Japanese Curry Bread, which we call "Curry-Pan" is a deep fried pastry doughnut filled with Japanese curry.
It's not soupy curry - It's more of a curry paste. Since Japanese curry is sweet, the doughnut and curry combined are a perfect match. These pastries are known to be a Japanese creation - A bakery in Tokyo thought of it in the 1920s. 

You can get these beautiful pastries in most bakeries in Tokyo/Yokohama as well as conbinis (convenience stores)! They're affordable so you mustn't leave Japan without having a taste. One of my favourite bakeries in Tokyo/Yokohama is "Pompadour" - it is a popular bakery so you may find it at your closest station/mall. 

My advice to you is to put the pastry in the toaster oven before enjoying it. This makes the dough crunchy again....Mm!

P.S.
Yokohama city itself is also known for their curry-pan as well. My recommendation to you is to go to the "Red Brick Warehouse" in Yokohama to purchase one of these delicious pastries :) 


カレーパンって
１９２７年にはじめて作られたみたい。
結構新しいクリエイションだと気づいて関心。
アメリカにはないので
日本に帰るたびに買い漁ってます。

In Japan, "Donburi" is what we call a bowl of rice with goodies on top, it could be shortened to "-Don" too.

If it's Chicken on a bed of rice, we could say "Chicken-Don".

With just 4 ingredients, here's what I whipped up for dinner. It took less than 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

• Pork (thin sliced)
  
• Seaweed 
• Rice (I used frozen)
• Chinese Chives
• (Optional) Add veggies & condiments of your choice (I used soy sauce, sesame oil)

Steps:

• Simply stir fry the pork with the Chinese chives. I added salt, pepper, soy sauce and some sesame oil to taste. 
• In a bowl, create a bed of rice and place seaweed on top for saltiness.
• On top of the seaweed place the pork stir fry.

I promise - it's going to turn out delicious!


有り合わせで作るどんぶりって
最高ですよね♥︎

Hijiki! 
Full of iron, fiber, calcium and VItamin A. 
It's a superfood which will help us for a better blood flow, healthier skin and a superb intestine! 
What is it?
It's a brown sea vegetable, much like seaweed but chewy. 

For those of you who have not had a taste of it, and those of you who have, this recipe is a super-easy-must-try. All you do is throw in the following ingredients into your rice cooker. It'll turn into a savoury, warm Japanese rice dish. 

Ingredients

• Hijiki (2 tbsp dry) You can buy these at Daiso, or at any Japanese supermarket. They come dry, so make sure you soak it in water before throwing it into the rice cooker!
• 300g dry rice (cook w/ ~400ml water, or follow your rice cooker instructions)
  
  

Sauce

• Japanese soy sauce 1 tbsp
• Hondashi  (Japanese broth powder) 1 tsp
• Salt 1 tsp
• Japanese sake 2 tbsp
• Japanese mirin 1 tbsp

Steps

1. Wash the rice (as usual) and place the sauce into the rice
2. Add the water per rice cooker's instruction (or add around ~400ml if you don't have instructions)
3. Add the hijiki
4. Stir a bit, then cook the rice as usual!

I made these Japanese potstickers "Gyoza" for a dinner potluck on Friday. They were a hit! Great for a casual appetizer. They are savoury, easy to eat and will open up your guests' appetite for the upcoming meal.

I've posted a recipe here in the past but the ingredients I used this time are much simpler & easy.
Vegetarians! Keep in mind you can also make these without meat.

Ingredients (makes around 25-30 potstickers):

• Gyoza wrappers (you can buy them at a Japanese supermarket or an asian one. I've seen them in Wholefoods here in SF)
• 1/3 minced meat (I used turkey, I also recommend chicken or pork)
• Chinese Chives (I bought these also at the Japanese supermarket), if you don't have them, use spring onions
• (optional) Any other greens you like, like cabbage
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1/2 - 1 tbsp grated garlic
• 1 tbsp each of Japanese soy sauce, sake, sesame oil

Steps: 
Please follow the steps on this recipe, I've provided step by step photos! 
Just make sure to pan fry them right before you are ready to eat them!

Long time no see!
I'm back! 

Holiday season is here. 
My boyfriend and I have been to multiple potlucks this month....So, introducing the Holiday Potluck series! I will share with you what I have been making this busy season. Of course, all of these recipes are EASY, FAST and HEALTHY.

The first recipe I'm sharing: Super soft mochi-like potato pancakes on turkey bacon.
The potatoes are cooked in butter and have a little bit of mozzarella cheese in them. Sweet but salty, perfect as an appetizer!

Things you need:
- 1 medium sized potato
- 4 slices of turkey bacon, cut into bit sized pieces
- 1/2 - 1 tbsp of unsalted butter
- As much cheese as you want (I used shredded mozzarella)
- Potato starch (3-4 tbsp), or until the potato paste becomes dough-like.
- (Optional) Sprinkles of basil for decoration

Steps:

1. Peel and cut the potato into bite sized pieces and boil until super soft (you can also microwave them).
2. While you're boiling the potatoes, you can start cooking the bacon and cut them into pieces afterwards.
3. Once they are soft, start mashing them up, until it becomes super smooth.
4. Add potato starch (optionally, cheese, salt & pepper)
5. Keep massaging the potato paste. Once it becomes like dough, start separating them into small flat balls.
6. Heat your pan with butter (medium to high heat)
7. Once the pan is hot enough, cook the patties! We want them nice and brown.
8. Place on top of the bacon & sprinkle some greens.

Here in San Francisco, I'm lucky enough to have a Japanese market. Every 29th of this month, thin sliced meat is 20 percent off. We buy 5 to 7 packs of meat and freeze them all. What to do with thin sliced beef? Sukiyaki style stew!

For those of you who don't know, sukiyaki is a savory, sweet meat dish. It is usually cooked with a bunch of vegetables, but since I was lazy tonight, I only used meat.

Every Japanese house hold has their own taste of Sukiyaki. Some like it with a very strong salty taste, some like it weaker. People in Kansai like it bold where as Kanto like it more bland. I love it the Kansai style, so keep that in mind!

All you need is:

• Thin sliced beef (half a pound)

Sauce

• Japanese soy sauce (2-3 tbsp)
• Sugar (1-2 tbsp)
• Mirin (1 tbsp)
• Sake (1 tbsp)
• Dashi stock (1/2 cup)
• Optionally, add all different kinds of veggies, egg and tofu as you wish! (e.g. Cabbage, green onion)

Steps:

1. Cook the thin sliced beef quickly and pour in the sauce and simmer. That's it! 

Belos is my Lekue Steamer. Scroll to read more! 

I also experimented with a Lekue (Steamer) to make a similar dish with udon! Even more simple. Simply throw in all these ingredients and put it in the microwave! 

All you need for this Lekue Steamer Recipe is:

• How ever much meat you want (I put in 4 slices of thin sliced beef)
• 1 pack of Udon (I used frozen)
• 1 egg
• (Optional) Veggies 
  
• Sauce: Half the ingredients for the sauce above. 

Steps:

1. Lay the Udon, veggies and meat into the Lekue steamer. Pour in the sauce.
2. 5 min in the microwave for Power level 6 (or ~600 watts)
3. Crack in the egg after step 2. Using a fork, puncture the egg and heat for 2 min.

Seems like teriyaki chicken is a very popular Japanese dish here in the United States.

I never really grew up eating it, but I've learnt to love it. It's just so simple and easy. A simple stir fry is all you need sometimes. 

Here's a super simple recipe I use.  All you need is:

• 1lb chicken
• Veggies
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 tbsp mirin
• 1.5 tbsp Japanese sake

Heat the chicken, add the veggies and add the sauce! That's it :) 

I usually serve this dish with Japanese rice and miso soup. Perfect! 

Japanese Italian restaurants serve absolutely delicious dishes! So if you are there now, please give it a try. My personal favourites are located in Kamakura. Many restaurants are located right by the ocean and some are located in special alleys. Overall, restaurants in Kamakura have a very romantic feel...Perfect for date nights! 

Just remember to give the Italian restaurants a try while you are in Japan. Don't shy away from it! 

Map of Kamakura and all it's Italian restaurants are at the end of this post.

So, here's a quick and easy cream pasta recipe. All you need is for 1 serving:

• 2 - 3 pieces of bacon (or however many you like!)
• Cream (I used half and half) (1/2 cup)
• Pasta (1 cup dry)

...read more

Though I've already introduced this recipe for omelette rice (omu-rice), I'm posting it again. 

Very fun dish to make. Popular dish to make for your boyfriend in Japan ;) Show some love! 

Ketchup chicken rice is a typical stuffing for this dish in Japan but you can get creative as well. This time, I stuffed my omelette with some left overs from burrito night; rice with black beans and some South American spices. Mm! 

What you need (serves 1 dish) :

1. 2 large eggs
2. Oil
3. Rice (chicken rice, ketchup rice, any type of rice works here. See this recipe)
4. (optional) Veggies 

Steps:

1. Start by preparing the stuffing. You can use this recipe or simply stir fry some rice with optional veggies and chicken. It's good to throw in some ketchup or tomato sauce before adding in the rice. This will help prevent blotches of ketchup/sauce in the rice. Throw in the rice after and you'll see a more even tone.
2. Put the rice out of the pan and keep it to the side while you prepare the omelette.
3. Heat the pan on HIGH, put a little bit of oil. Mix the egg in a separate bowl and pour it into the heated pan. Quickly scramble the egg and throw in the rice. 
4. Start wrapping the egg up on one side of the rice (Be careful not to overcook the egg here). Flip the omelette+rice onto a plate. It's okay to toss the omelette onto the plate by turning the pan up side down! :)
5. Top it off with ketchup or be fun like me and place some pineapple salsa and avocado! 

Note: Steps #3 and #4 should only take 2-3min as the egg heats fast! 

Hot pot or shabu shabu is easy to get in cities like San Francisco and Boston. There are Japanese, Korean or Mongolian restaurants who offer it for an okay price! Have you ever thought about doing it at home though? It's easier than you think :)

I bought a portable stove on Amazon (for only $15) and a Japanese pot (for only $10). After that, all you need are veggies, meat and good company (maybe some good beer and sake too).

What you need:

• Any veggie, how ever much you want. (I had lettuce, spinach, carrots, radish, zucchini)
• Mushrooms
• Meat (I had thin sliced pork, some people like beef too) 
• (Optional) Seafood
• Tofu
• (Optional) Noodles (e.g. udon)
• Sauce (I bought ponzu and sesame sauce, both available on Amazon or Japanese supermarkets)

Yup. That's it! 

For your broth, you can get creative (kimchi, soy milk, tomato sauce...); but since I was out of most ingredients, I just poured some sake in water, added a pinch of salt and some dashi.

You get to eat a lot of vegetables, and this dish warms you up. It's perfect for those chilly nights which make you want to feel cozy.

I was surprised when I saw a small Japanese kabocha being sold at a Farmers Market. Kabocha is a pumpkin or it could also be a winter squash of Asian variety according to Wikipedia. 

If you follow my blog, you may have realized that I've been cooking a lot of "boiled" dishes lately. The technique is to "niru" (煮る). When you cook ingredients in a broth, the broth is sucked up by the ingredients, ending up in a very tasty dish. This technique can be used for vegetables, meat and seafood. The best thing about it is that it is so easy. You just prepare the broth (probably just a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, etc), toss in the ingredients drop a lid and wait for the broth to be soaked up! 

The dish I'm introducing today is a Japanese kabocha nimono (煮物). Kabocha boiled in Japanese broth. It's sweet but savoury. The more you leave it in the broth, the more intense the taste will get. So be careful in boiling the ingredient too long! 


Ingredients:

• 1/4 of a kabocha (a fairly large kabocha)

Broth

• 2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Japanese mirin
• 2 tbsp Japanese sake
• 1 - 2 tbsp sugar (depending on how sweet you like the dish)
• 3/4 - 1 cup of water

Steps:

1. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a hot pan. Heat until it starts boils.
2. Once the broth starts boiling, toss in the cut pumpkins. (Cut them into bite-size pieces)
3. Place a piece of aluminum foil directly onto the pumpkin. This is called "otoshi-buta" which means to drop a lid directly onto the ingredients. This will help the pumpkin truly soak up the broth. Keep heating on MEDIUM heat.
4. Heat until the broth has been completely soaked up by the pumpkins. 

Note: Mix while heating so that the pumpkin is heated evenly. Also, you can adjust the heat to low since the aluminum foil lid can contain a lot of heat.

I packed the leftovers in my bento the next day. Became tastier than the day before! 

"Ni-tu-ke" (煮付け) is a way of cooking in Japan which involves boiling the ingredient in soy sauce and sugar. Fish is very expensive in the US compared to Japan but I've found that Trader Joe's sells cheap tilapia (around $6 for 3 generous pieces). It may not be the best fish but it's a wonderful alternative for those on a budget. 

Grilling or baking the fish in butter may sound easy but sometimes could end up being burnt and tough. This recipe involves boiling the fish in a simple savoury sauce. It's easy, takes only 10 minutes and you'll end up with a tasty traditional Japanese dish. Better than going to a Japanese restaurant!  Serve with white rice, miso soup and veggies, like always.

Here, I'll also be introducing a new technique called "otoshi-buta" (落とし蓋) which means to put a lid directly onto the food or deep into the pan. 

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pieces of fish (preferably with white meat. I used Trader Joe's tilapia)
  
  

Sauce (start with this, add more or less depending on how sweet/savoury you like your sauce)

• 3 - 4 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 - 2 tbsp of sugar (depending on how sweet you like your fish)
• 1/4 cup Japanese sake 

Steps:

1. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce together and heat in a pan until it starts boiling. 
2. Once the sauce starts boiling, put the fish into the pan and turn the heat to LOW. Get some aluminum foil and cover the fish/broth directly. We call this technique "otoshi-buta" which means "fallen lid". We want the lid to be placed deeply inside the pot, directly on the food. This will help the sauce get soaked up easier. (Photograph below)
   
3. Cook the fish in the pan for 7 - 10 minutes on LOW. 
4. After 7-10 minutes, take off the lid and use a spoon to pour the sauce onto the surface of the fish which was not soaked in the sauce. Be careful not to cook the fish any longer as the sauce may get too thick and strong. 
5. Serve with rice and other side dishes. I often use the left over sauce to cook vegetables such as broccoli and zucchini!

San Francisco's Japan Town's Nijiya has a special 20%-off-all-meat-day on the 29th of every month a.k.a. Meat day. "2-9" can also be read "ni-ku" which means "meat" in Japanese. 

On this day last month, I went a little crazy purchasing thin sliced pork and beef. Enough to last us a month. Today's dish uses thin sliced pork and any of your favourite vegetables. I used Japanese daikon, zucchini and onions since it's been in season at SF's farmers markets. 

This dish is a "ita-me-ni" (炒め煮) which means to stir fry and boil in liquid. In this case, we boil the ingredients in Japanese soy sauce, ginger, sugar, mirin and sake; a typical teriyaki type sauce. A typical Japanese dish which goes perfectly with rice and miso soup. With every bite, I was reminded of home. 

A similar dish I've posted earlier is the "Shoga-yaki"; pork ginger stir fry. Also a must try if you have thin sliced pork in your fridge. 


Ingredients:

• 0.5 lb thin sliced pork (200g)
• 2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 2 tbsp sake
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 - 2 tsp grated ginger

Steps:

1. On a heated pan with oil, toss in the meat (MEDIUM-HIGH heat)
2. Once the meat is mostly cooked, add the vegetables and stir fry them until cooked through.
3. Mix the ginger, soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar together and add into the pan. Put a lid on the pan and the heat down to LOW or MEDIUM. 
4. Boil until the sauce is absorbed by the ingredients. This helps the ingredients to suck up all the goodness. Once the liquid has disappeared, enjoy! 

P.S. Heart of the City Farmers Market


I just wanted to add a note about the wonderful experiences I've been having at one of San Francisco's Farmer's Markets. I go to Heart of the City Farmers Market in Civic Center every Sunday to get fresh vegetables and fruits. Today, I got 2 eggplants, 4 apricots, a bag of cucumbers, a bag of large green peppers, kabocha, strawberries, black berries and mini tomatoes for just......$10! 

Not only can you get fresh vegetables and fruits from farmers markets. You can also speak with the people who are responsible for the products and get advice from them; how to pick the best kinds and such. Highly recommended! 

Little food stands and trucks can be hidden gems as well. 

With all the amazing vegetables in season and my visits to the farmers markets here in San Francisco, I've been needing to find a way to consume the vegetables but in an easy manner; especially for those weekday dinners at home after work. I've discovered the simplest Japanese vegetable stir fry recipe!

Ingredients (for 2 people):

• Any vegetable(s) you like  (e.g. 1 zucchini, 1 onion, broccoli)
  
• Any other additional ingredients (e.g. mushrooms)
• 1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tsp Hondashi (Japanese soup stock)
• 1/2 - 1 tbsp sugar
• Oil

Steps: 
Simply stir fry the veggies your pan until they are cooked through, then add the Hondashi, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. Heat until water is evaporated. 


It's delicious and makes your dish taste like a true Japanese dish despite its simplicity and ease! Please give it a try! 

It goes well as a side dish with grilled chicken, grilled fish and even my favourite natto! 

One of my favourite destination in San Francisco so far are the Farmers Markets! There are so many around the city all throughout the week and the quality of vegetables and fruits you get there are outstanding. My favourite so far is the "Heart of the City Farmers Market" in Civic Center. If you follow my Instagram, you should already know that I got 2 large daikons, 4 apricots/peaches, bitter melon and zucchinis, all for $3. I also got a bag full of delicious onions and zucchinis for $1 each last week. You get fruits and veggies in season directly from the farmers, how amazing is that?! 

One vegetable I've been seeing a lot at these Farmers Market recently are eggplants! 

I've already introduced the ginger eggplant stir fry on this blog, but today I'll introduce something more simple and easy. A simple Japanese stir fry, somewhat like a teriyaki sauce! 

May I warn you that my boyfriend and I just could not stop eating this. It was so tasty, went perfectly with Japanese rice; just unstoppable.

Ingredients

• 1 eggplant
• (Optional) Any other vegetables of your choice
• 1 tbsp oil of your choice (I use coconut oil or olive oil)
• 2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• (Optional) A hint of sesame oil

Steps

1. Cut the eggplant into slices and soak them in water for a couple of minutes.
2. Heat up a pan with oil.
3. Once the pan is heated, toss in the eggplants (and additional veggies if any).
4. Once the vegetables get soft and heated, add the sugar.
5. Once the sugar is disolved, add the soy sauce. Heat for a couple more minutes until the soy sauce settles into the veggies. Add the hint of sesame oil at the end for a savory smell prior to serving.