Marinated Eggplants(Nasu) & Nasu Dengaku

Nasu is common vegetable in Japan, many ways to cook and eat.

It is not so easy to find Japanese eggplants here, it's easy to find western eggplants so I use often western eggplants.  It is good, just bit harder and much bigger than Japanese one.

I made this Italian dish.  Marinated with sun dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and a bit red pepper.
Cut eggplants thin and grill it on a grill pan with a 1 tsp olive oil.  Put grilled eggplants on the plate and put marinated sauce on top.  I cut basil leaves and sprinkle on it.

The other one is Japanese dish called Miso Dengaku.  This is my husband's favourite dish.  You can find it in a casual Japanese restaurant or tapas (Izakaya) in Japan. He asked me if I can make it or not so I tried it.

It is also western eggplants and cut thicker.  Soak in the water few minutes and dry it out then wrap each of them and cook 4 minutes in microwave.  While it is in microwave, make Dengaku sauce.

Just mix 2tsp Miso, 1tsp Mirin, 0.5 tsp Sake, 1 tsp Sugar.  When eggplants done, take out from microwave and spread the miso sauce on the nasu.  Put them into a oven toaster and just toast.  Take it out and sprinkle grated white sesame on top.
Japanese Nasu skin is very soft so you can eat it, but western nasu skin is hard so you can serve with spoon and scoop inside of nasu.  It is melting in your mouth.  Even though you don't like eggplants, you must try this, it is totally delicious!!  Of course, my husband liked it a lot as well as my kids who usually don't eat eggplants:)

Last night's appetizer, Sashimi and Umeshu

I made sashimi appetizer with Umeshu.  Umeshu is a Japanese liqueur made from steeping ume (plum) fruits in alcohol(shochu) and sugar.  It has a sweet, sour taste and an alcohol content of 10-15%.  The taste and aroma of umeshu can appeal to even those people who normally dislike alcohol.  It is good for aperitif.  I found umeshu with shiso herb recently.  This is really refreshing and great to have it before dinner with appetizer.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Personally I like tomato sauce pasta more than cream sauce pasta, but all my family like cream sauce more than tomato sauce:(

I made Spaghetti Carbonara.  There are many recipes of Carbonara.  My recipe is very simple so this is good to make for family when I have no time to cook.

1.  Bake small sliced bacon until crispy in a pan.

2.  Add 1 cup of cream and stir until thicker the sauce. 

3.  Boil Spaghetti for few minutes shorter than the cooking time on a spaghetti package.

4.  Add boiled spaghetti into the pan and mix. Put off fire.

5.  Add egg yolks and mix well.

6.  Salt & Pepper and sprinkle fresh grated parmesan cheese on top.

 

Today's Obento

This is today's obento.

Thai Red Curry

We had guests on Saturday night and I cooked so many kind of dishes.  Liver Pate, Prawn and Carrots, leek, celery salad, Salted pork with miso and vinegar as appetiser.  Then pork fillet and Parmesan cheese as main with brown rice and pumpkin and spinach salad.  Desert was berries mix with balsamic with vanilla ice cream.

But, I was very busy and my husband was busy with guests so totally forgot to take photos:(

Anyway, I will make them again so I will take a photo next time.

So I was quite tired yesterday after entertaining guests until 1am.  (Of course, lots of wines, whisky etc).  My daughter said "Let's order Pizza for dinner", but I really don't like to order pizza.  Maybe in US, it has a better pizza, but I don't like to order pizza here and always regret after I ordered.  To order Pizza is only for emergency for me such as lots of my daughter's friends are coming or I am completely exhausted to cook or no ingredients in the fridge.

Then I cooked Thai Red Curry.  This looks complicated, but takes only 15 minutes!
You just buy Thai Red Curry Paste.  You only need for 2tsp of this so you can keep it in the fridge and make it again and again.

1. 2tsp red curry paste into the pan.  Pour 2 cans coconut milk and melt paste.
2. Bring to boil then add frozen shrimp.
3. Add 2 tsp fish sauce.
4. Add Basil leaves (better to tear by hands then it's more fragrance).
5. Serve with brown rice or white rice.
(I served half brown half white).

Inarizushi

Inarizushi is a fried tofu skin which is cooked in a soy sauce and sugar.  It's drained then stuffed with sushi rice.  I have been making this so many times included for catering and I noticed that it is not everyone's favorite.  I guess because it is a bit too sweet.  For me, also not my favorite, but children are usually happy to eat this.  My daughter's friends came over the other day so I made Inarizushi for them.  They are gone in 10 minutes!

Obento

Yesterday was the first day of term 2 at my daughter's school.  I made this Obento for her.
It has pork ginger, kyuri asazuke and tamagoyaki.

Octopus and Cucumber Salad

I think Octopus is not so popular fish around the world.  In Japan, we eat a lot of Octopus and it is very tender and soft if it's fresh.

My children also love Octopus and you can get it in Singapore at the Japanese supermarket even though it's 3 times more expensive than Japan.

I sometimes go there to get fresh Octopus and eat as Sashimi or make salad like this.

Harusame Salad

Harusame are transparent noodles made from potato starch.  It is often used in soup, salad etc.

I made Salad with tomatoes, ham, cucumber and lettuce with soy sauce and sesame oil dressing.

Temarizushi

This is Temarizushi.  Te means hand, Mari means ball and it looks like a small hand made ball so it named Temarizushi.

You can put anything you want, but just make sure you shape nicely like a little ball.  I made finely scrambled egg (Ititamago) and put Ikura(salmon roe).

Shichimi Togarashi

Shichimi togarashi means seven spices.  It has seven ingredients and nice flavor.  It works well with noodle dishes, Yakitori, Shabushabu and tempuras.

I've got this bottle as a gift from a very famous, traditional company in Nagano in Japan.

This bottle is a lacquer and so beautiful.

Fried Pork with Kimchi

Kimchi is a traditional fermented Korean dish made of vegetable with a lot of seasonings.  Of course Kimchi is much better taste in Korea than Singapore, but it is quite easy to find Kimchi here.  

I usually serve Kimchi with a steamed white rice.  It is simple and nice, but it needs a variation sometimes.  I had thin sliced pork in my freezer so I made Fried Pork with Kimchi.

1.  Put 4 thin sliced pork together and sprinkle pepper.

2.  One lady finger and some Kimchi together and roll up.

3.  Put egg, flour, bread crumbs on the surface of rolled pork and fry until golden brown.

4.  Cut half and serve.

Even though you don't like Kimchi, this is not so strong flavor of it so you can enjoy the best combination of Pork and Kimchi.

Urushi (Lacquer ware)

This is also Urushi.  A very good friend of mine came to visit me 2 weeks ago and she gave me the beautiful lacquer ware from Japan.  Usushi is famous for Red and Black colour, but she gave me the silver colour one so that I can use both for Western food and Japanese food:)

I like her sense and I enjoy using this very much.

Sushi on urushi(lacquer) plate

Urushi is a natural paint material which is gathered and refined from urushi trees which can be found in Asia.  The decorative power of urushi has become an important aspect of its artistic culture in Japan.  We use Urushi for a very special occasion in Japan.

However, I would like to use urushi more often as it is so beautiful.

How about like this to serve Sushi?

Taco Salad

One of my favorite food is Mexican Food.  First time I had Mexican food was in America when I went to high school as an exchange student.  Since then I love all kinds of Mexican food especially Chimichanga and Taco Salad.

There are few Mexican restaurants here in Singapore, but none of them are as good as in the States.

Then I found this restaurant.  It is very nice.

We had lots of visitors, friends last 2 weeks so one night, we took our friends there.  I had Taco Salad and it was very good:) Of course you must try Frozen Margarita with it.

Margarita's
11 Dempsey Road
Singapore 249673
TEL: 6471-3228

Fennel Salad

This is a very simple salad.  Butter lettuce, Fennel with Honey mustard dressing.

Honey mustard dressing is just mix lemon juice, honey and Dijon mustard and extra virgin olive oil.

Simple, but very refreshing.

Vietnamese Fresh Springrolls

I like Vietnamese food because they use a lot of vegetables.  I made this Vietnamese spring roll wrapping with rice paper.  The sauce I also made just imagine I was in Vietnam while I was cooking:)

Strasbourg

We went to Strasbourg, France to see our very good friends who were used to live in Singapore.
Strasbourg is a beautiful city and we all really enjoyed everything there, view, food, wine, and the most precious time with being good friends together.

This is the city.

This is Flams.  The most famous snack in Strasbourg.  The same brand restaurant opened in Singapore, so I would like to try if it's as good as in Strasbourg.

My friend made a lot of nice home made food.  This is one of them.

Lots of delicious cheeses with a cute cheese plate.

We also had traditional Alsace food at a restaurant.  It was very tasty and atmosphere was so comfortable and cozy.

The church was lighten up.  What a beautiful time!  Thank you, dear our friends!!

Dutch First Food

The most well known Dutch first foods are Bitterbollen(meat roll covered in breadcrumbs) and Frikandel (a skinless minced meat sausage).  


When I went to Holland first time to meet my husband's parents, I went out with his friends one night.  We had lots of food and drinks and in the end, they all went to buy Frikandel from a vending machine to eat.  I was very surprised that they could still eat after the huge meal and drinks as well as the vending machine is there!  Well, actually Japanese people also go eat Ramen after drinking so it's kind of same concept, I guess.  

Europe

I was in Holland and France on holiday.  I had a fantastic time there!

This is Holland.  Do you know there are more bicycles than population in Holland?  This road is for bicycles.  I walked every morning and saw nice view which totally different from Singapore.

Tomato Sauce Pasta & Mushroom salad

Tomato Sauce is very easy to make, but there are so many ways to make.  My recipe is from the school I went to learn how to make pasta and sauce.  This is very simple yet very tasty.

Use very good quality extra virgin olive oil.  Put the oil in the pan and add chopped garlic.  When you smell the garlic, put canned tomato.  There are many kinds of canned tomatoes so you better try some of them and choose what you like the best.  Then reduce heat and cook until it becomes thick.  This is the most important to make it thick otherwise it is very watery and taste bad.  You have to be patient if you want to make good one:)  Salt and pepper then ready!

I like to eat raw mushroom.  In Japan, not many people eat raw mushroom, but I learned to eat it like this when I was living in America.  Just slice mushrooms and mix with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and Italian parsley.

Salmon Maki

My daughters' friends came over for a sleepover tonight and they said they like Salmon Sushi.  I made this Salmon and cucumber maki for them as well as I made pasta with short rib sauce(I will update this recipe later) as they are Italian girls!!  They liked my pasta and sauce and they did Okawari (2nd round of their pasta)!!  

My husband made a very nice drink tonight as I had been in the kitchen almost all day today to create new recipe as well as dinner for tonight.

This is Frozen Margarita.  It was really nice to drink after all cooking in the kitchen.  

Vegetarian Lasagna

I am not a vegetarian, but sometimes I don't feel like eating meats or fish for dinner.  But my family likes meats and fish then I make one appetizer of fish or meat and vegetarian main dish.

This is what I made.  It is vegetarian lasagna.  It has eggplants, zucchini, red paprika.  Jut grilled them before you put in the oven.  Then make like normal lasagna.  It tastes good if you make your own tomato sauce which I always do and very simple.  Chopped garlic with olive oil then put one can tomato diced.  Salt and pepper and cook until it became thick for about 20 minutes.

Kotakinabalu, Malaysia

I was on vacation at the beach.  It's called Kotakinabalu which is the capital of Sabah state in East Malaysia.  It is located on the northwest coast of Borneo facing the South China Sea.  

There are lots of fresh vegetable in Malaysia and I enjoyed eating and drinking especially Prosecco at the breakfast table:)

This is called Borneo cooler.  Soda with Berries.

Indian Food was delicious!

And most beautiful one was the sky and sea.