This week seems to be goo week 🤣 But thankfully it‘s been uphill since Monday’s frightful rice with lentils.

Yesterday I made another dish from a new to me European (German to be precise) recipe and afterwards I was wondering how this recipe made it into the supermarket’s collection at all. It was like something inexperienced me would have come up with about 30 years ago and while it was better than what we had on Monday, it was still just gloopy: potato pasta (Schupfnudeln) with a tomato cream and mozzarella sauce, all very sticky. I know there are people who love this kind of thing and my guys ate this quite happily - but devouring a lot of Asian food for decades has definitely changed my idea of how to eat things. It was the roquette that saved this dish.

Today we had Asian style gloop (fried Japanese rice with sauces mixed in) but also some nice broccolini and mini oyster mushrooms - and somehow this was a million miles better, so here some recipes:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/c6zbw97m9p/chinese-style-fried-rice-with-mu-err-mus/
https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-broccoli-with-oyster-sauce/

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Last week we had Okonomiyaki, Japanese pancakes with mixed in cabbage and whichever topping you like - or in our case whatever *I* feel like cooking 🧑🏼‍🍳

For these I used a pre-made gluten-free and vegan rice flour mix that I had got from Kokorocares.com quite a while ago but ignored for too long. The batter was good and was supposed to yield four small pancakes. I used it to make three medium sized pancakes and with all the toppings (bacon, Pak Choi, mini king oyster mushrooms) this was a good meal for the three of us (the hungry child eating the biggest one 😏).

Usually you get to see photos with Okonomiyaki pancakes smothered in lots and lots of mayonnaise and Okonomiyaki sauce. I personally prefer them with a little less mayonnaise and sauce to be able to see and taste the toppings. My Okonomiyaki sauce is also a bit heavier on the tomato side of things than the shop bought one; it came from a recipe that was supposed to be from a Japanese lady running a cooking class, so I guess it’s like with all home cooking, recipes differ from family to family.

https://www.copymethat.com/r/pEpliyv0c/okonomiyaki-pancakes/

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On the weekend my husband and I made one of our favourites, Japanese Hamburger Steaks (ハンバーグ) with homemade Hayashi sauce (a red wine sauce). The sauce alone is a dream. I always cut up some vegetables (carrots and/or parsnips) to be cooked with the sauce, so yum!

Fun fact: today I saw in a video that you can replace red wine in food with strong black tea (for the tannins) and a teaspoon of distilled white vinegar (for the acidity). Maybe I should try that one day.

https://www.justonecookbook.com/hamburger-steak-hambagu/

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My tastebuds are ruined for certain European dishes. Yesterday I cooked a dish with rice, brown lentils, aubergine, fennel and cashew nuts from a recipe that sounded nice - and it turned into a gooey mess that didn’t even have enough water for the rice to cook through! On top of that it was severely lacking in the taste department despite using curry powder, paprika, cinnamon, fresh minced garlic and lemon juice as per the recipe. At least it still looked somewhat appealing with the cherry tomatoes and the chopped herbs. We made the best of it by applying hot sauce.

Half of it was leftover but there were no more tomatoes, so I decided to turn this thing into a biryani style rice dish. On a whim I mixed in tandoori powder, cayenne pepper and natural yogurt, heated it up once more and then stored it overnight on our ice cold balcony. Today we ate it (again with chopped herbs and hot sauces) and the overall taste profile was much, much better.

I’m not going to link to the recipe 😅 If I ever feel like trying this one again, I’ll cook the rice separately and make my own recipe out of it, the basic ingredients were fine.

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Free-style frittata

I think my child forgot about one of his all-time favourite dishes when he wrote me a list for MY birthday with dishes that HE would like to eat again - but I know about this one anyway 😇

This one takes a fair amount of preparation and baking time but it’s always so worth it!

https://www.copymethat.com/r/ZFsWet3Ol/frittata-with-tomatoes-peppers-and-feta-/

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Behold the feta henge

Tomato rice can be a fulfilling meal by itself but it’s also nice to have some sides, like quick dressed feta and maybe fish (today) or Cevapcici (yesterday). A piece of friable cheese like Halloumi is also a good addition. A little Ajvar or any other spicy condiment will go well with the rice too, ours was Sambal Oelek and a homemade chilli paste that we got from a friend.

The sole fillets were bought already breaded as I simply could not find any “naked” sole fillets. Since we don’t have the weekly fish stall anymore, our range of available fresh fish has shrunk considerably and usually I have to buy frozen fish when I’m looking for something beyond salmon fillets.

The ready made Cevapcici were made of chicken; we wanted to try them out but they just weren’t the real deal 🥴

The tomato rice held it all together:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/dk6kd5p9re/tomato-rice/

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Spicy Urad Dal

One from earlier this week. Urad dal are black lentils that have been split and skinned. They are also known as Urid dal. We hadn’t eaten this dish from Vegan Richa in a while and it was just as good as I remembered. The roquette leaves on top don’t belong to the recipe but went surprisingly well with the whole thing.

https://www.veganricha.com/spicy-urad-dal/

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Rice with pork and pepper stir-fry

Today‘s mostly Chinese style meal with inspiration by the Woks of Life was a compilation of all of these:

🥢 Pork and pepper stir-fry
https://thewoksoflife.com/pork-pepper-stir-fry/

🥢 Cabbage salad (but without fried potatoes and spring onions)
https://thewoksoflife.com/red-cabbage-salad-w-crispy-scallions-potato-sticks/

🥢 Quick pickled daikon slices
https://www.copymethat.com/r/celxlydq0v/quick-pickled-daikon-slices/

🥢 Rice with ground sesame seeds as furikake

All of this on its own was pretty easy but of course it took some time, creating so many dishes one after the other. But the work was definitely worth it 😋

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Pasta alla Puttanesca

Last week I bought a fancy pasta called Tripoline No 81. I had seen this shape before on photos and read that it was great for holding sauces, and after trying it out today I can attest that this is definitely true. My pasta was from Rummo which has a good reputation as a pasta manufacturer but other brands are obviously available.

I tried them with an easy Puttanesca recipe which I love because it’s so flavourful. Mind you next time I’ll be a bit more careful on the dried chillies 😅

https://www.copymethat.com/r/Qhs90aKcm/udon-alla-puttanesca/

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What a day this was! I woke up at 4 am and was soon completely awake as I remembered that my child needed to go to uni this morning - through the forecast snow storm. Due to growing up in the UK he has not much experience with how cold it can be here in Germany and was originally planning to cycle 10 km, some of it through countryside with nobody else around. I knew I had to convince him to try the public transport system as the real feel temperature was supposed to be -13°C and it would be tough to cycle through the fresh snow that kept falling. There were already about 10 cm of snow at that time. When he got up I talked to him. He agreed as it was still snowing heavily. We checked and the bus was going. He changed to a tram later but that one got stuck because of a truck blocking the tracks, so he walked the remainder, about 20 minutes (he’s a fast walker). On the way home he had to walk again for a bit but got home without much trouble on the trams. I was so relieved when he was finally back again!

Despite being very tired from all of that I managed to cook a decent meal. It was easy, the rice was done by the rice cooker, the fish came from cans and the vegetable dishes didn’t take much effort at all. The daikon radish was quickly pickled. The spinach and the Pak Choi only needed blanching and a sauce each. The mushrooms were fried and seasoned with a little mentsuyu, some sake and a chilli sauce. A good meal helps a lot when you are frazzled 😅 but it all went on one plate today.

Recipes used:
Sauce for the Pak Choi: https://www.copymethat.com/r/q0ym1vclwi/aromatic-sauce-for-vegetables/
https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-with-sesame-miso-sauce/
https://www.copymethat.com/r/celxlydq0v/quick-pickled-daikon-slices/

#Mastonom #HomeCooking #Cooking #MainMeal #MyDinner #JapaneseFood #FusionKitchen #Food #Flexitarian #30PlantsAWeek #SylkewebFood #SylkewebFood202601 #Sylkeweb202601