Chinese New Year 2010

As you may know, this Chinese New Year is the same date as Valentine’s Day.  We, Japanese, don’t celebrate Chinese New Year (as our New Year Day is the 1st of January), but I attended the dinner with in-laws last night at a Chinese restaurant in East Perth, called Han Palace.  The outside and interior of this restaurant is just about what I imagine of “China”  

We had a course meal, which contains 13 dishes.

Yu Sang – Prosperity Raw Fish Salad

Shark Fin and Crab Meat Soup

Ginger and Shallot Western Rock Lobster with Yee Meen

etc etc.

The food was …. to me, not really special.  Maybe it’s because those food are special New Year’s food, I don’t know.  Well, I did enjoyed the atmosphere though.  There was a big screen of tv showing a New Year’s event show, and we started the course meal by mixing up the Yu Sang together while yelling “Happy New Year”.

While we were about halfway through the course meal, it started … – dragon dance!  

Two dragon started to look for ang pows (red envelop with money) and all the customers in the restaurants were feeding ang pow to those dancing dragon.

Dragon must get the ang pows : a customer stood on a chair and held an ang pows in high position, and dragon also has to stand up and get the ang pows.

It was a fun night.  I didn’t eat much, but the service was great.

From Jakarta

Again… my house is filled with food from Indonesia. :p  They are all delicious and I sure like them.  But, if there’s a lot of food in the house, I just can’t stop eating!

Yesterday parents-in-law arrived Perth airport and we were having dinner all together.  The first thing they said to me was ” … did you put on weight?”

Yes I think I’ve been eating a lot lately, and was going to do some exercise, but I haven’t.  I was sick : I thought sick people usually lose weight instead of gaining.. (-_-)  

I know my body, and I always put on weight if I’m under stress.  Maybe I eat a lot when I feel stressed out?  When I was studying in Osaka few years ago I was living by myself in an apartment.  I was lonely, plus new school and new people, and I guess those things all became stress to me.  I wasn’t eating big amount of food, but I still gained weight.  :p

Ummm but I can’t resist this delicious layer cake!  It’s little too buttery, but rich and sweet.  Oh no, I hope someone else eat those food in this house before I do.

Grilled Chicken with Creamy Semi-dried Tomato

One of my favorite dinner dish.  Full flavor of semi-dried tomato and cream cheese in a pocket of chicken breast fillet.  The key is to season the meat well before grilling.

• 1 chicken breast fillet
• 100 g cream cheese
• 4 semi-dried tomato
• 1 cup baby spinach

1. Chop semi-dried tomato, and combine with cream cheese.
2. Halve the chicken breast in sideway to make two thin fillets.  Cut the centre of each fillet to make a “pocket”.
3. Season the inside of the pocket with salt, and then spread the cream cheese mixture inside.  Arrange spinach on top and then close the hole by lightly pressing the top side of meat to the bottom.  You can use toothpick if needed.
4. Heat 1 tbs of olive oil, and grill top side first.  When colored, flip it around and cook the other side over low heat.
5. Once the meat is cooked through, remove from the pan and rest for a while before cutting.  Garnish with cracked black pepper.

Korean Marinated BBQ Beef (Bul Kogi)

BBQ beef marinated in Korean style sauce.  Cooking the beef lightly is the key for juicy and tender Bul Kogi

• 300g beef, thinly sliced
• 5 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs sake
• 2 tbs sesame oil
• 2 tbs honey
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbs tobanjan
• 1 tbs roasted white sesame seeds

1. Combine all the ingredient in a bowl except for the sesame seeds.  Marinate the beef for 5 minutes.
2. Heat a frying pan without oil.  Remove the beef from the marinade, reserving the sauce, and cook the beef for 2~3 minutes or until just cooked through.  Remove from the pan and set aside.
3. Place the remaining marinade in the same pan and bring to the boil, stirring well, and simmer for 1 minutes.
4. Arrange beef on a plate.  Spoon on the sauce and garnish with sesame seeds.  Serve with steamed rice.

Summer Cold

I think it’s just because of this season, but I’m sick …! I have headache, fever, my whole body feels so heavy….. but I haven’t taken medicine yet. I try not to take medicine until I’m really disparate, and I think I’m not quite there yet at this point. I just eat well and sleep well until I feel ok

Normally people tend to want to eat their countries’ food when they are sick. In my case it is udon noodle soup. My mum used to make tamago-toji udon (udon noodle soup with egg) and that’s what I feel like eating now. (although it may be too hot to eat in this hot day :p )

To me, I think that you should eat non-spicy food when you are sick, because sometimes throat is very sensitive. But, some Indonesian people I know eat spicy noodle soup, or porridge with cut chili. (#0#) Well I guess it’s the culture difference.

By the way, some sales person knocked my house door the other day. I opened the door, and the first word the guy said to me was “ni hao ma” (“hello” in Chinise?) I was really upset to hear that because I am not Chinese. (*_*) No offense, but how come some Western people think that all Asian looking people are from China?

Anyway,

I made udon-bake the other night and I liked it. It’s just similar to pasta bake, really. I just used kishimen (a kind of udon noodle, flat and wide.) instead of pasta.

Because of the shape of Kishimen , it was actually like lasagna.