Aloo Keema Curry (Potato and Ground Beef)

I haven’t made this dish in ages so I’m doing a quick repost to LJ, sharing here, with a composite picture I shared on FB … cause I’m a lazy person.

The recipe can be found in the original post I did, eight years ago, with credit to the blog that I found it on. I made it with regular potatoes this time, as that’s all that I had, and it’s what her recipe called for.

REVIEW: Fast and delicious with simple ingredients likely available in most people’s kitchens. The recipe calls for Madras curry but you can use whatever Indian curry you have.

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Chicken Doria

I’m cooking a lot of old favourites and a few new recipes but just haven’t had the enthusiasm to post much over the last five or six months.

Today I made a baked Japanese rice casserole called doria so I decided to share the results.

Sauteed diced chicken thighs, mushrooms and onions are seasoned with ketchup, salt and white pepper, topped with simple bechamel sauce and grated mozzarella cheese and baked until the top is browned. I used one cup ramekins and found that I had too much bechamel to fit into the ramekin. A larger container is planned for the next time.

REVIEW: It’s a great recipe. Relatively fast, easy to put together and economical. One chicken thigh (120 gm) is enough for two servings. And it tastes delicious.

PS: The new WordPress editor is still a challenge to me. To be honest, I absolutely hate it as I can’t paste from LJ without losing my picture formatting, so I’m deleting a lot of it from the final post. For a nicer looking post, you can visit there.

Hawaiian Loco Moco Redux

Too lazy to make a real cooking post but I thought I’d share today’s lunch, a Hawaiian loco moco.

This version features a bowl of left over basmati rice (long grain, jasmine or sushi rice works too, as does couscous, quinoa or cauliflower rice), topped with a hamburger patty and canned Swiss Chalet beef gravy.

Add a fried sunny side up egg (white is set but the yolk is still runny). A little green onion for garnish.

Dig in.

Fast, easy and delicious.

PS: In Hawaii, a dinner plate also adds macaroni salad and coleslaw.

Tomato and Egg Stir Fry – Chinese Style

Recently, this dish has been popping up all over my Facebook food groups. It is similar to shakshuka but with Asian flavours. I used the recipe here. The only change I made was to add 1/4 tsp ground ginger to the tomato mixture while simmering.

Tomato and Egg Stir Fry, garnished with green onions

Partially cooked scrambled egg is reserved to be added to the tomato mixture once the tomatoes have softened enough. If using diced, fresh tomatoes, that will take 5-10 minutes but if using canned, diced tomatoes and juice, as I did, it may only take 3-5 minutes or so. If you want a ‘saucier’ tomato mixture, add some more water to your saucepan/wok and warm through.

Serve the tomato and egg mixture over hot rice of your choice. I had some leftover sushi rice so that’s what I used.

Review: Fast and delicious. Try it yourself.

PS: I really do NOT like this new formatting style.

Sushi Rice Burger a la Mos Burger

NEWSFLASH: The Japanese fast food chain, Mos Burger, serves a hamburger on a rice bun.

I first heard about this dish on the Youtube channel, TabiEats, and was intrigued enough to give it a try. Especially after seeing a similar dish that they made, a grilled cheese sandwich, using a rice bun in place of sandwich bread. Searching Youtube revealed many other people who had the same idea. The Tasty channel, for example, presented four different versions of such a burger including, chicken karaage, shrimp tempura, teriyaki salmon and shrimp cake. I hope to give some of them a try in the future.

The following recipe was inspired by the TabiEats channel and is a written account of how I made it.

Japanese Rice Burger a la Mos Burger – serves 1

Additional ingredients

cooked hamburger patty
slice of cheese
mayonnaise (Kewpie or Hellman’s or Miracle Whip salad dressing)
thinly shredded lettuce
ketchup
mustard
crispy bacon (optional)
sliced pickle (optional)

Rice Burger Buns – makes 2 x ~4-inch rice patties

1 1/2 cups hot/freshly cooked Japanese sushi rice
2 tbsp cornstarch, sifted to eliminate lumps
salt, to taste (~1/8 tsp)

In a medium bowl, add the freshly cooked sushi rice and sift the cornstarch over the top. Cut the cornstarch in with a wet wooden or silicone spatula so as not to mash the rice grains. Season with salt to taste.

Line a 1 cup ramekin with a sheet of plastic food wrap leaving a generous amount of overhang to be able to fold over the plastic wrap around the rice bun. Add half the rice to the ramekin, pressing down firmly to form into an even patty. Remove the rice patty from the ramekin using the pastic wrap as a sling. Wrap the excess plastic around the patty. Repeat with a fresh sheet of plastic wrap and the remaining rice. Refrigerate the two rice patties for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Preheat a large saute pan over medium heat and add a tsp or so of vegetable oil to the pan. With a folded paper towel wipe the oil over the pan, leaving just a thin coating behind.

Remove the rice patties from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap and toast the patties in the preheated saute pan until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the patties to a plate and assemble.

Brush the inside of both rice patties with a bit of mayonnaise. Top one of the patties with shredded lettuce, slice of cheese, bacon, the hamburger patty, ketchup, mustard and pickles.

Place the second patty, mayonnaise side down, on top, and serve.

Japanese Tea Duo – Genmaicha and Mugicha

I’m not much of a tea drinker but these two varieties are quite enjoyable.

Genmaicha is a “Japanese brown rice green tea consisting of green tea mixed with roasted popped brown rice” according to Wikipedia.

I was intrigued when I saw it listed on the menu in my favourite all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant and ordered it. Instead, I was served jasmine tea. It was hard to understand the server but I got the impression that they didn’t have it. I don’t know if they EVER had it. In any case, I looked for it at my newest ‘go to’ Asian grocery store and came home with a bag.

Some ‘recipes’ are pretty complicated … apparently you can get THREE brews of tea from the same spoon of tea. The water temperature varies among each brew. Or, if you just want a simple cup … add 1 cup of boiled water (150-170 deg F) to 1 tsp of the genmaicha and let steep for 1-3 minutes. You can drink it plain or with a splash of milk.

I wasn’t sure which mug/cup I wanted to use so I pulled out an assortment and had the tea plain.

The second tea, mugicha, is a roasted barley tea so it’s caffeine free. I had some pearl barley in my pantry so I decided to roast my own (REAL mugicha is made with roasted hull-on barley). It can be drunk hot or cold (refrigerated/iced). I added honey and lemon to the jar of cold mugicha.

Homemade Mugicha (Japanese Roasted Barley Tea) – makes 8 cups

1/3 cup uncooked pearl barley
8 cups water

Optional add-ins
sliced lemons, sugar or honey

Put the barley in a large dry skillet and toast over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring the grains and shaking the skillet occasionally so that they toast evenly, until the grains have turned a dark rich brown color. Remove from the heat and pour out into a bowl or a paper towel to cool.

Before and after toasting (8 minutes) the pearl barley

I was curious if it would get darker still so I toasted half the previously toasted barley for another 4 minutes … a total of 12 minutes. I didn’t really see, or taste, much of a difference in the tea made from the two batches.

Bring the water to a boil in a pot, add the cooled toasted barley, and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and let the barley continue to steep as the mugicha cools, for about 5 minutes.

Strain out the barley and drink immediately, or store in the fridge to drink it cold. Flavor with optional lemon and honey or sugar when ready to drink.

There’s nothing like drinking a cup of tea with a biscuit or, in Japan, a rice cracker (senbei). I made my own senbei and shared them in an earlier post but brought home a package ($3.49) to taste test.

There are 8 of these mini packages (each with 2 crackers inside) inside the big bag.

The crackers were basted with soy sauce and had shredded nori sprinkled over the top.

Nice and puffy interior

They were delicious but very MOR-ish, so you can’t eat just one mini pack.

Bonus: Strawberry tapioca ball tea … my first time trying this type of tea. Enjoyable as it was refreshing and just slightly sweetened.

Ground Beef … Soup, Rice Bowls and Burritos

For the last few months, I’ve backlogged a number of new recipes I’ve tried and old recipes I’ve repeated with slight changes which I’m posting below. The theme to anchor these dishes … lean ground beef was used for each recipe.

Cabbage Roll Soup – This is a new one. Shredded coleslaw mix was used as the base for this delicious soup. The recipe used elements from several recipes I found on line with substitutions designed to use things I had in my pantry and/or that I liked.

Cabbage Roll Soup – serves 8

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 lb/227 gm lean ground beef (or pork or ground turkey)
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced *
1 large carrot, chopped (1 1/4 cups)
2 1/2 cups coleslaw mix
1 cloves garlic, grated or finely mince
4 cups beef broth
1 cup tomato/spaghetti sauce
1 cup diced tomatoes
1 cup pureed tomatoes
~1 tbsp packed light brown sugar (to taste to cut back on acidity of the tomatoes)
1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp dried paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano or 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh
1/2 tsp dried thyme or 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh
1 bay leaf
4-6 tbsp raw long-grain white rice
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
water, as needed

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

* Used 3 tbsp sauteed diced onion from freezer

Heat vegetable oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat.

Add ground beef, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring and breaking up beef occasionally, until browned. Transfer beef to a plate lined with paper towels while reserving 2 tbsp of the rendered fat in pan, set beef aside.

Add onion and carrots to pan and saute 1 minute, then add coleslaw and saute 2 minutes, then add garlic and saute 1 minute longer.

Pour in beef broth, tomato sauce, tomatoes, brown sugar, Worcestershire, paprika, oregano, thyme and bay leaves. Return beef to soup mixture.

Season soup with salt and pepper to taste and bring to a light boil, then add rice, cover pot and reduce heat and simmer until rice is cooked through, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes.

Stir in up to 1 cup water or more beef broth to thin as desired (it will thicken as it rests and become almost like a stew), then stir in lemon juice and parsley.

Serve hot.

Mapo Tofu – Szechuan style ground beef, tofu and broccoli dish, served over long grain rice. I’ve made variations of this dish in the past.

Soboro Don – Japanese rice bowl topped with seasoned ground beef and peas. Recipe adapted from this one.

Beef and Bean Burritos – Seasoned ground beef with home made black bean refried beans. Top as desired.

Senbei (Japanese Rice Crackers)

I recently visited two different Asian grocery stores and came home with a treasure trove of staples for future, mostly Japanese based, goodies.

Mochiko, is a sweet rice flour used for dango, mochi and, this post’s focus, “senbei” or savoury Japanese rice crackers. The same recipe was found on several web sites so I’ll post a link to only one.

Senbei

For additional umami, wrap your cracker in a strip of toasted nori.

Furikake (rice seasoning) was added to the dough before it was kneaded into a compact ball.  To ensure even sized crackers without weighing out each one individually, I cut the ball of cracker dough in half and then cut each half into eight wedges.

To make sure that the final cut was accurate, I formed each of the eight wedges into a ball (~16 gm) and then cut it in half before rolling it into a final hazelnut-sized ball (~8gm). The balls were placed between two sheets of sturdy plastic (a freezer bag cut along the two sides works well) and pressed flat with the lid of a large canning jar. I ended up with 32 thin disks (2 1/2-3″ in diameter) which were baked at 350 deg F for 8 minutes before being flipped over and baked for another 8 minutes until lightly golden.

For a final flourish, the oven was turned off, and the crackers were brushed with a mixture of soy sauce (aged, dark soy sauce or regular) and mirin and returned to the turned off oven for another 3 minutes. After cooling the tray on a rack for 15 minutes, the cool crackers may be stored in an air tight container to maintain crispiness, though you’ll nibble on these simple, but ‘morish’ crackers quickly enough that they won’t go soft.

REVIEW: Delicious and well worth making even if a bit time consuming. One batch of the dough gave me 32 crackers, which weighed about 170 grams.

Asparagus, Mushroom and Shrimp Fried Rice

I’ve been out of potatoes for about a week so when I thought about starch sides to pair with one of the several proteins in my freezer, pasta/noodles, quinoa and rice were among my options. I also wanted to use up the last few stalks of asparagus in my fridge. I finally decided on a Chinese classic … fried rice. Mainly because I had a pound of inexpensive white button mushrooms to pair with a scant half pound of large cooked, peeled and de-veined shrimp in my freezer.

I combined the elements of a couple of recipes I found on-line, mainly using one which featured mushrooms. The egg was added to extend the protein content.

RECIPE EDITED TO FIX GLARING TYPOS:

Asparagus, Mushroom and Shrimp Fried Rice Bowl

Asparagus, Mushroom and Shrimp Fried Rice – serves 3

~1/3 lb/177 gm peeled and de-veined cooked shrimp
1 1/2 cups cooked long-grain rice (or medium-grain)
2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
3/4-1 lb/340-454 gm white button mushrooms
1/4 teaspoon dried red-pepper flakes
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
4-6 green onions including green tops, sliced thinly
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup mixed vegetable (diced carrot, frozen peas, sliced asparagus)**
1/4 cup water, or as needed
1 egg, optional
1 tsp Asian sesame oil, for garnish
1-2 green onion tops, sliced thinly, for garnish

** equal parts diced carrot and sliced asparagus (3 stalks) used

Cook the long or medium grain rice the day before you plan on making this dish and refrigerate overnight.

In a large nonstick frying pan or wok, heat 1 tbsp of the vegetable oil over medium-high heat.

Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms are tender and golden, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

Turn down the heat to medium and in the same frying pan, heat another tbsp of vegetable oil. Add the red-pepper flakes, grated ginger, and green onions and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Raise the heat back to medium-high and add the mixed vegetables, stirring to char the vegetables for a minute or so. Add the water, cover, and let cook/steam about 5 minutes, to par cook the vegetables.

Push the vegetables to one side, and, if needed add a bit more oil to the pan in the empty spot. Add the rice to the area where you cleared the pan. Break up any rice clumps a bit and then sprinkle the salt and soy sauce over the rice. Stir to coat the rice evenly.

Add the mushrooms and cooked shrimp to the pan, stirring through until everything’s warm, another few minutes.

If adding an egg to the fried rice, again push the rice etc to one side leaving an empty area on one side. Break the egg into the space and let cook for a minute to set the white, then break up the egg yolk gently. Lift and turn the fried rice on top of the partially cooked egg. The heat from the rice will continue cooking the egg. Mix the egg through the rice.

Divide the fried rice among the serving bowls, making sure everyone gets an equal amount of the shrimp, and drizzle a bit of the sesame soil over the top.

Sprinkle green onion over the top for a garnish.

Omurice in a Mug

The classic omurice (watch Tampopo for an intriguing Japanese food referencing movie) is basically an omelette wrapped around fried rice … a delicious repurposing of the leftover rice dish. Ketchup features prominently in seasoning the rice and garnishing the omelette.

TabiEats has a delicious, made from scratch version, which is made in a microwave, in a lot less time. The only tricky part is the wattage of your respective microwave but, after your first omurice, you can adjust quickly.

I’ve written out the list of ingredients and instructions from the video below, with some clarifying information, so you can make your own, but watch the video linked earlier. It’s informative and fun.

Omurice in a Mug – makes 1
from TabiEats

1 1/2 oz/42.5 gm chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/8 onion, finely chopped (or 1 tsp fried onion)
2 tbsp mixed vegetables (frozen corn, carrots, peas)
3 tbsp ketchup, plus an additional 1 tbsp ketchup for garnish
salt and pepper, to taste (1/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp to start)
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup Japanese shortgrain or sushi rice, washed well and drained
1/2 cup water
1 large egg

Put all ingredients, except the egg, into a large mug. (The mug should have a 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cup capacity.) Give the contents a good stir so the ingredients are combined.

Crumple a sheet of parchment paper and lay it on the surface of the rice mixture. Loosely cover with a sheet of plastic wrap.

Microwave for 2 minutes 30 seconds at 600 watts (60%). Carefully open the plastic wrap and give the contents a quick mix. Cover and microwave at 300 watts (30%) for 10-12 minutes. (NOTE: Depending on your microwave, you can use defrost mode, which is 30% in my microwave.)

Carefully peel off the plastic wrap and take out the parchment paper. Discard the parchment paper.

Whisk the egg well and pour it over the top of the rice. Cover the mug loosely with the plastic wrap and microwave for 2-3 minutes, at 200 watts, until egg is cooked. Don’t overcook!

Serve the omurice with a tablespoon of ketchup and garnish with peas.

Here’s a picture of the traditional omurice from a previous post.

And the contents of the mug turned out into a soup bowl … you can kind of see the chicken, carrots, peas and corn.