Love Toast

Do you eat toast for breakfast every morning?  How would you eat them, simply just with butter?  or with eggs and meat?  

While I’m in Japan my dad and I always have breakfast in the cafe on weekends.  We wake up quite early every morning, and drive a car there.  ”breakfast at cafe” = “morning” in Japan, for example we say “hey, let’s go for morning.”  I read an article about the “morning” culture the other day, and I found out that middle eastern – middle western Japanese people go for morning more often than people in other regions in Japan.  (I’m from Shiga, centre of Japan island)  

The basic morning menu is : one drink, one piece (or half piece) of thick sliced toast, one boiled egg, and small bowl of salad or seasonal fruits.  Very simple menu, and it costs around 250~500 yen.  (depends on the cafe)  Of course there are more menus there, such as scrambled eggs, sandwiches etc, but I always go for basic “morning” menu.

I love Japanese bread.  Texture and taste are different from ones in Perth or other countries.  Moist, kind of chewy, yet soft…  And the toast you get from cafe is really really thick! (about 5 cm)  Very nice :p  I usually enjoy them with just butter, or sometimes spread jam/boiled red bean on.

In Perth I sometimes make morning type breakfast.  One boiled egg, one piece of toast… but the bread is different :*(  Ummm.. but what can I do.

BTW you can enjoy toast menu in some of  Izakaya as well.  I love “toast tower” … which is a whole loaf of bread with lots of butter, syrup, ice cream (usually vanilla) and sometimes with red beans or chocolates on the top!  They are served on a plate as stood up in lengthwise, and there is a hollow on the top where ice cream and some other food are served in.  It’s toasted, so ice-cream and butter are melting…  Sounds very high calorie food (it is), but it’s yummy…!  It looks huge but just two girls can eat it up.  … well, I can!

Melty Chocolate Balls

How did you spend your Valentine Day??  I made some round petit cakes with melty chocolate inside.  They are drops from haven (?)  The chocolate is so yummy!  I used Takoyaki grill plate to make them.

< Melty Chocolate Balls>

• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tbs melted butter
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• vanilla extract
• 50 g dark cooking chocolate
• 50 ml fresh cream

1. Heat up cream in a sauce pan.  Turn off the heat and add chocolate.  Mix it through.  Place it in the fridge once it’s cool.
2. Place milk, egg, butter and vanilla in a bowl.  Mix it through.  Shift in the flour and baking powder, then  fold that in using a spatula.
3. Heat Takoyaki grill plate.  Pour the mixture into the holes, and drop 1/2 tsp of ganache.  Once the bottom of the mixture is set, turn it over and cook it around (360º).
4. Serve on a plate and dust icing sugar over.

Alternatively you can cook them in a frying pan.  Drop a small batch of mixture in a heated pan.  Just before you turn it over, drop 1/2 tsp of ganache in the centre of the mixture, and cover the ganache with another small drop of mixture.  Cook both side.  You can use egg rings or some sort if you like.

Chinese Food in Perth

I get to go to Chinese restaurants quite often while my future-in-laws are in Perth.  Although I like Chinese, I prefer not going there more than 3 times a week…  It’s just bause I know Chinese food are high in calories.

Chinese restaurants , which I often go to, include Chinese, Chinese Malaysian and Chinese Vietnamese.  Here are some of my favorite dish at some Chinese restaurants in Perth….

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like bagels??

I wrote a post about bagels here, and I’ve tried bagels at the Trackside Bakery down by the Perth Train Station as Angie recommended me.  I loved the whole “bakery smell”  Freshly baked bread…  yum!  and bagels are really nice! but I wish there are more bagel shops in Perth.  

I’m starting to wonder… do people in Perth know what the bagel is??  I mean, of course some people should know, but is it like 20% of the population??  Not so many shops sell bagels, does it mean people here prefer soft & light bread?

Personally I love hard, crusty and difficult-to-tear-off type of bread.  I can get those hard crusty bread from my favorite bakery, but sadly they don’t sell bagels on regular bases

Do you like soft bread, or hard bread??

Three Colored Rice (San Shoku Go-han)

The weather was great this weekend.  Fine, not too hot, lovely breeze…  Is autumn just around the corner?

In Japan we call autumn as “eating season”.  There are lots of seasonal food such as rice, grapes, kuri (chestnuts), nashi pears, sweet potatoes, and fish are taster than ever!  Migratory fish eats lots of food in Northern ocean and swim down to South along Japanese Islands around autumn, so we can enjoy juicy tasty fish in this season.  Samma (saury) is the typical autumn fish in Japan, it’s written as “秋刀魚” (autumn sword fish).

People tend to put on weight during this season as the food is so great.  I’m not the exception…  My family owns few rice fields, so we get lots of fresh rice in this season.  I can’t resist these juicy rice and tasty food!  I eat a lot, a lot, and a lot…

Today I felt like stuffing my stomach with rice.  I made this three colored rice (called San-shoku Gohan)  As the name indicates, this is a dish with three different color food on top of steamed rice.  The red (pink) is salmon, yellow is egg, and brown is chicken mince.  You can use any food to make the color contrast.

<Three Colored Rice> for one

• 1 serve of steamed rice
• 30g salmon
• 1/4 tsp sake (or white wine)
• 1/2 egg
• 1/2 tsp milk
• 30g chicken mince
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/6 grated ginger
• pinch of sugar

1. Heat a frying pan (or small sauce pan).  Place salmon, sake and pinch of salt.  Try to break the meat, and cook through.  Set aside.
2. Beat the egg with milk.  Make scrambled egg.  Set aside.
3. Place chicken mince with soy sauce, mirin and oyster sauce in a pan, and cook over medium heat.  Keep stirring.  Once the chicken is cooked, add ginger and pinch of sugar.  Cook until all the liquid is absorbed.
4. Arrange these three food on the top of steamed rice.

The key for this dish is to season well on these three food.  You can add miso paste to the chicken and make it miso flavor.  I can eat lots of rice with those!