Somen Noodles with Bacon Topping

The somen get a little color from oyster sauce and a bit of tamari.

A quick dinner after a long day does not need to be fancyful. Just tasty.

Somen noodles are from Japan. They are very thin wheat noodles and they cook very fast. After draining them, they need to be washed under running cold water. That makes them bouncy.

I had a bacon package sitting in the fridge. It was over the expiration date for 2 weeks. But use your senses and look and smell, the bacon still was fine.

With a teaspoon of oil I rendered the fat from the bacon to get it crispy and added 3 chopped garlic cloves.

The fat stayed in the pan. Only bacon and garlic went on top of the somen noodles.

A mix of oyster and tamari soy sauce was added and some fresh chives.

 

Potato Salad with Ranch Dressing and Pork Steak

Homemade Ranch dressing does not last long in the fridge. There are no additives in to prolong shelf life.

I wanted to use up the last potatoes in my bag and looked for an easy way. Potato salad is ond of them.

No need to wait for cold potatoes, just cook them and add them to any other ingredients and sauce you like.

Warm potatoes soak up the dressing a lot better than cold ones, so do a little more dressing to keep the salad smooth.

From yesterdays Turkish white bean salad I had some grilled bell peppers left in the jar. Together with a spring onion and fresh parsley they were the best company for the potatoes.

I loosened the Ranch dressing with a little light vinegar and salt and pepper. No more enhancement needed.

Ingredients:

5 medium small potatoes

1 spring onion

2 grilled red bell peppers from a jar

3 stems fresh parsley

2 tbsp light white vinegar

1/4 cup Ranch dressing

Salt and pepper

I served the potato salad with Hong Kong Streetfood style Pork Neck Steak (recipe on the blog)

 

White Bean Salad or Bombay Fasulye Piyszı

A very tasty bean salad from Turkey and it is vegan.

My problem was where to get Bombay beans. The large Turkish supermarket did not had any and I asked one of the staff, but they could not help me.

The photo in the food magazine issue showed medium sized white beans. There was a variety to choose from.

All other ingredients were already at home. It is a good salad to take to a foodie gathering, not only vegans will like it.

Recipe for 3 :

1 can white medium size beans

1 green onion

3 soft dried tomatoes

3 roasted red bell peppers from a jar 

3 tbsp chopped parsley

1/2 lemon juiced

2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

3 tsp tahin

3 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Chop the green onion very fine and drain the beans. Cut up the dried tomatoes in tiny cubes and chop the bell peppers. Get everything together and check if there is enough lemon juice and salt added.

Serve as a side or with meat or just with piede.

Biscoff Ice Cream

Everything Biscoff (Lotus) is the new trend since last year. I found some ice cream in the supermarket freezer and had to give it a try.

There were 2 choices. Sandwiched ice cream between the famous cookies or on a stick like a Magnum. I choose the sandwich. 

4 tiny sandwiches in a package for €3,97.  They were good, but too sweet due to the 2 cookies.

Then I started my search on foodwebsites. The sandwich recipes popped up first. No big deal to make. But I looked further and found a regular ice cream with Biscoff.

Even easier to prepare.

Recipe for 6:

200 ml double cream

1 pack cream stabilizer

1 can sweetened condensed milk

100 g Biscoff cream - crunchy

5 biscuits and some for decoration

Warm up the Biscoff cream a little in the microwave. Beat the cream with the stabilizer to soft peaks.

Pour in the condensed milk and the Biscoff and fold that in. Crush the biscuits and add them. Fill in a large loaftin or in smaller containers, put a biscuit on top and freezer over night.

Sushi the lazy way

I cooked a larger amount of Japanese short grain rice and saved and treated it with salt, sugar and rice vinegar.

Later I thought about making onigiri or sushi rolls, but I was so lazy. On the Internet I watched some people combining all ingredients with the rice, wrap that in Noori or set it on top of Noori and called it a day.

I had to give that a try. But first a Japanese omelet, this time in a round pan. I wanted a flat one, not the pillow kind out of the small rectangular pan. Worked fine. It is a little sweet, I used Mirin to loosen the eggs a bit.

Then the ingredients were cut in small pieces and the tuna drained and loosened. The amount of soy sauce and Mirin to your preference.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked Sushi rice

Salt, sugar, rice vinegar

1 can tuna fish

2 snack cucumbers

2 eggs

2 tbsp Mirin

1/2 cup Kewie mayo

Oil

Soy sauce

Sesame seeds

Noori sheets

Salt and pepper 

Wrap a ball in a piece of Noori or press it in a smaller bowl and upend it on a Noori. 

Asparagus in creamy Cheese Sauce

Topped with more

 cheese and baked in the oven.

I had a bunch of hard cheeses left in the fridge. Not much from one kind, but many kinds in small sizes. They were blocking my cheese shelf and needed to go.

The white gold - asparagus - is sold in huts all over the place here. I bought a kilo. After peeling it, I took the washed peel and bottom pieces and threw them in a pot with salted water. They cooked for 20 minutes. I kept the stock for the cheese sauce and the pot too.

The asparsgus went in the steamer on top of my Thermomix. Then drained and cleaned the thermomix.

I put all bits and pieces of cheese in the Thermomix to make a homogenous mountain of shredded cheese.

The base of the sauce is a roux. Butter, flour, a little milk and lots of asparagus stock. Seasoned with salt and white pepper. Dumped the ground cheese in and a couple of spoons full of cream cheese. Since the cheeses had intense flavour, no more seasoning was needed.

The bottom of an oven proof dish was given some sauce, the asparagus on top and covered with the cheese sauce. 

I can never have enough cheese, grated Gouda went on top and the dish baked in the oven at 180 C fan for 20 min.

I served it with some potatoes and parsley.

Ingredients:

1 kg white asparagus

3 tbsp butter+ 3 tbsp flour

125 ml milk

400 ml asparsgus stock

Salt+ white pepper

Pecorino, Grana Padano, Parmesan, old hard sheep cheese, cream cheese

Parsley

Potatoes

Chicken Tenders with Ranch Dip

I've made the Ranch dip yesterday to serve with the fried chicken tenders.

I bought a package of 600 g chicken breast, that were 3 halves. I butterflied them to make them thinner and then cut them up in strips. 

They were only seasoned with salt and pepper and coated in flour. The final seasoning was on the eggmixture. 600 g chicken were too much for my airfryer. Deep frying them was a better choice and I could reuse some of the frying oil I kept in a bottle.

I wanted to use Panko as the final coating, but did not had enough for the amount of chicken pieces. I added regular breadcrumbs, sesame seeds and 3 hands full of crushed cornflakes.

2 eggs and a good gluck of milk were the base of the wet mix. Chili, paprika, dried onion and garlic, salt and pepper and some chicken seasoning went in too.

I fried the tenders for 8 minutes in 180 C hot oil and put them on kitchen paper later.

They were served with Ranch dip and carrot salad.