Nuffnang Ads

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Beef with egg and rice - Japanese & Korean Inspired

This is one of the dishes I enjoy preparing for my family as it is not only easy for the cook, it also makes the family happy. A win-win situation! How ideal!

It is also a versatile dish as it works for other meats like pork and chicken.

Ingredients
- beef (I bought the shabu shabu type in the frozen section. I like it because it is sliced thinly for me already and it has a bit of fats. You can also get pork/chicken)
- Korean/ Japanese sauces for marinade
- Onions
- Eggs
- Rice
- Lettuce (saves on cooking as you can serve this raw. Woo hoo!!)

Steps
1) Marinade the beef for at least 3 hours with the Korean/ Japanese Sauce. I used this last night when I cooked this dish.. But other times, I usually use the Japanese marinades. For me, I use whatever I have in my fridge and is in need of clearance.

2) Slice up one large yellow onion. Last night, I used shallots as I didn't have yellow onions at home. So once again, its still fine. Don't beat yourself up just because you lack an ingredient. Cooking is meant to be fun and creative. If you lack something, just be flexible and think of another substitute. The shallots work beautifully too!

3) Add butter into the pan and then add your onions. Caramelise first by tossing it around. I add a splash for Jap sauce on it too. It's to quicken the process of cooking the onions and making it tastier.

4) Add the sliced beef in it. This would not take too long. You would not want to overcook the beef and dry it out. I pour all the marinades in as well so that there will be gravy for my rice.

5) Fry the egg with butter on another pan separately. Sunny-side up!

6) Finely chopped the lettuce

7) Lastly, assemble everything together

8) Add your rice, sunny side up egg, lettuce on one side with the beef on top of it to cook the lettuce a little. Then top the rice up with some Japanese seasonings which I bought and gravy from the beef.

 (By the way, I used normal rice instead. Save cost and trouble from going out to buy specially for Japanese rice. To my hubby and children, it wont make a difference. Still tasty and enjoyable!)



Enjoy!

Lo Mai Gai (Chicken Glutinous Rice)

This dish has been my son's favourite. He simply loves glutinous rice. So decided to make him this. Be warned that the ones sold in shops are really oily. So don't expect that when you make it at home. This is a healthier version since you get to choose what kind of chicken part you want and how much seasoning to add. It is basically quite a straight forward dish to prepare. Have fun!

What you need
- Chicken fillet / De-boned Chicken thigh
- small aluminium trays to put it in
- glutinous rice
- chicken stock
- dried mushrooms/ Chinese sausage (optional)

Marinade the chicken
- sesame oil
- soya sauce
- oyster sauce
- corn flour
- white pepper

Seasoning water for rice just before steaming
- sesame oil
- light soya sauce
- salt
- chicken stock
- water

Steps
1) Rinse and soak the glutinous rice for at least 2 hours
2) Slice the chicken and marinade it
3) After soaking the rice, discard the water
4) Layer the chicken (and dried mushrooms/Chinese sausage) inside the tray first as the first layer
5) For the next layer, cover the tray with rice, packing it tightly
6) Put the seasoning water in the tray till it covers the rice
7) Finally steam it

If you find the chicken dry, I suggest you either use chicken thigh (since it is more tolerant to heat) or steam the glutinous rice first before you assemble into the tray

Some recipes soak the glutinous rice overnight together with the seasoning water in it already. I haven't tried that but I can imagine the rice to be darker in colour and more tasty.


Anyway, just grasp the main idea and tweak it to whatever suits you and how much time you have!

Enjoy!