Recipe Dedication: Leon's Oyako Donburi

FINALLY A COOK POST!

Okay,This post is dedicated to my one of best buds, my junior, my awesum hair color bud, LEON TAI!
Here's to you Bro!

Before I start, here's Wiki's take on oyakodon.


Oyakodon (親子丼?), literally "parent-and-child donburi", is a donburi, or Japanese rice bowl dish, in which chicken, egg, sliced scallion (or sometimes regular onions), and other ingredients are all simmered together in a sauce and then served on top of a large bowl of rice. The name of the dish is a poetic reflection of the fact that both chicken and egg are used in the dish.
The simmering sauce varies according to season, ingredients, region, and taste. A typical sauce might consist of dashi flavored with soy sauce and mirin. Proportions vary, but usually there is three to four times as much dashi as soy sauce and mirin. For oyakodon, Tsuji (1980) recommends dashi flavored with light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and sugar.
To make oyakodon, cut chicken and other ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Heat ¼ cup simmering sauce in a small frying pan. Add chicken (and sliced onion, if desired) and simmer until the chicken is cooked. Then add scallions and other ingredients. When all ingredients are cooked, slowly pour 1–2 lightly beaten eggs evenly over the whole dish. When eggs are nearly cooked (edges set), slide the topping from the pan onto hot cooked rice served in a large bowl. The hot rice will finish cooking the eggs.
Several other Japanese dishes pun on the parent-and-child theme of oyakodon. Tanindon (他人丼?), literally "stranger bowl", is otherwise identical but replaces the chicken with beef. A dish of salmon and roe served raw over rice is known as sake oyakodon (鮭親子丼?).

Now the real thing starts!


Oyako Donburi - Serves 1-2
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Sauce:
3 Tablespoon light soy sauce
1 Teaspoon distilled vinegar
2 Teaspoon mirin
1 Teaspoon Sake (optional)
2-3 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup hot water

Toppings:
100g Chicken Fillet, diced
half an onion, sliced
any vegetables you like
1-2 egg

1 bowl of rice




Instructions!
-------------------
Sauce:
S-1. Add all the condiments together and mix well!

Cook:
C-1. Heat a pan up and oil it.
C-2. When the oil heats up, add onions and saute the onions until translucent
C-3. Add chicken and brown the meat
C-4. Add in other vegetables, (I went with asparagus!:3)
C-5. Add the sauce in and gently bring it to a light boil.
C-6. Swirl in the beaten egg and let it cook for another 2 minutes.
C-7. Top your hot bowl of rice with the oyako topping.

Voila! you're ready to nom down in this fast and hearty meal!

This was actually one of the first few things that my late father has taught me since late primary school so that me and my brother would be able to cook and eat when no one else was home. My dad would actually dice the chicken, slice the onion, make the sauce and put them in separate containers and pop them in the fridge, ready to cook anytime. Dad's sauce was always by 'feeling' and own taste preference, ever since I've been making this sauce by 'feeling' but I figured if I were to make into a cook post, I would have to list down the measurements. hahaha!

With Much Love,
Sheila <3

Japanese Curry Udon

This has to be my favorite Japanese food out of my list of Japanese food.

Japanese Curry. Served with either Rice, Ramen, Udon and even Bread.

Here's Wikipedia's take on Japanese Curry

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Curry (カレー karē^?) is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. It is commonly served in three main forms: curry rice (カレーライス karē raisu^?), karē udon (thick noodles) and karē-pan (bread). Curry rice is most commonly referred to simply as 'curry' (カレー karē^?).

A wide variety of vegetables and meats are used to make Japanese curry. The basic vegetables are onions, carrots, and potatoes. For the meat, beef, pork, chicken and sometimes duck are the most popular. Katsu-karē is a breaded deep-fried pork cutlet with curry sauce.

Curry was introduced to Japan during the Meiji era (1868–1912) by the British, at a time when India was under the administration of theBritish. The dish became popular and available for purchase in supermarkets and restaurants in the late 1960s. It has been adapted since its introduction to Japan, and is so widely consumed that it can be called a national dish.^[1]

[with credits to http://www.wikipedia.com/ ]

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Some grocery shopping first. Hunt for your Japanese Curry blocks. They come in varieties of brands and intensiveness of curry hotness, eg, mild, medium, hot.

I tried with this brand first. The mild taste of honey and apple sounded really tempting and nice to me. Haha! :D

Let's start cooking! *Puts on apron*

Ingredients - Cooks for 5

--------------

- 1 small package of Japanese Curry of your choice.

- 1 large white onion

- 2 medium sized potatoes

- 2 medium sized carrots

- 2 fillet of chicken thigh without bone/ breast (or any meat you desire)

- 3 cups water

- 5 packages of Udon.

Instructions

---------------

1. Dice up your onions, rolling cut the potatoes and carrots ( a cutting method where you roll the vegetable per cuts you make.) and chop your chicken meat into bite size pieces.

2. Heat up the pan, oil the pan and saute the onions till aromatic and translucent in color.

3. Add in your chopped vegetables and lightly brown them.

4. After the vegetables has been lightly browned, add the meat in and also lightly cooking them.

5. Add in the water ( make sure it covers the ingredients nicely )

6. Chop the curry blocks into pieces and put them into the pan, distributing them evenly and stir to mix in.

7. Let the curry simmer for at lest 20 minutes under low heat. This will thicken the curry.

8. After simmering for 20 minutes, cook your udon accordingly to the manufacture's instruction on the package.

9. Scoop and pour curry over the udon and serve!

Yummy yum yum!

I'm taking away the printable link for a while till I can get a better one.

Sorry Dearies! >_<

Anyway, enjoy cooking this wonderful japanese curry!

With love,

Sheila <3<3<3!

Feedback: Japan Food Hour: Tofu Umegae Mochi

Looking at Sheila's post, I began to feel tempted with making one myself! Refer to her post for the recipe. Here's my bunch of pictures! XD


I've chosen Japanese pressed tofu over silken tofu because the tofu flavor is richer. Chocolate chip and toffee bits(which then became caramel) as filling.
PS: I'm staying in dorm, so I have to cook in my room. Hence the background with LCD. xD


Tofu tofu~


Rolled into individual serving before putting in fillings


Pre-test! XDDDD nyom nyom nyom chocooo


Looks like scallop isn't it? xD


Final product! Tadah~
The top 2 are with Milk Chocolate filling and bottom 2 are with Caramel filling. <3 Personally I like both in their own way.



If you're planning to try making the one with caramel filling, please do not warp the filling in if you're not cooking it as soon as you made it. The filling will melt inside the uncooked mochi. >_< My toffee melted into water puddle before I can manage to cook it. T_T
Not very pretty but it taste good! =D

Good luck in trying!
I hope you enjoy the recipe as well!

Have a nice day~

With love,
Aiko

Japan Food Hour: Tofu Umegae Mochi

--Tofu Umegae Mochi--

This is a healthy snack that you can make under an hour or even half hour when you get the hang of it. Tofu Umegae Mochi is Toasted tofu rice cake with your desired fillings such as red bean paste, soybean flour paste or even chocolate(milk/white).

It's healthy because there's no need to add sugar to the dough at all, it's just tofu and glutinous rice flour and the sweet flavor/taste comes from the filling itself.

So here goes!

Ingredient List

=============

- 120g Glutinous Rice Flour

- Half package of silken Tofu

- Water

Fillings are as what you desire to put in. I went with Cadbury Dream, White Chocolate [ I'm a super fan of white chocolate! ]

- one bar of Cadbury Dream, broken up into individual pieces.

Instructions

===========

1. Mix the tofu and glutinous rice flour together, to obtain a soft pliable dough. The dough should be soft as your own earlobe. [ Japanese people would describe it like that. ]

!~! If the dough is too dry, add a bit of water and mix. Or if the dough is too wet, add rice flour !~!

2. Divide and shape/mold your dough into balls.

3. Flatten the dough out and place your filling(s) in the center and wrap them up.

4. Prepare a pan over low heat, Add a bit of oil if needed. Cook one side for 1 min, then flip to the other side for 3 minutes. The rice cakes should expand in size and will be toasted on both side.

!~! If you're afraid that the rice cake may not be cooked well, cook a bit longer, flipping the rice cakes every now and then. !~!

Enjoy this lovely healthy snack hot or cold! It can be eaten cold because of the tofu!

Printable Recipe Available Here! : Print Page

With Love,

Sheila<3

Japan Food Hour: Mochi

We'll be labeling food from the Country of the rising sun, Japan as Japan Food Hour. =D

---MOCHI---

Mochi (Japanese: 餅) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki.[1] While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time. Mochi is also a prominent snack in Hawaii, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, and Thailand. [With thanks to wikipedia!]

The traditional way to make mochi is to pound cooked rice into a sticky white dough.
Now, you can make mochi in your own kitchen without going through all that hard labour of pounding the rice. Here's how to make your easy mochi!

Ingredient List
=================

- 1 Cup of Glutinous Rice Flour
- 3 1/2 tablespoons Sugar
- 1 1/4 Cup Water + extra water
- Potato starch/Corn starch/tapioca starch

Yes, that's all you need to have to make mochi, sounds rather cheap to get. well It is! *super thumbs up(Y)!*

*~As for fillings, it;s entirely up to you, from chocolate chips, to red bean paste, to even ice cream.~*

!-! For ice cream mochi, shape ice cream into proportioned balls and let it freeze for at least 2 hours. It would be certainly easier to handle when you wrap the mochi around the ice cream !-!

Instructions
==============

(Y): Dissolve sugar into water first, it would much easier to mix the sugar water with the rice flour.

1. Mix the rice flour, sugar and water together until there is no lumps is present.

2. cover bowl with cling wrap/plastic wrap and pop it in the microwave, on high, for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare a small bowl of water and spoon/spatula/rice paddle that you used to mix the ingredients together.

3. After 3 minutes, remove from microwave. Remove cling wrap/plastic wrap. With a moist spoon/spatula/rice paddle, mix the pre-cooked mochi, damping the spoon/spatula/rice paddle every mix.



This should be what you'll get.

4. Cover with cling wrap/plastic wrap again and pop it back into the microwave for 4 minutes. During this 4 minutes, prepare a baking tray or a big plate or even your table, dust with generous amount of starch

(Y): The starch will help you in separating/molding the mochi without getting your hands burnt.

5. After 4 minutes, remove from microwave and remove cling wrap/plastic wrap. Mix well for a few times and transfer the hot mochi onto the dusted baking tray/plate/table and dust the top of the mochi with starch.

6. Dust your hands with starch and proceed to make mochi balls.

!Caution! Always starch your hands, and if the mochi is too hot to handle, you can let it cool down for a bit and continue. OR constantly dust your hands while shaping your mochi balls !Caution!

7. You may start wrapping your desired filling with your mochi. To seal filling(s) in, gather the sides of the mochi to the center and pinch the folds in together. Lightly dust and shake off excess starch. Serve cold or room temperature with tea or other delicious beverages.

Enjoy making your mochi!

Printable Recipe Available here! : Print Page

With love,

Sheila<3