Thai Yellow Curry

It would seem that I like cooking curry a lot. In my online recipe collection, I have my mum's Nonya-style curry, Malay-style beef rendang, Indian-spiced curry and Thai red curry. (That said, I still haven't done Japanese kare, which, apparently, is just a matter of adding a cube of store-bought roux. Being a scratch-purist (wannabe), I am apprehensive of using that cube of roux - heaven knows what kind of chemicals, artificial preservatives, hydrogenated fat and other crap are contained within that cube. That compounded by the fact I can't read a lot of what's on the ingredient list.)

Back to the topic. So why add yet another curry recipe to my recipe list? Well, only because I tried the Thai method for cooking the curry, which involves separating the coconut milk into its thick cream and thin milk and then cooking the cream over medium heat until the oil is separated from the cream. Plus, I was given a jar of Thai yellow curry paste and I was curious to see how Thai yellow curry differs from the ones I'm accustomed to. The ingredients listed in the curry paste are surprisingly very simple and includes chilli, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, soybean oil, salt and curry powder. I used additional curry powder because I thought that the curry paste was lacking in spices needed to give curry its depth.

I must admit that I don't know Thai cuisine and cooking well enough to know the benefits of cooking the coconut cream first as opposed to adding the homogenised (well-mixed) coconut to the curry during the cooking process. You never know if you never try, right? Like all of the curries I have made, I don't claim this to be an authentic Thai curry recipe. Despite my best intentions, my curry-cooking habits would have no doubt influenced this dish (for example, the order that the ingredients go in the pot, and adding additional onions, garlic and ginger).

Now, I don't know if it had anything to do with the cooking method, but Alex said that this is my best dish yet. Haha - obviously that was meant as a compliment, but it inevitably raised some insecurities about my cooking skills. Were my other dishes sub-standard? What about my other curries? Perhaps they were always too spicy for him (this time, I made an extra conscious effort not to put additional chilli into any of that night's dishes, which was a big effort indeed).

Some tips:
- Aim to have the food pieces (chicken and the veges) to be in similar sizes - the dish looks nicer that way.
- To separate the coconut cream from the milk - don't shake the can of coconut milk. Refrigeration (or the cold winter air) would also assist in separating the coconut cream from the milk.
- You can use any vegetables - I've seen recipes using beans and bakchoy, but I stuck to what I know would work well in curries. I always use potatoes as they add a nice body to curries.
- When cooking beans and potatoes in a dish, I only add the salt (fish sauce, in this case) in the last stage of the cooking. Beans and potatoes absorb salt from its cooking liquid during the cooking process, and you can end up adding a lot of salt by the end of it.
- Last but not least, all curries taste better the next day. Giving it time will allow the flavours to develop.

Thai Yellow Chicken Curry

Ingredients
500g chicken thigh fillets, cut into bite-sized pieces, marinated with a generous splash (~1-2tsp) of fish sauce, pepper and 1 tablespoon curry powder
1 can (400g) coconut milk, separate the cream top from the liquid milk
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cm ginger root, finely chopped
3 tablespoons of Thai yellow curry paste
4 medium-sized potatoes (~500g), cut into large-ish bite-sized pieces
2 large carrots, cut into large-ish bite-sized pieces (match the potatoes size)
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar (I'd use palm sugar if it was available)
basil (Thai sweet basil or Italian basil)
pepper to taste
chilli to taste

Method
Cook the coconut cream over medium high heat until it bubbles, stirring constantly. Add the chopped onions, garlic and ginger and continue cooking (and stirring) the cream until you can see the oil separating from the cream. Add the curry paste to the coconut cream mixture and stir well for a couple more minutes until fragrant. Add the chicken, potatoes and carrots and stirfry for a few minutes. Then add the remainder coconut milk and tomato sauce and simmer the curry until the chicken pieces are cooked and the vegetables are 'al dente' (i.e. cooked, but not mushy) - this will take perhaps 20 or so minutes, depending on the sizes of the chicken and vegetables. Add the sugar, fish sauce, basil and pepper (to taste). If the curry is too thick, add water and season as necessary. Voila! It's done.

Chinese New Year weekend

Gong Xi Fa Cai! A very happy new year to everyone!

We managed to have a small celebration even though we're away from family. On Saturday, the eve of CNY, we invited a few friends around to our place for a small dinner. I cooked Thai yellow curry and some garlic prawns to go with the coconut rice (long-grained Jasmine rice is really expensive and hard to get!). Kimchee brought some stir-fried veges. It was a nice relaxing affair, more so an excuse to get together and have a catch-up session. After dinner, we watched a lighthearted comedy called Spanglish which was really enjoyable. This is one of the few movies starring Adam Sandler that I actually enjoy.

Thai chicken yellow curry with potatoes and carrots; garlic prawns




The next day, we were invited by Natalie (Canadian Chinese) to have a CNY lunch at her lovely apartment in Nanao (a big town/small city a bit more than 1 hour's drive south from us). She prepared a yummy Chinese feast for us which included minced duck, beef noodle dish, abalone, stuffed lotus root and Coca-Cola chicken. Out of all the food fare presented, I contributed only one - sweet 'n sour chicken. Afterwards, we enjoyed some simple sweet potato soup made with satsumaimo and munched on my brownies. I ate so much! This was a good opportunity for us to meet our significant others, and to get to know one another better :)

The feast prepared by Nat - oh, and that's my one dish on the right:


The lovely Nat in her sparklingly new kitchen; and the group whom we shared lunch with (minus one who out of the room at the time):

Kanazawa at Night

After our movie and dinner date in the city, we took a nice stroll down Katamachi (the main shopping/business street of Kanazawa) to our ultimate destination of Kenrokuen (reputed to be one of the top three best gardens in Japan). We have visited this garden before, but not at night. It's usually shut at 5pm, but for one week in each season, the garden has a light-up event to showcase its beauty at night. Every winter, the park implements the yukitsuri, which are ropes attached in a conical array to give support to the tree branches and to protect the trees from damage caused by heavy snows (although this winter has been unusually warm and not much snow has fallen).

Thought I'd share a couple of the nightview photos I took (without a tripod - which was quite a challenge). Great photo op in the garden, and there were plenty of photographers (both 'serious' ones with huge chunky cameras, lenses and the lot, and amateur ones like me) in the garden.

Along Katamachi; and in Kenrokuen

Mm, chocolates.. [Godiva 72% Cacao]

We are chocoholic nuts. Fussy ones, mind you - we cannot just settle for any chocolates, but dark chocolates (high percentage of cacao). And they have to be good dark chocolates. This is very important, since we indulge in chocolates every single day after dinner. We are quite justified in this daily indulgence since everyone knows that chocolate is good for you. Something not very well-known is that milk negates the health benefits of the antioxidant flavanoids in chocolate. So milk chocolate is not good for you.

Three years ago, I would have told you I disliked dark chocolate. Not sweet enough, and rather bitter. Now, having been spoilt with dark chocolates, milk chocolates are far too sweet and creamy for my tastebuds. And I know from experience to stay away from American chocolates, especially Hershey's brand. White chocolate had never been, and will never be, on my list of favourite chocolates - it contains zero cocoa and in some countries it is illegal to even call this a chocolate.

We don't claim to be chocolate connoiseurs, and we are miles away from this guy who has tried over 100 types of high-cacao chocolates. But, we are making our way there by trying as many different kinds of chocolates that we can get our hands on (not an easy task in Japan). We made a recent discovery of a beautiful chocolate: the 72% Cacao chocolate by Godiva, a Belgian brand. It is better than all the dark chocolates we've tried so far, however, it is also by far the most expensive chocolate we've purchased (it's probably not too expensive elsewhere though). A small 50g bar cost around 500yen (~AU$5), and that equates to 10,000yen/kg (~AU$100/kg)! Needless to say, we were a bit hesitant to pay so much for something so small - what if it was not-that-great? Our worries were for naught, for we were rewarded with the smooth, rich taste of good quality chocolate. A little pricey for our daily indulgence, but perfect for the occasional treat.

Chocolatey treats

Banana-choc muffins



On the weekend, I made a spontaneous decision to bake choc-banana muffins for breakfast. If I was more prepared (with milk in the fridge, for example), I would have followed my berry muffin recipe (the first recipe posted on this journal!) a little bit closer (after all, I did successfully make apple muffins using that method). No milk, what did I do? I used water instead, and hoped that the creamy texture of the bananas would compensate the lack of milk. And it turned out quite nice! This is a low-fat high-fibre muffin, which is almost too healthy for weekend breakfast food.

Ingredients
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup wholemeal plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 eggs
1/2 cup water
2 large bananas, mashed

Method
Preheat the oven to 180degC. Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then combine until just blended. Take care not to overmix the batter otherwise the muffins will be tough. Pour the mixture into a 8 muffin cups, filling each muffin cup only 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20mins.


Choc-peanut balls



So I have some leftover sponge cake, what do I do with them? Make truffles/balls of course! I have previously made choc balls using cake crumbs so I knew that this would work. I didn't really use a recipe as such, just a little of this and that from around the kitchen. It's no big secret that nuts and chocolate goes well with each other, and I worked on that principle. The quantities would all depend on your taste. Start off with a little amount and work your way up until the taste is right.

Ingredients
Plain sponge cake, crumbed
Cocoa powder
Peanut butter (unsalted and unsweetened)
Honey
Unsalted cashews, finely chopped

Method
Mix the cake crumbs with the cocoa powder, honey and peanut butter until the mixture attained a sticky consistency (add a little at a time to ensure that you are not left with a gloopy mess). Use your (clean) hands for this job! Roll into small balls and coat with the chopped nuts.

Mexican @ El Torito (Kanazawa)

It had been more than six months since we last watched a movie at the cinema. The main reason being that the closest movie theatres to us are located in the city which is more than 1.5 hours drive from inaka home. Yesterday, we did a 'couple-y' thing and had a movie 'n dinner date. We watched The Departed at the new cinema in the newly opened Forus Kanazawa. I enjoyed the movie, but it wasn't a 'feel-good' happy movie. Perhaps we should've watched The Pursuit of Happyness after all.

After the movie, we had dinner at El Torito, a Mexican restaurant located inside the Forus. We went there mainly because the American JETs recommended the place, and I consider Americans to be good judge of Mexican food due to their proximity to Mexico. And we were yearning for some foreign foods. It was surprisingly good. Surprising because 1) I enjoyed it considering that Mexican food is not on my list of favourite foods, and 2) the food was done quite well considering it is a foreign cuisine in Japan.

The staff were friendly and unobtrusive, and we were given a complimentary serve of corn chips and salsa soon after we were seated. There was a nice ambient atmosphere in the restaurant and it was lovely to have the whole restaurant to ourselves (it was around 5pm just prior to the peak dinner rush). Cost-wise, they are comparable to the Mexican restaurants in Perth. Entree dishes cost under 1000 yen (~AU$10), main dishes cost between 1000 yen and 3000 yen (~AU$30), and drinks vary between 400yen (~AU$4) for non-alcoholics up to 2000yen (~AU$20) for alcoholic drinks. Margaritas are around 1200yen (~AU$12).

The interior of the restaurant and Rob munching on the complimentary corn chips; and the view from our "window" seat of an indoor open space:


Sipping on my tomato juice (I love tomato juice! I blame my sister Faye for this) and on his Sunrise Sonata:


We ordered some Grilled Chicken Quesadilla (~1000 yen) to share as a starter, which was really yummy. It came with a dollop of guacamole and sour cream, and it was nice to eat /real/ cheese (which is somewhat of a rarity in Japan).

Then we ordered the Trio Fajita (~3000 yen) with chicken, beef and prawns. The waiter brought this to our table and asked us (in Japanese) if we wanted him to flambe the meat (it took us a good minute or so to figure out the meaning of what he was saying). And I wasn't quick enough to whip out my chunky huge camera to take a photo of the flames dancing on our food. Oh well. The meat were nicely done and tasted delicious, and the chilli sauce actually had a bite to it. Of course, it was not hot by our standards, but probably a bit too spicy for the Japanese taste buds.

Grilled Chicken Quesadilla; and Trio Fajita:


This Mexican restaurant gets our thumbs up. So far we haven't been disappointed with the foreign-cuisine restaurants inside the Forus centre, having previously eaten at the Shijan Korean and Frangipani Asian Restaurant. We will definitely try the other restaurants, but I think I will stay away from the Chinese restaurant for now - we've eaten "Chinese" food in so-called Chinese restaurants only twice in Japan but they have not been very good experiences.

Oh smoked salmon, how shall I use thee?

One of the benefits of teaching at a marine school is that I get to buy fish that the students prepare. The fish are always of superb quality, and the price is usually half that you get in the supermarket. The smoked salmon is no exception, but it is somewhat of a rare treat. It is so valued that I have observed the teachers at my school lining up up to half an hour just to make sure that they don't miss out.

Now, both Rob and I are (were?) not big fans of smoked salmon. From experience, the slimy texture and the salty taste of most smoked salmon we've had back home in Perth leaves a lot to be desired. However, thanks to the raving reviews of these smoked salmon from the teachers, I just could not resist buying one pack. It was an excellent buy at 1200yen for an 800g piece (or so the teachers say - I wouldn't know, since I've not bought smoked salmon before). And it was so good! So good, in fact, that I can say that they were the best smoked salmon I've ever had!

Prepared, smoked and packaged by the students:


So how did I use these beauties? I surprised even myself with the various ways I've managed to use the salmon. My favourite from the lot? The open-top sandwich was pretty damn tasty. The recipe for the pasta is included.

Japanese-style: Smoked salmon onigiri - rice ball with smoked salmon filling and coated with roasted sesame seeds. Sushi - with julienned cucumber and carrot. Chirashi-style with crab and ikura (salmon roe).



Western-style: Open-top sandwiches with homebaked wholemeal bread, dill butter, sliced tomatoes, caramelised onion rings, sauteed mushrooms and grated carrot. Spaghetti with a creamy sauce similar to carbonara (I think that smoked salmon has a similar smokey salty taste as bacon).



Smoked salmon spaghetti carbonara

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
Half of a medium-sized onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
A slosh of white wine vinegar
200g smoked salmon, diced
125mL cream
1 egg, lightly beaten
herbs (I used sage, parsley and dill)
pepper to taste
spaghetti, cooked al-dente

Method
Heat oil and saute the onion over medium heat until soft and transparent. Add the garlic and cook for a minute until fragrant. Deglaze the pan with a splash of the white wine vinegar and then add the salmon and cream and simmer for a couple of minutes. Turn off the heat and add the egg, hot (freshly cooked and drained) spaghetti, herbs and pepper and toss well. Serve.

Kaki Matsuri (Oyster Festival)

With my love for oysters (one of the reasons why I loved Hiroshima so much!), it is no wonder then that I was quite eager to go to this year's Kaki Matsuri (oyster festival), which is held every year on the last weekend of January in Anamizu town (about half hour drive from our place). This festival is quite well known, and I've been told that people from other prefectures travel to Anamizu for it.

We arrived mid-morning on Sunday and it was already packed! And the food! I was in heaven over the variety of fresh seafood available (of course, the standard festival (greasy 'fast') food were also on sale for the fussy eaters). The town set up a few long rows of hot charcoal grills for the people to cook their purchases and eat them fresh off the grill. The best purchase of the day was a bag of 12 oysters for 1000 yen (~AU$10). The oysters were plump, juicy and very fresh. It certainly was an experience cooking the oysters in their shells and then shucking them.

Some of the food stalls; and people busy cooking their own food over the grill:


Our food on the grill; and Rob prying open one of the goodies:


An oyster cooking on the grill; and enjoying the oyster:


There was a stall set up by a Soba ya (soba noodles shop) and they had four guys making fresh soba. It was entertaining, but it was very pricey noodles. I think they were meant to be given as omiyage (souvenir) but we bought some for ourselves to cook at home.

Soba-making:




We also watched mochitsuki (traditional mochi pounding) complete with the usu.

Mochi-making:

February - finally, some decent snow!

You may recall I wrote in a previous entry that we've been experiencing an unusually warm-ish winter and it hasn't really snowed where we are. I was told that there was some decent (albeit brief) snow fall here on the 28th of last December (during which time we were enjoying a lot more snow on our snowboarding trip in Nagano), but nothing since then. While the lack of snow meant a happy Jean and a disappointed Rob, some people were quite concerned that the nice Mediterranean-esque weather we've been having may bring on bad weather later on (eg worse typhoons, more snow next winter, etc). Who would have thought that the beginning of February would bring us some relatively decent snow fall?

It snowed most of yesterday and overnight, and I must admit that it was nice to enjoy a white-dappled scenery this morning while eating my breakfast. Of course snow meant I would have to drive to school instead of cycling, but I wasn't too disappointed since my muscles are kinda sore from last night's judo lesson. It wasn't too scary driving on snow, but then there wasn't much snow cover on the road. The snow is not gonna last long. As I'm typing this, the sun is shining and the snow is melting away. And no snow is forecasted for the following week.

View from our kitchen sliding door; and our car before scraping off most of the snow to drive to school:


My sympathy to all in Perth who has to endure 40+ degreeC heat!

Adventurous dining in Osaka (blowfish)

After a brief ride in the giant ferris wheel in Tempozan, we wandered around inside the Marketplace in search for dinner. The place offered many dining opportunities, but most of them were quite unappealing to us, serving fast-food types. The more decent restaurants were located on the second or third floors, and it was here we found a nice restaurant that served Japanese food ranging from sushi to nabemono (hotpot). It wasn't anything fancy, but we weren't looking for more than just good food and perhaps good service. It was a cold windy evening, and nabemono appealed very much to us.

Rob waiting for the water to boil:


We ordered Tecchiri, which, we were informed by the friendly waitress, was a nabemono specialty of Osaka. This dish contained fish, but we didn't know the type of fish used. Truth be told, I wasn't all that bothered by not knowing, since I am always eager to try out the regional specialties (dining in Japan for the past six months has taught me to "try now and find out later" because Q+A exchanges between us and the waiters isn't a simple affair due to the language barrier). So what is the fish in tecchiri? I only just (as in a few minutes ago) found out that the fish is fugu, a type of highly toxic puffer/blow fish. Hm, I wonder whether we would have ordered this, had we known that consuming the toxin found in some parts of the fugu results in paralysis and eventually death from asphyxiation. Haha, of course we would have!

How was it? Well, it was very bone-y. I remember that while I was eating it, I was actually thinking that the chefs must be cutting costs and using fish bones for this dish. Now I know better. There's a good reason why we don't keep any blowfish caught while fishing. The fishmeat had a mild taste and a somewhat delicate texture.

Tecchiri - yep, those are the deadly fugu pieces:


We also ordered Shabu shabu, since Rob had never tried it before. I thought this was quite nice for the price (I've had better slices of beef in shabu shabu, but then I did pay a lot more for it).

Shabu shabu:


As always, our meal wasn't complete without finishing off with something sweet. There were a few dessert options at this restaurant, including orange sorbet, tofu cheesecake and tofu icecream. We were curious about the tofu icecream, but it turned out that it was nothing more special than ice cream made with soy milk (which makes sense but I guess Rob was hoping that it was made with tofu).

Soy ice cream:


Although our first encounter with Haagen-Dazs was at least two years ago in Hong Kong, we never had a chance to try it. This time, despite already having had the tofu icecream, Rob held me to my promise that we will one day try it. And not just one scoop, but two scoops! One of each of hazelnut and chocolate which was an excellent combination of flavours. The icecream was nice, kinda similar to the type of icecream available at Gelare. I still prefer gelato - oh, how I miss Il Gelato and Gelatissimo.

Haagen-Dazs double scoop icecream - I was waiting eagerly to devour the wafer cone after Rob was done with the icecream:



There are still so much to see and experience in Osaka, and I can see us returning for a couple more short visits. It is unusual for us to visit the same place multiple times (my travelling motto is to experience new things as much as possible), but we really like Osaka and are willing to make an exception for it.