Lunch again

I brought home two boxes of Strawberries and before I could use them, almost 70% went soft and couldn't be used. So sad!!

The five I salvaged were wrapped with home made Anko for Mochi. I halved the strawberries and managed to yield 10 mochi.



The mochi was served as dessert for lunch yesterday.


Friends enjoyed a meal of Cha Soba and home made fried Gyozas.


Good friends and good food makes good company.

No Charaben today, just lunch!

I feel stifled by limited ingredients and confined taste buds!
Charaben isn't working for me because it takes a whole lot of time for the same purpose.
The kid needs to have more variety if she wants to have Charaben!


I made Zaru Soba today. Boiled Japanese buckwheat noodles, made a dip and fried some Korean dumplings and crab cakes. Notice the ice-cubes? Didn't plan ahead so had to make do.


#2 and I enjoyed a simple lunch.

Lunch

#1's God sisters came for lunch today. They return to Australia on Monday. One will begin working and the other to complete her degree. They have been friends since lower primary school.

Mum and I cooked lunch and served several simple dishes.

Spicy sweet and sour pork ribs. This was a real hit - everything gone.


Japchae from yesterday.


Curry chicken made from mum's own home made curry powder.




Everyone's favorite Bangkuang fried with pork strips, dried sotong strips and spring onions.



Salad to go with the bangkuang.



There was a tray of freshly baked scones for dessert.



A closer look at the fluffy delicious scone.

Fish and Chips

I was at the wet market this morning. I bought a Sole fish and got the fishmonger to fillet it. I love Sole fillets! It's such a flexible item to use in cooking.

Today, I made fish and chips for lunch. The Sole fillet was marinated with salt and freshly ground pepper. Before frying, coat the fish slices in corn flour, egg and pounded Jacobs Cream Crackers. Fry till brown and crispy.


This one has some added salad for the elder sister. I used the balance of the Honey dressing from Tuesday.


The kids loved it and was raving about it's flavor! Yummy!!

होम

Today's lunch was an Italian seafood stew. There were chunks of Salmon and King prawns, also cut into little chunks, served with home made white bread.

This picture gives a closer look at lunch.

This was dessert - Chempedak

From another angle.

Finally, only the seeds were left!

Chicken Katsu Donburi

Today's lunch, the evergreen chicken katsu donburi! #3 loves this dish and has it for dinner at least once a week. I find it too dry so I served today's meal with a bowl of soup and some baby bok choy.

A close up of the chicken katsu donburi with a drizzle of Bulldog sauce.

The Recipe:

Chicken Katsu Donburi

Chicken breast meat
Pepper and salt
Katakuriko (potato flour)
Egg
Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

1. Pound the chicken with a meat mallet.
2. Dust pounded chicken with salt and pepper.
3. Prepare 3 plates to contain the panko, beaten egg and katakuriko.
4. Prepare a frying pan with some oil for frying.
5. Dip the marinated chicken first into the katakuriko and coat well, then dip into the beaten egg and finally into the panko.
6. Fry till brown and allow the oil to drip dry into some kitchen paper.
7. Slice accordingly and top with Tonkatsu sauce (tastes like Worcestershire sauce) a.k.a Bulldog sauce.
8. Top it into a bowl of steaming hot rice and viola you get a Donburi!

Bob apetite or should I say Itadakimasu! LOL!

The original recipe is called Tonkatsu which uses pork fillets. I've used chicken fillets as an alternative here.


Other related Donburi posts: Tri-color Donburi
Salmon steak Donburi

Tri-color Donburi (Sanshoku Donburi)

Being a naturally lazy cook, having to cook an extra meal for lunch is not a very exciting thought! I normally avoid cooking lunch and manage to churn out dinner a few times a week in between eating out.

Since #2 insists on eating lunch at home, I have to cook. #2 doesn't like to eat fried rice unless it's Salmon and garlic fried rice so I have to resort to Donburi meals.

This afternoon, we had Tri-color Donburi, in Japanese - Sanshoku Donburi.

A delicious lunch of egg and chicken soboro and boiled lady fingers.

The recipe:

Tri-color Donburi (Sanshoku Donburi)

Steam 1 cup of rice

150 g ground chicken
A squeeze of ginger juice
1 1/2 tbs of soy sauce
2 tsp each of sugar and sake

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp sugar
pinch of salt

6 lady fingers or French beans

Method:
1. Mix ground chicken with ginger juice, soy sauce, sugar and sake.
2. Cook in a saucepan over medium heat until almost dry. Be careful of heat, do not scorch meat.
3. Mix the eggs with sugar and salt.
4. Cook in another saucepan over medium low fire. Stir egg mixture with four chopsticks to achieve fine crumbles.
5. Boil lady fingers or French beans in salted water till done.
6. When done, slice them diagonally.
7. Place the steaming hot rice in a serving bowl and arrange the chicken, egg and lady fingers.

Bon apetite!


Have you ever seen lady fingers this color? I was quite intrigued and bought some home to try. The seller claim to be from Janda Baik and selling organic vegetables. He said that once the lady fingers are cooked, they turn green!



True enough, if you look at the second picture from the top, it shows the cooked lady fingers in 'light green', the darker green ones are the original green lady fingers pictured below.

Original - green lady fingers.

Other Donburi recipe: Salmon Steak Donburi

Donburi - a balanced and fast meal

Donburi is not as popularly known as sushi, teriyaki, or some other well-known Japanese dish. Donburi simply refers to a large, thick rice bowl that often comes with a lid. Wikipedia explains Donburi as meals that are served in oversized rice bowls. Donburi are sometimes called sweetened or savory stews on rice.

This all-in-one meal is popular because everything is in one deep bowl, saving time in preparation and cleaning up. There are endless variations of donburi. On a personal level, I've not cooked a single meal for lunch for the past six months. Don't get me wrong, I love cooking, it's the washing up that I loath. My change of maid has been a constant nightmare and I thank God that my agency has finally got another change for me. My new help is a breath of fresh air. She understands and is able to carry out instructions without making a complete mess of things.

This is my first lunch meal I've cooked in half a year. SueSue asked me a question that triggered me to cook Donburi.

For me, cooking lunch must be fast because it's the busiest time. I have three school/college going children who have completely different time tables and schedules. The youngest one goes to day care after school and I send lunch over everyday (ta-pau/packed).

The second one is the busiest of the lot with an irregular schedule because of extra curricular activities like Choral singing, Debate brainstorming sessions, Music classes, Dance practices, etc, etc.

The eldest goes to college and we spend pretty much time having long breakfasts/brunches and coffees whenever her classes commence midday. All said and done, I would have done very well in the "Limousine business" if I had not been a stay at home mum!! LOL!!

Today's menu:

Salmon Steak Donburi and Miso soup
(for 2 persons)

1 salmon steak - marinate with salt and pepper
10 pods of snow peas (remove the fibrous string)
Toasted sesame seeds
2 bowls of hot Japanese short grain rice (Cooked)
Some lemon slices
1 tbsp of Kikoman shoyu
1 tbsp of lemon juice
One square inch of butter (less if you wish)
1-2 tbsp all purpose flour

Method:
1. Dust the marinated salmon steak with all purpose flour and fry it in melted butter.
2. Meanwhile boil a small pot of hot water and add salt and blanch the snow peas.
3. While frying the salmon, turn it once only and drizzle in the soy sauce from the side of the pan and add the lemon juice.


4. Prepare two donburi bowls and place cooked rice in each of the bowls. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds onto the rice.


5. Cut the Salmon into several pieces and arrange them alternating with a slice of lemon each.
6. Scoop some sauce mixture of butter, shoyu and lemon and drizzle onto the salmon.
7. Arrange the snow peas beside the salmon and you enjoy a fast and delicious lunch. Itadakimasu!

"Happy New Year 2008!"

We welcomed the New Year with 'Lui Cha'. It's a Hakka dish I learnt to cook from one of our resident Priest several years ago. It's our Parish Priests' favourite dish. It's been a while since I cooked this. Our assistant Parish priest was leaving for further studies and hubs and I decided we'd host a farewell for him with a "Lui Cha" party!

It was crazy!! We had about 30 adults and 15 kids and a mountain of vegetables! But we had loads and loads of fun!! Look at the amount of fried vegetables. On another table, we had a huge pot of Spaghetti for the kids. Some kids couldn't resist trying the 'lui cha' and surprisingly enjoyed it too!!Great food!! Fantastic company! Amazing friends!! What a welcome to a happening year - 2008!! Thank you Lord!!

Quick fix lunch!

Sorry there was no Bento post yesterday. Yours truly was coughing the whole night and only slept at 3a.m. By the time it was day break and the alarm rang, yours truly just slept through like a baby.

My poor kids, no Bento yesterday, came home ravenous. I prepared them a decent lunch to make up for oversleeping. They were very sweet, didn't even try to wake mummy up!!

On the top left is Japanese spinach with sesame seed dressing.

Also prepared their all time favourite Tonkatsu! Four of us finished the whole plate. Tonkatsu "Bulldog" sauce was on the side because #1 doesn't like it.



Served the 'evergreen' miso soup with mussels, wakame and abura-age.





Lastly I made a pot of my favourite Oden (eaten with mustard) for dinner, but also served some for lunch. Mmmm...delicious!!

I tried to upload this post last night but it was impossible. The traffic must have been very high at blogger.com because I couldn't upload my photos until this morning.

YakiUdon

Cooked YakiUdon for lunch today. Got this inspiration from a Japanese restaurant in KotaDamansara. I was there for lunch with DN2 last week and they were having a promotion on this dish. I tried it and it was nice.

The supervisor told me that they use teriyaki sauce as a base to fry this. It was very simple, I cooked the teriyaki on one stove, blanched the udon noodles in a pot of boiling water in another and did the frying in a kuali over the third stove. Lunch time must work very fast because have to send one to school and fetch another.

The recipe:
1.
Teriyaki sauce:
Sake 3 tbsp
Sugar 1 tbsp
Shoyu 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp
Mirin 1 1/2 tbsp
Water 1/8 cup

2. 2 packets of fresh udon noodles (200g/pkt)
3. 5 leaves of cabbage
4. 1/2 big yellow onion
5. 1/2 carrot
6. 1/2 piece of chicken breast fillet
7. 5-6 pcs fishcake
8. 1 tbsp oil


Method:
1. Boil the sake and add the rest of the ingredients in. Continue to boil until the liquid begins to caramelize. Once it caramelizes, turn off the fire.
2. Cut the cabbage, carrot and onions into fine juliennes.
3. Cut the chicken fillet and fishcake thinly.
4. Heat up 1 tbsp oil in a kuali and fry the onions. Keep fire small and fry till soft and not brown and crisp.
5. Meanwhile boil a pot of water and blanch the udon noodles for one minute.
6. When onions are done, toss in the chicken and fishcake - fire on medium, add some teriyaki sauce and fry till chicken turn color.
7. Toss udon into kuali and pour the remainder teriyaki sauce. Turn fire down and add all the vegetables. Do not over cook the vegetables because it should be a little crunchy.
8. Serve with Shichimi togarashi (Japanese Chilli pepper), if you like your udon a little spicy.

[yakiudon]