Pork and Kimchi Rice Bowl (豚キムチ丼）

Experiment: Pork and Kimchi Rice Bowl (豚キムチ丼）

Introduction:
Last weekend, Mr. Clam and I went Downtown to watch some Olympic stuff. We went in a restaurant called “Ebi Ten” fo food. There I tried a rice bowl called “Buta-Kim,” and I REALLY LIKED it! When I was eating it, I thought to myself… “It shouldn’t be too hard to make at home…” So I gave it a try tonight.

Material: (serve 2-3)

200g thinly sliced pork
100g kimchi
1/4 onion, thinly sliced
1/2 tbs chopped garlic
2 tbs chopped green onion
Oil
Mayonnaise
Egg (optional)

Rice
Small pieces of lettuce

Sauce:
1 tbs mirin
1 tbs sake
1/2 tbs soy sauce
1/4 tbs sesame oil
1/2 tbs brown sugar
Salt

Procedure:
1) Mix all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

2) Heat up a frying pan, put some oil and chopped garlic in. Then put the onion in. Stir fry until the onion is brown and soft.

3) Put the pork in. When the pork has changes colour, put in 1) and the Kimchi. Stir fry until the pork is well cooked.

4) Now it’s time for the rice. First put the rice a rice bowl, then put some lettuce on top. Ok, now it’s time for the trick – MAYONNAISE! I never thought of putting mayonnaise in a rice bowl until I tried it at Ebi Ten. So remember to put some mayonnaise in your rice bowl! It makes it taste SO much better! 

5) Now, if you like eggs like me, you can put a sunny side up egg on your lettuce. If you don’t like eggs, then you can skip this.

6) Of course, now you’ll need the kimchi pork! Just simply put the pork on the lettuce, and green onion on top of the prok. Viola! There’s your Pork and Kimchi rice bowl!



Results:

Without egg:

 

With sunny side up egg:

Discussions:
1) It was suprisingly good! And the good thing is it doesn’t take long to make! I think from cutting the onion to the finished product, it took me less than 20 mins.

2) I think I’ll start to put mayonnaise on EVERYTHING now coz it tastes so good!

Inari sushi

Experiment: Inari sushi

Introduction:
I usually cook noodles on weekend (noodles is quick!), but Mr. Clam complains that I cook too much noodles lately and he wants rice for dinner. I opened the fridge and see what I can make, and I found that I didn’t have a lot of food left. I saw that there’s a pack of aburaage (leftover from the mochi-kin from Oden.) So I decided to make Inari sushi.

Materials:
5 aburaage (Deep fried tofu pocket)
2-3 bowls of rice
White sesame

Sauce:
1 cup of dashi stock
1 tbs soy sauce
1.5 tbs sugar
1 tbs mirin

Procedure:
1) Boil a pot of water. When the water boils, put the aburrage in water and boil for about 2 minutes to get rid of the oil. Then take the aburaage out and drain out the water.

2) Cut the aburaage in half, and open the pocket. Be careful not to tear the pocket. (I tore one… >.<) You’ll then have 10 small pockets.

3) Put all the sauce ingredients in a pot and bring to boil. Put the aburaage in the pot and turn down the heat. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until the sauce is almost gone.

4) Take the aburaage out and drain out the sauce.

5) Mix sesame seeds with rice. I like sesame seeds a lot so I put quite a lot in. Anyways. After you mix the sesame seeds and rice, put the rice into the aburaage pockets (be careful not to tear the pocket here!).

6) It’s READY!

Result:

Discussions:

1) You can put chopped carrots and shitake mushroom in the rice as well so that the inari sushi has more flavour.

2) One piece of inari sushi is actually quite a lot of rice! I was surprised how quick the inari sushi used up my 3 bowls of rice.

Oyako-don (親子丼）

It's the last day of my "Christmas long weekend."  Things are supposed to go back to normal tomorrow... well not really, because this coming Friday we'll have another long weekend!  I think I'll still be in a holiday mood til the end of next week.  :P

Anyways, since I have to bring lunch tomorrow, I have to cook something that I can bring to work.  I decided to make Oyako-don (親子丼), which is a chicken and egg rice bowl.  In Japanese, Oyako (親子) literally means "parent and child".  I have asked a few Japanese friends why this dish is called "parent and child rice bowl," and so far I've got 2 explanations:

1)  Parent and child - that means the hen and the egg.  You're eating the "parent" and the "child."
2)  It is a very nutritious dish, so mothers should make this dish often for their children.

Hmm... I don't wanna think about number 1, because it sounds so cruel.  Unfortunately I think that's a more common explanation.  >.<  ANYWAYS...

Here's the recipe for today's Oyako-don: 

Ingredients: (serve 4)

6 bowls of rice

400g of chicken, diced

1 bunch of mitsuba

4 eggs, beat in a bowl

Sauce:

1.5 cups of Dashi Stock

3 tbs of soy sauce

3 tbs of mirin

1)  Wash and chop the mitsuba into small peices.

2)  Mix all the sauce ingredients together.

3)  Stir fry the diced chicken in a fry pan.  When it's almost done, pour the sauce into the fry pan. 

4)  When the chicken is done, pour the egg and sprinkle the mitsuba into the fry pan.

5)  Cover the lid, and turn off the stove.  Let it sit for about a minute or two.  It's almost done!

6)  Put rice in rice bowls.  Put the cooked chicken and egg on top of the rice. 

I sometimes use onions or green onions instead of the mitsuba... mainly because mitsuba is not easy to find, and it's quite expensive.  Onions and green onions are cheaper substitutes.  Also I've seen some people substitute tofu or seafood for chicken, but then... will it be still called Oyako-don?  There's no more parent and child relationship...

Omurice (Omelette rice)

I had a takoyaki and okonomiyaki party over the weekend.  I didn't realize that I bought way too much food, so... I had lots of leftover.  Well, I had those red ginger, diced ocotpus, chopped green onion, cabbage, etc. I had to think of a way to cook them so that they don't go bad.  Well, the best way would be... stir fry them with rice!  Whenever I have food that I don't know how to cook them, I just fry them with rice and make fried rice! :P  What an easy meal.

Fried rice itself isn't that interesting.  So I decided to make Omurice, which means "Omelette Rice" in Japanese.







Here are the ingredients and condiments that I used for the Omurice... which are the leftover stuff for Okonomiyaki and Takoyako:

Ingredients: (serve 4)
Rice - 4 bowls
Shredded cabbage - 1 cup
Chopped red ginger - 2 table spoon
Diced tako (octopus) - 1/4 to 1/2 cup
Chopped green onion - 1/4 cup
Okonomiyaki sauce - 1/4 cup
Eggs - 4

Condiments:
Shaved bonito flakes
Dried seeweek flakes
Japanese mayonnaise
Okonomiyaki sauce

Method:
1) In a medium size frying pan, stir fry the shredded cabbage until it's soft.  Add the rice.  When the cabbage and rice are pretty well mixed, add all the other ingredients, except for the eggs.  When the fried rice is ready, put them into the rice bowls.
2) Beat all the eggs in a bowl.  In a small frying pan, pour in the 1/4 of the egg mix.  When the egg is ready, put it on top of the rice.  Do the same for the remaining egg mix to make 3 more fried egg. 
3) Put the Japanese mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce on top of the fried egg.  Sprinkle the bonito flakes and shaved bonito flakes on top.
4) EAT!

It's actually a very easy dish, and it's very tasty.  There's no skill at all (except for frying the egg, and put it on top of the rice WITHOUT breaking it).  That's why I like to make this dish whenever I don't know what to make for dinner.