Food Court Food -Japanese

Since Yesterday the stalls at the Food court at a large shopping Mall LOOP 5 near by are allowed to serve customers in house. All the month before only Take Out was availabe.

I went for a quick lunch there, because I had an hairdresser apointment at noon at the Mall. The well known Fast Food chains are all there to serve customers, but I wanted something else. There are 3 Asian food stalls. One Thai, one generic Asian and one Japanese: Hikari.

The last one was my choice today. Gyoza and Udon Noodle Soup with Tempura sounded good.

I ordered and was surprised. 5 deep frozen white pieces of Gyoza went into the fryer. My green tea came from a jar with powder, no tea bag and the most interesting was the soup for my Udon noodles.

The Hikari food stall offers Miso Soup. They used two servings of this soup, thrown in frozen seafood, 1 prawn and some tiny mussels and octopus pieces. Then the ready to go Udon pressed into a package. The same one I use at home. One Tempura shrimp went into the fryer.

When you are loving Japanese food and been to Japan twice I can not recommend this place.  The best of my Gyoza was the sweet chili sauce from a bottle. The Gyoza did not do their name any good. Soggy and still white all around.

If you like Miso soup, just eat that and skip the rest. The green tea was powder and boiling water.

When I came back home, I was hungry and stuffed some Nems wit crab filling my air fryer. I bought them in France and they were a lot better them my lunch that day.

 

 

Coquelet or Springchicken

On my grocery shopping haul in France I stumbled over some tiny chickens at the meat counter st the supermarket. They looked to small to eat. But I accepted the challenge and bought one.

I wanted to prepare it in the air fryer.

The size is small enough to fit into the basket. Now I needed some idea how to season it. On Pinterest I found one. Spread a good amount of medium hot mustard all around the chicken and set 2 sprigs of rosemary on top. I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper outside and inside. For additional flavour I added 2 leaves of my Australian lemon leaf from my balcony. 

The air fryer has a special setting for chicken. I use it for wings and drumsticks. The small sized bird went in at the same setting. But after the initial 25 min at 200C were over, the juices did not run clear.

I turned it over and gave it an other 8 min and it was done. So 33 min at 200 C did the trick.

 

 

Chilaquiles rojos con huevo

I saw YouTuber Mikey Chen eat Chilaquiles at a fancy hotel in Las Vegas. He raved about the Mexican dish.

That made me curious and I checked some history and recipes online. That is basically a dish with leftover tortillas and everything but the kitchen sink. My kind of cooking!

Usually eaten in Mexico for breakfast or Brunch. Using up the homemade tortillas from the day before.

But the use of a bag of tortilla chips is a good alternative, even in Mexico.

There are two different versions, a red or a green sauce as the base.

My version contains defrosted homemade tomato sauce, some chili and cumin added for additional spice.

Recipe for 1:

1 1/2 cup spiced up tomato sauce

2-3 hands full of tortilla chips salted

1 bell pepper, 1/2 red onion, 1 spring onion, 1 avocado, 2 tbsp parsley, oil

1/4 cooked chicken breast, 2 tbsp grated mozzarella cheese, 1 tomato, 1 fried egg

Cut the onions in strips, the bell pepper in bite size chunks and saute them in oil for 8 - 10 min. Add the shredded chicken breast to heat through again.

Peel the avo and cut that and the tomato in chunks. Roughly chop the parsley. Fry the egg in oil. Heat up the tomato sauce.

Toss the tortilla chips in a larger bowl and pour the tomato sauce on top. Gather the other ingredients and set them on top. Finish with cheese and a fried egg on top.

 

 

Rice with Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce

I bought a package of Champignon de Paris in France last Saturday. They needed to be eaten. The French name sounds so much nicer then a package of button mushrooms.

I wanted a vegetarian lunch and mushrooms have enough umami to make it tasty. This is a 15 min meal to eat while working from home. Do not count the time of your rice cooker or use cold leftover rice. 

The mushrooms were nearly a week old. Storing the in the veggie drawer of my fridge helped with the shelve life. Or they had great quality.

Recipe for 1:

250 g mushrooms, 2 spring onions, 1 garlic clove, 1 tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 50 ml Noillly Prat, 3 tbsp parsley, pepper, dried thyme

1 cup rice cooked in veg stock.

Start with the mushrooms in a hot pan with oil and butter. Let them cook a while, then add onions and garlic. Season and add Noilly Prat. Now put in oyster sauce and soy sauce and finish with 2 tbsp of butter and parsley.

You can either serve it over rice or heat up cold rice in the sauce.

 

Artichoke Hearts with sweet Chili Dip

Artichoke Hearts cut out from fresh huge artichokes is no fun. You will produce a large amount of waste.

You will need a strong bread knife, a pairing knife, 1 lemon halve and a bowl of water. If ou hate to stain your hands, use gloves. Now the fun starts. Break off the stem by pressing it down over the edge of the kitchen counter or a table.

Take the bread knife and saw around the bottom parts of the leaves and cut the last stem bit off. Now cut off the upper half of the artichoke and pull off the outer leaves. The thin leaves in the middle come away easy.

Take a pairing knife and remove the hay from the bottom by cutting it away. When the heart is clean drizzle it with lemon juice and put it into lemon water.

Bring salted water to a boil and add 2 tbsp of cider vinegar. Cook the hearts until tender. Between 5 to 8 min depending on the size.

Mix creme fraiche and sweet chili sauce for the dip.

Museau de Boeuf Salad 2.0 with Fish Sauce and Capers

My first recipe of this salad is a runner on this blog (16.04.2016). I never thought there are so many people around who eat the strangely textured meat shaved of the inner side of a mouth of a cow. 

We have here in Hessian a sausage called Schwartemagen. That is a blatter of a pig filled with head meat and other pig parts you wont see otherwise. Smoked it is a delicous sausage. But I love it cooked too.  This museau de boeuf reminds me of it.

My old recipe is very traditional. The idea for the new one I found on Google. Just the 2 ingredients of  Thai fish sauce and salty capers caught my eye. 

Recipe for 2:

350 g museau de boeuf

1/2 red onion, 1 white onion, bunch of parsley, 3 tbsp salted capers ( not in brine)

4 gherkins, 1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard, 5 tbsp oilve oil, 3 tbsp white balsamic vinegar,

1 1/2 tbsp Thai fish sauce, pepper

Cut the onions into strips and put them into a sieve and pour boiling water over them. Cool down. Chop the capers, gherkins and parsley. Make the dressing and mix everything with the sliced meat. Put in the fridge for 30 min.

Serve with baguette.

Red Velvet Waffles

I never thought this batter needed so much red food coloring!

Sunday afternoon waffles are a good choice. Bake some more and you have some for the next day to enjoy. I served them with some kind of foamy vanilla liquid.

Recipe for 4:

2 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tbsp Cameroon red cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp salt

1 3/4 cup buttermilk, 2 large eggs, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/ 3 cup melted butter, 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar, 2 tbsp red food coloring

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.

Whisk the wet ingredients together. Stir them into the dry stuff

Now add the food coloring and stir and stir until fully combined.

Bake in a waffle iron