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Kimchi (Part 2)

Experiment: Kimchi

Introduction:
My Kimchi is done! Please refer to here for the ingredients and recipe.

Result:

Discussions:

1) It’s finally done! This kimchi has been fermented for 2 weeks. I don’t kow if you can see in the picture, but there’s a bubble between the kimchi and the saran wrap. I read in other blogs that the bubble is a result of the “fermentation.” Anyways… once I open the wrap, wow…. it smelt SOOOOO GOOD! And of course, I tasted it immediately, and it tasted…

2) like Kimchi! hehe! It actually tasted pretty good! The only thing is… it’s a little spicier than the kimchi that I usually have. I think next time I’ll put less chili powder in next time.

3) I used this batch of kimchi to make Chicken and Kimchi Rice bowl. I used this recipe. I substituted chicken with pork, and I used less kimchi (coz Mr. Clam can’t take spicy food that well). It was yummy!



4) I’ll try another batch after I finish this one! Hehe! I’m just so excited!!!!

Japanese style breakfast

Experiment: Japanese Style Breakfast

Introduction:
Mr. Clam and I went to Marulilu Cafe (Cambie and Broadway) to have lunch yesterday. Well I guess I shouldn’t say lunch because, I actually had JAPANESE STYLE BREAKFAST! I love Japanese style breakfast. Japanese style breakfast usually have raw eggs and natto/tofu, a few of my favorite food! I guess that’s why I love having Japanese style breakfast so much. When I was in Japan, I tried to have Japanese style breakfast everyday (but in reality I couldn’t, because Mr. Clam couldn’t stand it). Here are a few pictures that I took when I was in Japan:

Japanese style breakfast is really easy to make. You just need a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, an egg, natto or tofu, and then… a dish or two of whatever you like. I decided to have it since I’m still on holiday and I have time to make it. I didn’t use a raw egg because of salmonella… I wish I could ship eggs from Japan!

Materials:
Here’s what I used… but of course you can substitute any of the following dishes with whatever you like.
A pack of seaweed
A pack of natto and a bunch of chopped green onoins
A bowl of miso soup
Sliced pig ears and cabbage
Baked salmon and a piece of lemon and Japanese mayonnaise
Sunnyside up egg
A bowl of rice

Procedure:
1) Open the pack of seaweed.

2) Open the pack of natto. Take away the film on top of the natto, then put the dashi sauce, mustard and green onions into the box, and mix, mix and mix until there’re a looooot of strings.

3) Miso soup – uh… refer to your miso package. For this particular miso soup, I used onion, tofu and green onions. 1 cup of water to 1 tbs miso.

4) Put the sliced pig ears on the left side of a pate, and boiled cabbage on the other side of the plate.

5) Bake the salmon until it’s cooked, then put it on a plate. Put the lemon and mayonnaise on the plate as well.

6) Pan fry a sunny side up egg then put it on a plate.

7) Put rice in a bowl.


Results:

Discussion:

1) Ok it’s actually a lot of food! I was REALLY full after finishing everything. And… Ok even though I said it’s breakfast, I actually had it at night time. Who actually has time to prepare so many things in the morning?

2) The preparation time for this meal isn’t really that long… The thing that actually takes the longest to make is the RICE! Unbelievable.

Kimchi (Part 1)

Experiment: Kimchi

Introduction:
I saw a few Kimchi recipes on a few blogs a while ago. I never knew that I could make Kimichi at home! So after I saw those recipes, and knowing that the ingredients are quite accessible, I decided to give it a try. I modified the recipe a bit (because I don’t have some ingredients), but hopefully it’ll still taste good!

Materials:
1/2 Korean cabbage (about 500g)
1/2 Korean raddish
1/4 onion, chopped
2 tbs chopped ginger
2 tbs chopped garlic
4 bunches of green onions
4 tbs salt

Kimchi sauce:
6 tbs crushed red pepper (or red pepper powder)
6 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs sesame oil
1/2 tbs sugar
2-3 tbs sesame

Korean Cabbage:











Crushed red pepper:

Procedure:

1) Cut the cabbage into small pieces. (OR just leave the leaves as they are. There are many different ways.)

2) Put the cabbage into a big bowl, sprinkle the salt onto the cabbage. Mix the cabbage and the salt together until the cabbage leaves are soft. I think I left the cabbage in the big bowl for roughly an hour.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3) Wash away the salt from the cabbage leaves. Taste the cabbage leaves (the acutal leaf part) and see if it’s still salty. Keep washing (or soak the cabbage in cold water) the leaves until it’s not salty. And then air dry the cabbage for about 2 hours.
 

 
 
 

4) While you’re drying the cabbage, it’s time to prepare the other ingredients. Cut the green onions into 2-inches pieces. Cut the Korean raddish in half. Grate half of the radish, and thinly slice the other half of the raddish.

From top left clockwise: chopped onions, chopped ginger, thinly sliced Korean raddish, grated Korean Korean raddish, choped garlic and green onoins

5) Mix all the Kimchi sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Taste it and see if you like it. You can add more crushed red pepper if you like it really spicy.

6) When the cabbage leaves are dry, then you’re ready for the mixing! Simply put all the ingredients in a biiiiiiig bowl, and mix them together. Mix them well! It’ll start to look like kimchi. 

 

7) Put the mixed kimchi in a container.

8) Put saran wrap on top of the kimchi. Cover the lid, then put it in the fridge for 7 days.

Result:
It’s not ready yet! I’ll post it again after 7 days… but… OH! I’ll be out of town… so maybe I’ll post it after I come back… hehe!

Discussion:
1) I didn’t know that the leaves would shrink so much… I think I should’ve used ONE whole cabbage instead of half.
2) I saw in a recipe that you can add shrimp paste in the kimchi sauce as well. Too bad I don’t have it at home! I really like the smell of shrimp paste.

3) You can also add grated apple, thinly sliced cuccumber, and thinly sliced carrots in the kimchi as well… I don’t have it at home. But I’ll definitely try them next time!

Basic Japanese style Hamburger patty (ハンバーグ)

Experiment: Basic Japanese style Hamburger patty

Introduction:
Hamburger patty is a very common dish in Japan. You can find recipes in many Japanese magazines or books. There’s this recipe book that I have that shows you what can go with you hamburger patties. Well… before I try those fancy recipes, I think I need to make sure that my hamburger patties taste good first. I’ve made it 4 times before… the first and third time tasted well, but the second and forth time were really bad. Not sure why! I guess odd numbers are good for me? Anyways… I tried a simpler recipe this time… and guess what, this 5th time that I make hamburger patties was good! (it’s odd number again though) Hmm… not sure about next time though… hahahaha!
Materials: (make 6 patties)
300 g minced meat (beef or pork or mixed)
1/2 onion, chopped
50g bread crumbs
1 egg
1 clove of garlic, minced
Chopped ginger
1/2 soy sauce
1/2 sake
Black pepper

Procedure:
1) Put the chopped onion, garlic, ginger, bread crumbs and egg in a mixing bowl, and mix well.

2) Put the meat in 1), and add soy sauce, sake and black pepper. Mix well.

3) Divide the mixture in 6. Put a portion in your hand. Make it into a round shape. Throw the patty between your hands to make the air out. (This prevents the hamburger patty from falling apart when you cook it)

4) Put the hamburger patties into the fridge for an hour for the flavour to come out. (Optional step)

5) Pan fry the patties or bake the patties. Depends on what you wanna make.






















Result:



















Discussions:
1) I use worchester sauce for the patties this time. It tasted well!

2) It’s better to chop the onion REALLY FINE. It’s easier for you to make the patties round. This time I made the onions a bit too big, so it acutally didn’t mix well with the meat… and then I couldn’t make nice round shape patties.

Miso Soup with Clams

Experiment: Miso Soup with Clams

Introduction:
I have always liked seafood, especially clams. I always see Japanese soup with clams in it, but I had never tried to make it. Since clams is on sale, so I decided to buy 1/2 pound and make this miso soup.
Material: (serve 2)
2 tbs Miso paste
2 cups of water
1/2 lb clams (I bought 8 clams)
2 tbs chopped green onion

Procedure:
1) Soak the clams in water for 30min – 1 hour. Rub the clams against each other.

2) Boil the water. Put the miso paste into the water, and dissolve it.

3) When the miso paste is well dissolved into the water, put the clams in. When the clams open, put the chopped green onion in. It’s ready!

Discussion:
1) I didn’t take many pictures coz I was being lazy…

2) It’s pretty easy to make… the only trouble is to get fresh clams… I usually do grocery shopping once a week… which means I can only have it once a week at most… acutally, can you put the clams in the fridge? Not sure if it’s ok…

Kimchi, pork and mochi okonomiyaki

Experiment: Kimchi, pork and mochi okonomiyaki

Introduction:
I have always liked okonomiyaki. When I first heard about okonomiyaki few years ago, I knew that people usually use pork or seafood as the main ingredients. I then usually only used pork or seafood (or just cabbage) as the main ingredients, and nothing else. Well, I wasn’t that adventurous back then…

When I went to Osaka, Japan last November, I went to a popular okonomiyaki restaurant. WOW! They had lots of different types of okonomiyaki and I didn’t even THINK of! We ordered a set meal that included the 3 most popular okonomiyaki in that restaurant – house special that included 6 or 8 ingredients, Yamaimo okonomiyaki (okonomiyaki that were made with yamaimo, not flour), and green onion-pork-kimchi okonomiyaki. They were all very delicious! I was so surprised that you could use so many different ingredients for okonomiyaki. After I came back from Japan, I started trying different ingredients in my okonomiyaki. Today, I decided to try a kimchi, pork and mochi combination.

Materials:
1 cup Okonomiyaki powder
1/2 cup water
1 egg
Lots of thinly sliced cabbage
1/4 cup chopped green onion
Thinly sliced pork (put as much as you like)
Chopped kimchi (just put as much as you like)
2 mochi, sliced

Condiments:
Bonito flake
Seaweed flake
Mayonnaise
Okonomiyaki sauce

Procedure:
1) Mix the okonomiyaki powder, water and egg together. Mix it well so that there’s no clump.

2) Put the chopped green onion, cabbage, mochi and kimchi in the batter, and mix well.

3) Heat up a frying pan and put some oil in. Then put the pork in and stir fry a bit. Put the batter in, then mix with the pork.

4) Make the batter into a round shape. Remember not to make it too thick! Turn the heat to medium.

5) When the bottom’s almost ready, i.e., you can flip the okonomiyaki, flip the okonomiyaki.

6) Check if the centre’s cooked, use a chopstick/skewer to poke the centre of the okonomiyaki, if the centre’s dry, it means it cooked.

7) Put the okonomiyaki on a plate, then put the condiments on as you like.

Result:

(Without the condiments)

Discussions:

1) Not sure if it’s because the kimchi has sauce in it, which makes the batter more watery, I find that this okonomiyaki is harder to flip.

2) AND not sure if it’s because of the mochi, which sticks to the pan when melted, it’s not easy to flip the okonomiyaki.

3) It actually tasted VERY GOOD! The mochi makes the okonomiyaki very chewy, the pork is quite crunchy, and the kimchi… I put too much kimchi in this time, Mr. Clam found it a bit spicy… I think I’ll put less kimchi in next time.

4) A few other ingredients that I really like with okonomiyaki are: corn, chopped konnyaku, ekoni mushroom. Give them a try! You’d be surprised! :)