My Kitchen Produce » Japanese

Grilled Ocean Trout Teriyaki

linda — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:23:34 +0000

I found a bottle of soy sauce alike in the Coles shopping isle. It was $1.65 for a 150 ml bottle. It is called Japanese Ponzu Sauce. I never heard of it and have no clue what it is for. I read the label and it is said: “Ingredients: Citron juice, sugar, water, natural brewed soy sauce (soy bean, water, salt, wheat flour), rice vinegar, rice white wine, corn starch, spices.” I thought I could probably use that for teriyaki sauce.

I never cook with Trout before. I am not really a fish person, not that I don’t like them, in fact I loves them. It is much proper for me to say that I am not really a fish cook. I don’t really familiar with how to cook fish coming from the sea as I grew up in the place with riverbank. Usually me and my grandpa had this fishing trip with his boat on the weekend. My grandmother prepared our lunch early in the morning and she would just waited for us in the car while we were fishing. Then, we had lunch on the riverside with our feet tapping under water. I wish I could turn back the time and go back there. Thank God, Indonesia doesn’t have as much crocodiles as Australia does.

The way we cook our fish was mostly in curry sauce (which need some tropical ingredients that is not available here), asam pedas (meaning sour and spicy, but different to tom yum), fried with or without chili, grilled with soy sauce or with thick coconut sauce. I think Asian cooking is really rich in their sauce and ingredients that sometimes we forgot the simplicity of cooking and the originality of the fresh taste itself. I can only recall the taste of the sauce rather than the fish itself. And this is where I am lacking much, I couldn’t cook something simple with few ingredients. The simple the food, the harder I find myself to cook with them. Or it is probably just in my head.

Well back to the topic, this ocean trout has a very similar texture and taste with salmon. I couldn’t really tell them apart. The distinction between them is that I found salmon has much creamiest taste compare to the trout.

Ingredients

good cut of trout fillet
salt and pepper to season
lemon to season
oil to coat
Japanese Ponzu Sauce to serve
Kecap Manis (Sweet soy sauce) to serve
Salad to serve

Instructions

Seasoned fish with salt, pepper and lemon on both sides.
Coat the surface with enough oil.
Heat grill pan. Cook the fish skin side down for about 5 minutes. Then flip over to the other sides for another 5 minutes. (You can do it with less amount of time, but I like mine well done)
To achieve a much crunchier skin, I popped them in the oven for another few minutes.
Mix Japanese Ponzu Sauce and Kecap Manis. I used Kecap Manis to thicken the sauce a little bit.
Serve with salad on the side.

Culinary tradition: Japanese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Sushi

linda — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:15:26 +0000

It has been a while since I thought of making my own sushi assortments. I even bought the sushi rice and rolling mat for months and kept them stored in my pantry drawer.

One fine afternoon, I just thought to pay a visit to my neighbor, Sydney Fish Market. I forgot the last time I went there. Getting a pram ready for Nathan and the baby carrier ready for Theo. We were on our way to the fish market. My shopping list were teriyaki eel for my unagi nigiri, salmon sashimi for my sushi rolls and nigiri, crab stick for california rolls and fish eggs for my sushi decoration.

We were there around 4 o’clock which was a bit too late because some of the shops were closed already. Thank God, I still got what I need. I bought the avocado as well in their fruit market because they were ripe and at reasonable price.

I had been researching on few websites on how to cook a perfect sushi rice. They say that the key to a perfect sushi lies in its rice. You need to do your rice right to have a decent sushi. I found this perfect website with great instructions and tips. If you would like the recipe, click here.

I took my chances on cooking the rice using a standard rice cooker not a sushi rice cooker. It turned out perfect, and I was relieved and happy as I could do my sushi quick and easy. Here are some photos of my first attempt sushi making. I did some tuna cucumber rolls, tuna avocado rolls, and chicken katsu rolls as well the next day but didn’t do the documentation.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Chicken Katsu

linda — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:09:21 +0000

This is one of the easiest and quick dinner meal to serve. Just need to slice, season, dip, coat and fry, and they are ready to be served. If you prefer the healthier version, simply bake them in the oven instead of frying. However, every fried stuffs taste so much better than baked ones

If you notice the way I double coat the chicken in flour and egg, it is just the way I prefer them to be. However you could just do them once each. There was a story though behind all the double coated and double dipped. I and my mum were running the catering business before. In order to get more chicken katsu pieces, we double coated and double dipped everything, so that the chicken katsu also looks thicker in appearance ;p It was all “business trick”. However, the habit still lives on.

Ingredients

Pair of chicken breast
egg or egg white, whipped
plain flour
bread crumbs
salt and black pepper
oil for deep frying

Instructions

Cut the chicken breast sideways into 2 to 3 pieces to make it thinner. Season with salt and black pepper.
Coat the seasoned chicken pieces in plain flour, then dip in the egg or egg whites, then coat with plain flour again, then dip in egg or egg white again, finally coat with bread crumbs.
Deep fry in oil until browned.
Serve with salads, Japanese mayonnaise, ton katsu sauce, and steamed rice.

Preparation time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: Japanese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!

Karage

linda — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:55:34 +0000

Japanese food will always be one of my family favorite dining out. Whenever we eat Japanese food in a restaurant or sushi bar, my husband almost never forget to order his favorite fried chicken Japanese style. He just seems can’t get enough of Karage. However, I noticed that the taste of Karage in every Japanese restaurant in Sydney never the same. It seems like every restaurant has their own Karage style and taste. One of the sushi bar in Sydney, Sushi Train even has their new flavor of Karage, that is Cajun Karage. I guess I never know the true taste of Karage unless I visit Japan (psst a hidden message for my husband).

Since my husband loves Karage so much, as usual I started to search on the web to find out the best recipe of Karage. I read all the reviews and comments from almost every single Karage recipes that I stumbled upon. This recipe is like a compilation of few Karage recipes that I found. I love the distinct aromatic flavor of the ginger combined with the subtle taste of the soy sauce. The fried chicken came out really crispy without me double frying it.

Ingredients

500 gr chicken thigh fillet, cut into bite size or your preferences
3 tbsp grated ginger
2 tbsp rice wine
4 tbsp soy sauce
corn flour for coating
salt and pepper to preferences on the flour
oil for frying
Japanese mayonnaise for serving

Instructions

Marinade the chicken with ginger, rice wine and soy sauce for at last 30 minutes.
Heat the oil.
Coat the marinated chicken in the corn flour. Shake the flour excess.
Fried the chicken until you can feel with the utensil that they are crunchy.
Serve with the Japanese mayonnaise.

Preparation time (minutes): 30

Culinary Tradition: Japanese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!