Baby Food: Miso Flavoured Cream Stew with Salmon and Winter Cabbage

Winter cabbage, salmon, milk and miso is the tasty combo!

Ingredients for about 500cc:

• 1 tablespoon of chopped onion
• 1 leaf of winter cabbage (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon of chopped mushroom (I used Shiitake)
• some chopped spring onion (not necessary)
• 50g of salmon (cut into small)
• 100cc of milk
• 500cc of hot water + for boiling ingredients
• 1-2 teaspoons of Miso
• 1 table spoon of corn flour
• (you can add chopped carrot, broccoli, potato, etc. as you like)
• Salt
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. to remove the bitterness of veggies and fishy smell of salmon, boil these two ingredients separately in hot water till they get half done and take them aside. This process makes the dish more flavoursome with miso seasoning.

2. Boil all the ingredients with 500cc of hot water, skim the scum if necessary.

3. Dissolve miso in a small container with the water from the pan. Add it into the pan and gentry simmer for 2-3 minutes. Dissolve the cornflour with milk and add then allow it to get thicker as a stew over medium temperature. Add salt or more miso as you like and then add some cheese to serve. 

The stew can be stored in freezer for around two weeks.

Total time to prepare: around 30 minutes
Total cost: around 1 pound (as I use some leftover ingredients from daily meal, don't know exactly but very inexpensive.)

Baby finger food: Potato, Cheese and Veggies Bun

Let me introduce a cool baby product from Japan: freeze dried baby food ingredients.   

A baby food company Wako-Do offers varieties of freeze dried, pureed fresh food such as liver+veggies (left), cod (middle) and spinach (right) in a small cube size. To prepare, just dissolve with a tea spoon of hot water per cube. This helps to make varieties of baby dishes with balanced nutrition.

This is a recipe created by a Japanese mom:

 Potato, Cheese and Veggies Bun.

One of the award winning recipes in the Wako-do baby food recipe competition

http://community.wakodo.co.jp/community/babyfood/recipe_detail/?RECIPE_ID=434

Ingredients 

• 1 Middle sized potato
• 1/3 of middle sized carrot
• 4-5 leaves of baby spinach (instead, I used the freeze dried spinach cubes)
• 4 table spoons of corn flour (or potato flour)
• 1 table spoon of plain flour
• 2 table spoons of cheese (I used Halloumi)
• 1 table spoon of parmesan cheese

Direction

1. Boil the carrot (and spinach) into tender then cut them and the cheese into small pieces. 

2. Slice the potato into 1cm and put into a pan. Fill the water till it covers the potato then heat up. 

3. Once they get tender, drain the water and keep heating for 30 seconds to reduce the extra moisture.

4. Mush the potato and knead with your hand as well as the flours and two different types of cheese till the dough became tender and smooth like earlobe (it'll take only 30-40 seconds).

5. Split the dough into two and mix with the spinach and the carrot respectively.

6. Divide the each dough into 3-6 pieces and roll up into a round shape. Place them over a baking sheet while heat up the oven into 180C.

7. Cook the buns for 15-20 mins to serve.

Total cost: 0.6 pound (40p for 1 baking potato, 20p for the rest of the stuff)

Total time to prepare: 35-40 mins

Deep-fried Wedges of Jerusalem Artichoke

Happy New Year for 2014!! 

Sorry for the slow update as we were in Japan until last week. 

Before introducing the Japanese things, let me do the one that we had last year.

We had the lamb from Ginger Pig as promising!! 

The special thing was the side dish, deep fried Jerusalem Artichoke!! 
Jerusalem Artichoke 

Ingredients:

• Some pieces of Jerusalem Artichokes
• Vegetable oil
• Sea salt

Directions:

1. Cut Jerusalem Artichokes into wedges.

2. Pour vegetable oil into a large frying pan for 1cm depth and heat up in low temperature for 3-4 mints. Once the pan is ready, put the pieces of Jerusalem Artichoke to deepfry for 4-5 mints in medium temperature.

3. Once the pieces of artichoke became tender and turn into gold, put them on the kitchen paper to drain the extra oil. 

4. Serve them with pinches of salt and black pepper.

Total cost: around 2 pounds for 8-10 pieces of wonderful Jerusalem Artichoke
Total time to prepare: around 10 mins

Deepfried Brussels Sprouts: a perfect party nibble and a great collagen charge

Crispy-slightly bitter outside and sweet-moist inside, deepfrieng the seasonal Brussels Sprouts is a promising party nibble!

This is referred from a leading Japanese monthly food magazine "Kyo-no-Ryori, December".

Ingredients

• Brussels sprouts 
• Vegetable oil
• Salt and black pepper
• (I also add some tomatos)

Directions 

1. Make a small cross line with a knife on the bottom of each sprout

2. Fill vegetable oil in a small frying pan into 1cm depth. Heat up the pan with small flame and add the sprouts to deepfry

3. Occasionally turn each sprout into other side and keep frying for about 8-10 mints

4. Place sprouts over a paper to remove extra oil

5. Top salt and black pepper to serve.

Time to prepare: 20mins

Cost: 0.4 pounds

We had this deepfried sprouts with chicken wings and a salad. 
The vitamin C from sprouts boosts the intake of collagen from chicken wings. Vital menu in the dry weather!!

Grilled courgette and avocado with wasabi-soy-mayo: a perfect party nibble

I made this for a side dish. However, it is more like nibble than side. The richness of avo-mayo combo gains density with grilled courgette and the flavour of soy and wasabi makes it a perfect for party nibble. 

Can be topped on sliced bread or plain crackers!!

Ingredients

• One large courgette
• One ripe avocado
• 1/2 tablespoon of wasabi
• 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise
• Some seaweed black paper (if available)
• Thinly sliced spring onion (if available)
• some olive oil to grease courgette

Directions

1. cut courgette into 1cm length. Cut avocado into small bite sized.

2. Grease courgette with olive oil and grill it over 200C in oven for 5-7 mints.

3. Mix soy sauce and wasabi in a bowl then add mayonnaise.

4. Dress the avocado and courgette with the sauce. Top sliced spring onion and shredded black paper to serve.

Grilled courgette can be replaced with cucumber or other salad vegetables. If the raw vegges are involved, better to dress them with sauce just before serving as they might get watery and ruins the rich and dense taste of this dish.

Total time to prepare: 15 mints
Total cost: 1.4+ pounds (0.9 for avocado, 0.5 for courgette and other ingredients) 

Miso-Butter Salmon grilled in a foil

Salmon with skin is essential food in lifting up your face especially in winter as I introduced last year. 
http://japanesegourmet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/collagen-charge-from-salmon-its-getting.html

One thing to remind is, in this kind of preparation which does not involve direct contact with flame, make sure the salmon skin is scaled thoroughly.

Ingredients for two

• Two pieces of salmon
• One large onion
• Two tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon of miso
• 1tablespoon of mirin (if not, 1 tablespoon of water and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar)
• 1 tablespoon of soysauce
• Shiitake mushroom (if available)
• Broccoli (if available)

Directions

1. Mix miso, mirin and soy sauce in a bowl.

2. Slice onion as thin as possible. Cut shiitake into 5mm. Cut broccoli into small bite sized.

3. Place two pieces of foil and put onion, shiitake, one piece of salmon, butter and broccoli. Pour the half amount of miso-sauce into each.

4. Close the sides of foil and place two pieces of foiled stuff in a large frying pan.

5. Heat up the pan over high heat. Once the contents sound boiled, turn the heat into lowest and cook them for 10 mins.

I sometimes add chopped parsley and cheese. The juice from salmon and miso-butter caramels onion. This is very very tasty!!

Total cost: 5 pounds (4.5 for salmon, 0.3 for onion, 0.2 for other ingredients)
Total time to prepare: 20 mints

Kabayaki (Japanese style grilled eel) sushi with cucumber and egg

Kabayaki is a Japanese style grilled ell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabayaki 

As it is rich and nutritious, Japanese people often eat Unagi in the early summer to boost their energy in coping with humid and dump weather.

Got some nice kabayaki pieces from Japan. Like the image above, people put some pieces over the rice to serve each. We got one pouch left. It wasn't enough for two. Sushi rice with cucumber and egg was a solution.

Ingredients:

• One pouch of Unagi-kabayaki (about 150g)
• One small cucumber
• One egg
• Rice for two people
• 1.5 table spoons of cider vinegar or rice vinegar
• 1.5 table spoons of sugar
• 1/2 tea spoon of salt

Directions

1. Cook the rice.

2.Beat the egg and spread thinly over the heated up frying pan. Once the egg gets set, take it aside to cool down.

3. Slice the cucumber and the egg thinly.

4. Mix the vinegar, sugar and salt. Scoop the rice that is just done from the rice pan for two people's portion into a bowl and dress with the sushi vinegar. If you use cooked (cold) rice, heat it up in microwave for 1.5 mins before adding sushi vinegar. The heat from the rice evaporate the extra moisture of vinegar and settles the sharpness of its flavour.

5. Chop the unagi into 1.5 cm pieces. Add all the other ingredients into the rice and mix well.

6. Top with shredded seaweed paper to serve.

Time to prepare: 25 mins
Total cost: 1.4 pound (0.6 for rice, 0.4 for egg, 0.4 for cucumber, the kabayaki was gift)
You can purchase pouched kabayaki at Japanese shops in about 10-11 pounds per a large piece.