Japanese Duo and Basque Burnt Cheesecake

It’s been six seven months and I got bored so I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of things I made lately. I’ve made both dishes before and posted them on my LJ and my blog.

Japanese chicken curry using a boxed curry roux.

And some inarizushi (seasoned fried tofu pockets filled with sushi rice). One has pickled plum stirred into the rice and the other has green onion and rice seasoning in it.

PS: I also baked a Burnt Basque cheesecake a few days ago and am slowly making my way through it. This is a new dish in my cooking repertoire. I found the recipe here.

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Thai Green Pork Curry

I recently ran across an ice cream tub with the label “odds and ends” on it and popped it open to find the carefully wrapped remainder of a can of Masri brand green curry paste. I was debating which protein to pair it with and settled on some sliced boneless pork chops. The finished dish … Thai green pork curry served over basmati rice. I would have preferred jasmine rice but, unfortunately, didn’t have any.

Thai Green Pork Curry – serves 3

1 tbsp oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
350-400 gm boneless pork chops, thinly sliced
200 gm broccoli florettes (or diced eggplant, green beans, tops removed, asparagus, sliced into 2 inch pieces)
1 large or 2 medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2-3 tbsp Thai green curry paste
200 ml coconut milk (or a combination of the coconut milk and plain Balkan yogurt)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp white sugar, if needed

extra yogurt, for serving

Heat oil in a saute-pan to medium-high and saute the sliced onion and pork for 2-3 minutes or until the onion is golden and the pork has started to brown.

Add the vegetables, coconut milk (and yogurt, if used), brown sugar, soy and fish sauces. Cook for  12-15 minutes or until vegetables are tender. If using broccoli, you might want to add the florettes for the last 7-10 minutes so they don’t overcook. (Like mine did.)

Taste and if the curry is too ‘hot’, add a tsp of white sugar to reduce that a bit. Serve over steamed jasmine or basmati rice.

Top with an extra dollop of yogurt, if desired.

Indian Menu for 4 … At Home

I came home last week with a tray of four skinless, bone-in chicken breasts and decided to include them in an Indian menu that I had planned for the weekend.

I was originally going to make a chicken curry/biryani but switched over to chicken tikka instead. Two chunks of spicy and tender chicken are often part of an appetizer combo, along with a couple of samosas and a couple of pakoras, but I threaded five onto soaked bamboo skewers and turned them into a main dish. The spiciness of the tikkas are toned down by serving them with a minty yogurt dip (raita).

 

 

Since this is a ‘dry’ dish, I made a couple of ‘wet’ dishes … matar paneer (pea and paneer cheese curry) …

 

 

… and a vegetarian chana masala (chickpea curry) … to go with it.

For a bread, I made aloo paratha, spiced mashed potato mixture stuffed into a whole wheat flatbread. Because I’m not fond of all whole wheat breads, I used (a bit more than) half all purpose flour and half whole wheat. And, I halved the recipe I found on line to only make four parathas. Because I didn’t have any fresh coriander leaves called for in the recipe, I defrosted some thinly sliced green onion tops and added them in their place.

 

 

And, of course, I made some basmati rice to sop up all that tasty sauce. Plain because I was tired and couldn’t be bothered coming up with anything more elaborate.

BONUS

To use up the rest of the chicken, rather than freezing it away, I took the largest of the chicken breasts, took it off the bone and spread the top with about a teaspoon of Hellman’s mayonnaise. Then, the mayonnaise coated breast was dipped into a few tablespoons of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs. I roasted the breast along with all four of the ribs. Since I left quite a bit of meat on the ribs, I let them cool and then put them in a freezer bag. Later in the week or the week after that, I’ll make a small (four cup) batch of chicken stock with the ribs and use them in a pot of chicken noodle soup. I even have egg noodles in the pantry to add to the soup.

Since the boneless breast was so large (~350 gm) I cut it in half and will have two meals.

 

The smaller breast and other trimmings were ground up (I had about 400 gms of meat) and turned into three chicken patties/burgers.

Pretty economical for an investment of $6.35 and some time.

August/Summer Wrap-Up … Butter Saffron Basmati Rice and Pepperoni Pizza Sourdough Bread Loaf

PICTURE HEAVY WARNING

Summer has been much too short. Of course, I didn’t get much accomplished. In fact, I can’t even remember the semi-ambitious plans I had made.

Next year, I’m going to have to make and post a list of To Do‘s to keep me on track.

I hope work calls are more frequent this fall than last year and that my insomnia doesn’t flare up again. Going to bed at 5am is a bad habit and I need to get my sleep patterns back on track if I keep getting 6am phone calls to work.

And now, for a quick clear out of dishes I’ve cooked and pictures that I haven’t shared in August. Posting should slow  down quite a bit as work starts again.

I made butter saffron basmati rice with which to serve some leftover green chicken curry.

Butter Saffron Basmati Rice – ~3 cups

1 cup basmati rice
1 1/3 cup water
1 tbsp butter, unsalted
1/2 tsp salt

Saffron garnish
pinch or two of saffron threads
2 tbsp boiling water

Combine the boiling water and the saffron threads in a small bowl/ramekin and set aside.

Cooking the rice:

Wash the rice in several changes of cold water and then pour into a colander and drain.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and then add the drained rice. Saute for a minute or two. Add the water and salt to the saucepan and bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat to the minimum setting on your stove and cover.

Cook for 20 minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and let the rice continue to steam for another 5-10 minutes.

Fluff with a fork. Every rice grain should be separate from every other. Transfer to a serving bowl and drizzle the saffron over the top.

Serve.

I tested the suggestion that using bread flour instead of all-purpose flour in my sourdough baking would give me better oven spring. The result did not bear that out but as I made some other changes to my ‘go to’ no-knead sourdough recipe, they’re not conclusive. The add-ins (1 oz diced hot pepperette, 1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, 2 oz shredded mozzarella cheese, and 1 tsp Italian herb seasonings), at least, gave me a very tasty, if flat, oval loaf of pepperoni pizza bread.

It was great as a dip for marinara sauce and toasted or plain, with butter, peanut butter or as a base for an open faced egg salad sandwich.

 

Mushroom and Tofu Egg Drop Miso Soup – It’s hard to take a nice picture of miso soup

A shrimp appetizer

Shrimp and Mushroom Scampi over home made Fettuccine pasta

Some breakfasts/lunches

 

Spicy pepperoni and mozzarella cheese stuffed omelette

Sourdough tortilla pizzas have been appearing often on my plate – from the classic pepperoni/mozzarella, with or without sweet peppers, Canadian bacon and fresh basil to pulled pork/bbq sauce to shrimp or mushroom on a base of shiso pesto. A bacon and mozzarella pizza made today isn’t pictured.

 

 

I was sure I had some fudgy chocolate cupcakes in the downstairs freezer for a quick dessert (even had a frosting idea that I was excited about) but then I had to scramble for a new plan when I discovered that I had eaten them all up, and all that was left were nine red velvet cupcakes. Making a cream cheese frosting was my immediate thought and, after weighing what was left of the last brick of Philly cream cheese (77 gm) in  my fridge, I searched my hard drive for one of the many ‘one day, I must try this’ frosting recipes that I could scale down. I was very pleased with the result … a thick, pipeable frosting with a touch of lemon juice to cut through the cloying sweetness of so many cream cheese frostings.

The last of the raspberry cupcakes with raspberry curd

Chicken Katsu Curry Donburi

Earlier in the week, I had butterflied a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and turned them into chicken fingers along with the tenders from 6 breasts. Coated in  a simple home made version of ‘Shake’n’Bake’ using regular dried breadcrumbs and baked in the oven, they were delicious. But … I had a craving.

A craving for chicken katsu.

A thin cutlet of chicken breast, floured, egg washed and dipped in Panko. And FRIED!!

So that’s what I did late Friday evening with the 2 chicken cutlets that I had set aside. One was a bit too thick and uneven but I didn’t bother pounding it down so it would be even. Cause it was  late enough that I just didn’t care.

The next day, I served it in one of my sushi bowls over hot sushi rice. Even though the crust had lost a lot of its crunch, it was still good. And worth frying.

No Japanese beer but the Moroccan mint iced tea was lovely.

Chicken Katsu Curry Donburi – serves 1

1 serving of hot cooked sushi rice
1 serving of Japanese curry
1 chicken katsu, sliced on the diagonal in 1/2 inch strips
Tonkatsu sauce (Bulldog brand isn’t bad)
garnish with ~1 tbsp thinly sliced green onion

Chicken Katsu – serves 4

4 chicken cutlets, thinly sliced and pounded 1/4 inch thick
1 egg, beaten with 1 tbsp cold water
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper as needed
2-3 cups vegetable oil

Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper on each side

Place the flour, beaten egg and bread crumbs each in their own large and relatively flat bowls

Dip each cutlet first in the flour, shaking off the excess, and coating each side. Then dip each side of the cutlet in the beaten egg, letting the excess drip off. Finally, coat the egged cutlets in the Panko bread crumbs, pressing the Panko into the cutlet so it will stick.

In a large cast iron skillet add enough vegetable oil to a depth of 1/2-3/4 inch. Heat the oil to 350 deg. Fahrenheit (medium-high on an electric stove if you don’t have a deep frying thermometer). Add a couple of cutlets at a time and fry until they’re a golden brown colour (5-7 minutes), turn and repeat.

Drain on a cooling rack set over a plate with several layers of paper toweling to absorb the oil. Do not place the cutlets directly on the paper towels as the crust will get soggy and you want a nice crunchy crust.

Japanese Vegetable** Curry – serves 4

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, cut into roughly 1/2 inch chunks
1-2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
2 cups water
pinch or two of coarse sea or kosher salt
1 package of curry paste (Glico brand is my favourite and the $1.99 it costs is worth it for the convenience)

** If you want a meat curry, cut chunks of chicken, pork or beef into bite sized pieces and brown in the oil before adding the onions. About half a pound of meat is plenty. For a tougher cut of meat, like the beef, you may want to simmer the meat for 10-20 minutes before adding the vegetables so they don’t get too mushy.

In a large saute pan, stir fry the onions over medium heat for 7-10 minutes until tender and getting browned. Add the garlic, salt, carrot and potato chunks and stir fry for another few minutes.

Add 2 cups of water (you may need more to just cover the vegetables) and bring the water to a boil. Cover with the lid and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are fork tender, about 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and take the saute pan off the burner. Break up the cubes of curry paste and stir into the vegetable mixture. The residual heat will help dissolve the cubes and thicken the mixture. When the cubes are completely dissolved, put the lid on and let the curry sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Serve hot with rice, pasta or bread.