It’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe.  Here’s a marinade that I’ve been using for the past month for chicken breast.  The flavor is rather light with hints of the garlic and shallots.

Ingredients
3g of chopped garlic
3g of chopped shallot
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander seed
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of mirin
1 tablespoon of sake
1lb of chicken breast, cut into strips or cubes

Chop up the garlic and shallot, and mix them together with the rest of the ingredients.  Add in the chicken and marinate for 24 hours in the refrigerator.  Once in a while, I’ll add in some fresh thyme and sesame oil to add more aromatics and flavor to the chicken.  You don’t need a lot of garlic or shallots, as too much will be a bit too overpowering.

Flaky, yet firm.  Mild yet flavorful.  Plentiful and sustainable.  Farmed rainbow trout is a great fish to include in the weekly diet, but many home cooks tend to avoid it because thin filets of fish can be intimidating to cook.  Either the fish results in being too dry, or it breaks up into pieces before it ends up on the plate.  Rainbow trout is available year-long in most supermarkets and filets usually weigh in at around 4 ounces, which is a perfect serving size.  While baking is a viable method, nothing beats pan-searing. There’s something about getting the skin turn golden brown and crispy.  Here are some of my tips.

1. Don’t cook the fish right out of the refrigerator, instead, cook it when the flesh is cool to the touch, not cold.
2. Spray the skin side with a bit of cooking spray, season the other side, and spray with cooking spray.
3. Heat up 1 tsp of olive oil in a wide stainless steel pan over low heat.  Coat the pan well.
4. Cook the fish on the skin side first.
5. Cook the fish on low heat, 3 minutes each side, or until the flesh turns opaque.
6. Flip once!
7. If the fish sticks to the pan, carefully nudge it loose from the sides with a flat spatula.

Go ahead, give it a try.  No practice needed, and easy to master.

Kin

When I was a kid, I  hated bitter melon.  It was too bitter for my taste and I didn’t understand why grown-ups liked it so much.  When my parents cooked it with pork, I wouldn’t even eat the pork because it had made contact with the melon.  Then something changed in my mid-twenties.  I gave it another try and it actually tasted pretty good.  I’m not sure how I acquired a taste for it, but I liked it.  Remember the first time you had beer?  Yeah, it didn’t taste great the first time, but somehow it turned into the most delicious beverage in the world.

Ingredients

2 bitter melons
1lb ground chicken breast or pork
lemongrass, minced (15g)
1 teaspoon of xiao shing cooking wine
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil

Bitter melon is featured in many Asian dishes, especially stuffed bitter melon.  It isn’t difficult to prepare, and I decided to stray away from the usual ingredients that go into making it.  Lemongrass and thyme seem to be good ingredients to balance out the flavor of the melon.

First off, cut off the upper third of the lemongrass stalk, and a bit off the bottom.  Slice it into little discs and then mince very well.  Save half of the minced lemongrass for some other time or dish.  Mix the rest, along with the salt, olive oil, cooking wine, and dried time into the ground meat.  Cover it and let it sit in the refrigerator for three hours.

Cut off the ends of the bitter melons and slice them into 1-inch rings.  Remove the inner seeds and inner tissue with a spoon.  Add the bitter melon into boiling water and cook for 4 minutes.  Remove from the water and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.  Lay the melon slices on a paper towel and pat dry.

This is optional, but it seems to help the ground meat adhere to the melon better:  Coat the inside of the melon slices with a bit of raw scrambled egg.

Fill the melon slices with the ground chicken meat.  Overstuff it a little bit because the meat will shrink a bit when it cooks.

Heat up a non-stick pan at low-medium heat.  Add in a bit of cooking oil.  When the oil is ready, add the stuffed melons and cover.  Cook for 4 minutes, remove the cover, flip to the other side, and cover again for another 4 minutes.  Make sure the chicken is cooked throughout.  On average, 4 to 4.5 minutes per side seemed to work for me.

Ingredients

• 1 clove of black garlic – chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground coriander seed
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil
• 2 servings of spaghetti
• 5 ounces of chicken breast, cubed (marinate overnight with extra virgin olive oil and salt for more tenderness)

Instructions

• Cook the pasta and keep 1/2 cup of the pasta water for later.
• Heat up the olive oil on low heat and sauté the black garlic for a minute
• Add the chicken and cover.  Cook for about 2.5 minutes on each side.  Remove the chicken when done.
• Set the heat to high and deglaze the pan with the pasta water.
• Add the turmeric, salt, and coriander.  Let the liquid reduce by 25% (more or less).
• Add the spaghetti and toss well.
• Transfer to a plate, top with the chicken and garnish.

The black garlic might be hard to find, but it looks like certain Whole Foods and Korean supermarkets do carry the item.

Ingredients
3 cups of frozen broccoli florets
3 garlic cloves
1.5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
dash of salt
pinch of pepper

Chop the garlic into evenly sliced chips.  This lets them brown evenly.

Heat up the pan on low heat and add the olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add in the garlic.  Cook until the half of the garlic starts to brown. Remove from heat and let the garlic cook until the color turns golden.  If the garlic turns dark brown, it’s overcooked and will taste bitter.

Transfer the cooked garlic on a paper towel for the oil to absorb.  Leave some oil in the pan.

Steam the frozen broccoli for about 7 minutes and then sauté for about 30 seconds in the pan containing the infused garlic olive oil.  Toss the broccoli around while adding the salt and pepper.

Transfer to a plate and pour the garlic chips over the broccoli.

The problem that I face has plagued me for many years.  After a good three-minute bath in the microwave, the rice still remains soft and the broccoli stays crunchy, but the chicken is one step away from turning into jerky.  I even substituted white meat with dark meat for a while, but I really wanted a lunch that was lighter on cholesterol and saturated fat.

Long story short, I was watching a cooking show where this Japanese guy was coating chicken in flour before he put it into boiling water to cook.  He didn’t explain why he did it, but it did strike my curiosity.

Some days ago, I decided to give it a try.  After a few days of doing so, I can tell you that not only does coating the meat in flour produce a more tender cooked cut of chicken breast, but it also helps seal in the moisture, especially if you plan on reheating it in the microwave the next day.  Update: whole wheat white flour works better than all purpose flour.

So here’s what I did:

I marinated 2 pieces of chicken breast (cut into cubes) with salt, pepper, garlic powder, a splash of sake, chopped garlic, and extra virgin olive oil.  I marinated the meat for about an hour in the refrigerator.

Next I boiled a pot of water.  You don’t need too much water, just enough to cover the meat.  Lightly coat the chicken in flour.  I used whole wheat flour because it’s healthier than white flour.  The pieces on the left side are coated just right, the pieces on the right had a little too much flour.  You want to lightly coat the meat because when it is used in sautés, it prevents loose flour bits from caking up.   Just use less flour next time if you notice too much flour runoff. When the water boils, reduce the heat to medium high and slowly place the floured chicken into the water.  Cook for 4 minutes.

Remove the chicken  and set aside.  Now the chicken is ready to be added to sautés.

I like to sauté chicken with chopped garlic and onions, with a bit of black pepper and salt, and kissed with a touch of fresh lemon juice.  Simple is best sometimes.

Set on a bed of basmati rice and garnished with a few baby greens.  Well, there’s lunch!

Last September, I wrote about my first time experience with purple yams.  Well, I finally found some at the local Korean supermarket and they were selling like hot cakes.  At $2.49 a pound, it’s not exactly the most economical, but it’s a nice treat if you’ve never had them before.

Don’t let the purple color deter you, after all, you do eat beets right?  If I can’t convince you to try this, then how about enticing you with some nutrition facts?  Purple yams are full of B6, potassium, vitamin C, fiber, and loads of antioxidants to fight those free radicals.

Cooking purple yams is easy too.  I just wrap one up in foil, and toss it into a preheated oven set at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes, depending on the size of the yam.  The meat turns a deep purple when cooked, is sweet, but not too sweet.

On my quest to eat less red meat (down to once every two weeks), I had a void to fill.  And while I could have just simply filled it with the likes of chicken and pork, I decided that fish seemed to be great alternative.  Salmon was the usual suspect, but it got boring quick.  I also gave tuna a chance,  but the thought of mercury poisoning wasn’t quite appetizing.  For some time, Alaskan Cod was my fish of choice, but now I’m on to wild Alaskan Halibut.  It definitely can hold it’s own on the grill, yet the meat is mild, moist, and not too tough or flaky.  I also like that it doesn’t take much seasoning to bring out it’s flavor.  Just a bit of salt and pepper will do.

Ingredients:

6oz halibut steak, about an inch thick
canola oil
salt
pepper

Give the fish a good greasing with canola oil and sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides.  Grill each side on medium heat for about 4 minutes or until the color turns opaque throughout.  And make sure to flip only once!  Drizzle with lemon juice and serve.

So, a good number of people are asking for the recipe for the Japanese cheesecake I made.  It’s not my recipe, but the instructions are mine.  The original instructions were far too vague and confusing, so I did some research online to find a clearer way in making it.

This recipe takes some time and patience, but the best things come to those who wait.

So, here is what you need.
2 large mixing bowls
Small bowls for holding the ingredients
Hand Mixer
Kitchen Scale (digital – grams or ounces)
8 or 9 inch baking pan
Large baking pan for the water bath

Ingredients
140g/5 oz. fine granulated sugar (regular sugar)
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks (make sure no egg yolk makes it into the whites, not even a little bit)  Set aside for about 20 minutes to warm up. `
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
50g/2 oz. butter
250g/9 oz. cream cheese
100 ml/3 fluid oz. fresh whole milk (6 Tablespoons)
1 tbsp. lemon juice (use fresh lemons)
60g/2 oz. cake flour /superfine flour
20g/1 oz. corn flour (cornstarch)
1/4 tsp. salt

I separated the instructions into 3 parts to make things easier.

Part 1:  The Cake Batter

• Step 1.  Melt the cream cheese, butter, and milk together in a double boiler.  A double boiler can be made by placing metal mixing bowl on top of a pot of low boiling water.   Make sure the boiling water doesn’t touch the bottom of the mixing bowl and that the bowl is larger than the pot.  Also, use an oven mitt as the mixing bowl can get pretty hot.  Stir until all the ingredients are melted together.  Set aside to cool down.  15 minutes should do.
• Step 2.  Once the batter is cooled, fold in the egg yolks, salt, cake flour, corn flour, and lemon juice.  Mix well, the batter should be smooth with no lumps.  A whisk is particularly useful for this.  Set aside.
• Step 3.  Prepare the water bath.  Details on preparing a water bath can be found here.

Part 2:  The Meringue

• Step 1.  Whisk the egg whites with the hand mixer on low for about 15 seconds.  It should get bubbly.
• Step 2.  Continue mixing and add in the cream of tartar.  Increase the power two levels.  5 seconds.
• Step 3.  Slowly add in the sugar.  Increase the power another level.  Add in the first half of the sugar one tablespoon at a time while mixing.  Slowly pour in the remaining half while mixing.
• Step 4.  Increase the speed one more time if available and keep mixing.  Eventually, it will thicken up.  Mix until soft peaks form.  Meaning when you remove the mixer, the meringue will peak up and the tips will slowly curl back down.  It should also be light and airy.

Part 3.  Combine the Batter and Meringue, Baking

• Step 1.  Mix the batter into the meringue and fold (not whisk) until the 2 mixtures turn into one
• Step 2.  Pour the combined mixture in a greased or cooking sprayed baking pan.
• Step 3.  Place the baking pan into the water bath.
• Step 4.  Bake in the oven in a water bath at 325 degrees for 1 hour, 10 minutes.   Don’t forget to preheat the oven.
• Step 5.  After baking, carefully remove the pan from the water bath and let it settle for 30 minutes at room temperature.
• Step 6.  Top with your favorite topping.

Yeah, it takes some work. It’s a good recipe to try if you’re stuck at home with nothing to do on a rainy day.

There’s nothing like a great and healthy sandwich to help the body recover after an intense workout.

If lm not working out in the morning, my breakfast consists of 2 cups of cooked oatmeal, 2 slices of whole what bread, and Fuji apple.  If I am working out however, the morning menu undergoes a slight transformation.

I present the Post Workout Morning Sandwich.  It contains a heaping dose of healthy protein, healthy carbohydrates, a nice helping of fiber, and good fats to help you start the day right.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of egg whites – 20 grams of protein
• 1 tbsp of natural peanut butter – 3.5 grams of protein, good fats
• 2 slices of Arnold’s Double Grain and More Double Oat Bread – 10 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, good carbohydrates
• 2 tsp of Smart Balance Buttery Spread, more good fats

Cook egg whites until well-done.  Spread the peanut butter on one slice, and butter spread on the other.  Insert egg whites and voila!

Beef up the sandwich some more by adding some greens and tomatoes.