Convenience Foods: Inari Sushi

Inari sushi are one of my favourite specialty sushi at the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants I frequent. If you’re watching your pocket book, however, they’re a snap to make at home with just a few ingredients. Traditionally filled with cooked and seasoned sushi rice, they may be served plain or topped with egg salad, tuna salad or a variety of other sushi fillings. I’ve also filled the tofu pockets with a somen noodle seafood mixture and with leftover Arborio seasoned Korean style (Yubu Chobap).

You can make your own fried and seasoned tofu pockets, but why bother, when you can buy a can of 16 half pockets for a fairly reasonable price (~$5 CDN, locally) and save yourself the mess? Leftover tofu pockets freeze well in the seasoning liquid once the can has been opened, so they’re practical for single diners.

Seasoned Fried Tofu Pockets

Lap Cheong Sausage Inari Sushi

Lap Cheong Sausage Inari Sushi – makes 15-16 inari sushi

1 cup raw sushi rice, cook as per package instructions
4 lap cheong sausages
2-3 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar to season the cooked sushi rice
1 can Hime brand inarizushi

Optional add-ins:
1/4 cup of finely cubed cooked carrot, thawed frozen peas or thawed corn kernels (omitted)
6-8 shiso leaves, julienned
a couple of sweet Japanese thin omelettes (usuyaki tamago), rolled and cut into 1/8 inch strips

Once cooked, you’ll have about 3 cups of rice, enough to fill 15-16 inari sushi. When cooking the sushi rice, lay the sausages over the top of the rice, cook, then remove the sausages and dice. Add the diced sausage to the cooked rice and cut in along with the rice vinegar.

For ease of stuffing the tofu pockets, use 2-3 tablespoons of the rice mixture, shape into an oval and insert it into the opened tofu pocket.

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Convenience Foods: Buffalo Chicken Wings

Convenience foods are … convenient.

However, you have to factor in the price you’re paying for that convenience and decide if it’s worth the trade-off.

In this case, I picked up a package of prepared Buffalo chicken wings (hot sauce and Parmesan garlic sauce included) on sale and said ‘the heck with it’. Especially as raw chicken wings are rarely ‘on sale’ and even if they ARE, you still have to coat/bread, bake, make the sauces etc. At 4-6 whole wings (8-12 pieces) per serving size, the package barely serves two people as a meal, if that’s all you’re having, but I stretched things with a lot of raw veggies like carrot sticks and broccoli florettes. I used Ranch dressing as a dip for the veggies and saved the garlic sauce for another purpose. Instead of french fries as a starch side dish, I made crispy skin-on smashed potatoes.

And I feasted.

A more modest dessert of one of my Jammie Dodgers and my Sunday meal was a success.

Other convenience foods I buy and use are onion rings, tater tots and canned inari sushi. And if that last one seems a bit out of left field … well there’s a reason.

Later

Sour Cream Biscuits (Hungarian Tejfölös Pogácsa)

Pogacsa are Hungarian biscuits. They’re usually made with yeast but this version, shared by a FB friend, uses baking powder and baking soda as the leavening agents. I’ve re-written the ingredients list, with notes, and all the baking instructions.

Cassie B’s Sour Cream Pogacsa (Tejfölös pogácsa) – makes a dozen 2-2 1/4 inch biscuits, plus some ‘scrap’ biscuits

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt*
1 cup cold lard or shortening (don’t use butter, it’s just not the same taste)
1 cup sour cream
1-4 tbsp cold milk to moisten if necessary
1 large egg yolk, beaten, for the egg wash
shredded cheddar cheese, optional

* Cut back on the salt, next time … maybe 1 1/4 or even 1 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Using a pastry blender, cut in the lard until you have pea sized pieces throughout the flour.

Add the sour cream and, with a fork, mix through the flour/lard mixture. Gather a clump in your hand and, if it holds together, gather all the dough into a ball, wrap it in a sheet of plastic food wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes to let the dough rest. (If your dough mixture is still dry and won’t hold together, add a tablespoon of milk and fork through again. Repeat until a handful of the mixture holds together.)

Lightly flour your work surface and place the unwrapped ball of dough on it. With a rolling pin, gently roll out into a rectangle. Visually divide your rectangle into thirds from left to right and ‘envelope fold’ the left side of the dough onto the middle portion. Fold the right side of the dough onto the middle.

Wrap the rectangle with your piece of plastic food wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes to let the dough rest.

Repeat the above (roll out, envelope fold, and refrigerate for 15 minutes) one more time.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle about 8 by 10 inches in size. (This lets you cut out 12 x 2-2 1/4 inch biscuits.)

Using a sharp knife, draw crosshatches, about 1/8th of an inch apart, on the dough.

Cut out the biscuits, using a 2 to 2 1/4-inch biscuit cutter or juice glass, and place them on the parchment paper lined baking sheet. Dip the cutter or glass into flour after each cut so the dough doesn’t stick to the cutter.

Gather the scraps of dough and gently form a few ‘scrap’ biscuits by wrapping strips around each other to keep the layering intact.

Brush the top of each biscuit with the beaten egg yolk. (NOTE: You can sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese on top of the biscuits if you wish, especially your ‘scrap’ biscuits.)

Bake at 450 F for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown on top and bottom.

Let cool before serving.

I played at laminating the dough with room temperature bacon fat before the ‘envelope folds’ which led to slumping. Next time, I’d do some more rest/folds after the 2nd lamination as I created two areas of instability. I only made a half batch so I got nine biscuits out of the dough.

Pork Tenderloin Four Ways

If you have a chance to buy pork tenderloin fresh, it’s quite a versatile protein for a singleton, and you can take your time making various dishes.

Unfortunately, I bought mine frozen, so when I thawed it, I had to prepare (trim off fat and remove the silver skin) and use it in as soon as possible.

Pork tenderloin souvlaki – marinated (Kraft Zesty Italian dressing), threaded onto skewers with chunks of onion and sweet pepper (red, yellow and orange), and then broiled on the bbq or in the oven under the grill. Serve with starch of your choice. In this case, I had leftover Mexican rice in the freezer so that’s what I used.

 

Korean pork tenderloin roast – marinated in a Korean paste and served over plain rice. I boiled and served the marinade over the slightly charred pork.

 

Korean (Gochujang) Pork Tenderloin Marinade – serves 3-4

1 large piece of pork tenderloin (1 1/4 – 1 1/2 lbs)

1/2 cup gochujang
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey or brown sugar*
1-6 cloves of garlic, minced*
2 tbsp fish sauce (optional)
pinch of salt

* I used honey and only 1 clove of garlic

Pesto pork tenderloin roast – marinated in home made pesto and served with pesto fettuccine

 

Honey mustard pork tenderloin – Pan fried pork cutlet served with honey mustard dressing … it turned out I hadn’t taken a picture of the honey mustard over the pork itself, just over the raw broccoli so you’ll have to imagine. The protein was served with skin on, smashed potatoes.

Playing with Strawberry Jam

I didn’t want to title this post just “Strawberry Jam” because someone might assume I was posting about MAKING strawberry jam … and that’s not happening. Ever.

When buying jam, raspberry and apricot are neck and neck for first choice for me. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Freshco and saw that the Smucker’s brand was on sale. I decided to switch things up a bit and picked up a jar of strawberry jam instead. It was a nice treat and besides spreading it on my toasted sourdough bread and using it to fill crepes, I used it in the desserts below.

Strawberry Pop-Tarts – I used my friend Ann’s pie crust recipe for the tarts and read a number of blogs for assembly and baking instructions. The ‘recipe’ posted below is a combination of the best elements gleaned from my readings.

The results were very tasty, though I had some leftover pastry so I know I could have rolled the pastry a bit thinner and made three pop-tarts, not just two, with the pastry I had.

Glazed pop-tarts – I wasn’t sure how much icing I wanted to use so I played

Strawberry Pop-Tarts – makes 3

pie crust pastry, enough to make one 9 inch pie base
3-4 tbsp strawberry jam
1 egg white, beaten with a bit of water (use the egg yolk for the Jammie Dodgers recipe below)
1/4 cup icing sugar
enough milk to make a glaze
red or pink food colouring, if desired

Cut out a 3 1/2 inch by 5 1/2 inch piece of stiff cardboard to use as a template.

Roll out the pie crust pastry into an 11 by 12 inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut SIX rectangles out of the pastry using the template above.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.

Line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.

Place THREE of the pastry rectangles cut above onto the baking sheet. Brush a 1/2 inch strip of beaten egg white around all four edges of each rectangle. Place a heaping tablespoon of jam in the middle of the pastry rectangles and gently spread out, to where the egg white strip begins, with a small off-set spatula or the back of a small teaspoon. Place the tops onto each pastry and press down gently on the edges to seal. Use the tines of a fork to press down and seal the edges fully. With the prongs of the fork or a sharp skewer or toothpick, make vent holes across the top of the pastry.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the tops of the pastries are golden brown. Cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes and then use a spatula to transfer each pastry to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Make a glaze for the pastry tops by adding milk, a teaspoon at a time, to the icing sugar in a small bowl. You may add a drop or two of food colouring to the icing sugar before adding the milk.

Jammie Dodgers -This is the third most popular biscuit in the UK, according to a survey taken last December. By the way, I’ve made the number one pick, chocolate digestive biscuits, and it IS a winner. The recipe I included below is a rewritten version of the one I used, and includes vanilla extract, which that one did not. I had to extend the baking time to accommodate my oven’s idiosyncrasies.

PS: I’m not pointing fingers but the Jammie Dodgers look very similar to Linzer cookies, an Austrian rolled Christmas cookie.

Jammie Dodgers – makes about a dozen 3 inch/8 cm cookies

250 g plain/ all purpose flour*
200 g salted butter**
100 g icing sugar
1 egg yolk, from the pop-tarts recipe above
1 tsp vanilla extract
strawberry jam, to fill the cookies
additional icing sugar, for dusting

* The pastry was so soft I couldn’t pick it up without it ripping, even when I heavily dusted more flour on my work surface and over the pastry. I tried working more flour in … still too soft. I even tried freezing the pastry for half an hour with minimal benefit. Still, I persisted, and managed to get almost a dozen Jammie Dodgers baked.

** I was short on butter so I used margarine. This may have contributed to the soft pastry above but further reading suggested that a short bread type pastry dough, like this one, should have 3 pts flour: 2 pts butter: 1 pt sugar. This means that I should have used 300 g of flour. So that’s what I’ll do next time.

Preheat the to 350 deg F/170 deg C and line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour and icing sugar.

Add the butter (or margarine) to the bowl and, with a pastry blender, cut it in until your mixture resembles bread crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract. With a fork, incorporate the dry mixture into the wet. Gather the pastry into a ball and wrap it with plastic food wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Turn the pastry out onto a floured surface and roll out to around 1/4 of an inch/6 mm thickness. Cut your biscuits out into 3 inch/8 cm circles and, from half the biscuits, cut out an additional shape from the middle.

Place your cookies onto the baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies are a light golden colour around the edges.

Once the cookies are cool enough to handle, dust the tops with a little icing sugar. Spread about a teaspoon of jam over the bases and sandwich the tops and bases together.

NOTE: For an even prettier presentation, using a tiny spoon, fill the cut out in the middle with a bit more jam so that it comes to the same level as the top cookie.

“Jammie Hearts” – the cutouts make bite sized cookies

“Cake in a Mug” Duo

A few years ago I ran across a wonderful post on Diethood which had links to a collection of microwaved ‘cakes in a mug’. I copied several of the recipes and even made one … a “Strawberries and Cream” version. I served it with some macerated strawberries on top.

It was tasty but, for some reason, I never tried any of the other recipes in the collection I saved. Until this week.

By the way, I heartily recommend checking out Katerina’s blog. She’s a talented home chef, wife and mother of two young girls, and a beautiful person, inside and out.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter ‘Cake in a Mug’

Chocolate and Peanut Butter ‘Cake in a Mug’ – makes 1 cake

Dry ingredients: 1 tbsp all purpose flour, 1 tbsp cocoa, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp brown sugar
Wet ingredients: 1 egg, 2 tbsp of peanut butter
Add ins: 1 tbsp chocolate chips

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and combine. Add the chocolate chips, giving the ‘batter’ a quick stir.

Pour the batter into a mug. Make sure that your batter only fills about 1/3 of the mug because it will rise A LOT.

Place the mug into the microwave and cook for 1 min 45 sec or 2 min on 80 % power.

Trial 1: Cake cooked for 2 minutes. Good texture (maybe a touch too firm) and taste. I’ll try 1 min 45 sec next time.

Blueberry ‘Cake in a Mug’

Blueberry ‘Cake in a Mug’ – makes 1 cake

Dry ingredients: 5 tbsp all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 3-4 tbsp granulated sugar
Wet ingredients: 1 egg, 2 tbsp blueberry yogurt, 1 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 tsp vanilla extract
Add ins: 2 tbsp frozen or fresh blueberries

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and combine. Add the blueberries, giving the ‘batter’ a quick stir.

Pour the batter into a mug. Make sure that your batter only fills about 1/3 of the mug because it will rise A LOT.

Place the mug into the microwave and cook for 1 min 45 sec or 2 min on 80 % power.

Trial 1: Cake cooked for 1 min 45 sec. Texture of the cake was very good, more tender compared to the slightly tougher one of the chocolate and peanut butter one that was cooked longer.

Crumb of the cake

I split open the ‘cake’ to see the distribution of the frozen blueberries. Everything was great UNTIL I tasted it and realized that I had forgotten to add the sugar.

So I poured the rest of the container of blueberry yogurt over the top and dug in. A tablespoon of sweetened whipped cream would have worked too. Or maybe some honey.

Battered, Crumbed and Baked … Chicken Tenders

I’ve made these tenders before, but it’s been a while, and I don’t know that I put enough emphasis on the positive aspects of the technique involved.

The usual 3 dish (seasoned flour, beaten egg and seasoned bread crumbs) method for preparing these tenders/fingers, or even chicken cutlets, usually ends up with flour and beaten egg to discard. By combining the flour and egg (only ONE) into a single step, along with some flavourings, the wastage is minimized. You can easily batter up to one pound of chicken pieces in the batter. You may also reduce the crumb wastage by judicious addition of the crumbs over the top of your chicken pieces. Another feature of this technique is the addition of the mustard, for flavour, and the mayonnaise, for moisture retention. In the past, I’ve spread mayonnaise or Miracle Whip over the top of a skinless chicken breast and then dipped the breast into seasoned bread crumbs and baking. This is incorporated into the technique.

Battered, Crumbed and Baked Chicken Tenders – for 2

250 gm /1/2 lb chicken tenders or skinless and boned thighs, cut in half, try to get all your chicken about the same thickness
~ 1/2 cup seasoned Italian breadcrumbs

Batter – makes enough batter for 500 gm/1 lb of chicken tenders

1 egg
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard (or any other mustard of choice)
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

oil spray or vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 200C/390F, spray a baking sheet with vegetable spray or brush on a thin layer of vegetable oil. If using parchment paper, to reduce cleaning, you should still use the spray/oil as it will help promote browning.

In a metal pie tin, add your bread crumbs and set aside.

Place the batter ingredients in a medium sized, shallow bowl (a 1 lb margarine tub works for me) and whisk with a fork until combined.

Add the chicken pieces, a few at a time, to the batter, using a fork to turn the chicken over to coat both sides, and letting the excess drip off. Transfer the chicken pieces, still using the fork, to the bread crumbs and shake the pie tin back and forth gently to help coat the bottom of the chicken with the crumbs. With clean dry fingers, sprinkle some of the bread crumbs over the top of the chicken pieces, then gently turn them over to make sure all sides are crumbed.

Place the crumbed chicken onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes depending on thickness. You may want to turn over the pieces about half way through the baking to get both sides crisped and slightly browned. Don’t bake too long or any thinner parts of the chicken will dry out.

Serve immediately with dipping sauce of your choice. ie honey mustard, ranch dressing or spicy Sriracha mayo.

Sriracha Mayo – serves 1

1 tbsp of your favourite mayonnaise
Sriracha, to taste

Since I’m cooking for one, I utilize whatever mixing vessels are available, nearby … usually in my draining board.

The price tag was to remind me that I bought 0.856 kg of boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $10. The cutlets below served three and I have over a half kilogram chicken left.

Gyudon (Japanese Beef Rice Bowl)

A donburi is a delicious and easy-to-make bowl of sushi rice. There are a number of variations depending on the toppings.

I haven’t had the the beef version or ‘gyudon’ before but I had some leftover steak from my ‘shooter’s sandwich’ so I threw this together.

Gyudon (Japanese Beef Rice Bowl) – serves 1

Ingredients of the Dish

1 cup hot cooked sushi rice (unseasoned) or regular cooked rice
1 recipe for ‘simmering sauce’
2 oz/ 57 gm thinly sliced leftover steak
2 tbsp leftover onion/mushroom mixture, from the ‘Shooter’s Sandwich’**
poached egg (optional)
garnishes – thinly sliced green onion, toasted black or white sesame seeds

** In the absence of the onion/mushroom mixture, half and thinly slice 1/3-1/2 medium onion and poach in the simmering sauce until soft before adding the sliced steak to warm through.

Simmering Sauce

1/2 cup dashi stock (or 1/2 cup water and 1 tsp dashi powder, or 1/2 cup chicken stock)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sugar (brown sugar may be used)
1 tbsp sake (dry white wine may be used)
1/2 tsp wasabi paste (optional)

Simmer together in a small pan or wok.

Assembly/Serving the Rice Bowl

Add the hot cooked rice to a deep bowl.

To the pan of simmering sauce, add the steak and onion/mushroom mixture and stir through just long enough to warm the steak through. With a slotted spoon, transfer the steak and onion/mushroom mixture to the top of the hot rice, leaving behind the majority of the simmering sauce. You may poach the egg in the sauce, place it on top of the steak in the bowl and then spoon the sauce around the periphery of the bowl. Scatter the green onion and/or sesame seed garnish on top. Serve.

An alternative to poaching the egg is to lightly scramble it in a small bowl, and then add it to the simmering sauce in the wok. Stir the egg through the sauce just long enough to cook/poach the egg and then spoon the egg and the sauce around the periphery of the bowl. Garnish and serve.

Some more pretty pics of the Shooter’s Sandwich … next time, I’d put the mushroom underneath the steak to make cutting neater

One Pot – Creamy Ham, Pea and Egg Noodles

Cooking for one (or two) means you often have leftovers from things you’ve thawed. In this case, I had a cup or so of diced ham from a 2 cup bag I’d frozen for soup. (I used the other cup for a broccoli, cheddar cheese and ham quiche.)

I found an online ‘one dish’ recipe and scaled it down to suit the amounts I had. Although I halved all the other ingredients, I used the full 2 cups of chicken stock (1 1/2 cups of stock and 1/2 cup of water, works too) because I needed to have enough liquid to cover the noodles. The noodles were cooked in the pan and didn’t suffer taste-wise from the substitution. I also omitted the lemon juice because I was saving my lone lemon for something else. Instead of using half and half, I used 1/4 cup of whipping cream.

Creamy Ham, Pea and Egg Noodles Pot

The dish was quick to assemble and delicious and the leftover portion could be taken to work the next day for lunch or enjoyed for a repeat supper.

Sourdough Bread Bowls and a Shooter’s Sandwich

Warning: Another Picture Heavy Post

ETA (09/09/2018): Recipe for the Shooter’s Sandwich added

I rarely expend as much effort on a dish/recipe as I did for this glorified steak sandwich.

And, at the end, I didn’t USE the bun I had spent all that effort on.

The shooter’s sandwich is a relic of the shooting parties of the nobles and elite in Edwardian Great Britain, who would arrange to have the kitchen produce this sandwich to be tossed into their hunting bags, before they went out for a day of grouse shooting. The sandwich was wrapped in butcher’s paper and pressed so that the juices given off by the mushrooms and steak would permeate the hearty bun. Eaten at room temperature, it was an expensive dish if prepared with filet mignon. My steak choice was more modest. A blade steak cooked as quickly as possible in the hopes of not ending up with shoe leather.

And now the story behind the sandwich:

First, I had to research a recipe for an individual bun in which I could build the sandwich, since I knew that I was unlikely to find something suitable locally. And, once I decided on a sourdough bread bowl recipe, I had to make sourdough starter. Luckily, I had some dried sourdough starter in the pantry so I didn’t have to start from scratch. It took me two days but the result was a lovely bubbly and fragrant mixture. It took a third day to bake the buns.

Rehydrated Sourdough Starter

Sourdough Bread Bowl filled with chili

Sourdough Bread Bowls – top and bottom scooped out

I ended up with extra starter (something sourdough bakers have to deal with) so I experimented with part of it. I repeated the KAF Italian bread recipe but substituted ~200 gm of my bubbly new starter in place of the ‘overnight starter’. I was torn between reducing the amount of commercial yeast used but decided to stick with the original recipe. A bad choice as it turned out. I over proofed the dough during the bulk proof stage. And during the final proofing stage. And my kneading/shaping probably needed work.

Hybrid (Sourdough Starter and Yeast) Buns

I SHOULD have increased the baking temperature although the buns looked fine when I pulled them out of the oven. And then, the next day, after making the sourdough buns, they looked  pale and anemic in comparison.

When I cut into the buns, I was pleased with the crumb.

I froze the other two hybrid buns I made, and used the one I had cut into for my steak sandwich … after I hollowed it out.

Bun, onion/mushroom mixture, French’s mustard (use Dijon or a coarse brown mustard) and blade steak. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the steak after it had been seared off

Wrap in plastic food wrap, press, cut and eat.

Hybrid Bun Shooter’s Sandwich – cut it in fourths for an appetizer

Shooter’s Sandwich – makes 3 sandwiches

Three  12 cm/ 4 1/2 inch sourdough bread bowls, top removed and contents removed leaving 10 cm/1/2 inch rim around the edge and on the base

500 gm/ 1 lb blade steak, seared or grilled to rare/medium-rare

Mushroom Mixture

1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
227 gm/ 1/2 lb mushrooms, finely diced
1/4 tsp Worchestershire sauce
salt and pepper, to taste

mustard, Dijon, coarse grained
horseradish (optional)

Making the mushroom mixture

In a large saute pan, melt the butter over medium high heat. Add the onions and saute until the onion has softened and starts to get golden brown. Remove the onions to a small bowl and reserve. Add the mushrooms to the pan and saute in the remaining butter until softened, slightly browned and fairly dry. Return the onions to the pan and sprinkle the Worchestershire sauce over the top, stirring into the onion/mushroom mixture. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste.

Spread some mustard over the base of the bread bowl. Divide the steak into thirds and fit tightly into the base. Spread some horseradish over the steak. Top with about 1/3 of the mushroom mixture and fit the lid of the bread bowl on top. Wrap the sandwich in a large sheet of plastic food wrap. Place the sandwich into a bowl. Place a flat plate on top and then a heavy weight on top. Refrigerate overnight. Cut into fourths and serve.

Repeat with the rest of the bread bowls and other ingredients.