A Garden in My Kitchen

About a month ago I bought a bag of onions. I haven't been using a lot of onions lately, so I was surprised to see this a few days ago. Now, if I need green onions, I don't have to go to the grocery to buy some!

Garlic Beef with Green Beans

This is the other recipe I am making using half of the pork tenderloin. Yes, I bought a big bag of frozen green beans so I've been using it a lot. The original recipe calls for broccoli and is taken from "A Spoonful of Ginger" by Nina Simonds

1 ½ lb flank steak or boneless sirloin

Marinade

3 ½ tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine or sake
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp cornstarch
…
1 ½ lbs broccoli, broccoli rabe or Chinese broccoli
5 ½ tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 ½ tbsp minced fresh ginger
¼ cup rice wine or sake, mixed with 3 tbsp of water

Sauce (mixed together)

½ cup chicken broth or water
6 tbsp oyster sauce
1 ½ tbsp rice wine or sake
1 ½ tbsp sugar
1 tsp soy sauce
½ tsp toasted sesame oil
1 ½ tsp cornstarch
…

2 tbsp minced scallion greens

1. Cut beef across the grain into thin slices about 1/8 inch thick, then cut the slices into 1 inch squares. Put beef in bowl, add premixed marinade and toss lightly to coat. Let marinate for 1 hour at room temperature or longer in the refrigerator.

2. Separate the broccoli florets into bite-size pieces

3. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a pot. Add broccoli and cook for about 3 ½ or 4 minutes or until just tender. Drain in a colander and refresh under cold water. Drain again.

4. Heat a wok or a large skillet, add 3 ½ tbsp of oil and heat until near smoking. Add beef and stir fry over high heat until it loses its raw colour and the pieces separate. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain. Clean out pan.

5. Reheat pan adding the remaining oil adding garlic and ginger. Stir fry for 15 seconds or until fragrant, then add broccoli and rice wine-water mixture and toss lightly to heat through. Add the sauce and cook until it thickens, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Add the cooked beef and toss until the meat is heated through and everything is coated with the sauce. Sprinkle with scallion greens and serve with rice.

Serves 6

Pork and Green-Bean Stir-Fry

I like it when I'm able to prepare more than one dish from a slice of meat. I bought half a kilo of pork tenderloin today and was able to make two dishes out of it. This recipe from Food Magazine was one of them. I forgot to add the sugar when making the sauce and I didn't have red-pepper flakes, red bell pepper and peanuts, but the dish was still good and so easy to prepare.

* 1 pork tenderloin (about 3/4 pound), trimmed of excess fat
* Coarse salt
* 2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
* 1 teaspoon sugar

* 3 teaspoons vegetable oil
* 1 tablespoon minced, peeled fresh ginger
* 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
* 1 pound green beans, trimmed and cut crosswise into 2-inch pieces
* 1 cup fresh broccoli florets
* 1 red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, cut into thin strips
* 1/3 cup dry-roasted peanuts, chopped
* Cooked white rice, for serving (optional)

Cut pork diagonally into 1/4-inch thick slices. In order to cut the pork thin enough, stick it in the freezer for about 20 minutes before slicing it up. Cut each slice lengthwise in half. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt. In a small bowl, mix soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar; set sauce aside.

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add half the ginger, pepper flakes, and pork; cook, stirring, until pork is no longer pink, about 3-5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Repeat, cooking remaining ginger, pepper flakes, and pork in another teaspoon oil; transfer to plate. (I cooked the pork all at once.)

Meanwhile, cook green beans in a medium pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Drain; dry with paper towels.

Add remaining teaspoon oil to the skillet. Add beans, bell pepper, broccoli and 2 tablespoons water; cook over high heat, stirring often, until peppers are tender, about 2 minutes.

Add peanuts, pork mixture, and reserved sauce. Cook, stirring, until pork is coated, about 1 minute. Serve immediately, over rice, if desired.

Japanese-Style Hamburgers

Update: I have tried this recipe and didn't like the way it turned out. Combining the eggs, milk the breadcrumbs separately made the mixture clumpy so it was difficult to incorporate it with the beef. Since I don't want to waste food, I crumbled the beef patties and made chili and shepherd's pie instead. I will not attempt to make burgers again. I will just wait for my brother-in-law to send a batch of his burger patties. I will definitely continue to cook burgers the way they do in the recipe below.

I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I like the way the burger is cooked. I usually am wary about cooking hamburger, especially for my son's lunch, because I'm not quite sure if it's cooked all the way through. The technique used here guarantees that the meat is cooked evenly.

Burger:
14 oz (400g) ground beef
1/2 tsp salt
ground black pepper to taste
1/2 onion
vegetable oil for frying
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 cup breadcrumbs

Sauce:
2/3 cup water
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon sake
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon butter

1. Season the beef with salt and pepper and set aside.

2. Chop the onion very fine and saute in a little oil until transparent. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, combine egg and milk and mix, then add breadcrumbs and mix briefly. Set aside to allow flavors to combine.

4. Add the onion mixture and the breadcrumb mixture to the beef. Mix lightly by squeezing the meat 2 or 3 times with your hands. This will make the meat light and fluffy.

5. Dab a little oil on your palms and divide the meat into four portions. Toss each portion from one hand to the other, as if you were playing catch, to remove any excess air. Shape into 4 hamburgers, indenting the middle of each with your thumb.

6. Heat a little oil in a fry pan and saute hamburgers over medium heat until nicely browned on one side. Turn and brown the other side.

7. Add enough boiling water to the pan to half-cover the burgers. Cover the pan and simmer over medium-high heat until burgers are cooked through. Remove the lid, lower heat to medium, and continue cooking until all the liquid has evaporate. Place on individual plates and set aside.

8. To make the sauce, add water, ketchup, sake, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and butter to the same pan, and bring to a boil. Simmer until slightly thickened and ladle the sauce over burgers. Serve with your favorite vegetables.

Japanese Pan-Fried Chicken

Due to my ready access to the library, I've been borrowing a lot of cookbooks and trying out new recipes. Here's one easy and delicious recipe I cooked for dinner last week taken from "The Quick and Easy Japanese Cookbook" by Katsuyo Kobayashi.

2-3 boneless chicken thighs
8 fresh shiitake mushrooms (I used dried mushrooms)
3 small bell peppers
2-3 tablespoons mirin (or 2-3 tablespoons sake + 2 teaspoons sugar)
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
Japanese sansho pepper (optional)
sichimi togarashi red pepper or red chili flakes (optional)

1. Trim off any excess fat from the chicken.

2. Cut off hard stems off the mushrooms, and cut each mushroom in half or into quarters. If using bell peppers, remove caps and seeds, and cut lengthwise into 4-6 pieces.

3. Make the sauce by combining mirin and soy sauce, and set aside.

4. Heat a nonstick fry pan until very hot. Place chicken skin-side down and fry over medium-heat until the skin starts to crisp and turn golden brown. Turn chicken over and brown the other side. Add shiitake and green peppers to the pan.

5. When the meat is just cooked through, add the sauce. Turn chicken and vegetables repeatedly, to develop the flavor.

6. When sauce thickens, remove chicken from the pan and cut into easy-to-eat pieces. Arrange attractively on a dish with mushrooms and peppers. Serve hot, setting out sansho pepper and shicimi togarashi red pepper on the table as optional seasonings.

Oatmeal Cookies

It's all about oatmeal this week. Here's an oatmeal cookie recipe that I tried on a whim and it's very good. I didn't have wheat germ, so I replaced it with dried cranberries.

1/2 cup butter (1/4 pound)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 lightly beaten egg
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or toasted sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 375F. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and salt, and beat well.

Stir flour, baking powder, wheat germ, and rolled oats together with a fork. Blend well with other ingredients, adding a tablespoon or more of water if necessary to hold the mixture together.

Place by tablespoonsful on greased cookie sheets. Flatten them slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Makes 24.

Sweet and Sour Tofu

Here's a different kind of sweet and sour dish. I add some chicken slices because my husband and son aren't into vegetarian dishes.

1/2 cup large walnut pieces
2 blocks tofu (about 22 ounces or 624 grams)
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sherry or sake

1 large onion
1 large green pepper
1 stalk celery
1 large or 2 small carrots
2 tablespoons oil
1 heaped cup fresh pineapple chunks (i used canned tidbits)

1-1/2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons vinegar
1-1/4 cups vegetable stock or water (i used the pineapple juice from the tidbits + water)
1-1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

Toast walnut pieces in a dry skillet over medium heat, and set aside.

Cut tofu into 1" cubes and marinate in 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce and sherry.

Cut onion across center and down through the middle into wedge-shaped slices. Cut green pepper in pointy wedges and celery and carrots in thin diagonal slices. Stir-fry in oil until crispy-tender, adding pineapple after the first 2 or 3 minutes. Use a wok or heavy pan that has a lid - but not one made of cast iron; the acidity of this dish will cause it to discolor and taste metallic.

Combine honey, vinegar and 1 cup of the vegetable stock, and add to vegetables along with tofu. Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes to heat tofu thoroughly.

Dissolve cornstarch in remaining 1/4 cup stock and the remaining 2 tablespoons soy sauce. Stir into vegetables. Heat, stirring, while sauce thickens and clarifies somewhat.

Just before serving, adjust balance of sweet and sour to taste. Stir in the walnuts. Serve with brown rice. Makes 6 servings.