Taco Rice

I only heard of Taco Rice last year and was really intrigued by it. Checked online to find out what it was and saw the video from Cooking with the Dog on Youtube and thought it was a must try recipe. It is a Japanised version of tacos and it's really delicious and easy to make! ^^ (basically, you eat it with rice). 

Here is the video: Taco Rice -Cooking with the Dog-

I did not follow the recipe/video step by step and I think it still turned out pretty good. Like for example I didn't make the salsa myself (I'm lazy like that) and just bought the jar :P

For the meat, I added the salsa and some soya sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce. I placed the rice in the bowl, lettuce pieces, meat in the middle, tomatoes and sprinkled some grated cheese AND added cheese blocks. Then the avocado and tortilla chips, and added some sour cream (made the whole dish a bit creamier hehe).

Anyways, very good recipe that I should make more often! 

So many colours! 

Rendang

Today I will be writing about an Indonesian recipe, a first! It's called Rendang and it's a kind of meat stew. My boyfriend made this for me and my parents and it was absolutely delicious! His mum (who's Indonesian) gave him the instructions! According to him, this is a simplified version of Rendang! It's a very easy recipe with lots of different flavors. A must try if you like spicy food :P 

Recently I have been discovering Indonesian cuisine (thanks to my boyfriend's mum, thank youu ><) and absolutely love it! In Holland, it is relatively easy to find Indonesian products. What you need here the Boemboe Rendang mix is easily found (in Holland and England at least, check picture below next to ingredients :))

Ingredients:

Bag of spices

• Boemboe Rendang mix, the roux
• 1 big onion
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 500g beef 
• 2 sticks of lemon grass
• 3 bay leafs
• 4-5 cups of water
• Coconut milk
• Basmati rice

Preparation:

1. Cut the onion into strips. 
2. Cut the beef into bite size pieces (we had the already cut ones hehe)
3. Cut the garlic into small pieces
4. In a pot, add a little bit of oil and cook the onions. When they become transparent, add the meat and garlic. 
   
5. When the meat is almost cooked, add the Rendang spice mix. Mix thoroughly. Add the 4 cups of water (you can also add more if you are not so good with spicy food like me :P)
   
6. Dissolve the rendang spices and add the bay leaf and lemon grass sticks. 
   
7. Add the coconut milk. You can also add some more water if you're afraid it will be too spicy (but make sure not to add too much because otherwise there is less taste ><)
   
8. Boil on medium heat for 20 min. It's done! Yey! 

Let it sit for a day and then it's done! Its best to do this as the flavours are intensified and really enter the meat. It's absolutely delicious! You can also eat it with sticky rice but Basmati rice or other non-sticky type is best! :D

I made this before but without the lemon grass and bay leaf and it was good but definitely nothing comparable to this one. You should really add them and make it the day before to fully enjoy this dish! 

:3

Saint-Agur Pasta

This is a little recipe I made about 3 times now. It has a little french twist since I used a French blue cheese called Saint Agur. It's a free style recipe, meaning I just added ingredients I like and it became how it is now :P
Being a cheese addict, cheesy pastas are one of my favorite dishes to make. It's easy, yummy and unhealthy T-T I've made this dish before for people who don't like blue cheese and they still liked it! :D
Must try at home!

Ingredients (for 4 nomsters)

• Pasta (any kind, in the photos I used 500g of fresh tagliatelle)
• 1 onion
• 1 courgette
• 1 pack of mushrooms (the quantity is really up to you, I just love mushrooms so used a lot :P)
• 3 cups of milk
• 3 teaspoons of flour
• Around 1 teaspoon of mashed garlic
• Saint-Agur (or any other type of blue cheese)
• Cherry tomatoes
• Wild Rocket

Preparation

1. Boil water for the pasta
2. Cut the onion into thin stripes and the courgette into cubes. Cut the mushrooms into stripes
3. With a little bit of oil in a pan, add the onions. When they start to become transparent, add the courgette. Once the courgettes start to soften, add the mushrooms and the minced garlic. 
4. Add the flour (to thicken the sauce), mix well so it covers the ingredients equally. Add the milk. 
5. When the milk starts to warm up add blue cheese little by little (I diced mine) and mix so it slowly melts :3 The quantity is really up to you. I love blue cheese so I like to put a lot of it in the sauce but some people don't like it when the taste is too strong. Best is to try the sauce as you go until you find the perfect taste! Little advice: the more cheese you add the less salt is needed as blue cheese already contains natural salt! :) It's also best to not let the milk boil as it gives a strange appearance (it becomes kind of grainy) and it's just better to let the cheese melt really slowly hehe
6. Cook the pasta, drain it well!
7. On a plate, place some rucola or rocket on a plate. It will be like a little bed for your pasta :3 Place the pasta in the center and add a generous amount of sauce and some pepper to taste. Place the cherry tomatoes on the side (I cut them in half) and it's ready! :D 

I think blue cheese and rocket goes together really well! I am not a fan to rocket usually as it's so bitter but I think it counters the strong taste of blue cheese really well! For this recipe I used french blue cheese called Saint Agur but of course gorgonzola is also great with it! You can also add more cherry tomatoes on the side (but can also just be little decorations) as it brings some freshness to this cheessy dish!

Enjoy! 

Bibimbap -Restaurant Review-

Couple of weeks ago, I went to this restaurant called Bibimbap in Soho (London). I am a big big fan of Korean cuisine (although I am super bad at eating spicy food :P) since it is so delicate and with lots of flavors. 

We weren't supposed to go to this restaurant at first but to one called Nara which was both a Japanese and Korean restaurant... Unfortunately, when we arrived there, my parents and I realized it was closed... as in just gone forever T-T The site was still running and nothing said that it had closed down for good.... 

In any case, we ended up at Bibimbap by accident and it was really good! The place is actually much bigger than it looks, and it gives a very modern and trendy vibe. The waiters were all Korean, and the walls had sooo many polaroids of customers in the restaurant which was really cool. It seems to be a restaurant for youngsters (18 to 35) and my parents were definitely the oldest ones there ;) It seems to be a very popular restaurant because people were actually lining up outside waiting for a table when we left! :O

Food was delicious, although there isn't as much variety as other Korean restaurants, there is enough to chose from. The speciality is of course Bibimbap. Anyways, here are the things we ordered! 

Korean plum wine! Honestly, not a fan... Tastes too strong... 

Japchae! It was pretty good but a little too oily for my taste.

This was SO. GOOD. Kimchi pancake gaaaah. Could have easily eaten 2 plates of those.

My mum and I got Bibimbap. There was one minus point..... is that to get fried egg on top you have to pay 1£ extra -_-
The dish itself was really good but my food stayed hot for soooo long cuz of the bowl I was quite slow at eating :P (I am problems eating hot stuff too. yesh nomster lots of issues here.)

My dad's. He got the bibimbap with raw meat in it. It gets cooked in the bowl... Next time, I am definitely taking that! And you also had the Korean miso and gochujang on the table to add to your dish!

So this was our dinner at Bibimbap! I would definitely recommend it, it's a nice looking place with affordable tasty food and right in the center of London! Must go to!

Click HERE for their site and menu! :D

Happy V-day!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's day with this Tiramisu V-day Edition <3 <3

I posted about this recipe before so please check it out HERE! :D


<3 <3 <3

Carbonara a la Rithuu 1

Today, I would like to post about how I make Carbonara. I have different ways of making it and this is the first one which would be the closest to the traditional one. Some people might accuse me of misusing the term Carbonara but this is why this post is called 'Carbonara A LA RITHUU' :P And its number 1 because there will be another post about my Japanized Carbonara in the very near future. Very exciting, I know.

I actually think Carbonara is quite difficult to master (I think it took me 3-4 years to become confident about how I make it) but do not be put off! Maybe I was just an extreme noob :P (high possibility hihi)

This recipe is very easy and fast to make! It's extra creamy and garlic-y and I think Carbonara is one of the best comfort food evaaaa! 

Despite not being the traditional recipe, I hope you still enjoy this post and try making it at home! :)

Ingredients (for 2 nomsters):

• Spaghetti (approximately100-120g per person) AL DENTE
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons of milk + half a cup of milk
• One pack of bacon (some people like to put a lot others not so much so quantity is up to you :))
• 1 Onion
• LOTS of garlic = 1 tablespoon of mashed garlic
• 1 tablespoon of white wine
• 3-4 table spoons of Parmesan cheese (or any other type of hard cheese)
• Grated Emmental cheese or any other kind of grated cheese (optional)
• 2 teaspoons of flour
• Salt and pepper
• Parsley (optional)

Preparation: 

1. Boil the water for the pasta
2. In a bowl, add the egg yolks, mashed garlic and 2 tablespoons of milk. Mix well. Then add the parmesan cheese and a little bit of salt and pepper. 
3. Cut the bacon into bite size pieces. Cut onion into stripes. In a large pan, (large enough to contain your cooked spaghetti afterwards) add the bacon. I don't use any oil or butter as the bacon already has plenty of those! When the bacon starts to get cooked, add the onion. 
4. When the onion starts to become transparent, add some white wine. At this point you can also add extra garlic ;)
5. When the alcohol completely evaporated, add the flour. This will help the sauce become creamier by just adding milk. Let's be honest, cream is delicious but also really fatty... This will help making this recipe a little healthier! :D Mix the flour evenly on the bacon and onion and add the milk.
6. Let it simmer and you will see that the sauce will start to thicken! At this point you can add emmental cheese (around 2 tablespoons) and mix well. At this point everything will look like this: 

Hi, I'm creamy. 

7. When your spaghetti are cooked, drain them well and add them to the bacon and onion pan. Lightly mix and add the egg yolk mixture and mix well again! You should still have the stove on at this point so the egg yolks are lightly cooked, making the sauce thicker. But make sure it doesn't over cook and become clumpy >< (it also shouldn't be too liquid)
Aaaand it's done, YEY! You can add some parsley as decoration. Now, just enjoy this delicious comfort food.

Oh and little warning, since it uses A LOT of garlic, best not to make this when you have date? ;) Or reduce the quantity of garlic hihi

Quite a lot of bacon

Add some pepper! :D

Gateau Breton

After being healthy with just a soup, I think now it is time to get onto a non-healthy recipe hehe.
This is a cake my mum makes and that I requested ^^ I made it myself before but as everyone knows, no matter how many times you make something the one your mum makes is always a bizillion times better. Yes, this is a fact ;) So yes the pictures of the cake you see here was made by Mama Rithuu! Mercii!

In any case, it is a pretty simple recipe and absolutely delicious as long as you like butter and the sweet and savory combination! :) This recipe is from my mum's region in Brittany and it's very similar to dutch boterkoek (also really delicious by the way). So if you like boterkoek, you will definitely like this recipe! A must try at home! :)
Recipe also available in French at the end of this post!

Ingredients:

• 300g of flour
• 240g of butter 
• 240g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 pinch of baking soda

Preparation:

Little advice: best to use Breton salted butter for this recipe like the one on the photo below. If it's not available where you are, just use salted butter (very important that it is salty!)

1. Melt the butter and mix the sugar. Then add the egg yolks (make sure the butter isn't too hot so it doesn't cook the eggs ><)
   
2. Add flour and mix well until it becomes dough-y.
   
3. Butter your mould and flatten the dough into it. 
4. Lightly brush with egg yolk so it becomes golden brown when baked! :) Use a fork to do the little design as shown on the photo and bake for 30min at 180 degrees!

And when it's ready... nom nom nom

So yeah as you can see it's a pretty straight forward recipe! It's really tasty and super delicious to have for breakfast or just as a snack :P or just anytime... hehe 

Just remember, it is important to use good quality salted butter for this recipe!

Hope you try making it! :D

Recette en Francais:

Ingredients: 

• 300g de farine
• 240g de beurre
• 240g de sucre
• 3 jaunes d'oeufs. 

Preparation:

1. Faire fondre le beurre et y ajouter le sucre. Ajouter les jaunes d'oeufs.
2. Ajouter la farine et mélanger le tout
3. Mettre dans un plat beurré. 
4. Dorer le dessus au jaune d'oeuf.
5. Faire cuire pendant 30minutes a 180 degres. 

Voila! :D

Pea-Leek Soup

Since it's still officially winter I thought I could add another soup recipe here! :D Today it's a pea and leek soup! I got inspired looking at some soup recipes and adapted to how I make soup myself. 

So here we go!

Ingredients: (for 4-6 servings)

• 4 leeks
• 10 spring onions (less or more is fine too)
• 4 cups of frozen green peas
• 4 cups of water 
• Chicken broth/bouillon (one cube or 3-4 spoons if in powder)
• 4 cups of milk
• Salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Cut the leeks and spring onion into small to medium pieces 
2. In a pot, add the leeks and spring onion with 2 cups of water and cook on high heat (You can also use some vegetable oil to cook them but to make it extra healthy, we will just poach them in water :))
3. When the vegetables start getting cooked, add the remaining 2 cups of water. 
4. Cut the bouillon cube into small pieces and add it to the pot and mix well. 
5. Add 2 cups of milk and add the frozen peas. Let it cook a bit.
6. At this point you can add some salt and pepper to taste. 
7. Use the hand blender to create the soup. Make sure it becomes all liquid-y (this can take some time especially if you are a perfectionist. But don't worry not more than 8 minutes :P)
8. Add the remaining of the milk (you can also keep it this way, depends how thick you want it to be). And then it's done! :D

I really like this recipe, it's very tasty! And it's so easy to make (soup in general are really simple as long as you have to hand blender ;))As usual, have a nice salad on the side with some chicken, turkey or ham and you will have a healthy meal!

Tiramisu

Ok so maybe the picture does not look super appealing but I can reassure you this recipe is very good. It's the one my mum makes and it's so yummy and very simple! I've made tiramisu many times when we had big gatherings for birthdays with my friends and I think everyone liked it :)
Hope you try making it!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs 
• 300g mascarpone (sometimes they only sell 250g ones and that quantity is also ok. Makes the mascarpone mixture more liquid)
• 50g Sugar
• Salt
• 250-300g of lady fingers
• Lemon zest/lemon juice
• 1 dl of very strong coffee 
• 3 tablespoons of Amaretto
• 5 tablespoons of rum
• Chocolate powder

For this recipe you will need 2 large bowls and an electric mixer! (very important!)

Preparations: 

1. Prepare some instant coffee (add lots of it so it's very strong) and a teaspoon of sugar. Add the amaretto and rum and set aside so it cools down. 
2. In 2 large bowls, separate the egg yolk from the white. 
3. In the bowl with the 2 egg yolks, add 50g of sugar. Mix with the electric mixer until it becomes white/beige-ish. Add the mascarpone to the mixture (best here to just mix with a spoon/fork and not the electric mixer. Might make it a little too liquid-y). 

   

   Mascarpone mixture!

4. In the bowl with the egg white, add a pinch of salt and use the electric mixer to beat until they form peaks. As you mix, add a table spoon of sugar. It will become pretty compact and you will be able to turn the bowl upside down (and the egg white should not fall. If it does then it's not ready :P). As the cake noob that I am, I have messed up the recipe one time because I was lazy and did not wash the electric mixer (after using it to mix the sugar and egg yolk) before beating the egg white... It will stay all liquid-y so make sure there's no yolk or anything else before beating the white! (Just don't be lazy like meee! :P)

   

   fluffeeeehh

5. When it's done, add the egg white to the mascarpone mixture very delicately. For this you can either use a spatula or a spoon and mix in a circular motion not to destroy the egg's white fluffiness. 
6. Place the coffee into a bowl and dip each lady finger generously and place them in a mould (I usually use an oven dish ^^). Create one layer and add one coat of mascarpone mixture. The repeat this process (lady fingers dipped in coffee-rum-amaretto) and coat with the rest of mascarpone (ok I always have a problem here, I always either use too much in the beginning or not enough so try to make it equal unlike me :P). You may also realize that you just don't have a perfect amount of lady fingers.... (like me) so just YOLO it up. 

   

   Make it work :P
   
   
   

   

7. When you're done, cover it and refrigerate it for half a day or 24 hours (24 hours is usually better) so all the flavors sink in the lady fingers! 
8. When you are about to eat it, cover it with some chocolate powder and it's done! :D

You can cover with dark chocolate powder but I've used Nesquick as well and it works :P

How to: Afternoon Tea

I discovered afternoon tea in England. It is very typical british, and I love the way it looks. It's supposed to be taken in the afternoon (around 3 or so? until more or less 6) It makes you feel like having something super shmancy when it's actually pretty simple to make!
I've had quite a few afternoon teas here and there in England and I can tell you the ones in London are just... SO GODDAMN EXPENSIVE! Always more than 15£. When you go outside of London, you can have some for maybe 12. They might not look and be as fancy as but still a nice afternoon snack ^^

Afternoon tea consists of: a couple of finger sandwiches, scones, and some cakes/pastries. And of course, TEA. Sometimes you can also have Champagne afternoon tea which can add another 15£ to it -_-
So the price of afternoon tea can be rather discouraging... why not make it at home? I think it's very nice to do when you have guests (the whole thing usually leaves quite an impression on people? :P). I would really recommend you to try making it yourself, it's fun, easy and it just looks good :D

How to:

• Cutlery: What is essential for the afternoon tea is this little afternoon tea set, where you can place your food. This, really makes it an afternoon tea. To make it more into a british atmosphere, it is important that you have some nice tea cups. If you don't have that double/triple story set (I don't know the correct term sorreeeh) just nice looking plates will also do! :D
• Drinks: tea of course, whatever you like (english breakfast, or just simple early grey?). And if you want to make it fancier, have some champagne or prosecco (it's cheaper too :P)
• Sandwiches: try to buy the bread without the crust or otherwise you can always cut the crust out. Usually, you always have salmon one and an egg one (some places also have a cucumber one). For the salmon one, I put a thin layer of philadelphia cream cheese and salmon. For the cucumber, again a layer of philadelphia and thin slices of cucumber (remember it's supposed to be delicate and fancy so best when it's thin slices :P). And for the egg one, hard boil 2 eggs, add some mayonnaise (personally I use the japanese one) until it becomes quite creamy, pepper and a little bit of parsley. Cut the sandwiches into either triangles or rectangles and it's DONE!
• Scones: if you live in the UK, you can just buy the already made scones in local supermarkets (which is what we do most of the time :P) or make them yourself! :D (recipe coming soon ^^)
• Pastries: here you can basically make any cake you want! Sometimes I made cup cakes, or get French pastries (Eclair au chocolat? hehe). Carrot cake, cheese cake, lemon tart, nutella cake... As long as it's a small portion since you might already be stuffed from sandwiches and scones, everything is good. I've had pretty creamy/heavy cakes which I could really not finish anymore so I think keeping them either light or small portions will be best! :)

So these are pictures I have taken of the most recent afternoon teas at home! We also offered some chocolates (on the picture: Ferrero Rocher, my favorite chocolates of all time and orange-chocolate truffles).

If you want to spoil yourself some more, you can also do Champagne Aternoon Tea. Yes, it makes you feel even more luxurious and fancy. Champagne is a bit too much you say? Cheaper alternatives are prosecco or some other Italian spumante (sparkling wine)!

Prosecco Afternoon Tea I did with some of my girlfriends

With usual finger sandwhiches, steamed cup cakes, raisin scones and short bread ^^

Hope you try this at home! :D

Hayashi Rice

Hayashi rice is a delicious Japanese stew! I used to buy the roux in Japanese stores in London and in Holland but after the tsunami, it either just disappeared or the prices went up.... So finding the recipe online was perfect to solve the problem of non-availability or high prices!

I got the recipe from Cooking with the Dog on Youtube! :D It's a super good recipe and even if it looks a bit of a hassle, I would really recommend you making this! The fact that it's a video also makes everything easier since you get a visual of how to. To watch the video click here! Follow all the instructions and success is guaranteed :D

The most annoying thing is making the roux but you just need to be patient and thorough with it. Made it quite a few times now and I never burnt the roux (maybe I jinxed myself now nooo). Maybe my problem is that it doesn't become as brown as in the video (since I am always so scared to burn it).
Also don't be discouraged by the amount of ingredients! Most of them are common ingredients (ketchup, honey, soya sauce) and for the not-so-common ones I just skip them! (like bay leaf and Worcestershire sauce) and it still tastes very good. To make a liiiiittle healthier, I also skip the whipping cream at the end...

I also used fresh tagliatelle once because one of the guests I made it for was not a fan of rice ;) And I think it was a really good combo! So if you are not a fan of rice, or just don't have any, pasta also goes great together! :)

Tuna Mayo Spaghetti

This is a recipe my dad makes and it's soooo. guuuuud. As usual, it's a very easy recipe and I made it myself (Of course, it will never be as good as my dad's T.T.). There aren't many steps and the ingredients are pretty easy to find even in Europe!
It's a wafu recipe, meaning it's a fusion between Europe and Japan (more specifically Italy and Japan here)! I love these kind of wafu recipes, especially when it involves spaghetti :P Oh and wafu pasta is always made with spaghetti... Don't ask me why :P I'm sure it's still delicious with other types of pasta but for me it has to be with spaghetti...

Anyways, hope you try making it!

Ingredients (3-4 nomsters):

• 400-450g of spaghetti
• 1 can of Tuna (no oil no nothing)
• Couple of spring onions 
• 1 onion
• 4 table spoons of Japanese mayonnaise
• Somen/Soba tsuyu
• Wasabi (Optional)
• Sea weed (Optional)
• butter
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Boil the water for the pasta
2. In the meantime, cut the spring onion as thin as possible, you can use the photos as guide line :P Place them in a bowl in the meantime as you will only need them at the end.
3. Cut the onion into large stripes. In any case, you don't have to be super thorough with the cutting ;) Yey!
4. Before cooking the onion, open the can of tuna, and place it into a bowl. Add the Japanese mayonnaise (you can use normal mayonnaise of course, but the Japanese Kewpie Mayo has more flavour I think.) and mix well. I put 4 table spoons but you can also put more or less. It's up to you :). Add some pepper and a little bit of salt. Make sure not to add too much salt as the tsuyu is already quite salty. Set aside. 
5. In a large pot, add a little bit of butter and cook the onion. 
6. When the water is boiling cook your spaghetti. When they are cooked, drain them well and throw them (not literally... water might splash everywhere and you might burn yourself/make a mess) into the large pot that contains your onions. At this point, add somen/soba tsuyu. Just add enough so that it coats your spaghetti and mix well. 
7. Place on to a plate with some onion. Add a spoon or two of the tuna mayo sauce, add the spring onion. Rip some sea weed into small pieces and wasabi! On the picture, the wasabi is in the middle but usually I just put some on the side of my plate and add some to every bite I take ;)
8. You mix a little yourself and ready to nom nom nom....

I recommend using Japanese sea weed for this recipe (Korean/Chinese sea weed is also nice but they have a stronger smell/taste). 

Enjoy! :D