Baked Mochi Cake 焗年糕

I had this baked mochi cake (or rice cake) from Rachel's place. It's tasted so comforting that I immediately fell in love with it at first bite! Thanks Rachel for sharing this yummy rice cake recipe with me. It's very easy to make. The preparation takes less than 20 min w/o the baking time. I thought this would be a good recipe to share :)

Ingredients:
Butter: 1 cube
Egg: 5 large eggs
Milk: 3 cups (i used 1% milk)
Baking Powder: 2 teaspoon
Sugar: 1 cup
Rice flour: 1 box of Mochiko rice flour (can find in most Asian market, i.e Ranch 99)
Red Bean: 1 can

Procedures:

1. Warm up milk in the pan with sliced butter, turn off the heat when it gets luke warm.



2. With electric mixer, mix eggs well. Add in the sugar and baking powder. Mix well until creamy



3. Pour the milk and butter mixture (from step 1) to step 2 and mix well.



4. Add rice flour, little by little, to the above mixture.



5. butter a cake pan (~8'')or a glass pan, spread the red bean over the bottom of the pan, and pour in the batter



6. Pre-heat over at 350, bake for about 1 hour

Miso Glazed Black Cod 西京燒銀鱈魚

I first saw this miso black cod recipe from one of my favorite food blogs I followed. I had always loved black cod. Love its silky texture and dedicated favor. Until I came across with this recipe, I never knew that black cod could go so well with miso! And neither did I know that this is a famous Japanese dish serve in most fancy Japanese restaurant as a delicacy. I fell in love with black cod with miso since the first time I made it at home. While this recipe is not too hard to make at home, ordering it at Japanese restaurants here in California is quite expensive. Until Masha asked me for the recipe a few month ago, i never thought I would want to share it here. I guess a lot of people would be interested in making this at home too. So here you go..especially dedicated to Masha...

Ingredients:
2-3 black cod fillets (about 1 lb)
For the marinate:
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup mirin
5 tablespoons white miso paste
3 tablespoons sugar (or taste to make it right)

Note: this marinate base sauce is a keeper. It goes well with a lot of white fish such as chilean sea bass.

Procedures:

1) Mix the marinate ingredients in a small pot over low heat and bring it to boil, then set aside to cool down
2) Pat the fish fillets dry with paper towels and put them into the plastic container/plate with the marinate. (note that I marinate should be enough to cover the fish fillets). Cover the lid or with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 48 hours
3) Pre heat oven to 400 degree F. Move the oven rack to the second position from the top. Scrape any extra miso sauce off the fillets and place them on a rack on top of a baking sheet, skin side down. Bake for about 15-18 minutes depending on the thickness of the fillet
4) Then turn the broiler onto the “high” setting, put the pan under the broiler and broil until the Black Cod is golden brown on the top side. Flip the fillets skin-side up and continue broiling until the skin is lightly charred and crisp. If you have thicker fillets, insert a fork into the thickest part of the fillet to see if it’s cooked. The meat should be opaque and come apart readily. Cook for about 5 minute and the fillet is done.
5) With the remaining miso sauce, we can heat up to thicken to use for plating. We can use this sauce to garnish the fish when done and/or add a few drops to the side vegetables (e.g. bak choy). It tastes great!

Note: I like my miso cod more intense with the flavor of sake and miso so I would normally add more miso (like 1 more table spoon) to the marinate but that’s just a personal preference. Instead of using sugar, you can also replace it with honey too which makes it more caramelized when broiled.