Japanese Pork Ginger recipe and sad news about Corey Haim

This pork ginger is very popular dish in Japan. I love this dish because I love ginger. It is great with white rice and I always eat too much rice with this :-) This is one of the dish which reminds me of Japan.

I would like to share this recipe because it is really good and easy. One thing it might be a challenge is to find really thin sliced pork.

Pork Ginger  for 2 poeple
Ingredients
Thinly sliced pork   250g
Ginger (grated)      2 table spoon
Garlic  (grated)      1 table spoon
Onion  (sliced)       2 small ones
Soy Sauce             5 table spoon
Sake                      5 table spoon
Mirin                     2 table spoon (if you can not find Mirin, you can substitute this with sugar)
Vegetable Oil       1 table spoon

1. Marinade pork and onion in soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sake and mirin mixture. (I marinated for about 3 hours but I think it is good enough if you marinade for 1 hour or so)

2. Add oil in a pan and saute this mixture.

3. Saute until everything is cooked and liquid is almost all gone.

4. Serve it with rice and shredded cabbage. I sprinkled some chopped scallion for color and also sprinkled some crashed black sesame on top of rice.

This was so amazing. My husband also loved it and we couldn't stop eating. The meat was so soft. Maybe it was good that I marinated for a long time. It is sweet and salty and go great with rice.


 

When I went back to Japan last year, I bought this Japanese Mandoline back. This is something which every household in Japan has and I have seen my mom used this all the time.


This is a great tool to make shredded cabbage or to shred some vegetables. It is super easy and fast. I just need to be careful not to cut myself because it is really really sharp. I used this tool for the cabbage and shredding cabbage was so quick! I love this tool! Lately, I have seen some of the celebrity chefs using this tool also.


By the way, last night I found out on TV that Corey Haim passed away. I am not sure if everybody knows about him but he was in lots of movies when I was a Teenager and I really liked him back them. He was a big Teenage idol. I used to watch "The Lost Boys" movie over and over at home which annoyed my family big time because they were forced to watch it with me  :-)

It is sad to see such a young talented person pass away. All I can wish for him now is RIP... I feel like watching "The Lost Boys" again.

Spice Rubbed Salmon with Green Goddess Rice and Sauteed Cauliflower

Normally, I eat Salmon with soy sauce but I wanted to try something little different this time. I used different kinds of spice which I had at home and made spice mix for salmon.

You can basically use any kind of spices of your choice but here is what I used.

Spice mix for salmon

Curry Powder  1 Tablespoon
Cumin Powder  1 Tablespoon
Paprika              1 Tablespoon
Salt                    1 TeaSpoon
Pepper               1 Tea Spoon
Gram Masala     1 Tea Spoon
Oregano             1 Tea Spoon
Garlic Powder    1 Tea Spoon

1. Sprinkle Olive Oil over Salmon Filet and rub above spice mix in.

2. In a oven safe frying pan with olive oil over middle heat, sauté salmon each side until it looks crispy.

3. Put the frying pan under broiler for about 5mins until it cooked all the way.

I served it with Green Goddess Rice and Sauteed Cauliflower.

I got Green Goddess rice recipe from Food Network website. If you are interested in this recipe, please click here to go to Food Network website. 

The rice is with Avocado & Basil. It is very refreshing rice.

I just sauteed cauliflower and did nothing special and it does not look too great but it tasted good so I post recipe here. It is super easy!

Sauteed Cauliflower
Ingredients
Cauliflower   1/2 head (cut into bite sizes)
Onion           1  (chopped)
Homemade Chicken Stock    1~2 cups
Salt              for taste
Oil               1 Table spoon

1. Add oil in a frying pan and sauté chopped onion until golden brown.

2. Add Cauliflower, chicken stock, salt and boil until chicken stock is reduced and cauliflower is soft.

This is it and you will have a tasty and healthy side dish. This way, I can eat quite a lot of cauliflower.


This has nothing to do with cooking but do you remember the TV show called "Twin Peaks"? It was popular when I was in Japan and it was quite a long time ago. The story is a murder mystery in a small town and it is very strange and creepy show. I don't know why I though about this show but I thought about it the other day and started renting DVDs. So now my husband and I are into this show and waiting for the DVD to arrive every day. My husband hasn't seen this show so this is first time watching it and he likes it so far so I am happy to watch it with him.

It is a David Lynch show and I have seen his other films but all of them are quite eccentric and kind of creepy. But I like his character development. All these characters in Twin Peaks are weird but quite interesting. I think I have seen all the shows and I even watched the movie but I don't think I really understand the show. Well, I will watch it again and hopefully I will understand this time :-)

Spring has come! First BBQ of this year!!

I have been waiting for this! After a long cold winter, it seems like spring is finally here! The weather was so nice on Sunday and also yesterday, it made me feel so happy! I can smell the spring in the air. Everybody looked so happy and walking around everywhere. It was like "Where were all there people during the winter? " On such a wonderful day, I really appreciate that I am alive and healthy.

I think there is a strong correlation between the weather ( also temperature) and people's mood. At least, it affect me a lot. Just smelling the spring in the air makes my body and soul jumpy :-)

When the weather is nice and warm, what would you do? Yes, you guessed it. "BBQ!!!" Since we bought a new propane the other day, we decided to enjoy the first BBQ of the year.

BBQ is something very luxurious for me because I did not get to do BBQ much when I was in Japan. In Japan, many people lives in a tiny apartment (especially Tokyo) so many people don't have back yard or BBQ set. If you want to BBQ, you have to go the rivers or mountains which has space. As much as it is nice to have BBQ by the river or in the mountain, it is also great to have the convenience of doing BBQ right at your home. I think many people take BBQ for granted because they grew up with it but for me, this is great luxury to have.

Anyway, so BBQ make me very happy. Normally, we BBQ hotdog and hamburger and stuff like that but this time we had Chicken Kebab and Ground Beef Kebab since I am into Middle Eastern Food lately. I made Chicken Kebab using this recipe book which I borrowed from a library.




It seems like Chicken Kebab is called Shish Taouk. It was simple marinade with lemon, garlic and olive oil but it was really delicious!

I think this will be a regular for our BBQ from now on.







For Ground Beef Kebab, I used this Kabab mix which I had at home.

It got lots of different kind of spices in this mix. As directed, I added some chopped onion and green chilies.

Then I shaped small meat balls.

The other day, I have purchased this kebab skewers so I gave it a try. These are huge skewers and it looks almost like a sword. It is flat so that makes easy to stick meat around.

Put the meat around the skewers like this and ready to BBQ!

The photo is a big blur but it looks very good with flames and all.

BBQ completed.

I sprinkled something called "smack" on half of the chicken. This is something I bought in a Middle Eastern grocery store. It has some lemony flavor and it goes great with chicken. I am not sure what kind of plant this was made of...

I also made Basmati rice. I added some saffron but I think it was too little so the color did not come out well.

Pita bread is store bought.

My husband made his favorite cilantro sauce. This time, it tasted a bit too green but it was good. We make it differently every time so you never know how it will come out.

Our Arabian night was a success. I love making these flavorful BBQ. Well, the ground beef kebab kind of fall off the grill (some of them) and it was a bit dry so I need to improve this. Probably because I forgot to add Ghee and did not rest it for three hours as directions suggested. I will make it right next time. The weather will be better and better from now on and I have a whole spring and summer to make it right!

I think it will be nice to invite some friends over and have this kind of BBQ again. I would love to try making some Falafel and Hummus when we have get together :-) Oh, I love summer! (/spring)