This Week's Menu and Shopping List

Here's this week's menu and shopping list.

Monday: Curry
Tuesday: Salmon cake
Wednesday: Broiled fish
Thursday: "Shaved ice" cooked pork
Friday: Eat out
Saturday: Rolled chicken with celery, Potato and leek soup

Shopping list:
Curry block package (1) - curry
Chicken thigh (8) - curry, rolled chicken with celery
Baby potatoes (10) - curry, leek and potato soup
Onion (1) - curry, salmon cake
Carrot (1)
Canned diced/whole tomatoes (1 small) - curry
Pink salmon (14.75 oz can) - salmon cake
Panko bread crumbs - salmon cake
Snapper or perch (2 pieces) - broiled fish
Ginger (1 small piece) - broiled fish
Thinly sliced pork (1/4 pound) - "shaved ice" cooked pork
Daikon radish (1 medium) - "shaved ice" cooked pork
Spinach (2-3 cups) - "shaved ice" cooked pork
Leek (1) - "shaved ice" cooked pork, leek and potato soup
Parsley - leek and potato soup
Celery (about 7 sticks) - rolled chicken with celery, leek and potato soup

Suggestions for sides:
Salad (curry)
Roasted red peppers (salmon cake)
Miso soup (broiled fish)
Sauteed kale and portabella mushroom (rolled chicken with celery)

Things that may or may not be in your pantry/fridge:
Salt
Pepper
Bay leaf
Olive oil
Cooking wine
Soy sauce
Mirin
Dashi no moto
Rice vinegar
Orange
Sesame oil
Parchment paper

Enjoy!

Saturday Dinner: Rolled chicken with celery

Tonight, I made a dinner that looks nice but not all that hard to make.

Rolled chicken with celery (for 3 people):
Boneless, skinless chicken thigh (4 medium) - You can totally use chicken breast or pork for this recipe.
Celery (4 sticks)
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
1. Using a smooth side of a meat tenderizer, pound the chicken pieces. If you don't have a meat tenderizer, just use the back of a wine bottle.
2. Take two pieces and put them next to each other with the ends overlapping. Place two celery sticks and roll the chicken pieces. I used celery heart sticks but if you're using outer part of celery peel it so it's not stringy. Do the same for two other chicken pieces. Put salt and pepper on the chicken.
3. Bake two chicken rolls in the oven for 25 minutes.

After they're cooked, the celery inside is still kind of crunchy, which I like. But if you don't really like that, you can boil or saute the celery before you put it in. If you're not a big fan of celery, you can substitute any other vegetables, like spinach, asparagus, or roasted red peppers. Also you can add your favorite herbs like basil and thyme.

Leek and potato soup (for 2 people):
Leek (about 3 inches - 1/2 cups sliced) - You can use onions if you like
Baby potatoes (5)
Celery (about 2 sticks - 1/2 cups chopped)
Milk (2 cups) - I used 2%
Salt
Pepper
Fresh parsley - optional
Olive oil (1/2 Tbsp)

1. Slice up leek and celery. Cut potatoes into quarters (don't need to peel them).
2. Heat pot with olive oil at medium high heat. Saute leek and celery. Put a pinch of salt in.
3. Once leek and celery are very tender, put milk and potatoes in.
4. Once the soup boils, turn the heat down to low and simmer until potatoes are tender.
5. Put the mixture in a food processor and process it.
6. Put it back into the pot and warm it at medium heat.
7. Put salt and pepper for desired taste. Put chopped parsley. If you want the soup to be thinner, you can add some milk, chicken stock, or water.

If you want to make the soup even more tasty, you can add some bacon pieces.

I put some sauteed kale and sliced portabella mushrooms on the side.

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Technorati Tags:chicken, potato soup, celery, leek

Idea for Saturday morning pancakes

As pancake lovers, we have pancakes for breakfast/brunch on a weekend morning quite often. I just use the pancake mix, so there is nothing special about pancakes themselves. But the idea I want to share is putting the grill on the table. I used to make pancakes on a skillet, but they don't really stay warm until I finish all the batter. So one of us needs to grill the pancake, and we couldn't eat together. Having the electric grill on the table is great. You just eat them as they grill while they're hot.

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Friday Dinner: Yes! Friday!

Tonight, I went out to a Japanese restaurant called Nami Nami in Mountain View, CA. I know these are really bad photos, but bear with me... We were actually thinking about going to this new restaurant where the food is fusion of Chinese and Indian foods. Sounds really interesting, isn't it? But it was way too crowded.

Anyway, Nami Nami serves Kyoto style Japanese food, which means... well, generally, food from Kyoto is less salty than food from Eastern Japan. There are also vegetables and fish that are found/used only in Kyoto food. At Nami Nami, in terms of taste, I didn't feel like it was particularly Kyotoish, and I didn't see very many ingredients are very typical of Kyoto food.

We ordered several dishes, including duck with mango mustard sauce (front in the photo above), fresh oysters (upper left in the photo above), and nikujaga - cooked potatoes and meat (upper right in the photo above). They were pretty good. I ended my meal with ochaduke (photo below), which is like rice in some broth with some salty stuff (usually fish) on top. They serve picked vegetables on the side. When Japanese go to this type of tappa style Japanese restaurant where they enjoy drinking and eating at the same time, they always order some type of carbohydrate at the end, such as rice or some Japanese noodles. This ochaduke was OK. I didn't feel like the broth was very flavorful.

Overall, Nami Nami was pretty good but pretty pricy. I'm not sure if I'll go back there since there are many other places like that around here.

Thursday Dinner: "Shaved ice" cooked pork

Tonight, I cooked thinly sliced pork with daikon radish. This is what Japanese call "mizoreni," which means cooked with shaved ice because daikon radish looks like shaved ice.




Mizuoreni "shaved ice" cooked pork (for 2 people):
Thinly sliced pork (1/4 pound) - If you can't find thinly sliced pork, just freeze a block of pork and slice it half frozen. You should use pork that's not too lean though.
Daikon radish (1 medium) - You can get this at any Asian store
Spinach (2-3 cups)
Leek (2-3 inches)
Water
Dashi no moto - Use konbu (seaweed) stock powder if you can. If you can't, you can just use regular fish stock powder.

1. Peel the daikon radish. Chop them very roughly and grind them in a food processor until each piece is about the size of a grain of rice. Alternatively, you can grate the daikon radish by using a grater.
2. Put the ground daikon radish in a strainer and put boiling water over it. Let the water drain out.
3. Chop up spinach and slice leek diagonally.
4. Boil water about 1/2 inch deep in a deep pan. Sprinkle in dashi no moto.
5. Once it boils, put in the pork one slice at a time.
6. When the stock boils again, add all the vegetables.
7. Cook until spinach is bright green.

Dipping sauce:
3 part Soy sauce
2 part Rice vinegar
1 part freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 part Sesame oil

Use a small strainer to scoop out some of the pork slices and vegetables into the dipping sauce. I served it with rice. Eat it while it's hot!

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Technorati Tags:pork, daikon

Wednesday Dinner: Broiled fish

Tonight, I used the fish I got from the farmer's market the other day and froze. I have no idea what it was though...





Broiled fish (for 2 people):
Snapper or perch (2 pieces)
Water (1/2 cup)
Cooking wine (1/2 cup)
Ginger (1 small piece)
Soy sauce (1/2 cup)
Mirin (1/2 cup)
Parchment paper

Cut parchment paper into a circle that fits in your pan nicely. Make a small hole in the center.
1. Peel and julienne ginger.
2. Put water, cooking wine, fish pieces, and ginger in a pan and put it on medium high.
3. Once it boils, put soy sauce and mirin in it. Put the parchment paper in so it covers the fish pieces completely.
4. Turn the heat down to low and cook until liquid reduces by about half.

I served the fish with miso soup and rice. In miso soup, I put some greens, fried tofu pouch (abura age), and oyster mushrooms. If you like you can also add some steamed greens like spinach on the side for the fish.

For this recipe, it's important to use the parchment paper and cook on low heat so the fish doesn't fall apart. The parchment paper allows you to cook the fish without the liquid completely covering the fish and boiling it.

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Technorati Tags:fish dish, broiled fish

Tuesday Dinner: Salmon cake

Tonight, I made salmon cake with mashed potatoes and roasted red peppers. Salmon cake didn't turn out too well because it kind of fell apart when I grilled it. I think adding one egg white would help it hold it together, so I'm adding that on the recipe.

Salmon cake (for 4 people)
Pink salmon (14.75 oz can) - I like the bones and skin so I left them in.
Onion (1/4 of medium)
Panko bread crumbs (1/4 cup) - Panko breadcrumbs are coarsely ground breadcrumbs used in Japanese food as coating for fried foods. I just toasted ends of a bread loaf lightly, which I usually don't eat, and then processed them in the food processor until they were coarsely ground.
Salt (1/4 tsp)
Pepper
Egg white (1 large)
Olive oil (1/2 Tbsp)

1. Dice the onion pretty finely. I just used my food processor to do this.
2. Take salmon out of the can and drain out the oil/water in the can. Mash the salmon little bit.
3. Add all the ingredients together.
4. Form 4 patties.
5. Heat oil in the pan on medium high heat. Grill salmon patties on the pan.
6. When one side is gold brown, flip the patties and turn the heat down to medium.
7. Put a lid on and cook for about 5 minutes, being careful not to burn them.
8. Serve!

I hope that the addition of egg white will hold the patties together. I will definitely try this recipe again since I love canned salmon... As a kid, I used to eat salmon out a can as snack;)

I served the salmon cakes with roasted red peppers and mush potatoes. I wonder what's the best way to make roasted pepper is because I don't have gas stove. If you have gas stove, you just put the pepper on the stove until the peppers are completely black. With the electric stove, because there is no flame, peppers don't get grilled evenly. Last time, I put peppers on a cookie sheet in the oven and broiled them under high heat. It worked well, but it left black pepper marks on my cookie sheet... Well, anyway, once you get peppers nice and black, put them in a bowl and cover it for little bit. Use paper towel to peel away the skin. I just drizzled some olive oil oil over them after cutting them into pieces then put salt and pepper on them.

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Technorati Tags:salmon cake, salmon burger, canned salmon

Monday Dinner: Curry

When people think of curry, they think of Indian curry or Southeast Asian curry like Thai curry. Did you know that there is "Japanese curry"? It's actually the second most favorite food of the Japanese (first is ramen). Every family has its own recipe/style for curry. I like to put chicken and also canned tomatoes.






Curry (for 4 people):
Curry blocs (1 package) - You can get this at any Asian store. One box comes with two packages and each package makes about 4-5 servings.
Chicken (4 small thighs) - I took off the skin and left the bones in to maximize the chicken flavor.
Potatoes (5 baby potatoes)
Onion (1/2 of large)
Carrot (1)
Canned diced/whole tomatoes (1 small)
Water (3-1/2 cups)
Salt
Pepper
Bay leaf
Olive oil (1 Tbsp)

1. Cut potatoes in half and put them in water.
2. Slice the onion. Peel the carrot and cut it about 1/4 inch thick.
3. Salt and pepper both sides of chicken.
4. Heat a pot with olive oil on medium high heat. Saute the chicken until both sides are golden brown. Take the pieces out and set aside.
5. Turn the heat down to medium and add onion slices. Saute the onion until they're caramelized and very tender.
6. Add carrots and mix well.
7. Put the chicken back in and add canned tomatoes. If using whole tomatoes, crush them as you put them in. Add bay leaf.
8. Add water and turn the heat up to high.
9. Once it boils, add potatoes and turn the heat down to low medium.
10. Cook for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
11. Turn the heat OFF. Break the curry bloc into six pieces and add two pieces at a time. Keep stirring to make sure each piece is fully melted. Add all the curry bloc pieces. Once all the pieces are melted, turn the heat back on at low.
12. Keep cooking and stirring until the curry has desired consistency. I like kind of thick curry, but some people like really thin almost like soup curry.
13. Serve it over rice!

I cooked it on Sunday because it tastes even better after you let it sit for a day. When you heat it up though, it's pretty thick, so add some water and stir really well. I also served olive and asparagus salad with it.

I used chicken thigh, but you can use chicken breast, sausage, beef, lamb, or even just vegetables to make it vegetarian. They also have "seafood curry" in Japan, but I'm not a huge fan of it...

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Technorati Tags:curry, chicken, chicken curry

Sunday morning at the farmer's market

A local farmer's market is the best place to be on a Sunday morning. Getting fresh food is of course a major motivator to go there, but that's not the only reason. I like it because I can get a sense of what's in season. What each vendor has changes a lot depending on what's in season, which is not always convenient because sometimes you don't find what you're looking for. But when you find something you didn't really think of or expect, that can give you inspiration for a new dish.

They also have a lot of Asian vegetables, which I like. I often find vegetables that look unfamiliar, and it's fun to try them. It's like discovering a new world.

Fish is also fresh. I usually get whole fish and cut it up at home. I have to go there pretty early though because otherwise all the good fish would be gone.



Locally-grown mushrooms are expensive, but they usually have "ugly" ones that they can't sell at a regular price at a cheaper price, so I just get those.

A good morning at A Good Morning

A Good Morning in Los Altos, CA, is our favorite brunch place. It's a new place, but we had our eyes on it even before its opening because we were looking for a good brunch place. Our local chain, Hobee's is also good, but we're not too crazy about their famous "coffee cake" that's like a 3 inch cube cake. Although A Good Morning is really small and we often have to wait, it's not bad at all compared with like 30-60 minute wait at another local chain, Stacks. Stacks is just too crazy. Food is good but expensive, and the portion is way too big. Anyway, I had apple sausage with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and toast. They also have different kinds of scrambles, gourmet omelets, pancakes, etc. Their orange juice is freshly squeezed and really good, although according to my boyfriend it's not as good as Odwalla orange juice;) Their muffins are really good also.

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