Aubergine with minced beef and oyster sauce (Dinner 5 July)

Aubergine with minced beef and oyster sauce, chicken and cucumber salad with toasted almond, rice, miso soup with enoki mushroom and sugar snap, white asparagus with sour plum and dried bonito 

Aubergine with minced beef and oyster sauce

Ingredient: spring onion (2-3), aubergine 1, 150g minced beef,(if you have) 100g chinese chive (cut into 4-5cm length), 
Seasoning A: 1 teaspoonful chicken bone stock or 1/2 cube of chicken stock, 1/2 of salt and black pepper, 1 clove of garlic (grated), 1 teaspoonful grated ginger
Seasoning B: 1 teaspoon of soy-sauce, 1 table spoon of mirin, 1 teaspoonful of oyster sauce, 1/2 teaspoonful of sesame oil, 1 tablespoonful starch flower, 100cc of water

1. Out the minced beef into a bowl and season with the Seasoning A
2. Put all the ingredient of seasoning B in a small bowl and mix well
3. Chop the spring onion into pieces. First, make some long strokes lengthwise in the onion then chop it (see the below images)
4. Cut the aubergine into a stripe of 5cm long and 1cm thick and soak in a water then drain well
5. Heat a large frying pan and add vegetable oil in 1cm depth in high temperature then deep-fry the aubergine (please refer 18 June Aubergine simmered with Japanese sauce)
6. Wipe the oil left in the frying pan and heat it up and fry the seasoned minced beef
7. Once the meat gets done, add the spring onion, aubergine, Chinese chive and stir well while frying all
8. Add seasoning B and stir it well till it gets thick

I got the half bunch of white asparagus left.

This time, I boiled it and seasoned with chopped sour plum and dried bonito.

Sour plum and dried bonito are typical Japanese food stuff can get Japanese food shop.

This was very good. The mild sourness of the plum enhances the fresh flavour of white asparagus!!

Total time to prepare: 40 mins

Total cost: 3.75 pounds (70p for minced beef, 80p for aubergine, 1.25 for white asparagus, 1 pound for other veggies)

Korean BBQ and ginger soup (Dinner 3 July)

Korean BBQ is one of the most popular menus in Japan.  In Korea (and also in Japan) BBQ sauce usually do not involve miso. However, it is impossible to get the sweet mild BBQ sauce in London. Therefore, I invented this miso-sauce for Korean BBQ. 

Ingredients:
A piece of pear (fully ripe), 2 scoops of tablespoon of korean miso, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 round onion (chopped into 1-1.5 cm cube), 1/2 teaspoonful of chili, 1 tablespoonful of: honey, sesame oil, pine nuts (or peanuts),  soy-sauce

+ honey and pine nuts!!

Preparing Korean BBQ sauce (for 500g of meat potion)

Peel the skin and remove the cores of pear, garlic and onion then cut into pieces roughly. 
Put all the ingredients into a mixer and blend till it gets smooth (for 1 mint)

Enzyme from pear and onion make the meat tender.  The gentle sourness and sweetness of pear moderates the strong flavour of garlic and chili. Pine nuts and honey makes the texture and flavour rich and deep. I tried with an apple instead for pear but it was too sharp. This sauce is soooo yummy!

I usually use a half potion of sauce for 200-300g meat each time then freeze the rest in a bag.

Fry the beef rib (Galbi) 

People eat different kinds of meats of many parts in Korea. What I like is GALBI, thinly sliced  beef rib. Frozen GALBI potions can be found in Korean food shops.

1. Cut each potion of galbi (thinly sliced and rolled up) into 6-7cm length,
2. Put pieces of galbi and the sauce into a bowl and mix them well by kneading with a hand 
3. Leave it for 30 mins-2 hours
4. Heat the frying pan at least for 20 mins with highest temperature
5. Put the galbi and fry both sides of each piece for 4-5 mins in total 

While soaking the galbi in the sauce, prepare the garnish (Lettuce leaves and some more greeds)

We easily finish one bunch of round lettuce. In addition, I usually prepare a bunch of coriander, 1/2 cucumber cut into thin stripe, and spring onion cut into thin stripe (lengthwise, or following the fibre) and wash in water and drain, then wipe it with kitchen towel. 

Ginger soup

Ingredients: spring onion (2), 2 tablespoonful grated ginger, one egg, 1 teaspoonful chicken bone soup stock (the red cylinder container in the photo) or 1/2 cube of chicken stock, 1/2 teaspoonful sugar, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, some drop of sesame oil and thai fish sauce, black pepper, 1 teaspoonful starch flower 

1. Heat 2 cups of water into boil in a pan
2. Chop the spring onion into pieces
3. Dissolve the starch flower in a small cup with 2 tablespoonful water. In a separate bowl, beat the egg 
4. Add ginger, chicken stock, sugar, salt, black pepper
5. Add starch the water of flower and allow into boil till it become thick
6. Put sesame oil, fish sauce and put the heat off, then power the egg gently

Serve the meat underneath of a lettuce leaf, topped with coriander, cucumber and spring onion!!

Mr. Husband loves this dish. As always, he put some rince on the bottom of the dish to empty the reft-over sauce.

Total time to prepare: 1 hour (30 mins for cooking and 30 mins to soak the meat)

Total cost: 15.70 pounds (13.20 pounds for galbi meat, 2.5 pound for the rest of veggies)

Cotidie Italian Restaurant in Marylebone High Street (Dinner 4 July)

Visited a stylish Italian restaurant Cotidie with my friend. The special lobster pasta was great. According to my friend, good restaurant can be judged by the fondan chocolat. It might be true. Anyway Cotidie satisfied us a lot.

http://www.cotidierestaurant.com/

My friend was welcomed by a special cocktail 

Weekly Food shopping, restaurants, etc.

The photo shows a rough idea of food stuffs that Mr. Husband and I consume at home in a week. I bought them in Waitrose and a Japanese food shop, Natural Natural. Salmon fillet and salmon jaw (two pieces each), a piece of plaice, and some veggies. In total, it costed 30.44 (Waitrose) and 4.50 (Natural Natural).

I also bought a buch of artichoke, basil, tomato, and green beans at Pomona, an organic food shop near out place. It was 8.20. 

I will buy some meat at Japan centre. 

In total, roughly 50 pounds I spend for one week of home cooking.

Plus, 20-35 pounds will be spent either for sushi/sashimi take away from Atariya, or slices of steak from a cool butcher, Ginger Pig. They are the essential diet for us. 

Still they seem very economical and surely healthy (and tasty) compare to ready-made meal, I believe. Could we reduce the amount of wine and beer consumed everyday, it would be perfect. However, being perfectly economical is not my goal. 

Nice food and wine maintains our life (or marriage-life), health and happiness, I believe.

Deep fried tofu with chicken thick sauce, pork miso soup, grilled salmon jaw, etc. (Dinner 2 July)

Deep fried tofu with chicken thick sauce, salmon jaw, salad, pork miso soup, rice, pickles 

 Although Mr. Husband demanded pasta menu, I chose Japanese. These days, we had quite heavy european dishes such as at Heston. To recover from salty, oily outside dinning, Japanese is very helpful!! The strategy is, how to balance between the mild taste of Japanese and Mr. Husband's appetite for oily, salty food...

I got a very fresh, nice deep fried tofu at Okinawa Day 2012 (an annual event  showcasing okinawan and other Japanese culture) last weekend. This tofu was brought from Iwate Prefecture where was devastated by the massive earthquake and tsunami last year. 

Deep fried tofu with chicken thick sauce

Ingredients: 1 deep fried tofu, 1 piece of chicken thigh or minced chicken breast (60g), green beans (40g), soy sauce (1.5 tablespoonful), mirin (1.5 tablespoonful), sugar (1 teaspoonful), salt (a pinch), grated ginger (1/2 teaspoonful), starch flower (1/2 tablespoonful)

Prepare one cup of Japanese soup stock (or dissolve 1 teaspoonful stock powder with one cup of water. I will post the detail of Japanese soup stock later)

1. Heat up the stock in a small pan and add soy sauce, mirin, sugar, salt (if you have 1 tablespoonful sake) and allow it to boil
2. Put chicken minced or chopped roughly and beaten with a knife and add into the pan to cook while stirring the meat to separate into pieces. Skim the scam appears on the surface
3. When the soup get translucent, put the tofu and shimmer gently for 5-6 mins
4. Add green beans to cook until they get tender (for 2 mins)
5. Put the starch flower in a small cup and dissolve it with 40cc water and add into the pan to make the sauce thick
6. For serving, put the tofu first in a slightly deep plate and cover it with the hickened chicken meat sauce and finally top with the green 

Here is the ingredient of pork miso soup (Ton-jiru) today. Except the pork, other contents are different from family to family. In Japan we can easily find the very thinly sliced meat whereas here in London, they are hard to be found except in the Japanese food shop. I got a nice frozen block of pork belly bought in a cool butcher, Ginger Pig. I defrosted it into halfway then sliced in 1mm. I wish I could get the cool German meat slicer and also a larger kitchen to accomodate it! I think thinly sliced meat is very convenient and healthy since we can just use a small portion to add to the dish. 

Contents of miso-soup: pork, yam potato, spring onion, carrot, shimeji mushrooms,  Konjac (a jerry look like cake made of yam potato, the dark collour  staff in the right corner)

I think more than 15 different kinds of vegetables were taken at today's dinner. Salmon jaw was very yummy with plenty of fish oil. In salad, I put some slices of Hallumi cheese, Mr.s Husband's favourite contents. Even I made a mild Japanese dish against his wish, I coud compensate for it by involving the oiliest part of salmon and his favourite cheese. As a result, both of our stomach were very happy!!

Total time to prepare: 50 mins
Total cost: 5.25 pounds (1.25 for a piece of salmon jaw cut into half, 0.5 for yam potatoes, 2.5 for tofu, 1 for other veggies)

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (Lunch 1 July) and a rock concert

To celebrate my friend's birthday, we dined at the Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at Mandarin Oriental in Hyde Park. 

Cited from Katei Gaho May 2012

Starting from a oyster-chicken, I had pigeon for the main and the quaky pudding with pear. Everything was so delicious!! Meat Fruit (the orange look-like dish in the photo) was great! It was ordered by my friend and I stole some from her dish. Yummy...

Finished with the ice cream workshop by mixing ingredients and nitrogen at out table. It was such the Hestoney presentation.

Mr. Husband and I visited the Fat Duck in 2008. I still remember every dish they served including the sea food brought with an i-pod hidden in a sea shell to listen the sound of tides and sea gulls.

It is almost impossible to get a table in the Fat Duck. Compare to that, the Dinner seems possible to book, a month in advance (though it was by the effort of my cool friend)... It is worth while trying the revival of mediaval cuisines in modern atmosphere!!

We occasionally go to nice restaurants . 

I always tell Mr. Husband that visiting top tables is the education and the best cookery school. At the top restaurants, I always learn many things such as new recipes, presentation, and importantly the sense of the tasty-ness. 

I want to shout at all married men that visiting restaurants is an essential investment for the quality of home cooking!! (as well as for maintaining a marriage life.)

After the perfect lunch, Mr. Husband brought me to a rock concert of the Garbage in Brixton. A nice shift of mood. They got a big hit in 90s. Therefore more than half of the fans (including Mr. Husband) were around 30s-40s. Still they are great!! 

Such a nice weekend. Thank you for my friends and Mr. Husband!

Cappellini with walnut&basil pesto, Artichoke with garlic-soy sauce (Dinner 30 June)

Got a nice bunch of artichoke from a local market. It is seasonal. Basil-pesto cappellini topped with tomatoes and ox tongue salad with cucumber also enhanced the summerly atmosphere!

To prepare the artichoke, I referred this site: http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/grilled-artichokes-recipe

Serve the baked artichoke with chopped garlic, olive oil, lemon and soy-sauce. The hint of Soy-sauce enhances the fresh flavour of artichoke!! It was Delicious!!


In the basil pesto, walnuts were accidentally involved. Usually I use pine nuts. However, I found that a pack of pine nuts was disappeared. It was eaten by Mr. Husband for his beer snack. Therefore, instead, I needed to use other nuts. Walnuts were nice however, the problem was, I needed to remove the skin that might make the pesto bitter. It was a pain to peel the skin of walnuts by soaking them in warm water. Therefore, I recommend everybody to use pine nuts in this recipe. 

Cappellini with Basil pesto

Ingredients: a pack of basil (60g), two tablespoonfuls of pine nuts or peeled walnuts, 1 clove of garlic, two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, three tablespoonfuls of olive oil, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, 200g cappellini, chopped tomatoes 

1. Chop the basil and put all the ingredients into the blender
2. Process it for 40 seconds until it became pesto
3. Boil plenty of water in a big deep pan and cook for 1.20 mins till it gets al dente
4. take the pasta out and put into a large bowl and add the pesto and mix everything well. If necessary, add some olive oil
5. serve the pasta topped with some chopped tomatos with black pepper

Put all ingredients into a blender to process

In addition, I fried some slices of ox tongue with balsamic vinegar and served on the thinly sliced strips of cucumber. 

It was enjoyable dining indeed with a bottle pf nice red wine!!

Total time to prepare: 50 mins (30 mins for boiling the artichoke, 20 mins for baking it, and pasta and salad were done while cooking artichokes)

Total cost: 4.20 pounds (2 pounds for artichokes, 2 pounds for ox tongue, 20 for other ingredients)