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Trips Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe Kamakura Toronto Visit
Tokyo Asakusa Cherry Blossoms Chinatown Kabukicho O Daiba Sakuragicho Tsukiji Fish Market
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Tuesday, April 23
Grapefruit salad
Again, this is based on leftovers. I often frequent this small fruit shop close to work coz they sell damaged fruits for very cheap. The oranges and grapefruits that they sell are almost always very sweet and juicy but they're dented or the skin looks dirty, etc. In Japan, things have to look perfect to sell at the premium that people expect to pay. (They pay $50 for large red strawberries arranged perfectly in a box, but we all know the bigger the strawberry the less sweet it tastes....) But I don't care about looks in this case, just taste. So last Monday, I got a real good deal, 16 large sized grapefruits for the price of 100 yen, or $1.21!
So Tuesday, I shredded up my leftover cabbage from the Mu Shu recipes, one of the grapefruits, leftover fake crab meat close to expiration, cheese close to expiration, mixed them up, sprinkled some pepper, and voila! Actually tasted pretty good!
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Sunday, April 21
Mu Shu Chicken and Steamed Flat Fish
Made these two dishes for Judy and Jeff, room mate and her boyfriend. I used anything leftover from yesterday to make the Mu Shu so no leftover carrots.
Mom, am I supposed to degut the fish first?...heh heh
What do you know, I really do use the dummy book!
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Saturday, April 20
Mu Shu Chicken Wraps, Steamed egg with pork, Eggplants in Spicy Sauce, Rice, Almond Tofu Jello
No pics, but that's the meal I prepared for Claire, Meg and Meg's best friend visiting from California, Verna. This time, I didn't use the premade sauce for the eggplants! So proud =) Can hardly wait to try this on my parents.
I put cabbage, black mushrooms, pig ears, carrots and chicken in the mu shu.
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Sunday, April 7
Thick Sushi Rolls
...that didn't really roll. I know most of you guys have already mastered this in Toronto and I'm just learning it now! Did this the same day I went to the Penis Festival with Purdey. Claire gave me that wooden tub to cool the sushi rice. I put mushrooms, fake crab meat, rolled eggs (bought a rectangular pan from 100 yen shop just for it), and ginger, kampyo, and Japanese pickles....maybe that's why it didn't roll properly. But just found out how to roll so many ingredients next time.
yucky pic of me and my new bible!
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Salmon
Gotta get
this recipe from Brian. After squeezing lemon juice over the salmon, wrap
it up in tin foil along with basil, shiso, onion....shoot, can't remember what
else....and just pop it in a toaster over for 15 minutes!
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Fried Rice
Inevitable dish when living by yourself, just take all the leftover stuff in
your fridge close to expiration (or in my case, expired....j/k), and toss them
all together for this delicious meal! On this particular day, I had to get
rid of an egg, crab meat, mini sausages, onion, brocoli, and sesame seeds.
It's actually one of the best tasting dishes I've made so far!
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Crispy Fried Chicken, Winter Melon Soup, Banana Wrap Dessert
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Butter Chicken from Cooking Club
Beside it is the sweet carrot dessert. That was really good. That
dish is actually more fried rice than butter chicken. This was the first
time I went to this cooking club.
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Sunday, March 11, 2002: Scrambled eggs and crab, tofu stirfry
I'm not really cooking much am I? Well, this one actually turned out to be quite tasty! I didn't eat it all at once!
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Sometime between...Crap Spaghetti
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Saturday, February 23, 2002: Steamed Fish
This was actually pretty easy (except finding the fish). I ended up buying two "nishins" which turned out to be herrings and very bony. The two fishies were sliced in half, so steamed half of one and ceram wrapped the other three slices and tossed them in the freezer. I just used a bit of salt, tons of ginger and green onions (way more than the recipe suggested), a bit of olive oil and soy sauce and it was Delicious! I'm usually modest. I steamed it in my wok along with some dumplings that I had bought frozen from Chinatown. Mixed some soy sauce with vinegar, added the extra ginger and voila. Got myself a genuine Chinese Meal.
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Since Chinese Food here is a higher end food and thus expensive, cooking for
myself would be the next best thing. So I arrived with Chinese Cooking for
Dummies.
First attempt at cooking, Pineapple fried rice, which didn't really turn out....I think it was the Japanese rice.
Second attempt was ground pork with steamed eggs. That's a fairly easy dish my mom taught me so cooking that was very nostalgic. I savoured every bite and it lasted me for my next four meals!
Since then, I haven't been motivated to cook for myself coz didn't want to bore my taste buds. Then I go away to Osaka and Chris and Ken knocked me off my feet with their culinary skills! Inspired by such great chefs (including Tom's fried eggs), I feel like I'm on a mission to get it right! There are ways to cook in smaller portions.
Last Friday, I went shopping for ingredients to make Eggplants with Spicy Sauce and making use of my Martin Yan Dummy book. Believe it or not, this can be a very time-consuming and stressful task...if you don't know how to read Japanese. I can sound out some of the words, take a guess with the kanji but in the end, I probably still can't find some of the ingredients. After spending about 10 minutes searching and filling my basket with expensive sauces...lo and behold, I come across pre-made Spicy Eggplant sauce for a fraction of the price of all the other sauces! Hmmm......yep, so Uncle Yan got thrown back into the closet, 'til next time.
Finally went to Chinatown for Chinese New Years and bought tons of sauces, Oyster Sauce, Hoi sine Sauce, Chilies Garlic Sauce, Rice Vinegar, Chicken Stock....etc. That's a lot of ¥. Oh well, I think it'd be an expensive hobby since I'm just an amateur.