Japanese Curry with Rice

 

Japanese Curry is one of the food that just has to be on the list of every lazy student's list. 

1. It's easy to make
2. It doesn't take long
3. It's delicious regardless of what you add to it
4. It's filling
5. You usually would have leftovers, so you are pretty much settled for the next few meals! :-D

Ingredients:

1. Japanese Curry Roux [Any brand, any kind]
2. Any vegetables [I like potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and onions]
3. Meat eg. chicken, beef. Fish is not recommended because they tend to melt [For this time around, I made mine vegetarian]

 Methods:

1.  Lightly fry your meat and vegetables in a pot
2. Add water to your pot till it covers all the ingredients
3. Bring to boil; then break off a few pieces of curry roux and add to pot
4. Stir the roux around; let it melt
5. If at this point, you feel the curry is too soup-like, add more roux! :-D
6. It's done when the vegetables esp. potatoes are cooked 
7. Other than rice, it can be eaten with spaghetti, noodles, etc.

Verdict: 
There just couldn't be anything that I can imagine would go wrong in cooking this at all. 

Baked Soy-bean Paste Salmon Steak

I love salmon!!! Esp. RAWWWW! They have a distinctive taste unlike other fish. I love fish taste. quite like fishy smell too. :-P

Salmon's supposedly packed with Omega-3 that's really good for cholesterol control. Ever since I found out thru Sie Ong that TESCO sells them for a rather reasonable price [37.90 CZK per 100 grams for salmon with skin, 39.90 CZK per 100 grams for salmon without skin...and sometimes, they even have discounts :-D ], I have been buying them like crazy...at one point, I was eating salmon every week! I could even eat it everyday! But then I read from some websites that says the accumulation of toxic chemicals in salmons esp. in farmed salmons. I have no idea whether the salmons from TESCO is farmed or wild. But that stopped me from going crazy over salmon. Now I buy them maybe once a month.


Salmon's really easy to work with. Because I love the fish taste, I wouldn't want to do anything that covers it up too much. This is one of the recipe I have experimented with.

Ingredients: 

• Salmon; 200grams
• Soy Bean Paste
• Salt
• Chilli Powder
• Instant Mashed Potato Powder XD
• Peas
• Broccoli
• Crab Sticks
• Butter/ Margarine
• Pepper

 Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 - 200 Celcius
2. Descale the salmon skin
3. Rub on soy bean paste, chilli powder and pepper. 
4. Rub salt on skin
5. Add oil into pan
6. Dump into oven and bake for roughly 10 minutes [*I don't like my salmon overcooked :-P]
7. For the sides; melt a lump of butter/ margarine on pan. Add peas, broccoli and crab sticks to it. 
8. Season with salt and pepper
9. Follow instruction on the box of your instant mashed potatoes :-P

Seasoning with chili powder, pepper, salt, soy bean pasta

All done!

With the side dishes

The foil adds a touch of finesse to the overall look, doesn't it? But it was unintentional. It's just that the salmon skin is stuck to the foil and I didn't want to waste it. So I just transfer it from the baking pan to my plate and scrape them all later. XD

Verdict: 

I am very biased when it comes to salmon dishes. Salmon just taste good as it is ie. without any seasoning ala sashimi. With this recipe, I'd say it gives a flavouring to the salmon without making the salmon lose its original salmon-ness. :-P

Soy Sauce Pork

 I prepared the long beans as a back-up dish just in case my pork dish backfired. 

How's that for Plan B? :-P

I put off  trying to experiment making these because I don't know how to make it. Then seeing this dish again in VKeong's post ignited my courage! I searched but I couldn't find the recipe anywhere on the internet. All I had was the memory of its taste. And since my guinea pig for this experiment doesn't mind eating anything, I decided to just wing it. :-D

Ingredients:

• Pork Belly, sliced thinly [0.5cm, if you can :-P]
• Light Soy Sauce
• Dark Soy Sauce
• Sweet and Sour Sauce
• Sugar 
• Corn Flour

* I added them according to 'as I like' method' :-)

Method:

1. Slice the pork belly into thin pieces
2. Marinade with mixture of light soy sauce and dark soy sauce [for about 10 minutes]
3. Just before frying, coat the pork slices with corn flour evenly
4. Heat oil and fry them till crisp. At this point, it can already be eaten :-D
5. To make the sauce, add sweet and sour sauce, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce to empty pan
6. Add sugar and stir till its melted
7. Coat the fried pork with the sauce thoroughly

 

Experiment No. 1: Ready-to-be-eaten-as-it-is

 The true experiment: Coated with sauce :-D

Verdict: 
Maybe I have not eaten it for a very long time [which is true], but I felt it's the same exact stuff that I was craving for! It was, in my opinion, a success! I was so excited that I actually wing it correctly...wow! Just that we didn't cut the pork belly think enough, I think. Some pieces were a bit hard chewy-like. But it's so tough to cut them into nice thin slices. Definitely on my list of to-cook for my family when I get back home....:-) Thanks again, Jannik as the guinea pig this time.

*I need to start numbering my guinea pigs...haha :-P*