Pork with Spiced Apple

There is something about pork and apples that makes them just made for each other. Here's a little twist on the old apple sauce: spiced apples, cooked quickly and easily and served on juicy pork steaks.


I got the recipe from this trusty website, always a failproof! I served it with steamed baby potatoes and greens. I omitted the cayenne pepper because I don't have any, and used a little Japanese seven-spice powder instead.

This is an excellent and satisfying mid-week meal.

Hearty Beef Stew

As the weather becomes colder and colder, I crave hearty and filling meals that remind me of my childhood. Here is a good old classic: beef stew. Of course, anyone can cook a stew, and you don't need a recipe. It's just meat in a broth, cooked slowly until tender. But I want to share my tips to make a stew that's thick, tasty and very economical.

First, I use some stewing beef, such as chuck steak. I get about a kilo of it, and cut it into roughly one inch chunks. I brown the beef in a little oil in batches - no more than about 6 cubes of beef browning at one time. After it's all browned, I season the whole lot with salt and pepper and set it aside.

Then, after adding a little more oil to the pan, I gently saute one roughly chopped onion, a stalk of chopped celery, a diced carrot and 2 cloves of chopped garlic until soft (about 5 mintues).

Next, I sprinkle over about one tablespoon of plain flour and cook, stirring, for about one minute.

Now, I add the liquid: one cup of beef stock, half a cup of red wine and one can of chopped tomatoes. I also add a couple of dried bay leaves and some dried parsley. At this stage, I return the beef to the stew and bring the whole thing to a gentle simmer, then turn the heat to it's lowest setting and let it gently simmer (very gently!) for about 2 hours, with the lid on.

During that 2 hours, I might occasionally go in and give it a quick stir. Also, I taste to check if it needs any extra seasoning.

After 2 hours, it should be quite tender. Usually, I find it's a little runny, so I take one tablespoon of Gravox (gravy mix) and make it into a paste with a little cold water, then add it to the stew and stir. This thickens the whole thing and adds some extra beefy flavour.

Now, it's ready to serve! I like to serve it with mashed potatoes, peas and crusty bread with butter. Eat the leftovers the next day for lunch (I like to eat it with brown rice). Delicious, even if I say so myself!

Italian Chicken - The Hunters' Way

This is one-pot-wonder I cooked up, loosely based on Nigella's recipe for Pollo alla Cacciatora from her wonderful book, Nigella Express.




I made a few changes, and here they are:

1. I used regular olive oil instead of garlic oil, and added a clove of crushed garlic.

2. I used smoked bacon instead of pancetta.

3. I ommitted the rosemary and added a little dried basil instead.

4. I used chicken breast instead of thigh.

5. I used regular salt instead of celery salt.

6. I used soy beans instead of cannellini beans, and doubled the quantity.

Many changes! But when you get right down to it, it's the same basic idea. That's the beauty of home cooking, you can just do your own thing!

This is quite a nice meal, very fast and easy. I thought it was quite nice served on rice. I think it would also be nice to eat it with some good crusty bread. Another winner from Nigella!

Chicken Noodle Soup

Hi folks!

This next culinary creation is a from a favourite recipe of mine, titled "Asian Chicken Noodle Soup." Which particular "Asian" country this is supposed to be based on, I couldn't tell you! Anyway, you can find the recipe here.

I pretty much stuck to this recipe entirely (for a change!), except I used dried chillis instead of fresh ones, and I halved the recipe so that it only served the two of us.

Oh, also, I sprinkled over a little Japanese seven spice powder (Shichimi in Japanese). It's a very popular condiment here, and is basically a red, spicy powder which adds a little heat and flavour, without being too over the top.

I love this dish! It is low fat, cheap, easy and totally delicious. The weather is becoming quite frosty over here in Japan these days, so I'm enjoying experimenting with a few soup recipes.

It's quite nice to serve a few steamed dumplings on the side, too.

Faster than fast food

Here's a healthy, delicous meal that you can whip up faster than you can say "pass me the eggs." Yes, it's the good old fashioned omelette.



First, lightly whisk two eggs, salt and pepper in a bowl with a fork.

Then, throw the eggs into a hot, small frying pan.

Now, sprinkle over some chopped ham, quartered baby tomatoes, sliced spring onions, grated cheese and fresh herbs (or anything else you like).

Once the cheese is melty and the egg is mostly set, just fold it in half and serve with some fresh, crusty bread or some toast.

Better than any fast food in the world!

My take on the burrito

Here's another meal I like to whip up using this little beauty:

I call this a "burrito", even though I'm sure it doesn't even resemble an authentic burrito! Here's what I do.

I take two chicken breasts (skin off) and slice them about 2cm thick across the grain. Then, I brown the slices in a tiny bit of oil in a large, non-stick frying pan. Once the chicken is sealed, I give it a liberal coating of the taco seasoning on both sides of the chicken, and continue cooking it for a minute. Then, I add a little water, about half a cup. At this time, I sometimes add some sliced capsicum and perhaps some cannelini beans, red kidney beans, or anything I feel like. I continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has reduced to a thick consistency.

Meanwhile, I take out my stash of tortillas from the freezer, and freshen them by chucking them in the toaster oven, one at a time.

Now, you can just build your burrito as you like! I firstly put some grated cheese, then top with the chicken mixture, salsa, lettuce, tomato, grated carrot, and anything else yummy that's lurking in the fridge. There's enough chicken for about 3 or 4 burritos.

This is budget, healthy, quick and tasty - it ticks all the boxes!

Tandoori chicken with coconut rice and salad

Continuing on my Indian theme, here is another meal which I like to cook using Indian flavours: tandoori chicken served with coconut rice and salad.

To make the chicken, I marinate some mini drumsticks in some tandoori paste which has been mixed with equal parts yoghurt. I put it in a little plastic bag and leave it in the fridge all day. I fry it in a frying pan until cooked, and it turns out so tender and delicious. If you have an oven, you could just pop the drumsticks in the oven for about half an hour.

To make the rice, I cook basmati rice in water with about half a can of coconut milk mixed in. Then, after it's cooked, I mix in a little shredded coconut.

I like to have some vegies with every meal, so I served a simple baby tomato salad which was flavoured with parsely, salt and cracked black pepper, and drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil.

On the side, I served some puppodums and naan bread with raita. I made the raita by mixing yoghurt with a grated cucumber, a clove of crushed garlic and a squeeze of lemon. The leftovers make a lovely dip with some chips or crackers!

Curry in a hurry

Here's one of my original creations. I like to call it "the mother of all curries."

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, diced into large chunks

1T garam masala curry paste

half an onion, diced

1 carrot, chopped

a few potatoes, chopped in big chunks

half an apple, grated

half a cup of frozen peas

dried corriander

a couple of bay leaves

half a can of coconut milk

about half a cup to one cup of chicken stock

2 tsp cornflour (optional)

Method:

In a little oil, fry the curry paste for one minute. Then, add the onions and cook for a few minutes.

Add the chicken. Keep cooking until the chicken is sealed.

Add the carrot, potato, coconut milk, apple, bay leaves and corriander. Also, add the chicken stock, but only enough so that all the ingredients are just covered.

Cover and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Then, remove the lid. Throw in the peas. Simmer for another five minutes with the lid off.

Check that the potatoes and carrots are tender. Once they are good to go, your curry is ready! Sometimes it's a bit runny, so if that's the case, I would add some cornflour made into a paste with a little cold water.

This serves 4-6 generously. Since there is only two of us, I always freeze half. It freezes and re-heats really well!

I recommend serving the curry with basmati rice and naan bread. It goes very well with a full bodied white wine, such as chardonnay, or a fruity medium bodied red wine.

Turning Japanese

There are some really great things about living in Shizuoka, Japan. One of them is the availability of fantastic green tea grown right here in Shiz. This green tea is such a refreshing treat of an afternoon. There are many health benefits, too!

It's nice to enjoy something sweet to offset the bitterness of green tea. Here, I am enjoying a sweet sembei cracker, flavoured with matcha, which is powdered green tea. This cracker was a gift from my friend Kaz, who kindly bought it as a souvenir in Nara. The pairing of flavours was wonderful!

Pasta alla Carbonara

This is a dish that has become a favourite in our household, thanks to the recipe from Nigella's excellent book "How to Eat".

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a link to this recipe, so I'll explain it here.

Ingredients
250g pasta - I prefer spaghetti
100g pancetta or bacon - I use about 5 rashers of bacon
1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk
quarter cup of parmesan cheese
4T white wine
1T butter
a pinch of nutmeg
black pepper

Method
Boil the pasta in salted water according to packet directions.

In the meantime, slice the bacon and fry in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes, or until the bacon is nice and crispy. Then, add the wine and let it bubble for a minute or so or until there's just a little liquid left. Finallly, add the butter and let it melt. Remove the pan from the heat.

For the sauce, whisk together in a separate bowl the whole egg, egg yolk, parmesan cheese, nutmeg and black pepper. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it well and add it to the bacon mixture.

I stress again that you must take the pan off the heat for this next step, otherwise you get scrambled eggs, which is bad.

Now, just add the sauce mixture to the bacony pasta. Stir quickly and vigorously, until all the stands of pasta are coated in the delicious sauce.

That's it! This recipe serves two generously. Definitely not diet food, but hey, it's damn tasty!

** Notes:

I use parmesan cheese from a can and nutmeg pre-grated. Yes, I know Nigella would be horrified, but it's just the best I can do here in Japan! I really think it turns out a treat, anyway.

Some people use cream in a carbonara sauce - I think it's unnecessary. Besides, that's not how the Italians do it.

Pancetta would probably be better in this recipe, but I can't buy it. Instead, I use some smoked bacon which is thickly cut. Luckily, this is sold at a supermarket near my workplace.

Nacho nacho man... I've got to be a nacho man

This is the best "sitting in front of the telly watching sports" meal. And it's so simple to make.

First, I fry up some mince, chilli beans and capsicum in a pan with water and this little beauty:

Then, once the liquid has evaporated, I dump the whole lot on a pile of corn chips, add some salsa and cheese, and whack it all in the toaster oven.

Cheesarific!

Of course, this Mexican fiesta should be washed down with a couple of Mexico's best - Coronas.

A taste of Korea

While this is a cooking blog, and I mainly want to feature my kitchen experiments, I couldn't resist sharing some of the spicylicious food that I sampled during my recent trip to Korea. Who knows, maybe I can replicate them in the kitchen sometime, although I have no idea how to knock up a Korean concoction.

Moving right along, here is a meal that I enjoyed in a small sidewalk restaurant, run by a gruff but very kind old lady about half my height. You can see the main dish is some spicy fish. I'm not sure what kind of fish this is, or what it was flavoured with exactly, but it was very spicy and delicious! All Korean meals are served with plain steamed rice, which I found to be quite similar to that of Japan. Also, there is always a variety of condiments to go with the meal, a few of which you can see in this picture. The most common condiment is the ubiquitous Kimchi, which I can't say I'm a big fan of, but I was glad to try it.

This meal, and several meals thereafter, was served with "Hite" beer - a crisp and clean Korean beer which was refreshingly well paired with the food. In fact, I consumed far too many Hites on the first night, along with some Korean Soju, so I felt slightly unwell the next morning. This was my hangover solution:

I walked into the first traditional style restaurant that welcomely ushered me inside.

It was still breakfast time, but I sat down to a full meal. I was starving! The main dish was some kind of transparent noodle with shredded meat (beef, I think). It had just the right amount of kick to really kick my hangover in the butt. Served with rice and a variety of side dishes, it was a very satisfying and hearty meal.

Overall, I found Korean food to be very tasty, fresh, healthy and varied, and I'd love to go back there to try out more dishes and get to know the country a lot better.

I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight!

I was looking for a change from the usual burgers I make, and stumbled across this recipe from taste.com.au - which is, by the way, a great website!


Of course, once again, I couldn't get all the ingredients I need; damn you Japan! So I made many adaptions. Here they are:


First of all, I replaced the fresh basil and mint with a good sprinkling of dried basil and mint.


Second, I don't have a food processor in which to make breadcrumbs, so I just used some bought ones.


Furthermore, I don't like the idea of putting yoghurt all over my burger, so I made my own sauce - mayonnaise mixed with sweet chilli sauce. Very yummy!


Finally, I halved the recipe so that it just serves two, not four.


All in all, it worked out ok, but the hubby and I found it a bit too lemony. Next time, I won't use all that lemon rind.


Anyway, this is a good idea for something different, and quite filling served with a few chips and some extra mayo/sweet chilli sauce.

Cook up a slice of magic!

You know, due to my well stocked pantry and freezer, it's great to know that there is almost always something delicious that I can cook up at home when I'm feeling tired, lazy and depleted of fresh ingredients.


Here it is: pizza!



I use a tortilla as the base - I always have a stash of these in the freezer. Then, I put pasta sauce all over the base. I think this is much more flavoursome than using tomato paste. For the toppings, I use fried sliced chorizo sausage (I always have them in the freezer), chopped ham, sweet red peppers from a jar, sliced spring onions and plenty of cheese.



I cook this in the toaster oven until the edges are crispy and the cheese is all bubbly.



Very satisfying with a glass of red! Not to mention, it's faster and cheaper than take-away.

Thai Pork Stir-Fry

I am absolutely crazy about Thai food. I think I must have been a Thai in a past life. I could probably eat it every day of the week! I love the spiciness, the mix of robust flavours, and the use of crunchy fresh vegetables.

Here is a recipe which I created myself, perfected by adapting it each time.

Ingredients:

about 300g lean pork (fillet is best, I think), thinly sliced

half an onion, thinly sliced

a clove of garlic, crushed

about an inch of grated ginger

mix of your fave vegies; I used snow peas, capsicum, baby corn, carrot, and bok choy

a quarter to half a cup of chicken stock

a handful of cashews, almonds, or both

Sauce:

half a cup of chicken stock

2 tsp cornstarch

3 tsp oyster sauce

1 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp brown sugar

a splash of lime

1 chopped dried chilli (2 if you like more heat)

some dried lemongrass

about 2 shredded dried karrir lime leaves

Method:

First, heat a bit of canola oil in a wok or frying pan. Stir fry the onion, garlic and ginger for about a minute. Then, add the pork. Stir fry for about 2 minutes, or until the pork looks cooked. Remove all of this from the pan and set aside.

Then, throw in the chicken stock. Basically, you are going to steam your vegies. Add the vegies, starting with the hardest ones first, briefly covering the wok with a lid so that your vegies steam in there.

In the meantime, prepare the sauce. First, mix the cornstarch with a little of the chicken stock to form a paste. Now, add the rest of the chicken stock and all the other sauce ingredients.

Back to the vegies. Once they are just about done, all you do is throw it all together. Add to the pan the reserved pork, the sauce mixture and the nuts. Give it all a big stir and cook briefly until the sauce is thick and hot.

Serve over steamed jasmine rice, and add a garnish. This portion serves two!

Viola!

You should note that it might be nice to add some fresh corriander to this. Unfortunately, I can't buy fresh corriander at any supermarkets near me, hence my reliance on dried ingredients for the Thai flavour. But it works pretty well!

Mini Chocolate Croissants

Well! I've been wanting to try out this recipe for quite some time, but I was waiting for a rainy Saturday afternoon when I had nothing better to do. Finally, I decided to give it a go. They turned out not half bad - a 9 out of 10 from the fussy one in the household.

It's a Nigella recipe, and you can find a copy of it here.

As I don't have an oven, I simply followed the recipe but whacked them in the toaster oven.

They were oh-so-delicious with a big old mug of strong coffee.

A tidal wave of good cooking coming your way!

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by!

For those who don't know me, I'm Mel and I live in Japan. Inspired by my fellow Facebook addicts, I've decided to keep a photographic cooking journal. Because Facebook has its limitations, I decided that starting a blog was even better!

I don't have an oven and I can't always buy my favourite ingredients, but I do the best I can to feed myself and my overly fussy husband.

So thanks for checking out Comely Cuisine, and join me on my zany adventures in my cramped Japanese kitchen.