Korean Tofu Pancake

Lan is a young Korean lady who is relatively new to our Richmond Cooking Club. She made two Korean dishes in the recent cooking club meeting. She made a Korean Tofu Pancake and a Korean Spicy Pork. It is great to learn from other cultures. We had a marvelous time.

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The Korean Tofu Pancake is a vegetarian dish. It is loaded with oyster mushrooms, chives and green onions.

Ingredients

  • a package of firm tofu, mashed and drain
  • a package of fresh oyster mushroom, cut into small pieces.
  • a bunch of chives, finely chopped
  • half of a sweet red pepper, finely diced
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • flour for coating

Just ignore the carrots as there is a mix up while I photographed the ingredients for the dish.

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Vegetable Pancake

Minoo made a Vegetable Pancake in her cooking class at the Caring Place. If you have problems getting your kids to eat vegetables, like mine, the Vegetable Pancake is a good way to get them to eat it. This pancake is crispy which somehow camouflages the vegetables in it.

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The tuna topping gives the Vegetable Pancake an extra edge. I think it’s a brilliant idea Minoo had of the tuna topping. I can imagine how rather ho-hum this would be without this extra topping.

Ingredients

  • 2 potatoes peeled
  • 1 onion peeled
  • 2 carrots peeled
  • 1 cup Biscuit or pancake flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dry or fresh herbs like rosemary, thymes, sage (optional)
  • oil for frying

Toppings

  • Mix a can of fish (salmon/tuna/sardines) with some mayonnaise and green onions (optional)
  • Crush a can of beans (chickpea/navy beans/kidney beans) and add 1 tablespoon of oil and 1-2 teaspoons of chopped garlic

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Swiss Pork Chop and Pancakes

Tanni was the demonstrator in this week’s cooking club at Gilmore Park Church. She made a fabulous Swiss Pork Chop and 2 different types of pancakes.

Regretfully, I did not have my camera with me as Ben brought it to work today. I managed to borrow a point and shoot digital camera from a good friend of mine, Rachel for the cooking class. Unfortunately, being unfamiliar with the camera, most of the photos did not turn out ok. So, I’ll try my best to illustrate today’s recipes with the few photos that I had.

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Ingredients for the Swiss Pork Chop

  • Centre cut boneless pork chop, butterfly and pound thin with a tenderizer hammer
  • Ham slices
  • Cheese slices
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Flour
  • Eggs
  • Breadcrumbs

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Instructions for the Swiss Pork Chop

  • Marinate the pork chop with salt and pepper for 30 minutes
  • Place cheese and ham slice in between the pork

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  • Coat the pork chop with flour, dip in beaten eggs and coat with bread crumbs

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  • Deep fry the pork chop in shallow oil for 3 minutes on each side until cooked.

This is a great recipe that kids would love. The melted cheese oozes out from the pork chop and the pork chop tasted really good. We all love this dish. (more…)

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Okonomiyaki

I don’t why but I simply like the word okonomiyaki. That’s six syllables and must be the longest single word I know in the Japanese language, not that I know many Japanese word.

Okonomiyaki is a popular Japanese dish developed from an Edo era snack. We first tasted Okonomiyaki when we were living in Kuala Lumpur where there is one and only one okonomiyaki place in Cheras. In Vancouver, we recalled the wonderfully delicious okonomiyaki that Yumiko made. We told ourselves we would try to make it one day and here it is … my first attempt on making Okonomiyaki. I know this is not as authentic as some of you make it — so don’t laugh at my humble attempt. Tell me how different you make it, give me your tips … anything.

These days, Japanese add all kinds of their favorite ingredients to create the style of Okonomiyaki that is a popular, nutritious and fun meal.

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Okonomi means “what you like”, or “what you want” and yaki means “grilled” or “cook” in Japanese, so this dish’s name means “cook what you like, the way you like”.

Ingredients

I bought this Otafuku Okonomiyaki kit from T&T Supermarket for $3.99. The kit is made up of a packet of yam powder, a packet of Okonomiyaki Batter Mix, a packet of Tenka Tempura Crisps and 2 sachets of Saweed (Aonori). The kit also comes with the instruction on how to make Okonomiyaki in three languages, i.e. Japanese, Chinese and English.

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I also bought the Japanese mayonnaise and Otafuku Okonomi sause for serving with the Okonomiyaki. I was told that we MUST use Japanese mayonnaise and not just any western mayo.

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The ingredients I had for making Okonomiyaki consists of:

  • 2 eggs
  • prawns
  • bacons
  • cabbage, thinly sliced
  • green onions, finely chopped

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Japanese Cabbage Pancake

For this week’s cooking club, Tammi also showed us how to make a Japanese Cabbage Pancake. This seems like a simplified version of Okonomiyaki that Yumiko made. Yumiko’s Okonomiyaki was awesome and had a lot more ingredients. Tammi uses prawns and cabbage — a simpler version but much more quicker to make.

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Ingredients

There are only 5 ingredients in this recipe:

  • 1/3 piece of a small cabbage
  • 6-7 pieces of prawns
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 3 tablespoons water
  • 4 eggs
  • salt and pepper

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You may substitute the prawns with mushrooms, green onion, peppers or carrot if you prefer a vegetarian pancake. For those who prefer other meat can also substitute the prawns with diced ham, diced cooked chicken, bacon, cheese, etc. (more…)

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Korean Style BBQ Beef on Dried Shrimp Pancake

When the big fish fight the shrimps must lie low.
~ Creole Proverb

The Richmond Community Kitchen, coincidentally, showed Korean BBQ beef for the session this week. The lesson today was led by Tanni Lee. I like Tanni because she is soooo cheerful and have a smile all the time for everyone.

Tanni made two separate dishes that complements each other. The Korean Style BBQ Beef goes very well with the dried shrimp pancake. For garnishing, she used kiwi fruit. She also used the kiwi fruit juice to marinate and tenderize the beef.

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Korean Style BBQ Beef

Ingredients:

  • 1.5 lb Beef
  • 1.5 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 tablespoon kiwi juice
  • 1.5 tablespoon green onions
  • 2.5 tablespoon korean soya sauce
  • 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
  • 1/2 tablespoon chopped ginger
  • 2 teaspoon dark soy
  • 1.5 tablespoon sesame oil

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Korean Pancake

He who goes to bed hungry dreams of pancakes.
~ Maltese Proverb

I prepared Korean Pancakes for a light dinner tonight. It is a batter with vegetables and meat. For meat, I used luncheon meat.

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Pancakes are apparently popular in the Korean culture. There are many types but the one I prepared tonight is the vegetable pancake. The pancake mix costs about $2-$3. Other ingredients used are carrot, suey choy, cilantro and luncheon meat. You may substitute the luncheon meat with other meat like prawns, baby oysters, etc.

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