Japanese Cooking

I cooked over the weekend..............forgive me for acting so excited! Cos that was the only exciting thing I did over the weekend besides watching "The Banquet" on Saturday.

I have been watching really twisted and "trying to be artistic" Asian movies this weekend. I watched a korean show, "Return of Lady Vengence", hong kong made "The Banquet" and the korean "The King and the Clown". All of which are capable of giving you bad vibes and nightmares. Hee hee!

Well, back to food. This weekend has been an amazing galore of food. Perhaps, it was to make up for all the weight I lost when I was sick (2kg only lah).

First, I cooked fried chicken rice for lunch on Sat. Its actually just hainanese chicken rice but instead of having roasted or boiled chicken, I deep fried the chicken. It is actually something I cooked quite often when I was studying in USA. But I used a different chicken recipe, something I got off the internet and the batter was suppose to be extra crispy or something.

After hours of labouring in the kitchen, RH commented that the chicken rice is not worth all the labour. Thanks hunny for "appreciating" my cooking! Urgh! Husbands......they are just not worth it.

Well, the chicken was crispy but not ultra crispy in my opinion and it got soggy quite fast.

Then, sat night, mom cooked a delicious salmon dish.........pan fried salmon with lemon pickle sauce......Yummy.....I had second servings followed by Alio Golio Spaghetti (made by AL) which was equally good..........

AL is my parent's friend. He and his wife both enjoy good food and wine and that was how he met my Dad. They met during a wine tasting event. Not only does AL like to eat, he likes to cook good food too and his spaghetti was good........of course.....my grandparents and auntie cannot appreciate that.

Was sooooo full but I could not resist dessert. Tape with ice cream. Tape is actually an Indonesian fermented glutinous rice...... **delicious!

Next day, I cooked lunch again. Poor RH had to eat salmon for both days. I cooked some Japanese recipes that I have been meaning to try out.

I really need to work on my presentation but then this was the best I could do with a bare kitchen.

I cooked Hijiki Seaweed, Miso Salmon, Hijiki Roll and Miso soup. I made the last one so that I could finish the cabbage and tofu. Hahaha.

I really like Hijiki Seaweed cooked this way but some people might not like it because Hijiki Seaweed being full of Iron smells really fishy. I was suppose to add some sesame oil to counteract the fishy smell but alas, my bare kitchen did not offer me that luxury. My next shopping list should have sesame oil on it.

{Hijiki Seaweed with Pork}

Japanese cooking is really easy. You just need a few key ingredients and you can cook most Japanese food.

1. Cooking Sake (green bottle)
2. Mirin
3. Shoyu (Japanese Soya Sauce)
4. Dashi (Japanese fish stock)
5. Miso
and that is all folks.........you can really cook lots of Japanese dishes with just these sauces.

{Hijiki Seaweed Egg Roll}

{Miso Salmon, a little bit burnt but RH said it is very good....}

Sunday evening was spent at a friend's house. IL and SL are husband and wife. IL used to be RH's colleague. Anyways, they invited us to their place and SL prepared a fantastic seafood dinner. Lots of prawns, fish, crabs and vegetables. Yep, the seafood were really fresh and sweet. I wished I had taken pictures. Yummy Yummy....so dat was my weekend food adventure with nothing but GREAT food. Everthing home cooked......

Thanks Mom, AL and SL for the fantastic dinners and especially thanks IL and SL for being such wonderful hosts.