ever follow instructions properly. I always use way more potatoes because I love the way they suck up the sweetness from the sauce. They´re even better the next day. It´s also pretty hard to get thinly cut beef around here so we usually use Gulash-Chops and cut them even smaller. I´m also pretty generous with the soysauce, the dashi and the sugar...
We made Nikujaga, one of my favorite japanese homecooking dishes ever. I´ve been told that you can get married for a good Nikujaga so... I´m trying.
I got this recipe from Kurihara Harumi`s book but everyone should know by now that I hardly ever follow instructions properly. I always use way more potatoes because I love the way they suck up the sweetness from the sauce. They´re even better the next day. It´s also pretty hard to get thinly cut beef around here so we usually use Gulash-Chops and cut them even smaller. I´m also pretty generous with the soysauce, the dashi and the sugar...
Here´s what you´re supposed to do:
Peel potatoes, wash them, get rid of the starch.
Peel onions, cut into 6 wedges each.
Cut meat into small pieces.
Heat up oil in a big pot, put in potatoes, then onions and beef. Fry for a few minutes.
Add Dashi, Soysauce, Sugar, Mirin and Sake (all of which is just NECESSARY for cooking japanese stuff and should be available at any respectable asian supermarket).
Add Dashi, Soysauce, Sugar, Mirin and Sake (all of which is just NECESSARY for cooking japanese stuff and should be available at any respectable asian supermarket).
Get rid of the foam if any builds up. Let simmer until Potatoes are done.
Add more sugar or soysauce if wanted. Always remember: You have to like it, it´s yours, you decide. (Yeah, this is me trying to get everyone into wildstyle cooking again)
We usually eat Nikujaga on rice which is apparently not what the japanese do but... whatever. It´s good.
We also made Gyouza. This time I forgot to buy Cabbage and thought it would surely end up in epic fail but it didn´t. I just added tiny chopped mushrooms (well not that tiny but small enough), chopped springonion, a few tablespoons of (leftover) corn, and some grated ginger to the groundbeef, threw some soysauce on top, mixed well and put it in and it worked.
Gesa did pretty much the same with her ingrediences: ground beef, mushroom (her´s was smaller than mine), springonion and Kimchee. Tug in, done. Yes, it´s that easy. Well, you might have to practise folding a bit but that´s not hard, either. Gesa did it without folding, she just glued the Gyouza-thingies together with water.
Should I do a tutorial on how to fold Gyouza next time?
The folded dumplings go into a pan, get fried a little bit, the you pour water over them, put on a lid and let them steam. I usually let them fry some more after the water is all gone to get the underside of them crispy again. Because I like it.
Should I do a tutorial on how to fold Gyouza next time?
The folded dumplings go into a pan, get fried a little bit, the you pour water over them, put on a lid and let them steam. I usually let them fry some more after the water is all gone to get the underside of them crispy again. Because I like it.
And that´s it.
My only good note for this one is that if you keep ginger in the freezer it grates much easier than it does fresh. It peels really easy and you don´t have to fight the fibre-thingies that usually are a pain in the ass...
My only good note for this one is that if you keep ginger in the freezer it grates much easier than it does fresh. It peels really easy and you don´t have to fight the fibre-thingies that usually are a pain in the ass...
My gyouza filling.
Gyouzawrappers. This time not homemade but bought.
Gesas gyouza filling. Mmmhh, kimchee! Next time I´ll try Kochujang-Gyouza...
Ready to be fried and steamed. Gesa´s to the left, unfolded, mine to the right.
We had grated daikon, soysauce and soysauce with lemonjuice to go with it. And Takuwan, yellow pickled radish, a korean speciality. Very good!
Fried and all. I didn´t manage to get them out of the pan prettily so this is the best pic I could do.
So Gesa: anytime again. It was delicious and fun. We´ll try baking next, right? Yay!