Iron-Loading

I'm starting my iron-loading process because I promised my friend that I would donate blood 5 times if he and his wife can finish the BMO Vancouver Marathon on May 6th - and they did. So now it's my turn. This dish is as simple as it gets. Scoop couple spoon of my favorite marinated minced meat on top of washed spinach, and microwave for a minute and a half. I feel like Popeye the sailor man.

Pasta Noodle Veggie Soup

After a 6.5 km run in the cloudy-almost-rainy weather, I am glad I got back home and got into a long hot shower. Not sure what to eat, I remembered yesterday I bought some spaghettinni, and figure I can make something quick.

This is simply a "whatever is in the fridge" dish. I have tomato, green onion, cabbage, and gai-lan in the fridge. Put a little bit of oil in the pot and burn/caramelize the white part of the green onion first, then add boiling water. Tomato first since I heard the longer you cook tomato the more nutritious it gets, then I mistakenly put gai-lan in second (it's color turned a very not-yummy dark green after a while). Break the pasta to smaller pieces, I would suggest 1/8 of the original longth, then throw in and cook till near done. Add the easy cooking cabbage and the green part of green onion last. Season with salt, black pepper, and dare I say, Garlic Plus (*gasp*). Then top with Parmesan and more black pepper when ready to serve.

So the thought of the day is: I definitely like cooking more than running.

Japanese Scallop - tastes better than it looks

Real simple to cook, clean the shells and either microwave for a minute or use shallow water in a pot for a quick steam. No need to season because it has the natural sea-salt flavor. Just discard the black part, all the rest is editable. The white part is the scallop/muscle part that everyone knows. The red/pink part is the roe, which is equally good (just don't think about the fact that it is the reproductive system). Like I said, tastes (a lot) better than it looks.

Decorating a Plain Cheesecake at Home

Microwave leftover chocolate (oxymoron?) in the microwave till it completely melted (about 40 seconds for 5 bit size pieces). Then simply drizzle it over the cake. I was greedy and added a bit too much at first, that is why the mini marshmallow are there to cover-up my gluttony.

MaMa 饅頭 Steamed Bun

Green Onion flavor and black sesame flavor. She also made taro flavor, but I ate them before I took pictures...

2012 CNY Eve Dinner

媽媽蛋糕 MaMa Cake

Fast Sticky Rice Balls in Red Bean Soup

Nothing is better than a bowl of sweet hot red bean soup in a winter night  - wait, red bean soup with sticky rice balls is better!

I used to think it takes a long time to make these sticky rice balls - you have to make the dough, be careful about the measurements, knead it, cut to equal size portions, then carefully form them to perfect little balls. But really, sticky rice balls are not that complicated. Just mix your sticky rice flour with warm water (60~80 degree celsius, doesn't have to be exact), form it into a dough ball you can manipulate by hand, then start to pinch off pieces into boiling water. The trick is after the dough piece are cooked (float to the top means they are done), fish them out and  mix in a spoon full of (brown) sugar. The sugar will suck out the excess water in the dough pieces and gives them a chewy/gummy texture.

See, doesn't that look good? With a pressure cooker cooking the sweet red bean soup is easy too. Soak the beans for an hour or so (activate/germinate the bean so it is more nutritious - so they say), then put one part beans and two parts water in the pressure cooker. After you bring the pressure up, cook for additional 15 minutes (20 minutes if you prefer extra soft). Open the lid you will find the beans just cooked enough the skin is broken. There is not much liquid right now so add additional water for the soup and bring just to boiling point, add sugar and a small pinch of salt, then turn off the heat (if you cook longer the beans will bump and damage each other).  This method will ensure each bean stays round so give you the nice texture. Compare to the traditional way - soak the beans overnight and carefully watch the bean when cook on the stove for hours - pressure cookers sure saves you a lot of time.

Other Stuff I Made in the Past Couple Monthes

Nothing exciting, just stuff I made when I was eating by myself.

Mash potato baked with aged cheddar - just because I bought a potato ricer from Value Village

Instant noodle with marinated pork hog and egg - I told you, nothing exciting.

Natto, rice, and watercress soup - natto is good for heart, watercress soup also thins your blood, lower blood pressure.

Green Onion Pancake

Not sure why I decided to make some green onion pancake, maybe I was craving for something doughy. But it was a weird decision considering I still have some store bought frozen ones in the freezer. Anyway, it was an educational experience. Apparently it makes a difference between using room temperature water vs. boiling water to make your dough. Flour absorbs more liquid when it is hot, so for things to be pan fried, it is better to use a dough with higher water content, hence a dough made from boiling water. For items to be steamed or boiled, there are plenty or water in the cooking process so you don't need more liquid in your dough, so room temperature dough would suffice. As for ice cold dough...which I've heard of, not sure why you would do that.

Doesn't look too bad in the pictures, but it really was not a great success. I added too much oil with the green onion, so it made it difficult to roll and shape the the dough. And only after I went to bed last night, I remembered I forgot to put some oil in the dough, so the pancakes turned out a bit tougher than I liked. Well, you learn.

Dressing Free Salad

I am sure all foodies will agree, we would rather eat good food than counting our calories all the time. So if there is any simple tricks to cut down on calories and does not change the taste (so we can live longer to eat more) then we are all for it. So my trick is throw away any salad dressings. There are plenty of things to add flavor without the fat and here are my favorites - egg (sunny side with yolk still runny), your favourite pickle, fruit, raisin (can't really see it in the photo), and lots of fresh grounded pepper.

Taiwanese Pickled Cabbage

Oh how I miss the stinky tofu in Taiwan's night markets. The crispy deep fried tofu with also crispy and refreshing picked cabbage on the side. Unfortunately in Vancouver stinky tofu is not at all available (or even legal! According to the owner of Corner 23, who also own a restaurant in Victoria that do serve stinky tofu), so I guess the pickled veggie would be a consolation prize. 

First, cut up daikon and carrots, and massage them with lots of salt. They are harder vegetables so you want to give them more time to pickle.

Then, tear up and wash the Taiwanese cabbage, also massage them with lots of salt.

Once you can see the veggies are soften, color turned slightly transparent, and a lot of liquid have been drained from them, it is time to put them in a jar. Stuff the cabbage, daikon, and carrot in layers, add a little bit of hot pepper if you want a little kick. Tightly stuff everything in, so that you won't need to add too much vinaigrette.

The vinaigrette is simply one part sugar to two parts white vinegar. Pour in the vinegar into the stuffed jar, and shake the jar all around to make sure air bubble have risen to the top and filled the jar with more vinegar. Basically you just want a full jar.

So there you go, so simple and it is a great side / appetizer on a summer day.

Zha Jiang Mian (Fried Sauce Noodle)

So on Monday I ordered the Zha Jiang Mian from Ling's... and it was good, but not as good as some of the ones I've had before. Shaolin Noodle Place, which looks like it finally reopened, actually have good ones. But I figure since I have all the ingredients at home, why not make a batch myself?

So you starts with infusing the flavour of ginger, garlic, and green onion.

 Throw in the pork, either grounded or cut to small pieces. You can choose to marinate it with some cooking wine and corn starch first, but I was lazy.

 When the pork had changed color, throw in the diced pressed tofu. I had some Japanese fried pressed tofu at home, but I found them to be too soft, so it is still better to use the traditional Chinese pressed tofu.

 Heat everything up a bit, then add brown sugar, then stir some more.

 Now the main ingredient, the yellow paste is miso paste, and the black paste is the "sweet bean paste" or in Chinese it is called "sweet noodle paste". I used miso paste because I don't have the Chinese version of the bean paste, or in Chinese it is called "yellow paste". But pretty much both paste is some kind of fermented soy bean, that is the main flavour in Zha Jiang Mian.

 Then stir really hard, add water to get the consistency that is good for mixing with noodles. Taste it and if you think the sauce is missing some flavour, then you can add hoisin sauce to add a level of flavour.

So you cook up the noodle, thick noodle is good with this kind of sauce. Traditionally it is julienned cucumber with the noodles, but I am out of cucumber. But any mild flavour veggie that adds crunch is good.

So here it is. Not as hard as I thought, just some cutting and dicing, and other ingredients just can out of a bottle. You can always make a batch and freeze some in a air tight container.

Steamed Cake with Shallots and Pork Fluff

This is a variation on your everyday sweets. You basically use your favourite sponge cake recipe, but steam the batter in two batches with the shallot / pork fluff mixture in the middle and up top. The sweet and salty mix is always a welcomed conflict to your taste buds (like stewed pork hog on brown sugar shredded ice). The deep fried crisp shallot (preferrably fried in lard... healthy....) when mixed with the pork fluff, create a whole different taste that is unlike the original ingredients... it is weird, better, hard to explain, you just have to try it. 

Wheat Head?

So the Chinese name for the steamed buns is 饅頭, and if my memory serves, it means "wheat head". The story goes that foreign savages had invaded a part of China, so being the passive-aggressive Chinese people, they made steamed buns out of wheat flour, symbolizing the enemy's head, and they chew them up to express their anger. I doubt that drove the enemy away, but this is a good invention that benefited the future Chinese foodies.



My attempt to to make a rabbit, but it look mutated....

So making steamed buns is not as hard as I thought, and adding green onion definitely kicks it up a knotch. But it is important to have a good recipe with secret ingredients. To be a nice guy today, I will tell you guys one of her secret ingredient is egg. Good luck figuring out the rest!