Simple Japanese Meal

It’s my turn to cook yesterday and Japanese was on the menu - a three course meal to be precise. Very minimal preparation and easy to cook. I’ve included the recipe below.

Soup - Miso Soup

Entrée - Garlic Butter Fried Rice

Mains – Beef & Chicken Teppanyaki in Creamy Garlic Sauce

Recipes:

Garlic Butter Fried Rice

Ingredients
2 cups of rice.
5-6 cloves of garlic, sliced or chopped.
2 eggs.
Loads of butter.
Light Soy Sauce.
Spring Onion.
Salt & Pepper to taste.

Method

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium high heat. Beat egg lightly and scramble. Set aside.
In the same pan, throw in butter and garlic. Stir.
Add rice, salt, pepper and egg. Keep stirring, breaking up the rice in the pan.
Serve hot, topped with crispy fried shallot.

Mixed Meat Teppanyaki

Ingredients (for marinate)
Chicken & Beef, cut thinly
2 tbps of Ginger
2/3 clove of Garlic
Light Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
Salt, Pepper & Sugar, to taste

Put aside some of the marinade for the creamy garlic sauce. Mix the rest of the marinade together and split into 2 bowls (one for each meat). Leave for at least 1 hour before grilling.

Ingredients (Creamy Garlic Sauce)
Thicken Cream.
Mayonnaise.
Dijon Mustard.
Garlic - Crushed/Minced.
Salt & Pepper to taste.
Left over of the marinate.

Kanpai Japanese Restaurant, Chapel Street

Ramadan has reached its half way point. Felt like it was just recently that we start this holy month. We had our Iftar at Kanpai Japanese Rstaurant at Chapel St. with Nis and Luke yesterday. I’ve heard of this place before from friends but didn’t have the opportunity to try it before. As it was near my office, there was no rush getting there. The weather was not the best with the rain and wind doing its best to dampen the mood.

This small yet pleasant restaurant is located at the end of Chapel Street (close to Toorak Road). At first look, nothing special and the place is not as fancy as the other eateries located at this trendy area. The atmosphere was pretty good and service was adequate. To start, we’ve ordered the Miso Soup,  Unagi Maki (mini eel sushi roll) and the Entrée Tempura (prawn, fish & vege). The tempura was crispy and I was happy with the portion size. The same can’t be said about the sushi as what was on the plate was this tiny little roll which you can hardly taste the filling. Quite a disappointment.

On to the mains, it was the Meat Teppanyaki & Mixed Teppanyaki as this is what the restaurant is known for. The grilled meat, seafood and vegies are topped with creamy garlic sauce is quite yummy to say the least. The 4 of us shared this and it didn’t take us that long to finish this off. The mains were tasty and the portion was acceptable.

It was a decent dinner experience but I was hungry by the time we reached home. It was pricey for amount of food that was served and sadly it was not the best Japanese I had in Melbourne. Would not be rushing back there anytime soon but do try the Teppanyaki  if you’re there.


p/s: Sorry for the limited images posted. Was too hungry to bother with the camera :)

The Menu

Dina a.k.a. The Mrs

Japanese Salad

Very small Unagi Maki ($8.00)

Teppanyaki ($18.00); what's left of it :)

Teppanyaki - image courtesy of Kanpai Website.

Kanpai
South Yarra/Toorak
569 Chapel St
South Yarra, 3141
(03) 9827 4379
www.kanpai.com.au

Fasting & Nis's Birthday @ Fish Seafood Grill Restaurant, Docklands

It’s been a while since my last blog. Been really busy and was being my usual lazy self. Well, here it goes. It’s Ramadan again and I’m celebrating it as a married man for the first time this year; so no more rushing back from the office to cook for my Iftar...hehe.  1 week down and I’ve only cooked once this time as Dina’s been cooking all the meal. Our menu ranged from pasta to soup but carbs/rice seems to be the regular selection.

We went out for a change yesterday to celebrate my sister’s birthday. Email was going back and forth for most of the Monday to decide where she’d wanted to go for dinner which doesn’t help the tummy during the fasting month. It was decided that the venue would be ‘Fish Seafood Grill’ at Docklands for the 5 of us.  The menu looks good and review was mostly favourable. I was also interested to try their ‘state of the art’ rotisserie oven where the fish/steak cooks at a scorching 500 degrees Celsius (930°F) slow rotation to seal in the flavour and natural moisture of the fish while melting away the fats; resulting in a succulent fish that’s reduced in fat, cooked to perfection and bursting with flavour.

Wife and I arrived first and ordered some garlic and herb bread to break the fast while waiting for the rest to turn up. A quick view of the menu and we all decided to go for the ‘Rotisserie Special’ where you can select a main from the Rotisserie menu and you can match it with a share plate or/and dessert of your choice for a very special price. It’s a nice way to share the meal as we each can select something from the menu to sample. Below was what we’ve ordered:

Plates to Share/ Appetizer

½ dozen natural oyster with three dipping sauces
Sizzling pot of prawns & seafood in a light garlic tomato broth
Salt and pepper calamari with tomato, eggplant and lime compote
Char grilled octopus, with kipfler potato and lemon
Seafood cocktail
Baked Peri Peri meatballs with salsa cruda

Mains from the Rotisserie (served on sizzling plates with 3 accompaniments)

Atlantic Tassal salmon
Blue eye
North Queensland saltwater barramundi
MSA Porterhouse steak 280gm

Dessert

Hot chocolate molten pudding served with vanilla ice cream and rich chocolate sauce
Lemon lime tart with raspberry sauce and chocolate ice cream
Baked blueberry cheesecake with double cream and fresh fruit coulis

Overall, the food was nice but it took quite a while to get to the table at times. The seafood cocktail was a bit bland and unfortunately some of dishes are not as warm as I would prefer it to be. This being said majority of the meal are tasty and enjoyable. As for the service, I would rate is as ok as it could have been slightly better. 2 or 3 people to serve a restaurant are not nearly enough. The ‘Rotisserie Special’ was a great way to go as the whole meal cost about $50 per head – mind you we are talking about seafood restaurant and plenty of appetizer and also dessert. With a full tummy and pleasant evening, it was a great night out. I wouldn’t mind going back.

 Fish Grill

The Menu

Us

The 3 Amigos

Fab 5ive

 Oyster with three dipping sauces

Seafood Cocktail

Sizzling pot of prawns & seafood in a light garlic tomato broth

Salt and pepper calamari with tomato, eggplant and lime compote

From the Rotisserie - North Queensland saltwater barramundi

Baked blueberry cheesecake with double cream and fresh fruit coulis

Lemon lime tart with raspberry sauce and chocolate ice cream

Hot chocolate molten pudding served with vanilla ice cream and rich chocolate sauce

Seafood Feast

Weekend is here again and it’s time for our ritual butcher and market day. We do this every 2 weeks and purchase enough meat, chicken, veges and fruits to last us till the next trip. I was in mood for seafood and have few dishes in mind already; Chilli Crab, Grilled Fish and Steamed Cockles.

After a quick trip to the butcher, it’s off to Victoria Market for my fresh produce. We managed to get the fish easily but only 1 store sells the crab this time around & we are out of luck with cockles. I not even sure if this is readily accessible but I wasn’t overly disappointed. I was surprise that 4 sand crabs and 2 medium size trout cost us less than $20. It would have cost us a fortune to have this at the restaurant. Very happy indeed.

Cooking Time… First we need to clean the fish and cut the crab to pieces. It’s the first time that I’m gutting the fish myself and I did myself proud.  It wasn’t too bad actually and it helps that the fish was quite small. I’ve included some pictures of this.

That’s the hard part done. Now let’s grill the fish. This is a Greek style recipe which is very simple but oh so delicious. Here’s the ingredients and recipe:

Grilled Trout
Ingredients:

• 2 trout.
• 1 tablespoons fresh parsley.
• 2 tablespoons olive oil.
• Juice from 1 lemon.
• Salt & teaspoon black pepper to taste.
• Coriander to garnish.

Method:
Lightly salt the interior and exterior of whole fish. Mix together parsley, olive oil and lemon juice. Spread evenly on the inside of the fish. Cover and refrigerate to infuse the marinate. Preheat the grill. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper for extra seasoning and grill for 4-5 minutes on each side over a medium heat. Carefully remove the fish from grill and serve. For the sauce, use the left-over from marinade and add few cloves of pounded garlic and heat it on stove for a minute and toss on top of the grill fish and that’s it. Yummy yum yum.

It's time for the chilli crab now. This recipe is from Alex Lee that was on SBS’s Food Safari (click here for the video). We’ve used sand crab instead of mud crab for this recipe but the rest was exactly the same. It terms of difficulty, I would rate it easy to medium as it does need a slight finesse to make sure the crab is nicely coated.

Chilli Crab
Ingredients:

• Crab, well washed and chopped into sections

• 2 brown onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 
8 red chillies
Belacan, thumb size piece

• ½ tbsp vinegar

• 6 tbsp oil

• 1 tbsp tomato paste

• 400ml tomato puree

• 2 tbsp tomato sauce

• 4 tbsp light soy sauce

• ½ tsp salt
4 tbsp sugar
• 
Water

• 1 egg
• 
Coriander leaves, to garnish

Method:

• Blend onions and chillies in a food processor for 30 seconds.
• Heat oil in a wok and add onion and chilli paste.
• Add belacan and continue to cook until most of the liquid from the onions evaporates.
• Add vinegar, tomato puree, tomato paste, sugar and salt.
• Add tomato sauce and light soy sauce.
• Add crab pieces and continue to cook over high heat until shell turns red.
Add egg and stir through gently.
Garnish with fresh coriander leaves.

The food is ready, what else to do but enjoy this sumptuous feast. Food taste better when you cook with joy and this is so true. 2 dishes eaten simply with a side of jasmine rice for less than $20 ; happy days indeed. Licking my finger clean and can't wait for the next time we do this again.

Sizzling Noodle

It’s raining outside and feeling the chill inside the house.  Something warm is in order for lunch. As we had bought Hokkien noodle and dried shitake mushroom during our day trip to South Melbourne and the city yesterday, Sizzling Noodle sounds very appetizing.

The recipe (attached below) is simple and the ingredients are easily accessible from Coles (with the exception of 1 or 2 items that you might need to get from Asian grocer). As we don’t have the sizzling plate to make it fully authentic meal, we only use the base recipe and serve it on a bowl. To the kitchen we go; with my wife cooking with me hovering behind taking some pictures. Well, hope you guys will enjoy this.

Ingredients:

·      200g Hokkien Noodle/egg noodles
·      200g boneless chicken pieces
·      Shitake Mushroom, soaked & cut into chunks
·      5/6 Dried Chillies
·      1 carrot, cut into medium pieces
·      Bok Choy
·      Seasoning:
        -   2 tbsp Ginger
        -   1 tbsp oyster sauce
        -   1 tbsp light soya sauce
        -   Salt to taste
        -   1/4 tsp sugar
        -   tsp pepper
        -   1/2 tsp chicken stock granules (optional flavouring)
·      2 tbsp  oil
·      1 tsp sesame oil
·      2 cups water or stock
·      Egg (optional)

Method

Scald the noodles in boiling water for few minutes. Remove once soft. Add 1/2 tsp sesame oil & mix thoroughly and leave aside.

Heat the pan with 2 tbsp oil, and sauté the ginger and the dried chilli until fragrance. Add the chicken to the pan and brown. Add the water and carrot. Cover to simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Once the carrot is soften, add the mushrooms and Bak Choy; stir-fry well. Add seasoning, the rest of the sesame oil and stir. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5-10 minutes to thicken the sauce.

This is what you would normally do if serving with hot plate:
Heat a hot plate over the stove until it is really hot. Remove from heat and place on a wooden base. Serve the noodles on hot plate and pour sauce over immediately. Noodles and sauce will start sizzling. Break the egg if you wish to add the extra touch. Garnish with sliced cut chillies or cilipadi if you like some extra heat.

Our tweak:
We add the noodle to pan and mix the sauce to coat . Serve on the plate or bowl with cut chilli as garnish.

The Ingridients

 The cook at work

 The End Result...Yumm Yumm