Miso Chicken Meatballs

Melbourne, the city of incredible Asian food

 So I have no idea where I got this recipe from...I forgot to pin down the link so I apologize to the person who has created it, and if you see this recipe please write a comment and will link my post to your website. 

So. Tired of bland meat? I am too, often. So this recipe provides an alternative to eating tasteless chicken all the time. Here it is:

INGREDIENTS: 

For meatballs:

-600 grams of turkey.
-1 shallot sliced.

-2 teaspoons of grated ginger. 

-2 garlic cloves crushed or minced.

-3 tspoons of miso paste.

-1/4 cup of breadcrumbs.

-salt and pepper.

For the sauce:

-60 ml of mirin sauce.

-60 ml of rice wine vinegar.

-2 tablespoons of honey.

-1 teaspoon of ginger grated.

-2 teaspoons of miso paste.

STEPS:

1. In bowl add all of the ingredients for the meatballs, mix well and make round meatballs. Fry them in low heat until the are cooked inside.

2. Whisk all of the ingredients for the sauce.

3. When the meatballs are cooked, pour all the sauce on top of them and simmer them a little and let them get juicy. 

Yum, that's it guys. Not bad, definitely some work but doable. I am back to the world of work, no time to breathe...good-bye cooking for a looooong time. Hence my lack of posting.

  

 

Peanut and Vegggies Noodles

This recipe has reminded me that I have been cooking functional food for about 6 months. Here is the reason:  Stress, stress, studying, sicknesses, more stress, studying, more sicknesses, ankle sprained and more stress. 

Don't you guys agree that cooking is a sheer nightmare when life is overwhelming? And yet it has to be done if you want to remotely function.

But this recipe looked so good and now that I am done with my exam (which I am 90% sure I will fail), I needed to do it because I was sure it was going to be a keeper and of course it is. I asked Kenton about this he said: "Heck yeah, why are you still standing there?".

But first of all, I want to thank Deb Perelman for making my life SO MUCH BETTER. Seriously, you are wonderful Deb. Life is rough but your recipes have made my life so much richer, not just because the food is great, but simply having your creativity and blog and writing in this world. I just love you and I also love New York. 

INGREDIENTS: 
For sauce: 
-1/2 cup of peanut butter (4 or 5 heaped tablespoons).

-1/4 cup of soy sauce.

-1 tablespoon of ginger grated.

-1 garlic clove grated.

-2 tablespoons. of rice vinager (or really any)

-1 +1/2 tablespoons of sesame oil.

-1 tablespoon of honey.

-1 tablespoon of chili oil with flakes, or pepper flakes or some spicy sauce.

-1/3 cup of water.

-Sesame seeds (for decoration: totally optional).

For the noodles: Some noodles, any you want, wheat, soba, whatever.

For the veggies: raw veggies cut in slices like ...

-carrots 

-cucumbers,

-peppers 

-green onions cut all in slices. 

For the meat: cooked chicken or tofu cut in cubes.

STEPS:
1. I mean the steps are simple. Cook the chicken and cut it in cubes seasoning with salt-pepper.
2. Cut the veggies in slices and put in Tupperware container. 
3. Cook the noodles, usually 5 minutes in boiling water and cool them off with cold water.
4. Make the sauce. Stir it well and thin it out with water.

And that's it guys. Throw it all together for a great tasty meals. This dish can be cold or hot, so it is perfect for summer too, and if you want it warm stick it in microwave for 30 seconds. 

The hardest part of this dish is not eating the whole bowl of peanut sauce....it is so good it will knock your socks and the ball out of the park! 

I made double actually and will freeze half. :) 

The photos are Valencia, not Australia, although
it surely looks like Oz...like Northern Territory.

Tapioca Pearls with Coconut Milk

It has taken me years and years to be able to publish this recipe, but here it is. First trying to find Tapioca pearls in Spain, which seemed an impossible task, only Sago pearls, which is not the same. THEN, finding a good and simple recipe. Found one in Australia and then lost it. But This recipe really has helped me to nail this dessert. Thank you to this person. Sometimes the most simple recipes are the hardest, and this one seems to be one of them.

So I have just spent today 2 hours throwing a ton of tapioca away after failed attempts. Bad videos everywhere in the internet. This is why I keep this blog, to have things ready to go, or you have to watch and read hours of recipes again. Okay so it is the starch of the tapioca which makes this simple recipe complex, because if you are not careful the whole thing becomes a gelatin mess. But here is the solution. 

INGREDIENTS:
-1/2 cup of tapioca pearls.
-1/2 cup of sugar.
-1 pinch of salt.

-1 can of coconut milk.

-5 cups of water (1.200 ml)

STEPS:

1. Get 5 cups of water and bring to boil. Now, to this boiling water add the tapioca pearls, no rinsing and no nothing, just straight from the package to the pot.

2. Stir them in the boiling water for about 7-8 minutes. Stir, and stir and stir and stir while you listen to your favourite podcast.

3. Now rinse them in cold water, lots of them and set them apart. They will still have a white centre, they will be half-cooked, like in the photo.

4. Now set in the same pot the coconut milk and 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil and quickly add the sugar that will dissolve instantly and the salt. Stir quickly and mix it all. 

5. Now add the tapioca pearls and stir, stir, and stir for 15 minutes in medium fire. They willl be cooking through, stir, and stir. 

6. Now lower fire to a minimum and let the tapioca pearls absorb the milk remaining, maybe cover, but be really careful to not let them stick to bottom or burn. 

That's it. Tadah. 

Great texture, just like in Thai restaurant. If it is not sweet enough, just sprinkle some caster sugar and it will be fix it. The dish gets better with time, because the flavours come together.

Finally I nailed this. This was one of my fave desserts in the whole world. And now I've eaten so much tapioca this evening, that I'm going to explode. 

Pics: Singapore.

My Christmas and Easter Lamb

So the story of this lamb mold started last Easter when Kenton and I ate pizza for Resurrection Sunday and it was the most depressing thing ever. 

-"We need traditions!", I told him.  

So I went back into Pinterest and looked into my Easter pins and found this awesome lamb cake so my friend Cristina, brought it all the way from me from the USA.

25 bucks is a great investment for this mold! and I thought: why not use it for Christmas? At the end of the day we celebrate the birth of the Lamb of God, so I made it of chocolate. 

And here is the winner recipe that rocked my world. A heavy, very chocolaty cake. I followed the recipe that cake with the mold, but then added a ton of dutch cocoa. YUUUUUUM you all. This recipe is a keeper, even my mom agreed.

 

INGREDIENTS

-1/2 cup of butter, 115 grams 

-2 eggs

-3/4 cup of buttermilk

-1 tsp baking soda

-1+1/2 tsp of baking powder

-2 cups of flour, 240 grams.

-100 grams of chocolate 70%.

-4 tablespoons of Dutch cocoa.

-1 cup of white sugar, 200 grams.

STEPS:

1. Mix butter and sugar and vanilla and eggs until light and fluffy with mixer.

2. Now add to the mix, the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda.

3. Then add the 100 grams of chocolate melted (in the microwave will do), the buttermilk and then the cocoa powder

4. Butter the mold well, with a lot of butter and then sprinkle with a lot of flour. This is key for your lamb to work well. 

5. Bake in 180 degrees for about 40 minutes.

6. Let it cool off for a long time! and then sprinkle it with powder sugar. Wow. Gorgeous lamb.

The mold is from Nordic Ware Spring by the way. And the blueberry recipe lamb is from my blueberries muffins.

  

Asian Chicken Noodle Broth by Jamie Oliver

This soup of Jamie Oliver is fantastic. I cannot recommend more his book "The Ministry of Food" in which he teaches people to cook from scratch. So good. If you only have one cooking book, have this one. If you master that book, you are a great cook already.

Back to the recipe. Simple. The key ingredient to have is "5 chinese spice", very popular and not hard to find.  

INGREDIENTS:

Broth: 

-2 litres of chicken stock. 

-A piece of ginger.

-Serrano peppers for spiciness (optional).

-2 tablespoons of soy sauce.

-1 lime.

-sesame seeds and some toasted nuts (optional)

---------

-500 grams of chicken.

-300 grams of noodles.

-2 bock choy or a handful of mangetouts.

STEPS:

1. Cut chicken in stripes and coat them well with 5 chinese spice, like in the photo. Now sautee them in medium fire until golden (be careful to not burn the spices, have medium fire). Once ready set it apart.

2. Cook which ever noodles you want separately. You can add them too in the broth and cook them there, but I like to do it separately because the broth them is more clear.

3. Get the broth going separately. Put the chicken stock,  2 litres of water, and the ginger together, bring it to a boil.

4. Once it boils, add the green beans for 2 minutes. 

5. After 2 minutes in which the green beans have softened but are still very crunchy, add noodles and chicken, bring it to boil again and immediately turn off fire.

6. Now finally add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and stir. 

7. The finally touch is: squeeze in each bowl the lime, half lime for each bowl and sprinkle sesame seeds. The sesame seeds are optional but the lime is not optional, it makes it 5 times better.

Voila. C'est magnifique.