Orchid

Orchid is National Flower in Singapore.  There are many orchid park, botanical gardens and you can see a lot of beautiful orchid.

I've got a beautiful orchid bouquet today from my friend.  It is gorgeous and I love it.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

There are many kind of olive oils and now so many good one can be found here in Singapore.  When I was living in Japan, I used olive oil which I only could find it in an exclusive shop because extra virgin olive oil should be very good quality and once my friend in Italy brought one for me, I was so surprised to taste it.  It's different, sweet, darker color etc.  Since then I don't compromise about olive oil.  Your cooking dish gets much better flavor and more tasty if you use a good olive oil.

I wrote about Laudemio, Italian olive oil before and I really like it, still using a lot.  But the other day, I found French Olive Oil.  This is also very nice and I bought a big one so you can refill to your own olive oil bottle and I use for dressing, marine, and for toast.  The shop has lots of other nice stuff.  If you are in Singapore, check it out.

LITTLE PROVENCE at TANGLIN MALL
163 Tanglin Road
Tanglin Mall #02-K2
Singapore 247933
Tel: 6887 3842

LITTLE PROVENCE at RAFFLES CITY
252 North Bridge Road
Raffles City #B1-42C
Singapore 179103
Tel: 6337 5061

Gratin

Gratin is originally from France, but in Japan it is a very popular dish.  There are many kind of gratins, seafood, potatoes, vegetables etc.

I started to make this gratin for my daughter when she was 3 years old.  She loves it and still asking me to make whenever I ask her what she wants to eat for dinner.

1. Put butter in a pan and add chopped onions
2. When onions are soft, add flour little by little
3. Add milk very slowly and mix well without making small flour bubbles
4. Add cleaned prawns and a bouillon cube(I always use vegetable cube as its flavor is not strong)
5. Boil macaroni or elbow pasta(Better to boil 1 minute more than the time on the package then the pasta is soft enough to absorb the white sauce
6. Add pasta into white sauce and mix gently
7. Put on a gratin plate and grate parmesan cheese on top
8. Bake in oven until cheese gets golden brown

Lamb Chops

Some people don't like lamb as it is not so common meat in Japan.  I hadn't had lamb until I was 20.  First time I had lamb was in England.  It was so tender and delicious.  Since then I often ordered lamb chop in a restaurant.  When I went to Sydney long time ago, my friend invited to BBQ at her garden.  There were lots of lamb chops and I tried to get some then my friend said " Do not take lamb, it's too cheap.  Eat chicken, it's nice".  For me, chicken is so common and I love lamb so I explained to her how precious lamb is.  Lamb is very expensive in Singapore as well, but sometimes I really want to eat lamb.  My family also love my lamb chops so I made it the other day.

It is very simple.  Just salt and pepper then put grated garlic.  Put rosemary and bake in the oven.  I think most important thing is the temperature and time to bake.  It depends on your oven but if you bake 2 or 3 times, you know the exact time and temperature.  I haven't done so many times and figured it out that 220 degrees for 13 minutes.  When I was living in Japan, 220 degrees to preheat and 200 degrees to bake for 12 minutes because the oven was smaller than one I have now.

I made octopus and cucumber salad.

My kids like baked potatoes, but my husband try to avoid potatoes as he is concerned about his weight so I made Juhakkokumai which means 18 kinds of cereal rice mixed.

Salmon Don(Salmon Bowl)

This is just a simple dish.

Boil Salmon with water and sake(or white wine).
Take Salmon out and let it cool.
In other bowl, mix soy sauce, miso, sugar and lemon zest.
Put Salmon back to the bowl and mix softly.
Put rice in a bowl and salmon on the rice.
Sprinkle spring onions and negi(leek).

Hinamatsuri(Girl's Day)

Hinamatsuri is March 3rd in Japan.  It is a Girl's Day.  We celebrate Girl's health with decorating Hina Dolls.  I used to celebrate when I was living in Japan and my parents bought a beautiful Hina dolls for my daughter.  However, it was very difficult to maintain the dolls in Singapore as it's very muggy and humid here.  I left it in Japan so I just put the photo of Hina dolls so you can get an idea how it is.

On that day, we eat Chirashizushi and other special dishes, but my kids asked me to make normal sushi so we celebrated with sushi on Girl's day.  I added the Japanese sweets especially made for this day.

Gyoza(Dumplings)

Gyoza is originally a Chinese dish, but became very popular in Japan.  It is different from Chinese one and there are so many kinds of Gyoza.

This is my own Gyoza.  Actually, this is my mom's recipe.  My husband said that when he had Gyoza first time in Japan at Ramen restaurant was terrible.  He felt like he was eating raw garlic.  When I heard from him that Gyoza is not his favourite Japanese food, I said "Try mine!".  Since then, this Gyoza is one of his favourite dish.

I don't put garlic in my Gyoza.  I put dry shiitake mushrooms, cabbage and ginger, leek, Nira(Japanese chives), minced pork.