Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Quick Miso Salmon with Couscous

This was a quick dinner that took very little time to prepare or cook! Worked perfectly because I came home late and was  hungry/tired.

Quick Miso Salmon with Couscous

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="temporary photo here until i take my own!"][/caption]

You'll need:

Couscous (this is from the preparations on the box)
1 cup Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Couscous
2 tbs. butter
1 cup water

Miso Salmon
4 Salmon fillets
2 tbs. Miso paste
2 tbs. soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbs. hot water

Preheat your boiler and make the miso "glaze". Combine everything except the salmon and whisk well. Spread the glaze over the salmon and stick it in the boiler for about 5-10 minutes. The timing depends on how thick your salmon fillets are and how well you like your salmon cooked. Spread more glaze on it halfway through cooking. Be careful to line your sheet with some foil or something because the glaze will burn and it will be a huge hassle to clean!

So my bf works in the same building as Trader Joe's so I had him pick up some of their couscous. He picked the whole wheat small version (see sample picture here) which I ended up loving because it was filling and super easy to make. You boil one cup of water, 2 tbs butter and some salt. Then add 1 cup couscous, stir well and steam for a couple minutes. Fluff it with a fork and you're done!

Improvising part...
Now my bf loves sauce so I decided to make a lot. I used about a cup of water, kept the same 1/4 cup brown sugar, about 2-3 tbs of soy sauce and 3-4 tbs of miso paste. I threw it all in a pan and heated it up so that the brown sugar would melt and glaze. Be careful not to overheat/burn it as it was thicken up a lot from the sugar. I had some really thin salmon pieces that I felt were too thin to put with the others so i cooked those in the "soup" for a minute and they turned out excellent as well.

I placed the couscous on the plate... drizzled some extra miso glaze on it and topped with salmon. Very yummy. We ate it so fast I forgot to take pictures but will do it next time.

Monday, February 6, 2012

That's Some Spicy Meatball!

This is where I found this recipe. If it turns out well, I'm going to improvise it a little based on some delicious meatballs I had at a restaurant. But for now, I'm just following the recipe!

Horseradish Meatball Recipe

Serving size: 18

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
  • 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup chopped green onions
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
  • 1/2 pound ground pork or turkey
  • SAUCE:
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 1/2 cup chili sauce
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 teaspoon ground mustard
  • 1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce


Here's a picture of the ingredients you might not know. The bread crumbs can be any type, it doesn't matter. Hot sauce can be any type as well. I don't use hot sauce so I just got a cheap Jewel brand. Ground mustard you can find in the spice aisle. Worcestershire, chili sauce and horseradish you can find by the sauce (Was by the BBQ sauce aisle in Jewel). I used sriracha because we already have that but I think you can use whatever.

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients.
  2. Crumble meat over mixture; mix well. Shape into 1-1/2-in. balls. You want the balls to be even so that all of them are finished cooking at the same time. An easy  trick is to use a melon baller. My meatballs turned out to be around 1".
  3. Place in a greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes or until no longer pink. I'm going to change mine up a little now. This is for a SuperBowl party so I thought that was bacon worthy. I don't really think you need a greased baking pan because (a) bacon is super fatty and will produce a lot of run-off fat (b) meat is pretty fatty too so that will also produce a lot of fat and (c) if you use a non-stick or glass pan, I think you'll be fine. Anyway... I bought a package of bacon and turn them in half. Then I wrapped it around my meatball and held it there with a toothpick. Since my meatballs were smaller than the recommended size... it was a bit overcooked but it was super delicious still because of the bacon!
  4. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, combine sauce ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. I didn't like how my sauce was "chunky" from the onions so I threw it in a blender and liquified everything. I got a nice uniform color and a beautiful sauce. It was a bit spicy for me so I added another half cup of water. I also had way too much sauce leftover so I could probably cut down this sauce recipe in half next time.
  5. Add meatballs; stir gently to coat. I think I had too much sauce left because I literally just dipped these meatballs in quickly and placed them in the pan for transportation. This was more than enough coating for me and it was a big hit!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Taro Tapioca Dessert

My siblings and I were eating at an old school chinese restaurant and got all of our oldies: beef stew casserole, yang chao fried rice, soft shell crab...etc.  At the end came the taro tapioca dessert. We were super excited because Chinese restaurants used to ALWAYS serve this at the end of the meal but we never see it now. Although it was nostalgic.. it was bland and rather tasteless.

Chinese New Year is coming up and my mom wanted each of us to bring a dish so I volunteered dessert as always. So I thought I would try to make my own taro tapioca dessert. Some online recipes led me to make this!

Note: There are large taro and small ones. Sometimes I only find the small ones at the Asian market so it's a bit more difficult because you don't get much out of those. I would suggest the large one if you can find them. This one was about 8 inches tall and I got about 8 cups out of it. The recipe is just a reference since you can add more for a stronger taro flavor.



Taro Coconut Tapioca Dessert

Ingredients for small pot. You can have more tapioca pearls, taro, coconut milk, or sugar based on your preference. This just kind of gives you a reference to start with. I double/triple this recipe when I'm bringing it to a party.

  • 1/2 cup tapioca pearls
  • 2-3 cups raw taro root cut into cubes (purple looks nicer but white or purple taro works)
  • 1 (13.5-oz) can coconut milk (unsweeten)
  • 1/3 cup rock sugar
  • 1 cup water (optional)

Directions

Boil a small pot of water and add the tapioca pearls. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Cover the pan and let it stand for another 10 minutes or until most of the tapioca pearls are clear. Gently remove all excess water and run under cold water to stop the cooking process.

This is what it looks like when you first start.

This is what the pearls look like when it's close to done. The white inside gets smaller and smaller until it becomes completely clear. Stop the cooking when most of it is clear (some can still be a little bit white in the center). 

Use a larger pot and boil water. Add the raw taro root. Boil until the taro is tender and then drain the water. Mash it up like mashed potato based on your preference. I like a creamier texture so I use a puree immersion blender once I added some liquid in the next step. If you like chunks of taro, then I would suggest lightly mashing it up by hand. 

Add the coconut milk and rock sugar to the mashed taro and simmer until the sugar is completely melted. Taste it and alter it to your liking. Note that it should be a bit on the sweeter side because the tapioca will make it more bland. (I suggest getting the texture where you like because it's hard to mash/puree once the tapioca pearls are in.) For a soupier/creamier texture, I like to add a cup of water.

Add the tapioca pearls and stir. Taste it again and adjust to your liking. Serve immediately for best results. It looks like pudding once it gets cold and has a bit of a gritty feel but it goes away once you heat it back up. I like to have an extra can of coconut milk when I warm it up because I don't like to dilute the flavor too much.

Enjoy!