Udon Pasta

I am a person who eats anything.  … well, not ANYTHING, but I’m ok eating almost any food that is served in front of me.

My family is little different.  When they make Japanese curry rice, they always use the standard ingredients: meat, onion, carrot and potatoes.  One day, I was making curry with some reft over food in the fridge.  I put eggplant, spinach, tofu, konnyaku, boiled egg, cabbage etc.  I thought it was ok and sounded delish, as curry doesn’t always have to be made with just those 4 ingredients.  But, my family was like “you put what!?!”.  Since then, my family call my cooking “Ume’s food”.

I made this Udon Pasta just because I had some udon noodle and tomatoes at home.  It’s simply delicious and easy to make.  You can also use minced meat instead of chicken fillet to make “bolognese”.  :)

Serves 2

• 1 chicken breast fillet, sliced
• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 1 tomato tin, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 stalk of Parsley, chop the leave part
• 2 portions udon noodle

Light and Crispy Tempura

The keys to delicious, crispy and light tempura are:

• Don’t mix the batter too much ( as it will develop the gluten from the flour)
• Cold batter x hot oil 

If you do so, the tempura stays crispy even when it’s cold.

• 45 g plain flour 
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 80 ml water
• 1/2 tbs sake (cooking wine)
• 2~3 ice cubes

Try…

• Thinly shredded onion and carrot, and chopped onion.  (equal amount) Mix into batter.  Using a spoon, scoop the mixture and carefully drop into hot oil.  Deep-fry both sides until cooked through. 

• Fresh herbs (eg: basil, parsley, coriander etc).  Coat with batter lightly and deep-fry for 30 seconds. (both sides)

Cupcakes

It’s little late, but… my husband and nephew made cupcakes for me for my birthday.

They followed my recipe Moist and Fluffy Cupcake Recipe.

They found it’s difficult to pipe out the butter icing on the top of the cupcakes.  (by the way I was the one who prepared the icing in a piping bag for them so that they could just play around with it)

Well, they look good enough, and very delicious  Thank you guys!

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.

Bul Kogi (Korean BBQ Beef)

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.