Lahmucan: Turkish pizza

The first batch: tomato paste underneath and plain lamb mince on top

Roasted red pepper sauce - delicious and sweet

The second version - delicious and sweet.

I had an almost genuine holiday.

Holidays have been kind of lame since having children.  They are not holidays as I remember them, often they are an exercise in trying to entertain tired children in an unfamiliar locale with less resources than usual.   A 'holiday' in Rotorua earlier in the year while my husband attended a conference ended with tearfully trying to find an open chemist on a Sunday morning for nits shampoo on four hours of broken sleep.  Turns out the baby was coming down with campylobacter  while my oldest had her first case of nits since starting school.  My husband left the conference early, I napped wearing earplugs for two hours then, with greatly restored humour, we went luging. 

So I wasn't thrilled with the idea of going up to Auckland recently for a few days while my husband participated in a marathon.

It was actually quite a decent break.

I felt no more or less rested than usual, but I did a lot less cooking and no driving whatsoever.  This left me feeling more relaxed at least and I came back with a more enthusiastic approach to family dinners.

Our last meal in Auckland was at a Turkish restaurant.  It was a bit chaotic as the baby was grumpy and I was in pain due to an ill-timed ear infection (blocked ears and flying, bleurgh).  The meal, Lahmucan, was delicious and one I felt that I could easily replicate at home. We have pizza once a week and although it is an easy meal I find myself a little bored with it.  Lahmucan, Turkish-style pizza,  is based on lamb mince and a red pepper sauce.  The version I ate was dairy free, but I have seen other versions online with feta.

The mince mixture made enough for two batches of pizza.  Because I was experimenting we had two versions over two different nights.  I like both versions for different reasons.  The first version was pizza dough spread with tomato paste and the lamb mixture very thickly covering the dough.  The second version I added all of the red pepper sauce to the remaining lamb mixture, with a tablespoon of added tomato paste.  I spread this a little more thinly across the dough.  Your choice!  My internet research indicates the second version is more authentic, the first version is closer to the one I tasted at the restaurant in Auckland.

Lahmucan

Roasted red pepper sauce

Two red capsicums
Three cloves of garlic
Drizzle of olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Cut the capsicums in half and place, cut side up, in a roasting dish.  Add the garlic and then drizzle with a little olive oil.  Add a little sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Roast at 200C for about 40mins.  Remove from the oven and, when cool, blend the capsicum in a food processor or blender until smooth.

This sauce is sweet and delicious.  I'm thinking of roasting and puréeing capsicums most weeks through summer to add to meals.

Lamb mince

400g lamb mince
2 TBSP pine nuts
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp coriander seed
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic

Sweat the onion and garlic in a little oil until clear and soft.  Add the lamb mince and cook until well browned and broken into small grains.  Sprinkle with the spices and pine nuts and cook for five more minutes.  Set aside.

Other ingredients:

A very generous handful of fresh Italian parsley
One lemon
Half a cup of tomato paste.
One batch of pizza dough  (One batch makes three large pizzas)


Version one: Lamb mince only

Preheat the oven to 220C for at least half an hour.  Put an oven tray or pizza stone in the oven to heat.  Roll half of the dough out as thinly as you can on a sheet of baking paper and spread with tomato paste. Thickly cover with the lamb mince then transfer the pizza to the oven and bake until the dough is crispy.  When the pizza is out of the oven squeeze a generous amount of juice from half a lemon over the top, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Version two: Roasted red pepper and lamb mince

Preheat the oven to 220C for at least half an hour.  Put an oven tray or pizza stone in the oven to heat.  Roll half of the dough out as thinly as you can.  Mix all of the red pepper sauce with the lamb mince mixture and a tablespoon of tomato paste.  Thickly cover the dough with the lamb and pepper mixture and then bake until the dough is crispy.  When the pizza is out of the oven squeeze a generous amount of juice from half a lemon over the top, sprinkle with parsley and serve. 

Purple pizza and parties

I've been making a lot of pizza lately.  My toddler loves baking and making pizza dough in the morning helps to get some of the 'need to bake' out of her system, with the advantage that we can all pretty much have whatever flavour pizza we feel like later in the day.

Last week I got out the mixer and, at the same time, decided to prepare some beetroot relish.  Grating three beetroot produces a lot of purple staining splashes and I got a drop in the dough.  My toddler thought that this was hilarious and asked for more.  So I squeezed out the juice from the next few handfuls and added it to the dough.

Looks like boysenberry ice cream!

 I'm not going to pretend that it is the most palatable colour for adults...

 ...and in fact the colour would have been more even if I'd added it to the liquid at the start.  But I feel that the swirls are quite attractive!

When baked the purple turned rather pink.  It was a huge hit with both my five year old and two year old.  I'm not going to pretend that there were any particular health benefit - I doubt that there is a huge amount of extra nutrition from a tablespoon of beetroot juice.  There was absolutely no taste difference.

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My oldest daughter is now six.  In my head she is still a baby, but I am rudely confronted by the reality that she is becoming quite an autonomous little human and her birthday confirmed this.

We had a talk about inclusive birthday themes and came up with a weather theme.  Rainbows were a sub-theme.  Because the party was over lunchtime I really wanted to make a lot of food, and not all of it junk food.  The final menu was:

• Fruit kebabs
• Popcorn
• Smoked chicken and cream cheese sandwiches (dinosaur shaped for fun)
• Fairy bread (sparkly sprinkles on cream cheese - a little more popular than the chicken)!
• A cloud shaped biscuit
• A pack of Japanese novelty shape puffed crackers (goldfish, stars, sharks, moon).  These were love/ hate with the packs being either consumed frantically or tried and left to one side.
• Rainbow jelly - I found great clear containers at Moore Wilson's that came with lids.

Cool kebab sticks.  Unfortunately more than one child had to be reminded not to eat the decorative balls!

The major attraction was the cake.  The children were all very impressed by the size of it and there were a few gasps when my husband cut the cake and they saw what was inside!  This was a very popular cake and so easy. I have three cake tins the same size.  I made one batch of cake mix and divided it between three pans.  I then added the colouring to each pan.  I used quite a moist cake mixture, but given that you need to ice between the layers a dry cake would also be suitable.

My daughter is a self-proclaimed scientist and a bit of a purist when it comes to the rainbow.  I had to explain that I could not find purple gel for a seventh layer.  She thought about this quite seriously and conceded that six layers would be fine!

Like most birthdays the day passed in a blur.  I was worried that the party would be too long, and we would have lots of bored children.  In the end we had a few hungry children who had left the sky show early and could see the food.   I let them start eating a couple of minutes before the other children came back.

I decided not to go with the hell and torment of pass the parcel.  I had an extra craft activity available (colouring in masks) and had brought along equipment for an egg and spoon race.  I tried playing Chinese whispers with the children waiting out the sky show - it was hilarious.  Try it with five year olds - you wont regret it. I was very surprised to see that we had ten more minutes of party time left after singing 'Happy Birthday' (or the 'to you' song as my toddler calls it) and cutting of the cake.  The children all ran around the exhibits at the highest noise levels possible before disappearing with their respective parents.  Silence, then the long walk back to the car and home.

Platter and more Elderflower

It is Elderflower cordial time again!  Check the link for elderflower cordial and champagne recipes.  This year I've made two big bottles and then I had about two cups left over and no storage bottle.  I had a brainwave and put it in a pot and boiled it down to syrup.  If you boil it until reduced by half you will have the most deliciously concentrated syrup.  I've frozen mine (well, it wont freeze because it is too syrupy but I am storing it in the freezer).  I'm going to use it to make gelato and to drizzle over sorbet.  You can also use it like cordial, with just the tiniest amount (about a teaspoon) generously flavouring a glass of water.

I'd love to access a Soda Stream and make fizzy elderflower cordial drink! I'll settle for bottled soda sparkling water.

Last year I made elderflower and lemonade ice blocks for the children.  The ice blocks were also very useful as emergency cold drink flavouring when we had summer guests and nothing fresh to offer!

I'm going to experiment with some other elderflower flavours now.  I'm curious about adding vanilla - I think it will be either very good or very bad.  Ginger comes to mind as well.  I use orange and lemons when making the cordial - but might look at changing the proportions around a bit.

I still haven't tried battered elderflower but I'm making cauliflower pakora tonight so I might have a go while I've got the oil heated.

Yum, it is so lovely to have so much elderflower that I can just experiment away to my heart's content!

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It is nearly the end of the school holidays and today my five year old and I had a special day off together.  With the two year old in creche and my husband at work we went off on a loosely planned 'day of trying new things.'  We went to playgrounds we have never stopped out, went op-shopping for dress ups and visited the Makara Wind Farm.  By the time we got back into town, picked up the two year old and caught up on chores it was late and dinner time.

I couldn't be bothered.

Then I remembered platters.

I was considering Fish 'n' Chips but given that lunch today was fruit and vegetable free I roused myself to something healthier.  With the two year old standing on her steps at the bench helping herself and being a general cute nuisance I did the old platter trick:

It took five minutes to make.  It would have been quicker if I hadn't used a bento food cutter to make a couple of carrot butterflies.  The breadsticks were a project with the two year old a couple of days ago.  I used a chocolate oatmeal stout beer that I'd been given at the International Chocolate Festival in a goody bag.  I don't actually drink beer, so can't comment on the drink itself. I can say that it made a fantastic flavour to pizza dough and when I made Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake last week it turned a great cake into some kind of in-your-face adult-only mud cake deliciousness. 

The photo was close to perfection: then the baby jostled me, the five year old reached across and I accidentally clicked.

I thought I'd taken a picture of elderflower but can't find it.  This is the girl's playing in cherry blossom a fortnight ago instead.

Guinness chocolate cake, Guinness Beer Braid and Beef and Guinness Pie

This is probably three blog posts but, as I've written them over a week they have been amalgamated.  I don't really drink alcohol so I'm often behind in discovering the impact of different alcoholic beverages on cooking/ baking.   I have a new favourite beer!  It is Guinness.  I've never actually drunk any, but it is a damn good cooking liquid.

My favorite blog Lovely Wee Days tests recipes and shares the results. It is the first place I search now when I want a good cake recipe. They have reviewed and baked quite a few, and it is a good location to find a special occasion cake.

I'm often disappointed by chocolate cakes - particular dry cakes that look chocolate-y but do not taste great.
For this reason I was intrigued by their post mentioning Guinness Chocolate Cake.  It is a Nigella Lawson recipe and quite possibly one of the simplest cake recipes that I have come across.  Yum Yum Yum.  The cake has a depth of taste that ordinary chocolate cake lacks.  It is not overly sweet, and it is very moist.

I didn't feel like properly lining a cake tin as I was rushing to get this cake in the oven before the creche pick up.  So I used two single use cake rings from my beloved Daiso store in Auckland.  It is the first time that a product from the store hasn't lived up to expectations!  Both rings burst and luckily the oven tray below caught most of it!  The slightly less depleted one will go to work with my husband tomorrow.  Health professionals of course advocate healthy, well balanced lifestyles.  But a decent chocolate cake left in the break room will be gone by lunchtime I'm sure!

Nigella suggests a cream cheese icing in her recipe - as an homage to a glass of Guinness with a foamy white head.  Lovely Wee Days went with a fudge icing.  What do you think?  I'm torn.

Also, I don't really drink so I'm curious as to why there appears to be a solid plastic ball in the can of Guinness.  Funky manufacturing defect, standard can of beer inclusion or unique to Guinness?  I'm sure a few seconds of internet research would clarify things, but I prefer to ponder over the options.








This rather blurry photo was taken late in the afternoon on my iPhone.  I'm quite intrigued by how it has come out.

I only needed 250ml of my 440ml can of Guinness so decided to use the last of my fresh yeast and beer to make beer bread.  You can use any basic bread recipe, substituting beer for water.  Lagers make a light bread, darker beers lead to darker breads. ETA: if you are using a bread maker to knead the dough as well as using fresh yeast then let the yeast froth up with the sugar/ honey and water first.  Then throw in the other ingrediants.  This way you will know if your fresh yeast has worked.

This was delicious.  The beer and fresh yeast were an amazing combination.  Sooooo good.

Now I only had three cans of Guinness left so decided to make Beef and Guinness Pie.  I added two teaspoons of tomato puree, and about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.  My husband went nuts for this meal.  Pies are quite the special treat and he was very happy to take a leftover pie to work the next day.  These pies can even be frozen with the uncooked pastry lids for later baking, but since I used store bought pastry we just microwaved the leftover pies then reheated them in the oven to crisp the pastry.  If only the girls liked casserole mix! 

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dumplings.

Dumplings may actually be the world's best food.  Prior to my first trip to Japan I'd had wontons - friend pastry with a dot or two of mince on the inside smothered in violently pink sauce, but not proper dumplings.  I tried to find gyoza here in NZ on my return, but it would be a number of years before I would live in a city that could meet my dumpling needs.  Proper Chinese dumplings, (can be called wontons) are so yummy.  My husband introduced me to wonton noodle soup and my life changed.  There are few better meals than homemade wontons with homemade stock, some spring onions and your favourite noodle of the day.

Before having children it was a regular sight for visitors to our home to happen on wonton days.  My husband would get a nice piece of pork, dice it using the cleaver, add some spring onion, marinade then start a wonton procession line.  We would freeze them in groups of six.  We liked to joke about calling them fast food - once you defrosted the stock, got it boiling then cooked the dumplings, noodles and veges it would be at least half an hour before your dinner was ready - but what a dinner.

So there are boiled wontons.  Easy enough to make - get some wonton sheets from the freezer at an Asian grocer, dice up pork (better texture than mince) add some spring onions and maybe some Chinese cabbage then marinate: light soy, sesame oil and oyster sauce is a pretty standard marinade used by my husband.
It is fairly easy to find folding instructions on the internet.  My daughter found it easiest to fold into triangles, then fold in each side to the middle.  Whatever works.  You will need some glue (cornflour mixed with a little water) to help the edges to stick.  Boil up fresh (don't keep in the fridge - they quickly dry out) or cook from frozen (do not defrost).

My favourite way to have dumplings is gyoza.  This is almost a mythical form of cooking, and one that I lose faith in every time.  Still it works, it is just that in my head it shouldn't!  You can steam and shallow fry the dumplings at the same time.  Lightly coat a fry pan in oil.  I tend to use an oil spray, then a couple of teaspoons of peanut oil.  Heat (just before high), then put in the dumplings.  Immediately add half a cup (no more) of water and put the lid on.  keep the temperature quite high - say 7/8-10 on your stovetop.  You will be convinced that the dumplings will burn and stick.  Keep boiling away until the water has disappeared.  Remove lid and turn down to half/ average heat.  Test a dumpling.  If it easily flips over, it is ready to flip.  If it doesn't, then they are not ready.  Cook for another couple of minutes and test again.  I always think that they are going to burn and scrape one off only to notice that they are not cooked.  The dumplings need to dry out after the steaming/ boiling and let the oil and heat mix to put a nice colour on the bottom of the dumplings.  Flip over, cook for a couple of minutes (will be heaps faster than the first side) and serve with a dipping sauce.  Yum.  Leftover dumplings cooked this way are a favourite in my daughter's lunchbox.

You can of course just shallow fry, or even deep fry.  If your dumplings are very thick, ensure that the filling is well cooked.

Finally, you can do a lot of other things with wonton pastry.  I'd recently seen a canape idea where wonton skins were oven baked and then filled with salad ingredients.  I tried it and yes, they do make good cups.  Just be careful to space them out (so that they don't touch the other ones) and to spread them out prior to cooking - if the edges are to close together it will be impossible to stuff them.

Kransky in pastry: a short recipe

One thing that I meant to make for the Poppet's birthday was kransky rolls.  I make these at home occassionally, and they are very popular.

As an experiement I decided to use two different kinds of pasty: one butter, one fat reduced (basically using margarine).  The colour of the pastry and flakiness are rather amazing to contrast - and I know that I will prefer the butter pastry for cooking meals where the pastry is the star of the dish.

Kransky rolls

Cheese kransky sausages (if they are really fat I cut in half lengthways)
Pre-rolled pastry (I used the packets that come in squares - I got four squares from each sheet)
Tomato sauce
Black sesame seeds.

Preheat the oven to 220 - use fan bake if you have it - it is best for pastry. Gently fry the kransky sausages then leave to cool slightly.  Cut each pastry sheet into four and spread one side with a smear of tomato sauce.  Put the sausage on top and roll the pastry around the sausage on a jaunty angle.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Put on a lightly oiled tray - otherwise the pastry will stick.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Butter pastry in the middle!

Cheese rolls

It is time.

The weather is miserable, the baby is on to finger food and it is time for some nice warm lunch food.

It can only be cheese roll time.  If you are from the South Island you will know what I mean.  If not, then the cheese roll is a delicacy awaiting your attention.  Most South Island tea rooms will serve a version of the cheese rolls, and hardly a month goes by in winter when a school promotes them as a fundraising opportunity.



Cheese rolls are usually some kind of mix of cheese and packaged onion soup.  A basic recipe is:

Cheese rolls

One tin evaporated milk
Heaps of Cheddar cheese (At least two cups of grated - you want strongly flavoured cheese)
A tsp mustard
A packet of onion soup
(optional) Tablespoon of finely diced onion.

You boil up the mixture until it is very thick and then spread on fresh bread, roll and then toast in the oven to serve.  Turn once.  You want the outside all yummy and crisp, and inside soft with delicious superheated cheese.

The absolute brilliance with this recipe is that they just freeze so very well.  Last winter when I was pregnant I made up a big batch, rolled them and then froze them in snaplock bags in batches of four or five. I would grill them for lunch, and do a couple extra for the four year old's dinner.  I found it easiest to have a large oven tray to rest the cheese rolls on (join side down) while prepping them.  I would also just put a chopping board on top of them to help them stay rolled up.

These are classically made on white bread, I have always preferred them on grainy bread - I also find grainy bread easier to roll. You can roll over the bread with a glass or rolling pin before spreading with the cheese mixture to assist with rolling up.

It is mandatory for the crusts to stay on.  If you can't handle that, then don't make them.  Last year when I was looking up recipes for cheese rolls I learnt that they are one of only a few NZ foods that are specific to one island of the country.

Progesterone poisioning pork/ Crumbed pork with rhubarb ginger jam

My husband is a bit addicted to Leuven restaurant here in Wellington.  It is a Belgium 'beer garden' kind of place, that serves copious amounts of steamed mussels.  We are not really into beer or even mussels, but there are heaps of other lovely dishes, and since the menu doesn't seem to change we pretty much know what we are going to have before we get there.

My favourite for a long time has been a crumbed pork chop on mashed potato with apple.  Unfortunatly last time I ate it was while I was pregnant and had a rather omnipresent nausea coupled with the odd power chuck.  I ate my meal, felt ill, went outside to take the air - then had to decide whether to vomit in the toilet or in the gutter.  I ran inside and vomited copiously in the sink.  I cleaned up as best I could (while my sister in law checked up on me) and then had to shamefacedly go and let the rather taken aback staff know that I had been ill in the sink and some bleach was required.  While I doubt I'm the first person to vomit there, I bet you I'm probably one of the few who has done it during the early dinner service.

Anyway, recently we were given some delicious rhubarb and ginger jam made by a good friend (Giffy whose comments show up here sometimes).  I decided to make my homage to that delicious meal.  It will be a while before we go back.

Progesterone poisioning pork

Pork chops (large ones, one per person)
Panko crumbs
Fresh parsley
One apple
Quarter red cabbage
1/4 cup orange juice
One leek
Butter and oil.
Four potatoes
Milk
Delicious rhubarb and ginger jam to serve

Finely dice the parsley, add to the panko crumbs then crumb the pork chops.  Fry in a saucepan, then remove to a rack on an oven tray and finish off in the oven.  While baking in the oven, core and quarter the apple and place on the oven rack to bake. Finely chop the red cabbage and slowly fry in a saucepan, using the orange juice as a braising liquid.  Cook until soft and well reduced in size.  Boil potatoes for mashed potato (I keep the skin on because it is going to be a chunky mash).  Drain and leave to cool.  Reuse pot and cook the leek in a little butter until wilted.  Put the potato back in, mash and add milk as required to achieve desired smoothness).

To serve.  Put a blob of mash in the middle of the plate, top with the cabbage then the pork chop.  Put the apple and delicious jam on the side.  Yum!

Oxtail soup with noodles and asian veges

This is a really nice and pretty easy recipe that I've picked up from my husband and his family.  It is one of my favourite winter soups, and I had some the other day.  When I was pregnant over winter last year all I wanted was a big bowl of this, unfortunately my favourite green vege accompaniments would make me sick.  It takes a long time to cook, so either start in the morning or the day before.

You need some oxtail (often found in the smallgoods section of the butchery, or in beef).  A mixture of big and small pieces is nice.  We normally have about two big pieces and two small pieces per person.  If you purchase from a butcher or over the counter, get them to trim off the fat.

Trim off as much fat as you can.  It is sometimes easiest to do this if the oxtail has been in the freezer for an hour or so.  Put the oxtail in a large stockpot and cover with water or chicken stock.  The oxtail will be cooking for a long time, creating its own delicious beef stock so doesn't really need chicken stock.  Bring to the boil, then simmer for at least four hours.  You can also do this in a slow cooker on high for about eight hours.  Your aim is for falling of the bone meat.

Oxtail is fatty, so I consider this next step essential.  Let the soup and oxtail cool down, then put in the fridge.  My fridge is too small for my stockpot so I put it in a long tupperware container. The soup should set (there is a lot of cartilage in oxtail) and the fat will harden on the top of the soup.  Scoop it off and chuck away.  Put the stock and oxtail back into a large pot and start simmering again.  Put a small amount of the soup into a small saucepan and cook some noodles in it.  Anything works - I like rice noodles or small thin egg noodles.  My daughter had alphabet noodles when we ate this over the weekend.  Add in some delicious chopped up veges.  I really like bok choi, spring onion and broccoli.  Choi sum, mushrooms, green beans and mung beans are also popular additions.

If you are drinking this soup because you are feeling sick, I like to grate over some ginger, and add a teaspoon of soy sauce to each bowl of soup.  Yum.

Sticky Rice - no faffing about.

Sticky rice is probably my daughter's favourite food at yum cha.   I suspect part of the appeal is the fact that it typically comes wrapped in as a parcel in a leaf, which is then cut open.  That being said, sticky rice is full of lots of yummy things.

The reason I consider this a great recipe is that it is rather adaptable.  You can pretty much put whatever you like in it, as long as you think that it will go nicely in the dish.   You can freeze portions for later meals, which you can then either carefully microwave or steam.

I have not even once bothered trying to wrap this up in the correct leaf.  I don't think it would meet my 'make-do Mum' criteria.

This recipe does require thinking ahead (you can't make it successfully if you start two hours before you need it).  But there isn't all that much work involved, and it is pretty easy to start the night before.  I assume that you will have a rice cooker for this recipe, you are going to have to work out how to cook it yourself if you don't have one!

While searching for a picture of sticky rice for this recipe I found the following story:
Sticky rice wicked hard!  Apparently it was also an ancient construction material, and has properties to help it withstand earthquakes.  I never thought that I would have sticky rice and earthquakes in the same story but there goes!


Sticky rice


Two cups glutinous rice  (Pretty much only found in Asian grocers.  Another name I've used before is Thai sticky rice.  The rice continues to absorb moisture after cooking and after a day or so in the fridge can get a little slushy.   If you want to keep it in the fridge for a day or two after cooking I recommend swapping out some of the sticky rice for Jasmine rice).

One Chicken Thigh fillet or Pork fillet, diced.
One Chinese sausage (these can be found in either the fridge or shelves of Asian grocery stores)
Three Spring onions diced
Three or four mushrooms (Shiitake best, can use rehydrated dried mushrooms).  Cut in half length ways.

Sticky rice sauce mix (this is the ubiquitous Chinese marinade.  Use it on everything)
3 TBSP Soy Sauce ( I rather shockingly use Japanese Kikkoman because it is sweeter, but you should use any chinese light soy sauce)
2 TBSP Oyster Sauce
2 TBSP Chinese rice wine (or Sherry if you have it)
2 TBSP Sugar
2 TBSP Water
1 tsp sesame oil (optional - it can be a strong taste)
1/2 tsp White pepper (or a little black pepper, but white pepper just tastes better)


Method:

1. Soak the glutinous rice in water overnight, or at least eight hours.
2. Marinade the meat in the sauce mixture for at least an hour
3. Put the rice in the rice cooker and start. When the rice cooker says 'rice cooked' or whatever, dump over top the meat, veges, sauce mix.  Start the cooker again.
4. Once the second cooking is finished leave to steam away for about ten minutes or so.

Now, when I compare this methodology with other recipes it is pretty different.  You are supposed to steam the rice for 45 mins, then put the meat and sauce in little bowls, put rice on the top then steam for another or so.  Feel free to try it if you have the time.  I've done it once.  It was way too much faffing about.

So sad about Japan/ Sukiyaki

My very first favourite Japanese food was sukiyaki.  On the first night that I was in Japan Yoshie made this for me.  Just super delicious, but very hard to replicate with the ingredients available in Timaru in 1995.

Luckily though it is now 2011 and I live in Wellington.  There are three or four places within a ten minute walk of my house where I can get all the ingredients for sukiyaki.  When I returned to Japan in 2009 Yoshie cooked it for my whole family one night.  There were eight adults and two eighteen month olds.  It was a great dinner for picking at, and I loved the bento box takeaway Yoshie made up for me to take back to the hotel that night.  It was the most relaxed night of our trip, and probably one of my favourite memories.

Incidentally, apart from 'Meri-san no hitsuji (Mary had a little lamb)' the Sukiyaki song is the only Japanese song I know Acoustic version of Sukiyaki song

Sukiyaki is an awesome meal to make when you have heaps of people over and want a nice social meal.  It is typically cooked at the table, an electric frying pan is a good choice.  I can't be bothered with my electric fry pan, so tend to cook it in my le creuset large pan, then bring the whole thing over to the table. You can mess with the quantities depending on the preferences and number of people eating.  The jelly noodles are the most popular item in my house, so we tend to have a lot of those.  Leftovers are fought over!


Sukiyaki

500g Thinly sliced beef (often found in the freezer sections at Asian grocery stores - you want it to be paper thin)
One packet tofu (firm tofu holds up better for dicing)
One or two packets of jelly noodles, well rinsed (these are cool, they are called shirataki noodles, sometimes konnyaku).  They come in a bag of liquid so are delightfully squishy.  If you can't get them, use some kind of cellophane noodle.
Handful of mushrooms (shitake or enoki are the ususal choice)
One diced leek (save the green tops for making katsudon)
Half a diced chinese cabbage
Sukiyaki sauce (you can quite easily find this in the Japanese section at supermarkets or Asian grocers).  Otherwise google a recipe for making up the quantities.
Water
Four eggs
Knob of butter


Cut up all the ingredients into roughly equal sizes then place on a chopping board ready for cooking.  Put knob of butter in the pan and fry the beef until nicely coloured.  Add in the tofu and swish around.  Add the sukiyaki sauce (you may need to add extra water if there isn't enough liquid once the remainder of the ingredients are added).  You want enough liquid that the food is cooking, not frying, and not poaching.  Maybe half a centimetre across the surface of your pan.  Bring the liquid to the boil and add all other ingredients except the eggs.  Everything cooks very quickly, so just help yourself.

What do you do with the eggs?

Break an egg into a little bowl and mix up.  You dip the cooked sukiyaki into the egg then eat.  The sukiyaki slightly cooks the egg, but it is a little raw, and does freak some people out.

I like to serve this with a small bowl of egg, and a larger bowl filled with Japanese rice, onto which I put the dipped sukiyaki.  The rice then gets deliciously flavoured.

The leftovers for this also make delicious rice balls/ sushi for the next day.

Katsudon - Japanese pork schnitzel with egg and onion over rice.

This is one of my make-do mum classics, as it fufills criteria of asian influenced, delicious and cheap.  It is also a great one for when you do not have a lot of fresh veges, as there is usual at least an onion sitting around somewhere.  Do not make the mistake that I did tonight and mix up mirin and Japanese rice vinegar.  The bottles might look similiar but boy do they taste different.  I still have a vaguely fresh and vinegary taste in my mouth.  When made correctly this is just delicious, even cold in a lunchbox.

Katsudon

• Pork schnitzel (comes in smaller pieces than beef schnitzel, you do not want a strip of fat on the edge)
• Japanese panko crumbs (readily available in the Asian section at supermarkets, taste so much better than plain breadcrumbs)
• Mirin (again, look in the Asian section) (1/4 cup)
• Soy sauce (1/2cup)
• Brown sugar (1tsp)
• Eggs (one or two, whisked)
• Leeks (the top green bit, finely sliced)
• Onion (finely sliced)
• Spring onions (finely sliced)
• Japanese rice (otherwise known as sushi rice)

Dredge the schnitzel in flour, then the beaten egg and finally the panko crumbs.  Fry in hot oil until cooked.  Dry on paper towel.  Put the mirin, soy sauce and sugar in a saucepan.  You can add a bit of water if you feel you need a bit more liquid volume in the saucepan (I like a slightly lighter onion and milder taste so tend to use an equal part of water to sauce).  Put in the leek and onions and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Once the onion is translucent throw in the spring onions and then the leftover egg from the crumbing process.  Do not mix.  When the egg has set, assemble the dish.

Put cooked rice in a bowl.  Cut the schnitzel into strips and place on top.  Carefully scoop over a section of the egg and onions.  Spoon over a tiny bit of the cooking liquid.

We often add extra veges to this dish, my husband likes mushrooms with it.  I've added brocolli.

If you have leftovers I make 'rice bears' which are kind of like rice balls/ kid's sushi.  I have a wicked cute Japanese mould for this purpose.  Put a tiny drop of mirin or rice vinegar on a small amount of leftover rice.  Make the first half of the sushi ball with a space in the middle for some of the pork, egg and onion.  Cover with rice and form a ball (or make proper sushi if you like).