Takikomi gohan, Japanese rice cooked with seasonings and vegetables and then jazzed up with mackerel from a tin, kimchi, sesame chilli oil and spring onions. 😋😋
I had some Raclette type meat slices in the freezer and decided to try out making Korean bulgogi with them. After defrosting I marinated them and left them overnight. Today I fried them and made rice, a cabbage salad, miso soup and rice. A can of kimchi and a jar of pickled beetroot also came in handy. All in all very moreish, I will definitely make this again.
When we were living in the UK Pancake Tuesday became a thing in our family. At first I was confused as there is no such custom where I grew up in Germany but reading about lent (Fastenzeit in German) it all made sense, it’s about using up all the high energy but easily spoilt food items before you start “giving up something for lent” (in the past that was fasting). I didn‘t grow up in a religious family so these concepts were not familiar to me at all but they seem to be still part of British culture. Here in Germany this time of year is all about carnival, at least in certain areas. 🥳
The pancakes eaten in the UK on this Tuesday are usually simple ones with lemon juice. I like them but my guys don’t really take them seriously, especially not as a proper lunch. So over the last years we started having more varied pancakes, Indian or Japanese types are very popular. Today we had Okonomiyaki. So good!
Yesterday we had Mapo Tofu (minced meat and tofu) with just a little bit of Napa cabbage. It was nice and spicy because of the Pixian Doubanjiang (spicy fermented bean paste) that I used for it. There are so many interesting seasonings in this world.
This main meal was very nice, yet somewhat unusual as it was so simple and comparatively mellow.
I defrosted the cod while I boiled sliced salad potatoes and prepared the marinade for the potato salad. At some point I also found the time to boil some green beans (seasoned with pepper, salt and garlic granules). The defrosted fish was then also seasoned and covered with flour and quickly fried in oil and butter.
I tried something new today, Ponzu chicken, and ended up making my own recipe as I couldn’t decide which web recipe was the right one 😅 It was delicious!
We had rice, the chicken, Napa cabbage salad, and miso soup.
The last two days we had roasted vegetables, made fresh each time. Since I had run out of Ras-El-Hanout, I used various types of Harissa spice blends and added a few elements of the REH mix. It worked very well.
Yesterday it was cauliflower with potatoes, red onion and chickpeas. Today I didn’t have any more potatoes so I used parsnip, carrot and fennel. Half an hour in the oven and we had perfection.
Since I had seen a roasted fennel dish with Parmesan cheese by @LifeTimeCooking I decided to add the cheese today as an option and for the heck of it some roasted pine nuts too.
I can only say, people, eat more roasted vegetables with Mediterranean spice blends. You can’t go wrong!