Japanese rice rolls

We always make sure that we have a few packs of Rice Seasoning (Furikake) at home.

If we find ourselves without anything for dinner, we could just cook a batch of sticky rice, and mix in a packet or two of Furikake. Optionally, you could drizzle a little sesame oil in the rice mixture too.

If you're concerned about the presentation, you can use a sushi form (or rice form?) to form the rice into sliced rolls like we did.

Note though that Furikake comes in many different flavors and is made from different ingredients. The most difficult part is choosing as we find ourselves unable to translate the ingredient list from the product label most of the time.

Fortunately, we were able to try this one out - a Korean brand - at a Korean supermarket. Surprise, surprise!

We've tried other brands and flavors but so far, this is the only one that we like.

Broiled Flounder Parmesan

My family has always abstained on Fridays during the Lenten season. Having my own household didn't change anything, I still abstain and make my husband do the same thing :)

I haven't prepared anything yet when hubby got home from work. I figured we could just wing it with some buttered pasta and salmon flakes (like what we sampled at Costco last time). Hubby had something else in mind - the flounder fillets.

The last time we had flounder, I baked it with crab meat, shrimp and mushrooms mixture. I wanted something different this time and found a recipe for Broiled Flounder Parmesan from Diana's Kitchen.

* 2 pounds flounder fillets
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
* 3 green onions, chopped
* 1 or 2 dashes of hot sauce, to taste
* thinly sliced lemon and parsley for garnish, optional

Place fillets in a single layer on a greased baking dish or broiler pan; brush with lemon juice.

Combine Parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, salt, butter, and green onions, and hot sauce in a small bowl; set aside.

Broil flounder fillets 4 to 6 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Remove from oven; spread with cheese mixture.

Broil about 30 seconds longer, or until cheese is lightly browned and bubbly.

Garnish with sliced lemon and parsley if desired.

Broiled flounder recipe serves 6 to 8.

Our verdict: YUMMY!

Steamed Spareribs

We currently have a whole freezer fully stocked with meat - thanks to the Shoprite coupons that we were able to use last week. One of the meat packages that we got was pork spare ribs. I was planning to make some "Salt and Pepper pork ribs" but I didn't want to do more frying because of the lingering smell that always permeates the kitchen and living area after deep frying anything.

I decided to prepare our ribs ala dimsum style - steamed - and after some searching, I found this recipe by Weldon Russell posted on Cooking.com that I liked. I found myself missing a few ingredients so I ended up doing some substitutions and eliminating some altogether (I've noted those changes down in the recipe below).

Btw, the ribs were yummy! I really should stage my dishes nicely before taking any photographs. The photo above doesn't do this dish any justice.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp peanut oil (substituted olive oil)

2 tbsp fermented black beans, rinsed under cold water, drained and roughly chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp chicken broth

2 tsp rice wine or dry sherry (used cooking sherry)

1 lb pork spareribs, chopped through in sections between the ribs

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 fresh red chili peppers, chopped (did not use)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsp chopped cilantro (did not use)

1. Heat the oil in a hot wok. Add the black beans, salt and sugar, and saute gently for 10 seconds. Add the chicken broth, rice wine and light soy sauce. Simmer together for 30 seconds. Remove the sauce to a mixing bowl. Add the spareribs and set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

2. Add the cornstarch and mix well to coat the spareribs. Place the ribs on a plate ready for steaming. Sprinkle on the red chili peppers, garlic and cilantro. Steam over boiling water for 45 minutes.

Cutting a Pineapple

Hubby and I got ourselves a pineapple as part of our lucky fruit plate for the recent lunar new year. Pineapple = ong lai (sounds like "prosperity comes" in Fookien)

When it came time to cut open the pineapple and eat it, we found ourselves in a quandary. How?

This post chronicles our first (and probably the only) attempt. We're thinking that this is too much effort to go through so we might just get canned pineapple next year. But in retrospect, given the laughs that we had while this was being photographed, it's all worth it.

Step 1: Prepare your pineapple, knife and chopping board. The chopping board in the picture is the one that we only use for fruits. (We have separate chopping boards for raw meat).

Step 2: Hold the pineapple by its crown and start slicing off the covering on the sides.

Step 3: If first knife is dull, replace with a sharper knife.

btw, this is a shoutout to my readers in the US, where do you have your knives sharpened ?

Step 4: Chop off the top & bottom. Cut the body in half.

Step 5: Slice off the "eyes" of the pineapple.

Step 6: Cut into serving-sized slices.
Rub w/ rock salt and rinse. (hubby did this, don't know why)

Thankfully, the pineapple that we got turned out to be very sweet. Sarap!

Baby back ribs and Mushrooms ala Teriyaki (by PinoyCook)

Pinoy Cook's picture of this dish on her Baby back ribs and mushrooms ala Teriyaki post looked so yummy that it made me want to try this recipe out

Given that I have poor planning practices when it comes to food preparation (cooking), I didn't realize that I didn't have all of the ingredients until it was too late.

Instead of gin (in Pinoycook's recipe), I had planned to use mirin which I thought I had. Turned out that I didn't have enough so I added the 1/4 cup remaining mirin that I had and added 3/4 cup of cooking sherry (which was sweet too).

The dish turned out great! I probably should have held off on this (I did this last 12/21) and prepared this for Noche Buena instead. Now, am looking forward to getting invited to the next pot luck party, hubby and I are bringing this :)

Honey Walnut Shrimp

I was cleaning out my desk when I came across a typewritten recipe for this dish. I remember getting this from my friend, Wena. I don't know where she got this from so if this looks familiar, please drop me a line so I can give credit to whoever put this recipe together :)

Ingredients:
1 lb of large or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup egg whites
1/2 cup oil

Sauce:
2 tbs honey
2 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1/2 tbs condensed milk
1/2 cup walnuts (you can buy glazed walnuts from the grocery store)

• Mix cornstarch and egg whites together to form a thick, sticky texture and mix well with the shrimp.


• Mix honey, mayonnaise, lemon juice and condensed milk in a bowl until smooth.


• Heat oil until boiling then deep try the shrimp until golden brown.


• Drain shrimp then fold in honey mayonnaise mixture. Mix well and sprinkle with walnuts, arrange on a platter and serve.

Hubby's Special Day

It's hubby's birthday today and as we did on my birthday last month, we decided to eat in. Dinner was creamy shrimp alfredo flavored with turkey bacon (feeling healthy, heehee) and mushrooms. Hubby requested that we also prepare the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. We've been saving that for a special occasion and it can't get any more special than this - his first birthday that we get to spend together.