What do you do with leftover potato salad?

Pop downstairs and buy a bag of breadcrumbs. Make croquettes out of them. Duh.

Actually Mutter said that we should not eat leftover potato salad, yet on the other hand, I have heard Americans say that leftover potato salad is even more delish *shrugs*.

Daiso Instant Custard

I have to say at S$2 a pop, this instant custard that is sold at Daiso (a very popular Japanese S$2 shop that has several branches in Singapore. I am a huge fan) is a no-brainer to make and absolutely delish... it even comes with powder to make the caramel. 

Too bad I am a lazy cow who couldn't be bothered to pour the pudding onto a plate for a prettier photo, but who cares as long as it is yummy?

My version of Ginger Pork

Inspired by the Okinawan Ginger Pork that B1 had, I came home and made my own.

I set the microwave oven to "grill" and wrapped Mr Piggie (I bought the frozen pork sukiyaki slices) lovingly around oyster mushroom and carrots. Then I grilled them for about 20 minutes, until I saw a nice golden brown crust. Poured the liquid out into the frying pan, after frying ginger and garlic slices in some olive oil. Added sesame seed oil, soya sauce, sugar and oyster sauce. Tossed the pork packets into the gravy and serve with some Japanese-style mashed potatoes.

No brainer Bier brot - As relaxed as Bier itself

I am trying to cut down on the kitchen paraphernalia as my kitchen is as tiny as a ship galley. For example, I sneak home to grab Vater's electronic scale every Saturday morning because I know he bakes on Friday afternoons. I use a IKEA colander for a sift, a McDonald's free gift of a CocaCola cup for a rolling pin (it makes interesting shapes, you can see the Coca cola symbol on my cookies. Talk about product placement) and a metal soup pot for a mixing bowl.

I rise to the occasion

But it is a losing battle, as I want to try more advanced recipes. Case in point, I needed a loaf pan for my bier brot... and after having a firm talk with myself, I stuck to using my Corningware soup pot as a bread pan. Actually I despaired on whether the bread would rise or it will sit like a flat square cake in the pot, since there was no kneading and proofing involved. 

Our fridge is like a frat party fridge. You didn't see the bottles of wine at the side of the fridge

 I used one of B1's biers for this bread. I opened our frat fridge, hmm, I needed 340ml, so I grabbed his 500ml kirin lager bier. Keke.

This is what you need for the making of the bread. The colander is for the all-too-important sifting of the flour. I forgot to include Mr Baking Powder. Just imagine he is here. Or imagine Mr Plain Flour is Mr Self-rising flour == Mr Plain flour with Mr Baking Powder.

I modified the recipe to my needs. I used my measuring cup to measure 3 cups of flour then sifted it in with my colander into my stockpot (which is my mixing bowl). Then I measured 4 tsp of baking powder and 0.5 cup sugar and sifted that in too. I missed out the salt, no wonder the bread was sweet. I think that the beer is a bit sweet too, so you can actually reduce the sugar if you want. I wasn't very sure if bier foam counted as bier too? Because when I measured only 250ml bier with about 100ml more of foam and poured it in, my dough was already the sticky consistency recommended in the recipe.

Just the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and sugar). Don't forget the salt!

Already too sticky and wet with 250ml beer and 100ml beer foam I added a tablespoon more of sifted flour.

Mr Bread cooking in the Backofen

 

As I was telling Kamerad, I was very verrwirrt, why the bread was so dense, almost cake-like. I thought it was not cooked but apparently it was. I regret not setting the temperature to 190 degree Celsius as called for by the recipe but my oven is a temperamental one and it seemed that setting it at 190 would burn my bread so I turned it to a cautious 180 instead for the same one hour.

There are some reassuring bubbles in the bread, but I think I prefer the old slap and pound because the bread is lighter and nicer to eat. It tastes really sweet, almost like bier cake. Hmm. It is a time saver so next time if I want to make bread, I will bake it with lesser sugar and sift the flour maybe twice!

Seriously I realize there is no kick. The whole reason why I got so into baking bread was because I want to pound the shit into the dough and relieve my stress. Looking at the bier brot all I can say "oh cool". Damn.

I had deliberated about which recipe to use, the Farmgirl version or the Food Network one but in the end, I took a modification of the two.

My modified recipe:

3.5 cups of plain flour

3-4 tsp of baking powder (I went a bit mad on it)

1 tsp salt (I forgot)

0.333 cup sugar (should reduce)

250ml of beer + 100ml foam (I think you should use a nutty flavored one or Guinness stout. Basically a manlier brew)

leftover melted butter

If you use a microwave, preheat the oven at 190 degree celsius and convection setting.

Pour in the beer into the measuring cup to about 250ml. I think you will probably get about 100ml + of foam. I included the foam as part of the beer. =D

Sift the flour, powder, sugar and salt twice into a bowl, then mix in the beer very slowly until your get a sticky mixture like the photo above.

Dump it into the oven which will be sounding the beep around the same time. And bake the bread for about 1 hour. 

Play one round of Company of Heroes' stonewall (German should be enough), and rut out the bread. Perhaps at wave 8 you got to run over and turn the bread, so the oven won't burn it. =D

BiBimBap (비빔밥)

I was looking through the photos on this blog and I realized that I either did not transfer all the posts (of my cooking at the new house) over from nibblezware, or I forgot to post some of them in the first place.

This was one of the first dishes I cooked at my new kitchen. I saw that the tofu auntie at the wet market was selling those giant bean sprouts, which are a absolute delight in bibimbap. I am quite a fussy eater in that I do not like to eat those tiny bean sprouts unless their tails and heads are removed. For these big headed ones, I don't mind the heads, but will still remove the tails.

This bibimbap contains cucumbers, carrots (both of which I blanched quickly), shredded egg, beef tossed with onions and garlic and my giant bean sprouts. To make the sauce for this is very simple, buy the readymade chilli paste from any decent Korean market and mix it with miso and water. Boil and dump on top (I usually pepper mine for extra kick). Yummz.

Okinawan dinner?

We were running low on natto so we did a grocery run at Meidi-ya. The cashier suggested that I become their member. The Japanese must be crazy, I would have to pay S$2 for a supposedly life-time membership and then accumulate points that must be used up every half a year. And... for every S$1 I spend, I get 1 point, and I would have to spend S$502 in 6 months to get a S$5 voucher....

There isn't much natto and half-price sashimi that I can buy for S$5.

So anyway we walked around Liang Court looking for a half decent eatery to settle our hunger. In the end we went back to the Okinawan diner. I forever associate Okinawa with pork and papayas. Anyway the joke was on me because I already had okawa in the afternoon, and my dinner set also came with okawa (think: Sekihan, the glutinous rice served with red beans to celebrate events, e.g. a girl having her first menses *gross... think about everyone celebrating your first tampon*)

The noodles was interesting. Reminded me of my usual Chinese egg noodles.

B1 had the ginger pork. Each set came with pudding-like tofu *I love* served with a thick soy sauce, minced ginger and spring onions. There were also two interesting sides of miso buta and radish (preserved with bonito and seaweed?).

Old Cucumber Soup 老黄瓜汤

老黄瓜汤功效:黄瓜性寒，味甘，有清热解毒、利水消肿等功效；白糖性寒，味甘，有润肺生津、和中益肺、舒缓肝气等功效。

黄瓜营养成分 黄瓜，又名王瓜、胡瓜。黄瓜富含蛋白质、钙、磷、铁、钾、胡萝卜素、维生素B2、维生素c、维生素E及烟酸等营养素。 黄瓜食疗药效 黄瓜中含有精氨酸等必需氨基酸，对肝脏病人的康复很有益处。 黄瓜所含的丙醇二酸，有抑制糖类物质在机体内转化为脂肪的作用，因而肥胖症、高脂血症、高血压、冠心病患者，常吃黄瓜既可减肥、降血脂、降血压，又可使体形健美、身体康复。 黄瓜汁有美容皮肤的作用，还可防治皮肤色素沉着。 黄瓜顶部的苦味中富含葫芦素c的成分，具有抗癌作用。 

Old cucumber is a good "cooling soup", very suitable for hot humid places like Singapore. It is anti-aging, helps with weight loss and good for the skin. It is also high in dietary fiber, calcium, iron and rich in vitamin A, B6, and C. I made it not because of the abovementioned benefits, but because it was going for a discount. I was shopping at the neighborhood mama shop because I wanted to buy cinnamon powder for the buns and saw that the shop still had some veggies left. Normally I would be very against the idea of buying veggies so late (you know the early bird nonsense) but I hadn't bought any on Saturday morning because B1 attended a wedding lunch and I stayed home to wrestle with *censored*.

Usually everyone would leave the ugly ass brown skin on while cooking this because they worry that the skin would be too mushy and disappear into the soup. However because I use an electric crockpot and not a claypot on the gas, I don't need to worry about that and I think the skin is goddamn disgustingly hideous and unhygenic, so I happily shaved the skin off. 

I dumped scallops, pork ribs, old cucumber, dates and wolfberries and boiled the hell of it. Accompanied by a simple beef stew (no wine was harmed in the making of this dish) and baby xiaobaicai (I can never understand why this green veggie is called xiaobaicai, literal translation: little white veggie).