Yasai Itame

I saw this in Nobu's site. I just happened to buy "Taugeh" a.k.a. bean sprouts yesterday. Normally, I would fry with salted fish but I tried frying it "Japanese style".

I used Nobu's 'recipe' and managed to fry a deliciously fresh and sweet vegetable dish. I dropped the meat because we were having soy sauce pork as another dish for dinner.

• carrot
• sliced snow peas
• onion
• cabbage
• soy bean sprout
• yellow pepper
• straw mushrooms
• soy sauce
• salt
• pepper
• salad oil

Soy Sauce Pork

I love Smilebox! It's given me endless opportunity to experiment and convert my pictures into a slide show.

In a previous post, I mentioned about my mum cooking without proper measurements. I realized that one of the reasons I never picked up on cooking Chinese is because she always estimated her ingredients and that put me off.

I am one who had to have my weighing machine, my liquid measuring jugs and measuring spoons (both Japanese and US standards) and recipe available before I get cooking.

I found that by taking detailed pictures of her cooking, I could easily follow and re-make her recipes! What a Gem I found in Smilebox!!! Yipeee!!!

I showed mum the first slide show I made on her Salted fish bones and vegetables curry and she was tickled! She cooked Soy Sauce Pork for dinner and I asked to post the recipe again. She was a little trilled, I think! Both of us are having fun!!

This is it, the recipe:

Approximately 600 grams of pork belly and lean pork marinated in 2 Tbsp of dark soy sauce.
Season for 15 minutes.

Spices:
A handful of garlic
3 cloves
half a Star Anise
1 inch of cinnamon
1 tsp of crushed white pepper
1 piece of rock sugar (to caramelize the pork to give it a glossy look)

Half ladle of cooking oil

Method:

• Heat up half a ladle of cooking oil
• Fry cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves and then add garlic
• Add crushed pepper corns
• Add marinated pork
• Saute and toss pork and add the rock sugar
• Add half a soup bowl of water
• Bring to boil and cook on medium/low fire for 15 minutes
• Add 3 Tbsp of soy sauce (Mum used the dinner spoon - she says it's the same!@#?!!)
  
• Add a ceramic soup spoon into the pork (this is to tenderize the pork)
• Add 1 Tbsp of dark soy sauce for darker color
  
• Continue to cook for another 15 minutes on medium/low fire (leave the ceramic soup spoon in the pot!)
  
• Taste and add soy sauce to taste if not sufficient

Mum's Soy Sauce Pork is different from others I have eaten because she adds spices like cinnamon and cloves into it. It adds a nice flavor to the soy sauce pork dish.

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BENTO #117

I've been surfing the Weight Watchers site for low calorie recipes with no luck! Most recipes would require me to cook the night before to be ready for packing into my Bento a la minute in the morning! Can't work for bento!

I decided to come up with my own 'diet' menu today!

I made some guacamole from this recipe. Added some bread (baked dry) and corn in the left box.

I rolled up carrot strips, thinly sliced ham with peas and baby corn for a light meal of protein and more veggies! Skewered some papaya and pineapple for fruits.



Hopefully, this is low calorie enough because #2 is stubbornly sticking to her 'diet' decision.
When I went to buy the ham, I asked the man behind the counter to slice the ham as thin as possible. He looked at me and asked again "thinner?" madam! "Yeah! thinner!" He looked confused because I'm the same person who used to tell him to slice the ham thicker!

Oh well! Desperate situations require desperate solutions!