oodles of noodles

Although I'm not a big fan of noodles, I find myself making some once in a while. Ginger pork with soba and dashi for lunch last week, and thinly sliced pieces of simmered beef gravy in my dad's aged masterstock for dinner tonight. My dad reckons the beef noodles need a few pieces of zha choi in them. Yeah, it needs a bit of a kick. 

There seems to be a little debate about how long this batch of masterstock has been sitting in our fridge; from several months (dad) to a couple of years (mum). I just know it's been in there for a pretty long time and it's finally reduced itself down to two litres. Hopefully, I'll see what goes in it when my dad makes the next batch. Aside from simmering various meats in it, that's where all the flavours begin, my mum once said. 

Here's my previous oodles of noodles post. Maybe I'll collect all of them into a collage one day.

dad's dumplings

My mum started making dumplings at home after we had some mediocre ones outside. She's not very good at pleating them and just folds them in half with a dab of water, making half moons. My dad said they looked ugly so he took over, pleating them one by one...until he said we ate them too fast and started making half moons himself. Just last week he started pleating them again. Feasted on them like kings we did.  

I was seasoning the filling with my dad and there is no recipe. Everything is estimated, eyeballed and judged by smell and touch. Bits of salt and pepper here and there and a glug to sesame oil to finish. We boiled them first then pan fried both sides for a crisp texture. Next time he said I should help pleat them, but I don't think I'll have the patience or dedication (he pleated around 150+ in one sitting) to master the technique, unless he's ok with half moons!

We're having them for lunch today! Yum!

spring

This new season marked the coming and going of elections, deceiving weather and the continuation of sniffles for some. The vegetable selection has also increased and I've been waiting for the arrival of fresh broad beans at my local green grocers. I've only eaten them in dried form as a snack, so it was interesting to see how the fresh ones would taste like. 

I thought I'd get a lot of beans, but after podding, I ended up with a very sad amount, so I just threw them in some pasta I made for dinner. The origins of the recipe comes from The Silver Spoon: Pasta (the only pasta cookbook you'll ever need) which I made for dinner one night a few weeks ago. Sautéed sliced onion, bacon, peas and zucchini flavoured with parmesan, black pepper, thyme, oregano and my dad's fried garlic oil. The recipe is highly adjustable to whatever ingredients you have in the fridge.

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spring vegetable pasta with garlic chicken

Trim fat off chicken thigh fillets, cut into two if necessary and make slits in the thicker part of the meat. Season with salt, white pepper and a lot of garlic powder. (Might use some onion powder next time.) Leave in the fridge until needed, but bring to room temperature before pan frying.

Whilst the pasta is cooking, sauté thinly sliced zucchini, asparagus, broad beans, peas and edamame*. Season with salt, black pepper and chicken bouillon powder. Drain pasta and mix in a few tablespoons of fried garlic oil and some salt and black pepper. Add sautéed vegetables and baby spinach and toss until well combined. Season again if necessary. Pan fry the marinated chicken, slice and serve on top of the pasta.

*Blanch cut asparagus, double podded cooked broad beans, blanched peas and podded cooked edamame (can be found in the frozen section of good Asian grocers).

things in the fridge

This week I used a new ingredient - a small bottle of balsamic vinegar of modena. I found out later that it was an imitation product... I ended up using it a total of three times before stashing it in the pantry. A dash or two in the sweet and sour sauce and in the pork ragù I was making and coated some sliced strawberries with it. It made my sauce tart, heightened the flavour of the ragù and brought the dull strawberries to life. If the imitation works this well, the real thing must be great!

I thought ragù was something very fancy but it's actually a no brainer. Really. So don't let the long list of ingredients deter you from making it. In fact, most of the ingredients listed below are staples in my regular pasta sauce. You just have to simmer it for a longer period of time and you don't even have to tend to it. The only thing different is that you have to let it rest overnight to allow it to develop flavours. Dinner the next day will be ready in a pinch.

I scooped some sauce out as I thought I had to much. A future pasta sauce or lasagna in the makes possibly, but it rejoined the others in the end. An extra bowl and spoon to wash, but all I had to do that night was cook the pasta and reheat the sauce.

With the leftovers, I ended up making a baked pasta which was equally delicious. Just heat it up in a microwave, stir in some baby spinach, transfer into an oven-safe dish, pile on the cheese (parmsesan and mozzarella) and bake at 175C until golden brown.

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pork ragù     serves 8
adapted from the SBS Feast magazine issue 24

1 large onion, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
2 celery stalks, peeled and finely diced
1 solo garlic, finely diced
2 heaped Tb tomato paste
800g pork gravy
few sprigs each of rosemary and thyme
3 dried bay leaves
pinch of grated nutmeg
250ml white wine* (I used a French one I had in the fridge)
800g canned diced Italian tomatoes
chicken stock, enough to cover the pork
dash of balsamic vinegar of modena
500g dried rigatoni
sea salt, black/white pepper, sugar, to taste
cooking oil, as required
finely grated parmesan, to serve

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a non-stick frying pan and saute onion, carrot, celery, garlic until onion softens. When done, stir in the tomato paste, turn off the heat and leave aside.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large cast iron casserole pot and wipe the pork gravy dry with a paper towel (do it, or else oil will splatter everywhere). Season pork with salt and pepper, add to the pot and brown on all sides. Reduce heat to medium, add the sauteed vegetables, herbs, nutmeg, wine, tomatoes and chicken stock (enough to cover pork) and bring to a simmer. Skim off the scum if it bothers you. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 1 1/2 hours** or until meat is tender and falling apart. Taste and season. Remove lid and allow to cool completely in the cooking liquid. Leave the pot with the lid ajar on the stove top (if weather permits) or cover and refrigerate overnight.

Remove pork from the pot, fish out the herb stems and bay leaves, reserving the cooking liquid. Using your hands, shred the meat and place it back into the pot. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar and check if you need to season the tomato mixture again. Bring it to a simmer over low heat and cook until meat has heated through, approximately 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook rigatoni according to packet instructions. Drain well then add into the pot, stirring and tossing to combine.

Serve with finely grated parmesan cheese.

*Substitute with red wine or extra stock if you like

*I had 2 pieces of pork gravy, around 400g each. I felt that 1 1/2 hours was sufficient time to achieve the meat's tenderness. The meat was "peelable" with steel tongs. The original recipe uses a 2.2kg piece of pork shoulder on the bone and cooked it for 2 1/2 hours. Adapt your cooking times depending on cut/size of meat.

poor cutlet

Tonkatsu was one of the very first dishes I made at home that everyone thought was safe to eat. It was around sometime during middle school when I first started taking food tech classes at school. I saw the recipe in Cooking Guide DS and thought it was very exciting. At first, I only tenderised, marinated and breaded the cutlets and made my parents do the dirty work fry it, but a couple of years later I had more guts to do it myself. The only thing that scares me about deep frying now is when the oil gets so hot it makes a loud cracking noise, like it's building momentum to explode!

Usually when it's my turn to make dinner, I just make a variation of these chicken burgers because everyone likes them. On days when I'm lazy, I just throw in two strings of Chinese sausages and eggs into the rice cooker and let it work it's magic. 

Just a few nights ago, I decided to revisit tonkatsu - only with a slightly different technique I picked up in a manga I reread during the summer break. 

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Triple-breaded layered tonkatsu     makes 4-5 cutlets

I wish I created it first, but I stole the idea from Kawachi’s “poor cutlet sandwich” as seen in the manga, Yakitate!! Japan. Read it, it's good!

By layering the sliced pork, it creates a crispy, soft cutlet without the need of scoring the meat and butchering it with a meat tenderiser. Use a fattier cut of pork, like pork chops for a juicier fried cutlet.

500g lean pork loin, half-frozen

sea salt and white pepper, to season

plain flour, as required

3 large eggs, beaten

panko breadcrumbs, as required

oil, for frying

Put two sheets of absorbent paper on a baking tray.

Slice the pork thinly whilst it is still in its half-frozen state. Place three to four slices of pork next to each other, slightly overlapping each other on a plate. Lightly season with salt and pepper. Repeat the layering and seasoning two or three more times to make one layered cutlet. Press and shape the cutlet into a round shape. Repeat with the remaining pork slices to make four or five cutlets. Transfer onto the baking tray, place two more sheets of absorbent paper on top, cling wrap and refrigerate until required. Just make sure the pork is fully defrosted before using (I left it in the fridge for one day).

When ready to cook, bring the pork cutlets to room temperature. Prepare a plate with some flour, a shallow plate of beaten eggs*, a plate of panko and a plate to place the prepared cutlets. Coat both sides of the cutlet with flour, dust off the extra and flour the rest of the cutlets. Coat both sides of the cutlet with egg and then with panko three times each. If you're pressed for time, a double breaded coating is fine.

Heat up the oil and deep fry each cutlet until golden brown on both sides**. Drain the excess oil off the cutlets.

Allow to cool briefly, slice it thickly and serve with shredded raw cabbage/lettuce, lemon slices, pickles and tonkatsu sauce***.

*I prefer to beat one egg in a shallow plate at a time.

** I also whacked it in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 150C to ensure the insides were cooked. Just incase the cutlet was too thick.  

***I made my own sauce consisting of ketchup, worcestershire sauce, mirin and a bit of water. There's a good recipe over here.

melbourne hwaro korean bbq

I was never one to be interested in Korean history, culture of even food. Heck, the only food I know Koreans eat is kimchi and bimbap (from tutor who speaks fondly of it). Since my friends have been eating Korean BBQ and I've seen blog posts for it, I decided to try Korean BBQ!

I txted Thangstahh and asked Murasaki about the Korean BBQ places they've ate it. Turns out the ones they've dined in were teppanyaki style. We have all the teppanyaki hot plates at home and my parents (who watch way too much Korean dramas) wanted to try the drama way - BBQ-ing the meats over coal or fire. I did a quick google search and Hungry Hamster did a review of a Korean BBQ restaurant which had what we all had in mind. I promptly made the bookings and Hwaro it is!

Interior

As my family eat dinner quite early, I booked at 5 PM which is the time they open for the dinner service. Don't know if it is because we were the first ones there, but we had TERRIFIC service. The waiters and waitresses were all professionals and knowledgeable! We weren't being hurried about what to order and they gave great suggestions.

Interior

The interior was extremely orderly, neat and clean. It gave me kind of a high class restaurant feel, especially the high chairs I was sitting on.

Each table has a wooden board (for the BBQ pot) and set out dishes and on top of each table was a ventilator (?) exhaust fan (?). The ventilator thing sucks up all the smoke, so the atmosphere won't be smoky and you won't leave the shop with BBQ scented clothing.

Buzzer

Each table also has one of these red buzzers. It's like the aeroplane staff assistance button. Click on it and a waiter or waitress will appear right before your very eyes (only the flight attendants are so damn slow). It makes a door bell ringing noise and it's pretty loud...a bit embarrassing.

Bong-bong @ $3

There was a selection of drinks from wine to cocktails to your average everyday drinks. I chose a Korean drink called Pear Punch at first however changed my mind when the waitress told me what a bong-bong was. Bong-bong is a sweet muscat (think grapes) flavoured drink with floating pieces of muscat. The taste is very familiar.

Korean dumplings @ $12

Unlike Chinese dumplings, Korean dumplings are flat. It had a vegetarian filling consisting mostly of cabbage. I liked the thin and crispy dumpling skin.

A slice of seafood pancake @ $15

All the bloggers who've been to Korean restaurant have suggested Korean pancakes are a must order, so we ordered one HAHA. Without the sauce, the pancake is rather doughy and tasteless, however once you dip it into the accompanied sweet sipping sauce, the whole flavour changes!

A selection of side dishes (included)

Didn't touch the kimchi or the spicy shredded lettuce, nor the blanched bean shoots. However I think I am strangely addicted to the fermented soy beans! I thought they were Japanese natto, but its not. The soy beans are sweet and chewy.

Scotch fillet @ $18.90, Mushrooms @ $5

The waitress bought out our ordered meat and started to BBQ it for us. We didn't have to a thing! Just sit and wait to be served. When the meat was cooked we were then asked to start eating. Felt so good to just sit there and wait to be served!

Thigh fillet (chicken) @ $15.90 (?)

Unlike the beef, the chicken was marinated. However when BBQ-ed, both have a tempting aroma and taste.

Walked out spending $100, although my dad complained about the 15 minute walk to and from and the small portioned food, I think he secretly liked it XD

Can't wait to the next visit! Although Korean BBQ over teppanyaki is slightly cheaper, I don't think it will be as tasty as flame grilled!

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Melbourne Hwaro Korean BBQ

562 Little Bourke Street

Melbourne, VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 9642 5696