Soft & Moist Fruits Pound Cake

Posted March 31st, 2012 in Food | No Comments »

It’s getting very cold in the morning….!!  Waking up around 5AM and going for a walk around 6AM has been our (me & Hiro) routine for a while now.  This morning I couldn’t stand without a jacket, and my bare foot was so freezing.  It’s amazing Hiro still could manage to fell himself back to sleep in the cold air.  He fells asleep on a stroller when he hadn’t got enough sleep.

Anyway, yesterday was the last day of the term at play group, and it was mostly cleaning & eating for the whole 2 hours.  In between we did egg hunting as Easter is just around the corner.  All mums were asked to bring one dish to the centre and we shared the yummy food.

I made fruits & walnuts cake because it’s the easiest and quickest to make.  Other mums brought some gorgeous food such as salmon sashimi, takoyaki, chicken nuggets and hot cross buns.  I loved them all.

I made this cake with whatever ingredients I had. Actually I have lots of ingredients in my pantry at the moment because of my bagel business.  Thanks to that, I didn’t need to buy anything extra 🙂

The cake turned out moist and soft, just how I like it.  I added walnuts because I like the accent of crunchy texture.  This is the very basic pound cake recipe, but I want to share it with you.

<Fruits Pound Cake>  one standard pound cake mold  /  oven 180℃

  • 2 eggs (at room temperature)
  • 100g granulated sugar
  • 100g plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 100g butter (at room temperature)
  • 2 tbs mixed dry fruits
  • 1 tbs crushed walnuts
  • 1 tbs frozen cranberries

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  1. Cream the butter with a whisk to just soften up.  Butter goes soft within 1 hour outside the fridge in summer, but in winter I recommend to warm it up over warm water bath or in the microwave to speed up the process.  Butter should be very soft.
  2. Add sugar, and beat until fluffy and becomes slightly white colour.
  3. Beat eggs in a separate container, and add to the butter mixture gradually.  Mix well at each addition.
  4. Shift the flour and baking powder into the mixture.  Drop the fruits and nuts onto the flour then shift in using a spatula.  Try not to over mix.
  5. Pour the mixture into a lined pound-cake-mold, and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or it springs back when you touch the top surface.
  6. Place on a wire rack to cool before slicing.

You can add vanilla extract to enhance the sweetness.  You can alternatively use other nuts instead of walnut such as pistachio or pecan nut.


Korean Version of Tongari Corn

Posted March 27th, 2012 in Food | 4 Comments »

I’ve been into this Korean snack that I bought from Spud Shed the other day…  This is exactly what I used to eat in Japan – “tongari corn”!

Actually, when I look at the photos of Japanese tongari corn they look thicker than Korean one, but it tastes about the same.

It got a hole in the bottom, and this is how people eat tongari corn….

Caps? Nail? People sometimes draw a face on it and do a “tongari corn play”.

They can be played as a “stacking corn” game where you stack up the corns and the person who collapse the tower is the loser.

Haha, the Korean snack just reminded me of these silly things I used to do in Japan.


Homemade Martabak

Posted March 26th, 2012 in Food, Jakarta | No Comments »

Martabak is a stuffed pancake or pan -fried bread which I first tried in Jakarta, Indonesia, few years ago.  They make and sell martabak in small stalls on the street, and the sweet smell is hyper irresistible.

My husband wanted to make it as it’s pretty expensive to buy here (compared to the price in Indonesia), and we found “martabak mixture” ($3.00) at Yee Seng Oriental Shop in Myaree, so we gave it a try.

D likes “keju” = grated cheese and condensed milk filling where I also love “coklat” (chocolate and crushed peanuts).  We made both 🙂

Martabak is very very sweet and buttery.  They use this “special butter ” (?) to boost the richness and butteriness.  (got from Yee Seng at $2.00)

Martabak has two kinds – one is thick (like the one in the photo above www.kaskus.us) and another is thin.  It’s like the pizza base where some people prefer thin crispy base and other like it thick.  It seems the thick ones are more common in Indonesia, but D prefers thin one and that’s what he made.

Sprinkle the toppings…

and close it.

I never thought of the combination of cheese and condensed milk until I went to Jakarta.  The sweetness and saltiness match and it creates interesting flavour.

This made me think of dorayaki.  I think I will make dorayaki next time 🙂


Chinese, Indonesian, and Japanese

Posted March 24th, 2012 in Eat out in Perth | No Comments »

I’ve been eating Chinese food again. While my in-laws are here in Perth my stomach gets filled with lots of Chinese food and Indonesian food…
These cuisine use lots of oil in cooking, so I really miss Japanese food.  Not those Japanese food that you find in Japanese restaurants here like karaage and tempura, but the real homy food like nimono and nitsuke.

Anyway, my stomach was filled with Chinese/Singapore food tonight at Bamboo in Willetton.  I wasn’t too hungry thanks to 1.5 hotdogs I had at IKEA afternoon, but my in-laws ordered 4 dishes for just 4 of us.  Pan-fried tooth fish, sambal spinach, Thai-style chicken in lemongrass sauce, and 1/2 roasted duck. It was quite a lot of food as in-laws don’t usually eat much.

I went outside to have a short stroll around Hi-Mart (Korean grocery shop) next door, and when I got back to the table two dishes had already been served.
The tooth-fish was great. Crispy fish in buttery sauce did match with plain steamed rice. I found sambal spinach was bit oily, but I guess that’s what it’s supposed to be.

Thai-style chicken was the one they ignite flame underneath the aluminum foil.  Roast duck had the beautiful colored crispy skin.  It’s just what people expect roast duck to be.

We couldn’t finish the food as I expected and ended up taking the roast duck home.  Eating this type of food once in awhile is fine, but now I’m longing for a bowl of simple ochazuke for tomorrow breakfast.


Onigiri Molds

Posted March 20th, 2012 in Food | 3 Comments »

We got these plastic onigiri shaper from Japan, and made some onigiri (rice balls) last week.

They are very simple to use – just fill steamed rice and filling, then dress up the rice balls with nori sheet, sesame seeds, furikake (seasoning powder for rice) or thinly cooked omelet.

When making onigiri by hand the rice sticks to fingers and it gets messy, but using a mold makes all process easier 🙂

First, you need to season the steamed rice with salt.  Just a pinch.

Fill the steamed rice to the mold, and make a tiny hole.

Fill the filling, (I used tuna+Japanese mayonnaise … yum!)

and press it with the lid.

Wrap with nori sheet…

remove the plastic mold, and it’s done!

Another one…

You can do this way too.

Or use small cut nori sheet.

Or just sprinkle black sesame 🙂

I remember Nippon Food in Subiaco sells onigiri and sushi molds, if you are interested ↓↓

NIPPON FOOD SUBIACO
Shop 26, 180 Rokeby Rd, Subiaco
Mon – Fri 10am – 6pm / Sat 9am – 5pm
Sun 11am – 5pm
Closed on Public Holidays
(08) 9380 6783


Iwashi no Nitsuke

Posted March 16th, 2012 in Food | 2 Comments »

While I was in Japan, my dad bought iwashi (sardine) from a local seafood shop.  Iwashi is miracle fish – it can be eaten in many ways.  Grilled, deep-fried, poached, simmered in sauce, and even raw as sashimi.  I love young sardine (shirasu/jako) too.  I often ate young sardine in Japan by just sprinkling on steamed rice.  I just love it!

You may find it not easy to eat iwashi due to its small bones.  But actually you can eat the bones too if you cook the fish very well.  The iwashi my dad bought had been trimmed already (gutted and head had been chopped off), so I didn’t need to do anything but placing into simmering sauce to make nitsuke. (a dish used simmering technique)

Almost any fish can be cooked as nitsuke.  I think the common fish used for nitsuke are saba (Mackerel), sardine and salmon.  Sauce for nitsuke is usually soy sauce-based, but miso-based one is also often used.  For both sauces, ginger and sake (cooking wine) are used to kill the smell of fish.

The iwashi I used for this iwashi-no-nitsuke was pretty small and got lots of bones, but I could just eat them.  Serve with steamed rice, miso soup and pickles, and now you have a set of beautiful Japanese food. 🙂

<Iwashi-no-Nitsuke>  serves 3~4

  • 10 iwashi (sardine), gutted and head removed
  • 1 cup sake (cooking wine)
  • 1 tbs sugar
  • 2 tbs mirin
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1 clove ginger (about 3cm)

– recipe –

  1. Wash iwashi in cold water, and pat to dry with kitchen paper.  Set aside.
  2. Slice ginger.
  3. In a wide sauce pan, place sake.  Bring to the gentle simmer to burn off the alcohol.
  4. Add sugar, soy sauce, and mirin.  Arrange iwashi into the pan, level (flat), and scatter sliced ginger around.  Turn the heat to low.
  5. Cut baking paper or aluminium foil into about same size as the pan. Crumple the paper, and place on top of iwashi to cover.  Place a lid, and simmer until the liquid is almost gone and becomes sticky.
  6. Turn off the heat, and let the iwashi cool down slightly.  The flavour will be absorbed during the cooling process.
  7. Serve with steamed rice.

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Cafe for Tea Lovers

Posted March 14th, 2012 in Eat out in Perth | No Comments »

Since I wrote about this place Chapels on Whatley, they have transformed their tea shop into a nice, attractive tea-featured cafe .

This shops is located right in front of Maylands train station.  They were originally selling just ornaments, tea leaves, and tea-related products, but now they added cafe corner with great drinks and foods.

When I arrived there I could see from outside that many customers enjoying their food and drinks. Outside tables were all taken. When entered inside I was surprised to see how crowded the cafe is with customers and cafe staff moving around busily. They made the cafe counter in the centre of the shop, and there’re tables inside, outside, and at the back yard.

The shop still sells houseware, kitchenware and tea items inside and also at the detached room. We bought 3 teacups made of bamboo. It was $2.80 each.

I wanted to try the food and drinks as they were beautifully dished and looked so yummy, but I couldn’t find any seat available so I left the shop with just three bamboo cups. I definitely want to come back there for food and drinks near future – probably with my girlfriends 🙂


That’s Steak!

Posted March 13th, 2012 in Eat out in Perth | No Comments »

It was the first steak I had since I came back from snowy Japan, and it tasted GOOD!  As people may know, Japanese beef is purposely oily – fat is marbled in red meat (called “shimofuri”) and more it’s evenly marbled more it gets expensive.

Although it’s nice to have shabu-shabu and sukiyaki with thinly sliced shimofuri beef, I prefer red meat when grilling.  I love Australian beef because it’s healthy and fresh.  In Japan amount of fat makes the meat soft and juicy, but here they control the tenderness by how long you cook the meat. More you cook the red meat tougher it goes, so if you like it tender then you ask for medium or medium rare.

While I was in Japan I didn’t eat much beef because the price is quite expensive compared to chicken and pork. And I prefer chicken anyway. Here in Perth chicken is more expensive to some parts of beef.  I feel that quality of beef is better in Australia – Aussie Beef is popular in Japan too, bit pricy though.

D had burger, and our friend had banana milkshake.  He said they didn’t use ice-cream for the milkshake – just cream?  Really?  Or his taste is bit weird…?

I receive a free voucher for steak from Hog’s Breath every year for my birthday month, and I love it. Although you can only chose from selected menu, it’s free! We went there for lunch and I thought I couldn’t eat that big steak in a midday, but I did, hehe.


It’s been a year…

Posted March 11th, 2012 in Japan | No Comments »

1 year ago today, the big earthquake and tsunami hit to-hoku Japan.  It’s been a year….  I still can’t believe it somehow.  I remember watching the news on tv in Perth while holding a newborn Hiro in my arms.

There are still many people who are missing.  Many people have lost everything and still live in temporary houses.  It’s still cold and some area are snowing right now.  (yes, it’s already March but it’s still snowing!  This winter is very different)

As one year passed, people are trying to move forward from the nightmare.  The bus left on top of the building had been removed recently.  Some people said the bus should be kept there to remind us how huge the tsunami was, but some people couldn’t just bare looking at it as it reminded them of their missing families and friends.

Since the earthquake and tsunami, there have been many people who have been suffering from many things.  The radiation is the biggest issue.  Many of Japanese foods, buildings, water… everything was contaminated around that area.  It’s sad that now you cannot enjoy Japanese food 100%.  People doubt if the food is ok.  It’s sad because I was very proud of Japanese food before.  I thought Japanese food is the most delicious, safest food – now not anymore.

Even Japanese people who live in Perth don’t want to buy products from Japan.  One of my friend here is thinking to start up the service where she supply Made-in Australia/New Zealand baby foods to Japan, because many of mums in Japan are worried to give Japanese products to their babies.

One positive news about Japan is that since the earthquake people started to be more supportive to each other and have stronger fellow-feeling.   I’ve seen this word “kizuna” (bond) everywhere while I was in Japan.  “Ganbare Nippon”  “Makeruna Nippon”.

….

I’m with Twitter and hear many scary things related to the radiation, everyday. That makes me not want to go to near To-hoku for at least next few years. (I still want to go back to my house though…).  That is sad that I hesitate to go back to my home country which I love so much.

I greatly feel sorry for the people – especially the ones with children who were exposed to the radiation.  It’s nightmare….  I can’t imagine how sad, confused, and heartbroken they must feel when hearing that their children may develop thyroid cancer in future.


Happy 1st Birthday, HIRO!

Posted March 4th, 2012 in Ume and Baby | 4 Comments »

Happy 1st Birthday HIRO!!!

You are now 1 year old – not “0” anymore.

Time flies…. this time of last year you were sleeping in a little basinet in a hospital room.

It amazes me when realizing ow much you’ve grown.  Be good, families and friends love you so much 😉

Now let’s see what you are going to be in this coming year….