Korean Seafood Rice

Minnie demonstrated two Korean dishes in the Caring Place Community Kitchen. Minnie has been very active in the two community kitchens she attended and she has been sharing her Korean inheritage in both the kitchens. She is certainly a great addition to the community kitchen.

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The first dish Minnie shared with us is a Korean Seafood Rice. She told us that this dish is her specialty. The Seafood Rice is served with blanched soy bean sprouts and seasoned with a home-made sauce.

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I noticed that Minnie always brings her Korean pressure rice cooker to cook rice. The pressure rice cooker is not the regular rice cooker which most of us are familiar with. The Korean style pressure rice cooker gelatinize the rice starches more completely than other style cookers, resulting a more glutinous and marginally more nutritious cooked rice. In South Korea Cuckoo is the top-selling brand of rice cooker.

Ingredients

  • Oysters, clam, mussels, salmon, fish roe (egg), shrimps, squid, crab meat and any other shell fish
  • Soy bean sprouts
  • Sesame oil, salt & pepper

Sauce:

  • Soy sauce, sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, minced garlic, finely chopped onion or green onion, sugar, Korean red pepper powder (optional)

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Minnie used the oysters from a tub and not those with the shell on. The tub below costs $7 plus.

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Taro Noodle Soup

Julie’s second dish is a Taiwanese Taro Noodle Soup. I have never had a noodle soup with Taro. It is something new that I learnt here. The taro gives the noodle soup added textures, soft and creamy.

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This is an easy meal to prepare at home. Julie added some fish balls in her noodle soup. You may substitute the fish balls with other meatballs like beef, chicken, squid, pork, etc.

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Ingredients

  • 1 large piece of Taro, peeled and cut to bite-size
  • 1 packet of vermicelli noodle
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • fish balls
  • lettuce, thinly sliced
  • a can chicken stock

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Fried Salmon Fillet

Once again, Julie shared in the South Arm Community Kitchen. Julie told us that when Vanessa called her on Monday for her help, she could’nt sleep that night as she was worrying of what to demonstrate in the cooking club. She is such a good friend to Vanessa that she would not say no to her.

As she was doing her rounds for the ingredients for her demonstration, she met a friend who works in a fish processing factory. This friend of her offered her some salmon fillets from her work place. That’s when Julie got her inspiration of her dish, which is Fried Salmon Fillet.

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The Salmon Fillet is crisp and goes great with the home made salad dressing. The salad dressing is made with egg yolk, sugar, vinegar and olive oil. (more…)

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Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake (Poot Jei Gou)

Heidi also made a dessert which is Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake. It is normally known as ‘Poot Jai Gou’ in Cantonese which simply means ‘dessert in a little bowl’. This is because the rice cake is steamed in small bowls. You can use bowl made in clay, porcelain, aluminum, etc. It does not matter, you just need bowls or else you cannot call this ‘Poot Jai Gou’. 🙂

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The Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake is very easy to make but requires a lot of time in preparing the red bean. The red bean has to be soaked in water at least two hours (preferably overnight) and steamed for at least 40 minutes. This is to make sure they are softened but not mushy. To sweeten the red bean, add 1 oz of granulated sugar after it is softened. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of red bean.

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Steamed Rice Cake is a popular snack Malaysia, found commonly in open air markets. However, those found on Malaysian market they are salty types and with topping made from salted radish. Anyone has a recipe for this?

Heidi made the sweet version of the rice cake. She made two different flavours — which is coconut milk and cane sugar flavour. The photo below is the cane sugar version.

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Ingredients

  • 320g rice flour
  • 300g cane sugar (slab sugar) or 300g of granulated sugar for the coconut milk flavour version
  • 960g (4 1/2 cups) water
  • 1 tablespoon tapioca starch
  • 1 tablespoon wheat starch
  • 1 packet of instant coconut cream powder (50g) for the coconut milk flavour version only

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Taiwanese Style Minced Pork

This is the 100th entry for the community kitchen, It’s been more than a year since I joined the community kitchen. It is a great place to learn new recipes from different cultures and meet new friends. I would like to thank all who had shared their recipes and extended their friendship.

Heidi shared a few dishes at the Gilmore Park Church community kitchen. She made this Taiwanese Style Minced Pork to go with rice. The sauce from this dish is just great to go with rice. Kids will surely love this dish as its easy for them to chew on unlike dishes with big pieces of meat.

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She also brought some Soy Egg and Thai Style Pickled Cucumber which she prepared from home to go complement the Taiwanese Style Minced Pork.

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The Soy Egg is cooked in soy sauce, sugar, water and sometimes with the addition of herbs and spices. This can be eaten as a snack.

Here is the recipe for the Taiwanese Style Minced Pork.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 lbs minced pork
  • 6 pieces dried shiitake mushroom, soak well and finely chopped
  • 4 pieces of shallots, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of finely chopped ginger
  • 10g rock sugar
  • 2 oz soy sauce paste
  • 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon rice wine
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon five spice powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
  • 2 pieces bay leaves
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 small piece dried orange peel
  • 1 medium pieces of dried Buddha’s fruit (Loh Han Guo), about 1/2 of a fruit. *
  • 1 cup water

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* Buddha’s fruit is a natural sweetener. The fruit is cooling in nature and can be used as a remedy for sun stroke. It is also used as a remedy for cough and removal of phlegm.

I love Buddha’s fruit dessert soup which has sea coconut and dried longan in it.

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Lasagne

You all know I did not get to go to Europe with Ben. 🙁 Despite that, I enjoyed reading his blog entries and I felt like I’m with him on the journey. Well, I had a good break from blogging for a month and now the baton is back to me.

Minoo made Lasagne in the Caring Place community kitchen. Lasagne is the name of the pasta sheet and also the name of the dish made with alternate layers of pasta sheets, cheese and meat sauce (also known as ragu). The pasta sheets are often rippled in North America and other countries but seldom in Italy, the place where Lasagne originated.

You may double the recipe below to make two trays and freeze one of it for a convenient meal later when you do not have the time to cook.

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Lasagne is also great for potluck and is always a popular dish that leaves an empty tray. Kids will love this cheesy dish.

Ingredients

Meat sauce:

  • 1/2 lb hamburger (ground beef)
  • 3/4 to 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 3 cups tomato sauce
  • 2 cups tomato paste
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • dash of black pepper or more if you preferred
  • 2 tablespoons chopped parsley (or 1 tablespoon dried parsley)
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried oregano

Cheese sauce:

  • 2 cups cottage cheese
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 tablespoons chopped parsley

Other ingredients:

  • 8 oz lasagne noodles
  • 1 lb Mozzarella cheese, grated

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One little tip on the Lasagne noodle is to get the oven ready ones so that you dont have to pre-cook the noodle, less hassle.

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Korean Bulgogi

Minnie demonstrated four dishes in the Gilmore Park Church community kitchen. She made Korean Bulgogi, Radish Salad, Green Salad and Korean Rice.

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The Korean Bulgogi is very easy to make and it goes well with rice. Minnie did not have the exact measurement of her ingredients. She goes by taste along the way.

Ingredients

  • Marbled beef, thinly sliced
  • Shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted and sliced
  • Wood-ear mushrooms, reconstituted and sliced
  • Onion, sliced
  • Green onions, cut into 1 inch length
  • Carrot, sliced into match stick size

Marinates

  • Soy sauce
  • Sesame oil
  • Sugar
  • Ginger powder
  • Black pepper
  • Chopped garlic

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