Japanese Style Slow-cooked Pork

Suddenly I had a craving for Japanese style char siu (yakibuta). It’s quite different from those Chinese style char siu – Japanese one tastes more like ham.  I like eating yakibuta with Japanese mayonnaise, and that’s what I had in my mind when I was making this dish.  It turned out, not exactly what I expected it to be, but it tasted great anyway and is a perfect meat dish to be served with simple steamed rice.

I served this slow-cooked pork dish with carrot rice – which is a simple steamed rice with grated carrot.  The rice doesn’t taste like carrot, but it boosts the nutrition.

To make this dish, you need an oven.  What you do is just marinate the pork in the sauce and cook in the oven – very easy.  You can use any part of pork for this dish: this time I used pork thigh.

<Japanese Style Slow-Cooked Pork>

• 300g pork meat
• 40ml soy sauce
• 20ml sake (cooking wine)
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 40g sugar
• 3cm spring onion
• 1 tbs white sesame seeds

1. Marinate the pork in the sauce (mixture of all the ingredients) overnight.
2. Pre-heat oven to 200°.
3. Place aluminium-foil on an oven tray, bending the edge high so that all the marinade sauce can go inside.  Place the pork and marinade sauce in the foil, and close the top.  You can also use 2 pieces of aluminium-foil : one to keep the pork and marinade sauce, and another to cover up the pork and sauce.
4. Cook the pork in the oven for 45 minutes.
5. Leave the pork for at least 10 minutes before slicing.
6. Serve with steamed rice and your choice of vegetables (or salad).

Salmon Teriyaki

A typical, yet delicious Japanese salmon dish : salmon with teriyaki-style sauce.  In Japan I normally use a fish-grill to grill salmon, but I don’t have it here in Perth so I cook it in the oven.  No need to worry about washing fish-smelling pan afterward and I could chill while the salmon is being cooked in the oven!

The word “teriyaki” means the method of cooking – which the food is brushed with sauce while being grilled.  I call this dish “salmon teriyaki” although there is no such cooking method involved.  It’s just easier for people (non-Japanese) to remember the name.  I can also call it “Salmon with Soy and Ginger Sauce”.  It’s actually more like it.

<Salmon with Soy and Ginger Sauce> serves 2

• 2 salmon fillets (around 350g)
• 3cm ginger
• 2 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs mirin
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 cm ginger

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°.
2. Halve the salmon fillets.
3. Slice the 3cm ginger into matchstick shape.
4. Spray alumifoil with oil, and line the salmon.  Sprinkle with salt, and top with the ginger.  Bake in the oven for 20~ 30 minutes until golden.
5. For the sauce: Place soy sauce, mirin, sugar and ginger (sliced into matchstick shape) in a small sauce pan, and bring to the gentle boil to dissolve the sugar, stirling well.
6. Serve with steamed rice.

Kinpira Gobo

Kinpira gobo, sweet soy glazed burdock root, is one of my favorite Japanese home-style food.  Kinpira is a  Japanese cooking style of “sauté and simmer”. It is commonly used to cook roots vegetables such as burdock roots, carrots, lotus roots and bamboo shoots.

The common ingredients for kinpira gobo are shredded burdock roots, carrots, and meat (usually thinly sliced pork or beef).  The seasonings are typical 4 Japanese ingredients.  If you have these 4 ingredients in your kitchen pantry, you can make kinpira at any time.

This time I used frozen shredded Japanese burdock roots.  There are also frozen shredded burdock roots from China at grocery shops and are much cheaper, but Japanese one tastes much better.  Even after thawed, the each burdock root still remains its crunchy texture.  It’s bit hard to get fresh burdock roots in Perth, so I always buy a frozen packet from Asian grocery shop and keep in the freezer.

<Kinpira Gobo>

• 100g burdock roots, shredded
• 1 carrot
• 50g pork meat (any part), sliced
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• 2 tbs sake (cooking wine)
• 2 tbs mirin
• 3 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs roasted white sesame seeds

Australian Day 2011

Aussie day!  I headed to my sister in-law’s house for BBQ lunch.  We started with happy soda slushie that she made.  She bought a proper “happy soda” syrup from asian grocery shop in Canning Vale and it really tasted rose.  Yum!

Flamed grilled meats – lamb, steak and sausages!  I knew they wouldn’t have prepared any salad (Aussie BBQ = meat), so I brought a bowl of greens.  The meat was great.  She made sure the meat was cooked well-done for me.  The flame-grilled steak… it was so great.  I also loved the spinach, cheese and pine nut sausage.

Since I came to Australia, every Australia Day was always hot and fine day.  It was cloudy and drizzling until yesterday, but today it was hot and dry!

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Out to Lunch, Massage and Cafe

The weather was cloudy with light drizzling rain on Sunday.  I had a 1 hour massage appointment at Mayumi’s at 1:30pm, but my in-laws wanted to have lunch together at Bintang Cafe as one of the sister was going back to Jakarta on Monday afternoon.

The sister and D went to church in the morning.  While waiting I was getting myself ready for the lunch, massage and meeting friends at C15 in Applecross.  Around 10:30 the sister and D came back… with Mcdonald’s bacon egg muffins and pancakes!  ”I thought we’re going to have lunch soon” then she said “Yeah, this is just breakfast.”

After eating the muffin I was pretty full, but still joined the lunch anyway.  I ordered bihun goreng (stir-fried rice noodle) and D ordered a rice dish (Nashi something Champur).  Very full… but I’d gotta go to get 1 hour massage!

This time Mayumi had prepared a big donut-shaped cushion for me so I could get massage while lying face down.  Starting from my back to neck & shoulders, then my legs…   It was again, a 1 hour of heavenly massage.  As I told her that my legs kept getting cramped, she concentrated on my calves. I was almost asleep half-way through the massage because it was so great and relaxing.

After the massage I headed to C15 in Applecross.  My friend just came back from Hong Kong and Japan trip, and she is returning to work soon after 1 year + 3 months maternity leave.  As both of us will be busy in the next few weeks we decided to catch up while we still have our time.

Friend and I wanted to order pancake (we love pancake at C15!) but it was impossible for my stomach to take another solid food.  My friend also decided not to eat pancake this time, so we just had drinks and stayed there for 2 hours non-stop talking.  As she gave birth at St John of God in Murdoch (where I’m giving birth to my baby) I had lots of questions to ask!

I love this cafe – not only the food, drinks and services, but also even customers are friendly.  Great place to pass the time.  I’m not surprised this place is always full of people.