Japanese Egg Roll (Tamagoyaki)

My boys love tamago as it is or on sushi. They could gobble up 6 of these each every time we dine in a Japanese restaurant. Not that I don't let them have their fill.... it's quite a pinch to pay RM2.00 per piece especially when they eat so much of it! And it's just eggs..... sigh, I'm showing signs of being a typical wife/mum when every dollar must match its worth!

So back to the egg rolls...

I've searched online and even bought a local Japanese recipe book to learn a couple of basic dishes. The thing is I don't want to spend a lot on ingredients that I won't use regularly... I won't buy a square tamago pan unless someone tells me where to find one for less than RM70! I know... it's just a pan but square in shape! Most recipes require the few basic elements like dashi & shoyu, quite fair seeing that I use a lot of shoyu for my Jap/Chinese fusion dishes. As for dashi, if you can find those that come in little sachets instead of the paste, you'd be able to keep them for quite awhile.

So initially, I tried using my square cake pan but I had to use a lot of oil to keep the egg from sticking to the pan. Can you imagine me trying to flip the egg while handling a really hot pan with no handles with my kitchen mittens? So much for creative ideas...

My flat 10 inch nonstick pan became my bff when I have to make tamago for the kids. I don't get a perfect rectangle but that hardly matter because both ends usually end up in my mouth before serving!

Tamagoyaki Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs
• 40ml warm water
• 1 tsp dashi 
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin (optional)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Method:

1. Break eggs in a bowl and lightly beat them
2. In a separate bowl, mix all other ingredients in water until dissolved
3. Heat up a pan. If you do not have a square pan, use your widest non-stick round pan. Add a swirl of oil, making sure the entire pan is coated.
4. Then pour in just enough egg to cover the pan as you would making a crepe.
5. When the egg mixture starts to dry up, start rolling the it from one end of the pan to the other. This might take a bit of practice. You may need to use both a spatula and a pair of chopsticks initially.
6. Leaving the rolled egg on one end, heat up a little oil on pan then add more egg.
7. Swirl the egg again to coat the entire pan. Lift the rolled egg section so that the egg mixture gets under the roll as well.
8. Starting with the egg you have rolled on Step 5, roll the egg back towards you. Then pour more egg again.
9. Keep doing step 4-8 until you have used up all the egg mixture.
10. Transfer the egg roll onto a sushi mat if you have or like me, you could use a aluminium foil. I place the egg roll onto the foil and cover the egg. Then I use a kitchen towel to wrap up the foil to shape the egg as it is very hot to handle.
11. Once the egg has cooled down, cut the egg into thick slices and serve!

Nobu's Signature Black Cod with Miso

Black Cod with Miso

A friend of mine posted a picture of his homecooked oven grilled cod fish on Facebook a couple of months back. Even from the confined screen of my Iphone, I could tell this fish is delicious! And when he explained further that it was Nobu's recipe, without hesitation, I ordered Nobu The Cookbook on Amazon! (Yes, I can be rather impulsive when it comes to food and recipes :p)

It still took me awhile to attempt the dish myself. I had to hunt for the right ingredients... Nobu's recipes are uncomplicated but without following the recipe to the dot, you'd probably end up with a slightly different version, like mine! Tasty but not as heavenly as the real thing itself! Looks good as a dish but certainly nothing compared to the presentation at Nobu!

Chicken Karaage

Chicken Karaage (16 Mar 2012)

Chicken Karaage is more like a snack, dangerously addictive and almost always gone before it hits the dining table. This explains my blurry picture... I was trying to smack away the little fingers before all the chicken pieces were gone!

I've gone through a number of recipes & while all the marinades are similar, the key to a good deep fry is always making sure you get a crunch that last on the outside. So for this recipe, I have used the traditional potato starch but I believe any kind of flour would do nicely ie. plain, corn or even a combo.

Chicken Karaage Recipe

~ Marinade, Strain dry, Flour ~

Ingredients:

2 boneless chicken thigh with skin, cut into nugget size

Marinade:

2 tbsp ginger juice (reduce if you don't like ginger)

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp mirin or Chinese sweet rice wine (the white kind)

Potato starch for dusting

Method:

1. I kept the chicken skin on but if you could remove if you don't want any fat. Cut the meat into nugget size as the meat will shrink into bitesize after deep frying.
2. Marinade the chicken for at least 1 hour. I marinaded it in the morning and left it in the fridge before leaving for work and fried it in the evening.
3. Heat up oil. Strain the chicken pieces before dusting it with potato starch.
4. Deep fry until golden brown. Ready to serve!

Pork Katsudon

Katsudon Dinner (14 March 2012)

Since we met, Katsudon has been, by far, my hubby's favourite Japanese dish, and it still is todate :) 

So why haven't I thought of recreating this dish earlier on? To tell you the truth, I was a little afraid. My hubby has this thing about rating his katsudons. How do you serve a katsudon expert when you come from a non-Japanese cooking background?

Luckily, as I started studying, Katsudon turned out to be a novice Japanese dish, which every homey housewife must know how to prepare! Plenty of recipes and tutorials online! I just needed to pop by Jusco to grab a few essential Japanese condiments & I was set to go on my Nippon adventure!

Katsudon (Sorry about the warm lighting!)

I have earlier provided the recipe for Tonkatsu which is the base of your Katsudon. So please do visit the post before you attempt the sauce!

Katsudon Recipe (For 1 bowl of rice)

Ingredient:

1 tonkatsu

1 egg, beaten

1/4 brown onions, sliced thinly

1 1/2 tsp mirin

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp dashi stock / paste

1 cup of water

Sliced Japanese parsley / shallot for garnishing

1 bowl of steaming hot cooked rice

Method: 

1. Heat up a frying pan. Add the water and dashi stock. Stir well to dissolve dashi.
2. Add onions, soy sauce and mirin. Bring stock to boil.
3. Pour in beaten egg around the stock. Switch off heat and cover with pan with lid for a few minutes.This will allow the egg to cook slightly. 
4. Meanwhile, arrange your cut tonkatsu onto a bowl of steaming bowl of rice.
5. Take the lid of your pan and stir the egg sauce slightly before pouring it over the tonkatsu. 
6. Serve your katsudon while it's hot!
   

Tonkatsu (Japanese Deep Fried Pork Cutlet)

Tonkatsu (14 Mar 2012)

It's pretty neat to learn how to make a simple tonkatsu. Tonkatsu basically means breaded deep fried pork cutlet. Tonkatsu can be served plain with white rice and some Japanese dipping sauce or mayonnaise. Tonkatsu is also the basis of some favourite Japanese rice bowl dishes like Katsudon and Katsu Curry. 

I know I'm suppose to use Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) but how could I resist not using my Philip airfryer to make some of my own & it only took me 10 minutes to fry & crumble 2 cups of breadcrumbs. The conventional recipe also called for deep frying, but I just couldn't resist popping one of my cutlets into the airfryer to compare the texture. Verdict: If you have really lean cutlets, do deep fry them in oil. You'd need a pork chop with rather fatty tissues to cook in an airfryer. Otherwise the pork wiill turn out pretty dry. Great for Katsudon, which is saucy but not good on its own!

Deep fried (Left) vs. Airfried (Right)

Oh, by the way, feel free to use deboned chicken thigh for the same recipe. Most of the restaurants in Malaysia are non-pork, so Chicken Katsu is pretty common here!

Tonkatsu Recipe (Serving 2)

Ingredients:
2 pcs of pork chop
Salt & pepper
Cornflour / plain flour
1 egg, beaten
1 cup of Panko (breadcrumbs)

Method:

1. First, pound the pork chops on both sides to tenderise meat
2. Lightly  sprinkle salt & pepper on both sides of meat, put aside for 1/2 hour
3. When ready to fry, lightly flour the pork chops. Then dip it into the egg. 
4. Press the pork chop firmly on each side into a plate of Panko. Shake of any excess before dipping into the oil
5. The frying oil should be kept at medium heat to allow the meat to cook. When almost golden brown, bring heat up to crisp up the skin. This will ensure that your tonkatsu will stay nice & crunchy for awhile
6. Cut into pieces and serve!