#CookForFamily .... Japanese Curry Rice

One of HY's  favorite Japanese dish is the Japanese Curry. I'm not a good cook and HY is certainly a picky eater. However, with the instant Japanese curry paste readily available in our super markets, I can do no wrong. As busy working couples, we don't cook often but we do spend some weekends cooking and baking for each other. The feeling of eating with and cooking for your love one is definitely great especially when your cooking is appreciated. One tip to improve intimacy, especially for couples who are married but still without kids, other than sex, have to be enjoyable food! So ... make love often ... cook and eat often and feel complete! :)

Ingredients (Serving for 4)
1.50 g  Pork Shoulder Butt sliced up.
2. 6 Brastagi Potatoes deskin and cut into cubes.
3. 4 carrots cut up into cubes
4. 1/2 onion sliced up
5. Instant Curry Stick.

Method :
1. Stir fry onion with a little olive oil till it's translucent
2. Add potatoes and carrots till it's slight brown. Scoop out and put aside.
3. Stir fry the pork shoulder butt slices until it's slightly browned. Scoop out and put aside.
4. Prepare the curry by adding the instant curry paste to the amount of water according to instructions. Bring it to a boil and then set it to low fire.
5. Add all the ingredients into the curry and cook with the lid on for about 2 hours. Open the lid and reduce until curry is thick enough for you.

Japanese curry goes well with rice and taste better when we add a sunny side up or a fried egg omelette.

Maggi Curry Spaghetti Aglio Olio with Pan fried Chicken

I love Maggi Curry Instant Noodles and I love my spaghetti Aglio Olio. Hmm what if I mix them together? Result : LOVE IT.

Ingredients : 2 servings
1) 1 packet of seasoning mix from Maggi Curry instant noodles.
2) 2 pieces chicken thigh, deboned and skin on.
3) Spaghetti
4) 3 cloves of garlic, minced
5) fresh basil chopped up

Method
1) Use 1/2 packet of the of the Maggi curry mix to spread is evenly over the chicken thighs. Leave it for 1 hour to marinate.
2) Fry the chicken thigh skin down first on medium heat until the chicken skin turns golden brown. Turnover and then switch to low heat for another 5 minutes. Leave the chicken aside to cool down and drain it's oil
3)Leave the chicken oil and juice in the pan to use for tossing the spaghetti later,
4) Boil water to cook spaghetti add enough salt and taste it. When the water is as salty as how you'll like your soup to be, this is salty enough. Put in the dried spaghetti and cook it till al dente. For the Barilla spaghetti that I used, it takes about 8 minutes to get it al dente.
5) Drain the the water from the spaghetti and leave it aside.
6) With the oil in the frying pan from frying the chicken fry the garlic at medium heat until the oil sputter. Quicky add 1/2 packet of the remaining Maggi curry mix and stir uniformly. Turn of the fire and toss the spaghetti.
7) Plate the spaghetti and sprinkle some chopped basil.
8) When the chicken is cooled down. Chop it into slices and plate it with the spaghetti.

A 'Stay-at-Home' Husband's brunch - Pan fried sausages, baked potatoes, croissant with sunny side up

Maison Kayser Petit Croissant spread with Elle & Vire French Butter
with Baked Russett Potatoes

It's Day 2 of being a mandatory 'Stay-at-Home' Husband. Not by choice but because my company have this habit of an undemocratic forced leave between X'mas and New Year and HY still need to head back to office.  I was a bit unaccustomed to the fact that I'm grounded in Singapore. For the last 10 years, I would make full use of this 'forced' leave. HY and I would be away on some 'exotic escapade', like my sis with two kids would begrudgingly put it. This year, we are grounded for the right reasons. HY's not able to fly as our little PengYu is in it's third trimester. I am exhilarated by just spending time putting my ear on HY's tummy, talking to the little one as he responds by punching and kicking like a little Thai boxer. For our little Thai boxer, it's time to pack away our back packs, hiking boots and winter wear for a while. For those who's gloating about us being grounded in Singapore, I can only tell you, "It's OK, we've been there, done that." and we're happily preparing to get on with the next phase of our lives. ;-)

After sending HY to her office, I packed our 'Sundown Marathon' recycling bag, which we use as groceries bag, and drove to our local NTUC to buy some ingredients for chicken curry that I'm going to cook this evening. Ambience at Marine Parade NTUC on a Tuesday morning is vastly different from the weekends. During the weekends, a cacophony of background noise created by the occasional collision of groceries trolleys amidst human banter is the norm. This Tuesday morning, even the squeaking of the trolley wheels became obvious. I can also tell from smelling the air in this Tuesday morning's NTUC that the concept of a 'Stay-at-Home' Husband didn't cling with our Singapore culture. The only guys in the supermarket were retired uncles tailing a few steps behind their wives and of course, just ME. It took a mere 15 minutes to amass all the ingredients, pay for the purchases and that include driving home and reaching my door step.

The idyllic morning pace and the mood set by the overast sky seemed to supersede the catalytic effects of coffee. Most importantly, I was bothered by the fact that I bought a pack of 5 Russett potatoes at $1.50. That was a couple too many for my chicken curry but I didn't want to pay more for each potato by buying lesser than 5. Moreover, I was also peeved with the idea of keeping 2 potatoes on my kitchen top, telling myself to cook them soon but only to procrastinate and leave them just to grow eyes. So, I canned the idea of a brunch-out and decided to create my 'Stay-at-Home' Husband's Brunch so that I can use up the excess potatoes.

The 'Stay-at-Home Husband' Brunch - Seng Choon First Born Eggs for the Sunny-side-ups,  Maison Kayser Petit Croissant with unsalted Elle & Vire French Butter, Oven Baked Russett Potatoes, Bratwurst and Bockwurst from Culina with Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard. I forgot my greens. There were some lettuce in my fridge #$%#@.

Ingredients

1) 2 eggs. I used Seng Choon First Born Eggs. They are smaller and supposedly low in cholesterol.

2) 2 Russett Potatoes Peeled and diced into cubes.

3) 1 Bratwurst and 1 Bockwurst chopped up.

4) 2 Pettit Croissant. Maison Kayser's croissant are made with cultured butter and had a rich buttery fragrance.

5) 20g of butter. To go with my croisant. Elle & Vire French Butter had a very nice flavor that I love.

6) 1 spoonful of Dijon Mustard. For dipping the sausages.

Method

1) Place potatoes inside an aluminium foil dish that was oiled with some olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Spray olive oil over the potatoes with an oil mister. ( I use an oil mister so that the potatoes that I get is not too greasy) Leave it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 250 deg C until the potatoes are slightly browned.

2) When the potatoes are going to ready in 10 minutes time, start to pan fry the bratwurst and bockwurst in a little olive oil. Sprinkle some salt and blacker pepper. Stir fry till they are browned. Plate them.

3) Fry 2 sunny-side-ups. I can do it in one go as I use first born eggs which are smaller in size. Plate them.

4) Right after the sausages and the eggs are done, the potatoes should be on time to be out of the oven. Plate them.

5) Plate the croissant and then cut a slab of butter.

6) Place Dijon mustard beside sausages.

Cooking myself Pork Shoulders stewed in Japanese Curry

My Queen ask for Stewed Pork Shoulders in Japanese Curry Rice and Queen gets what she wants. Here's the recipe for 2.

Ingredients:

300g of pork shoulders cut into slices

4 Brastagi Potatoes cut into cubes 

(I use Brastagi instead of Russet as Brastagi can be stewed for longer period of time without crumbling)

1 carrot cut into cubes

1/2 onion diced

100g stick of Japanese Curry Pre-mix 

(I bought the Golden Curry Brand. There's different level of hotness)

Procedure:

1. Boil 1 litre of water in a stew pot then add the Japanese Curry Pre-mix and stir till it dissolves. When Curry bubbles, set to low fire. 

2. Fry the onion in some olive oil until there's a slight browning.

3. Add in the potatoes and carrots. Stir fry with medium fire till slight brown. Remove and put aside.

4. Stir fry the pork shoulders with some olive oil until the exterior of the meat is visually cooked. Mixed in the vegetables. Stir fry for a while and then pour them into the stew pot.

5. Simmer for 2 hours. 

6. Serve with rice.

Ginger Tea Recipe ... dug out from a forgotten archive

I've heard about the goodness of ginger from my grandmother and my mother. Some use it as a rub to relieve pain from sore muscle (as practiced by my grandmother before). Ginger is also used in massage sessions for the same purpose. It is known to improve blood circulation, relieving stomach gas, arthritis and the list goes on ........

Visit Wonders of Ginger which describes the goodness of ginger in a nutshell.

Here's the ginger tea recipe imparted to me from a Balinese lady who works in a spa that I visited. This is good for 2~5 people. It help me improve digestion and soothe a chronic joint problems.

Simple Ingredients :

1) 2 pieces of old ginger about the size of your palm. It must be the old ginger to get the "oomph" for spiciness. This should be enough to extract 200ml of ginger juice. If there's more than enough, you can store it in your refrigerator and then use it another time.

2) 1 or 2 pieces of honey rock sugar. This type of sugar can be commonly found in Chinese Medicine Hall. You can substitute this with honey. I've tried this with Manuka Honey and it taste good too.

Procedure :

1) Peel the light brown skin off the ginger

I was using a knife in the picture but I've since switch to scrapping off the skin with a teaspoon. This is a safer way taught by a ginger lover comrade.

Peeled ginger

2) Grate the ginger with a grater to a slight coarseness. This is for extracting the ginger juice with minimal cloudiness. I've tried the blender but somehow I prefer the taste of my ginger tea made by manual grating. I know this is very tedious. Some tried slicing the ginger into slices and then boil them. It works as well but somehow the ginger spiciness is not as intense as this method. This method is squeezing out every juice from your ginger.

My coarse ginger puree

3) Extract the ginger juice by placing the grated ginger on the strainer and then press with a table spoon. There should be better tools then what I'm using for the extraction, but it's all I have that can do the job in my kitchen.

My ginger juice in a glass container. You can store extra ginger juice in the refrigerator to use another day.

4) With 200ml of the ginger juice mix about 600ml of water. Bring the mixture to boil and then turn to a low flame and then add about one piece of the honey rock sugar. Stir till the solution is boiled. Control the portion of sugar to suit your personal taste. The yellowish mixture will turn brown. Add more water if you find it too spicy. Add more water if you find it too spicy.

It's ready to be served. Just be aware that it may be too spicy for you. Drink it in small portions or dilute it with more water if you find that it's too spicy.

Wanna try some?

I had a craving for ginger milk pudding tonight ......

Had a craving for this dessert tonight and I made it in a jiffy. The following is the recipe that I dug out of my almost defunct blog on my weekend cooking. There's not much time to cook during weekends now.


As a lover of both ginger and milk, I came close to ecstasy when I had Ginger Milk Pudding in dessert shops or restaurants. The first time I came across Ginger and Milk Pudding was in the streets of Kowloon, Hong Kong. In Cantonese, they call it, 姜汁撞奶, directly translated as "Collision of Ginger Juice and Milk", which is exactly what it is.  I can't imagine how easy it is to create this dessert at home until I tried it today. The goodness of ginger and milk into one. Isn't that marvelous? 

My bowl of "Collision of ginger Juice and Milk"

Recipe for 2 servings -

Ingredients :
4 tablespoons of Old Ginger Juice
2 tablespoons of Sugar
400ml of Full Cream Fresh Milk

Method :
1. Extract the ginger juice from some old ginger (click on the link for, "How to extract ginger juice").
2. Pour milk into a sauce pan and add sugar under low heat. Stir gently till all the sugar has melted and leave it to simmer till bubbling just occurs. Remove from heat and stir gently to cool for a while.
3. In a small bowl, add 2 tablespoons of ginger juice. Wake it up by stirring the juice.
4. Steadily pour the milk into the bowl while gently layering the ginger into the milk. After that, leave the mixture to cure for about 10 minutes. Do not stir the mixture after you are done pouring. (When milk is added to ginger juice, a chemical reaction takes place, and the mixture coagulates into a curd like texture.)
5. Repeat step 3 and 4 for the second bowl.
6. When a light tap with a teaspoon do not penetrate the surface, the Ginger Milk Pudding is ready to serve.

Enjoy!