Cuttlefish Rice

Came across this recipe in a chinese blog, ikumichan. I am not very sure whether it is Japanese but by the look of most of the ingredients used I assumed that's what it is. It is such an elegant and unusual way to serve rice  and yet so easy to prepare. Next time I do this I am going to add some dried mushroom and cilantro for more flavor as I find the filling a little too bland. So the recipe given here is what I would do when I cook this dish again. 

10 whole small to medium cuttlefish, heads and hard spines removed, guts cleaned, towel dried

1 cup short grain rice (Calrose, Japanese or our Bario hill rice) soaked for 3 hours

1 1/2 cup minced pork

3 T finely chopped dried mushroom (soaked and drained)

3 T chopped cilantro

salt and pepper

Combine seasoned meat, rice, mushroom and cilantro together well. Fill each cuttlefish with the rice mixture to about 80% full (as the rice will expand when cooked). Secure the opening with a toothpick. 

Sauce:

2-3 cups water

2-3 T kikoman soy sauce

2 T cooking sake

2 T mirin

1-2 T sugar

Mix all ingredients together and bring to boil. Drop stuffed cuttlefish into the sauce. Bring to the boil again and simmer in medium heat for 40-50 minutes.

Adjust taste and thickness of sauce at the end of cooking.

Serve with some lettuce.

Fa Cai Fried Rice

I love fried rice, to cook and to eat. Especially at this time when the fridge is packed with so many ingredients to choose from.
This dish was made in between the busy mahjong sessions. Quick and easy but extremely delicious. This is truly a feast in a dish packed with all the festive's essence.
More liau than rice :P


As the exact amount of ingredients in this dish isn't crucial, I do not specify the amount so you are free to experiment - add or omit, entirely up to you.
These are the many goodies I found in my fridge...


Fa Cai Fried Rice
~overnight cooked rice, loosened
~fresh prawns, peeled and diced
~chinese sausage, thinly sliced
~carrots, peeled and diced
~pumpkin, peeled and diced
~dried prawns, soaked and chopped
~leek, sliced
~fresh mushroom (shitake, button or enoki), cleaned and sliced
~yam, peeled, diced and deep fried (I used the 'khew nyuk' leftover yam)
~celery, diced
~red pepper, de-seed and diced
~eggs
~garlic, chopped
~big onions, peeled and diced
~oyster sauce
~light soy sauce
~sesame oil
~oil
~salt and pepper

Heat oil in a hot wok.
Add the chinese sausage, onion and dried prawns then garlic and fry till fragrant.
Add pumpkin, yam, carrots and cook for 2-3 minutes until veggies soften.
Add fresh prawns and leek.
Push these to one side of wok (take out if wok too small), add another 1-2 tablespoons oil and add eggs.
Keep stirring to break up the eggs, add rice and put in the rest of the fried stuffs.
All these are done over very high heat so constant stirring and tossing is essential to avoid burning.
Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
Lastly add the red pepper and celery to give an extra crunch and sweetness to this special fried rice.
Dish out and sprinkle some chopped spring onion to garnish.

Jo

Scattered Seafood Sushi

This family loves Japanese food but eating out in Japanese restaurant has to be on special occasions because of the cost factor. The next best thing (in fact, I think it is the best thing as I have control over the freshness, quality and quantity of my ingredients) is to cook Japanese at home and it is not difficult.
Want to do something which restaurants don't normally serve and easy...that leaves me with the scattered sushi which means anything goes. The best thing about this dish is, you put what you like for the toppings.
While getting a few things for the dish, I saw grilled unagi all ready to serve at Recipe House for about Rm20! (an unagi set at our favourite Japanese joint costs Rm 32 with half the amount of unagi I was looking at). Knowing how crazy the kids are over this stuff, I have to include this topping.

So a scattered seafood sushi it is!

Scattered Sushi

Serve 4 - 6

For the sushi rice

4 cups short grain rice, Bario or our very own Saza's beras bukit (hill rice) is good

4 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup rice vinegar

Wash rice, add water and cook in the rice cooker.

Mix sugar, salt and vinegar in a small pot over low heat until dissolved. Leave to cool.

When rice is done, leave in cooker for another 10 minutes.
With a flat rice spoon, turn rice out into a wide pan and at the same time sprinkle vinegar mix over the rice.

Toss the rice with horizontal cutting strokes so that the vinegar mixes through. All these done under a fast fan, the reason being to cool the rice fast so that it doesn't become mushy.

When cool, cover with a clean kitchen cloth until ready to use. This rice can be used for all sushi and nori maki.

For the topping

4-6 dried shiitaki mushrooms, soaked until soft, discard stems and slice thinly

1 cup water + 1/2 teaspoon dashi granules

2 tablespoon mirin

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

12 fresh medium sized prawns

200g grilled unagi

2 sheets nori, toasted

3 eggs

1 carrot, peeled and julienned

1 small cucumber, seeded and julienned

Bring to boil soy sauce, mirin, dashi and sugar in a small pot. Add mushroom, simmer until tender. Drain and let cool.

Dip prawns into boiling water for 2 minutes. Peel, leaving the tails on and devein.

Stir eggs lightly with a dash of sugar and a pinch of salt (don't let air bubbles form).

Cook in a frying pan without stirring or turning with low heat until set. Cool on a chopping board. Cut into thin strips.

Cut unagi into 1 cm stripes.

Place sushi rice on a serving plate. I used a 36cm flat plate so I can thin out the rice to about 2.5 cm thick.

Scatter the eggs, carrot and cucumber over rice. Then crumble the toasted nori over. Arrange the mushroom, prawns and unagi attractively on top, garnish with some julienned pickle ginger on the unagi and cilantro all over.

Note: Suggested toppings - beef or chicken teriyaki over toasted b/w sesame seeds, grilled calamari or sashimi (make sure the fish is very fresh and topped on only when ready to eat).

Jo

Paella without the Pan

Chicken and Seafood Paella

I never attempted this dish before with the excuse that I don't have a paella pan. After K's fried rice episode, I wanted to try it out...and hi, anyone knows where to get a decent paella in Kota Kinabalu?

Anyway, I figured if Rasa Malaysia could do a clay pot rice without the pot, a paella without the paellera would do just as well. I made do with a 14 inch pan. Searched through the Internet and adapting from 2-3 recipes (Global Delights, Spanish-Recipes ...) that looked promising and not too 'ma fun' (troublesome), I came up with this version after three attempts.

Definitely hit the jackpot with this one-pot dish to feed this hungry family that loves rice. It took more than 30 minutes (roughly 1 hour) but definitely worth the while. This paella relies on a good sofrito for its delicate flavour. The chicken and seafood contrast nicely with the sweet bell peppers and the delicate herbs.

Seafood and chicken Paella
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs, cut into small pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper
10-12 fresh prawns (2-3 per person)
2 cups rice, preferably short-grain
8 to 10 threads of saffron - immersed in the hot stock
3-4 cups hot stock or water, season with salt
1-2 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips
1 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips
Freshly ground pepper and salt, to taste
Lemon wedges, to garnish

Ingredients for the sofrito:
2-3 ripe tomatoes, skinned and grated
1 big red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped




1) Set a 14-inch paella pan over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the chicken; saute until the chicken is golden, 5 to 10 minutes.

2) Transfer the partially cooked chicken to a plate.

3) Reduce the heat to medium low. In the same pan, saute the red pepper slices slowly until they're very limp, adding more oil if necessary; transfer the pieces to a plate, cover with foil, and set aside. When cooled, peel off the skin.

Alternatively, put the peppers on the stove top and grill until soft and charred. Put into a bowl and cover. When they are cooled, peel off the charred skin, deseed and slice.

4) Now to cook the sofrito: in the same pan, if there's more than 1 tablespoon of oil in the pan, pour out the excess. Increase the heat to medium, saute the grated onion and sliced garlic until the onion is soft and slightly brown, about 5 minutes. Add the grated tomato. Season well with salt, saute until the water from the tomato has dried out and the mixture, called a sofrito, darkened to a brownish color becomes a very thick puree (jam-like consistency)

5) Add the rice to the sofrito, stirring until it's translucent, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread out the rice (it should just cover the bottom of the pan), and arrange the chicken in the pan. Increase the heat to medium high, pour in 3 cups of the hot saffron-infused stock (reserving 1 cup) and add in herbs and seasoning. Do not stir.

6) Bring the stock to a boil, cook until the rice begins to appear above the liquid, 6 to 8 minutes. Lay the peppers in the pan, starburst-like. Continue to simmer, rotating the pan to cook all sides, until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is al dente, another 15 to 20 minutes.

7) If the liquid is absorbed but the rice is not done, add a little more hot stock or water to the pan and cook a few minutes more.

8) Add the prawns, cook for another 2 minutes with the pan covered, this will help to ensure that the prawns and the top layer of rice is evenly cooked.

9) With the cover still in place, increase the heat to medium high and, turning the pan, cook until the bottom layer of rice starts to caramelize, 1 to 2 minutes - you can hear a crackling sound, remove the pan immediately from the heat before a burnt smell is detected.

10) Let the paella rest, still covered, 5 to 10 minutes.

11) Garnish with lemon wedges, and serve.


1st try- Rice tasted good but was burnt black at the bottom...

2nd try- Used a bigger pan. Peeled the pepper but not the prawns, used hot water instead of stock.

good to the last morsel...

Note: Another item to my kitchen wish list - a 16" paella pan! This is one dish I will cook again... next try -- with clams and mussels!.

Jo

Deluxe Fried Rice

Fried rice with a twist

I thought 'Wow, paella!' when K first cooked this up. No, it's not but I can tell you it was very delicious and so so simple to make. He saw this done on one of those many culinary programmes he watched on tv. The simple fried rice with the sweet juices from the steamed prawns ...emmm... heavenly!

Deluxe fried rice

Serve 4-6

4-6 cups cooked rice (overnight-better)

300 gm fresh prawns, trimmed

3 eggs, beaten

1 bulb garlic, chopped

2-3 stalks celery, chopped

3 tablespoon oil

few stalks spring onions, chopped

salt and pepper

1) Heat oil in the wok (best utensil for frying) and fry the chopped garlic on medium heat until fragrant but not brown. Take out the garlic, put aside but leave the oil in the wok.

2) Turn the heat up and pour in the eggs. Before the eggs set add the rice and mix well

3) Fry for another 5 minutes until the rice make popping sounds. Add the celery. Season with salt and pepper. Fry for another minute or so.

4) Turn off heat, mix in half of the fried garlic and the whiter part of the chopped spring onion.

5) Dish rice onto a heatproof casserole.

6) Spread prawns on top of the hot rice and sprinkle on all the remaining garlic.

7) Put into a preheated bamboo steamer on high heat and steam for 3-5 minutes.

8) Remove from heat and garnish with spring onion. Serve hot.

Served on lettuce makes one less dish to prepare

The yellow color of the fried rice comes from the rich yolk of kampung chicken eggs and not from tumeric or saffron!

K and Jo