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! 

Oroshi Nattou Soba

Oroshi nattou soba made by my dad! :3

Soba is a type of japanese noodle that is made of buckwheat flour. The noodle is brownish and you can eat it cold and hot! Soba is a dish typically munched during new years, to be able to live long and young. At home, we just eat them whenever we want (I know such rebels right?) and when my dad makes soba, this is how we usually eat them (see picture below)! My dad grates daikon radish (the white puree type thing), sprinkle some spring onion, some sea weed and wasabi. You add the soba tsuyu (the dipping sauce) and you munch away. It's so refreshing, it's perfect for summer days!

He had told me about putting nattou (fermented soya beans) on soba and I have been drooling over the idea for some time... I think many westerners don't like nattou since it has a very strong smell (rather ssshtinkyyyy for some :P) and it's all sticky and all. In any case, I love it so I was super keen to try. This recipe is pretty easy. The main problem would be the ingredients that can be rather difficult to find in Europe like nattou and daikon radish. The latter can easily be found in asian grocery store I think (at least in London and Netherlands). Nattou is trickier... I find it in London in a Japanese store called Atariya. Apparently, you can also make it yourself but haven't tried that yet :P Japanese grocery stores are scarce in Europe and are also expensive... Soba is also yummy without it so no worries :D Just adding spring onion, sea weed and wasabi already makes it delicious! For the soba tsuyu I managed to find it in Asian grocery store so should be manageable... 

Anyways, here are the directions for oroshi nattou soba! 

Ingredients (for 2 munchers):

• 400g Soba noodles 
• Soba tsuyu 
• 2 packs of nattou (one for each person)
• 1/3 of daikon radish
• couple of spring onions
• sea weed

Preparation:

1. Boil the water for the soba.
2. In the meantime, cut the spring onion (in small bits).
3. Grate the daikon, it will become like puree. Its very refreshing and a bit spicy? (you will need a little tool for that)
4. In a bowl, add the nattou and the little sauce. Mix it well until its all gooey and stickyyyy.  
5. Cook the soba (check the time on the packaging. Usually soba noodles cook very fast so be careful not to over cook!). When they are done, drain them and use cold water to cool them down.
6. Drain them well and place them into a bowl. Add some soba tsuyu, enough so half of it is immersed in it (some tsuyu needs to be diluted in water so read the etiquette beforehand!). Add the grated daikon raddish, the nattou, and finally sprinkle on the spring onion and sea weed! 

Dekiagari~ Enjoy! :)

Hiyashi Carbonara

First time I made it! :)

You love carbonara? You love asian food? This may be the perfect recipe for you! I saw this recipe, hiyashi carbonara (冷やしカルボナーラ which means cold carbonara) in a Japanese magazine in a clinic for Japanese people in London. When I first read it I thought it was so clever! I adapted it a bit (combined it with how my mum makes her carbonara, my own carbonara recipe and the one in the magazine). If you love carbonara but have issues with the high calories of the original recipe, try making this one! Instead of using spaghetti, you use somen which are very thin Japanese noodles made of wheat flour that are usually served cold. For the sauce, use milk instead of cream! This dish is the perfect way to eat carbonara without feeling guilty or like a fat shit! Yey! AND if it's summer and it's too hot to eat carbonara (said no one ever?) this cold version will be perfect for you! Double YEY!

Second time I made this dish :3

Changed the presentation a bit :P

Ingredients (for 2-3 munchers):

• 400g Somen
• 1 Onion
• 100g Bacon/pancetta
• 2-3 spoons of mashed garlic
• 2 cups of Milk (you can also use liquid cream but makes the dish pretty heavy ><)
• Wasabi (optional)
• 3 Egg yolks
• Sake
• Cheese (emmental/gouda or any other cheese)
• Spring onion
• Salt and Pepper

Preparation:

1. Boil water for the somen while you prepare the sauce
2. Cut the onion into strips and cook them with a little bit of oil. When they start to soften, add the sake. Cover with a lid for 8min. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn. Lift the lid and let the liquid evaporate. When they are cooked, set aside and let them cool a bit. 
3. In another pan, fry the bacon (I don't put any oil in it since bacon already has PUULENTY) until crispy. Set aside so it cools down.   
4. In a bowl, add 3 egg yolks, wasabi and mashed garlic. Mix well with a fork until combined. 
5. Add the milk and cheese and mix some more. Add salt and pepper to taste. 
6. Cut the spring onion as small as possible and put into a bowl. 
7. When the somen are done, rinse them with cold water. Drain them well, place them on a plate, put the onion on top, the bacon and add the sauce. Sprinkle the spring onion as decoration! 

Although I love carbonara, I do think it is pretty heavy. By changing some ingredients to somen and milk, it makes the dish a lot lighter and still very tasty! To reduce even more fat I used smoked ham (it has less fat than bacon). I do think bacon is good for this recipe (even though I'm not such a fan) as it gives extra flavour to the sauce. Make sure you add enough salt to the sauce (it's just milk so it doesn't have that much taste). I also used 2 different types of cheeses for the second time I made it (grated emmental and some powdered nameless hard cheese?) but parmesan would also definitely be yummy :D

If you are not a fan of wasabi you can skip that step but I personally love wasabi so I like to put enough so I am able to taste it hehe. You can also add the onion and bacon to the sauce but make sure they cooled down a bit because otherwise it will cook the egg yolk in the sauce and it will become clumpy.

Enjoy!

Cream Tarako Spaghetti

One of my favorite dish of all times is Tarako spaghetti (Spaghetti with spicy pollock roe sauce). I am a huge fan of this Japanese dish and it is definitely one of my comfort food.
Usually, this sauce comes in a little pack and you just need to season your pasta with butter, and the toppings which consist of nori (seaweed) and tarako (spicy cod roe).
Recently, in the Japanese food store in West London, I found a new kind of tarako sauce called cream tarako. 

Cream tarako from a pack!

As I have not been to Japan in 15 years, I don't know much about current trends there and all the new products that come out (except those that reach Europe i.e. barely any). Anyways, trying this new sauce was a total revelation to me. I never thought that fish eggs and cream could go so well. In order to understand what I mean you really need to try tarako first. Tarako is roe (fish eggs) of cod that have been salted; when I was small I always used to think it looked like a tongue (the fish eggs come in a little sack that resembled a tongue and it was red :P). It can also be spicy which is my favorite, called karashi mentaiko. I used to munch the spicy one with my parents back in Japan during their aperitif ;)

Mentaiko: top is already 'dissected' to be able to scoop the eggs and bottom is just normal :P 

As any of the already prepared sauces are very expensive in London (around 4£ for the cream tarako and normal tarako one) I decided to make it myself. Checked a few recipes online to get inspired and decided to make my own version of it. So here it is! :)

Cream Tarako Spaghetti recipe:

Ingredients for 3 people:

• 400-450 gram of spaghetti
• Butter 
• 2 teaspoon soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon lime/lemon juice 
• 3 Mentaiko (difficult ingredient to find, you have to go to a Japanese fishmonger if possible :()
• 300 ml liquid cream 
• 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise (Japanese Kyupi Mayonnaise is advised or you can skip this)
• Seaweed (seasonning)
• Wasabi (optional)

Preparation:

1. Fill in your pot with water for the pasta. 
2. While the water boils, cut the mentaiko in half and use a spoon to scoop out the eggs and place them in a little bowl. Make sure to scrape most of it! You will be left with a transparent skin like sack; throw it out, we wont need it anymore.
3. Add lime or lemon juice to the eggs in order to get the fishy smell off and mix. Do the same with soya sauce (this is to give it some extra flavour).
4. When you see the water for the pasta is boiling, throw the pasta in and time it until they are al dente. While they are cooking, prepare another large pot (big enough to contain the cooked pasta later on) and add the cream on low heat and wait until it's warm. 
5. Before the pasta is done, stir the mentaiko one last time and add it to the cream. Stir until there are no more big clumps of eggs (at this point your cream will turn pink-ish). Add a bit of Japanese mayo at this point if you want. 
6. When the pasta is drained, add in the large pot, add some butter and coat them evenly with the creamy sauce.
7. Serve on a plate and decorate it with some seaweed and wasabi (this step is optional. Personally I like the little kick it gives and cream and wasabi go great together). You can also keep some mentaiko as decoration like I did :) 

For this recipe, I decided not to cook the eggs directly in the pot because I feel like it makes them dry. In other recipes online, I saw some where the eggs are cooked in butter and then the cream is added. It is up to you but I personally like keeping the eggs a bit raw and juicy. I find it more appetizing ;) 

Overall, not a diet friendly recipe but still very delicious. Be careful not to add too much mayonnaise since it is already very creamy!

Enjoy!

Grape Fanta

Recently, in Atariya (a small Japanese shop in West London) I found a can of grape flavored Fanta for the first time. I cannot even explain the excitement when discovering it. I've been looking for it in different countries but never found it. Even in France where there is so much variety of everything, they did not have it.

As soon as I opened the can, I could smell the grape. The grape flavored candies and juices in Japan are very different from the ones in Europe and it also doesn't seem to be as popular. Personally, I LOVE Japanese grape flavored candies. If you would like to try some and you are in Europe, I would say try chewy candies called hi-chew. They are probably the easiest Japanese candies to find around and I would definitely recommend them (You can also find other flavors than grape, like strawberry, kiwi, apple flavor etc).

Going back to the Fanta can, it was very tasty. It immediately reminded me of when I was little in Japan and had a Happy Meal with nuggets, fries and Grape Fanta as a drink. Even though I think I appreciated it more when I was little, it is still a nice drink but maybe mainly because it brings back memories from when I was small :P