Red Bean Mochi 豆沙糯米糍

Mochi, which is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice flour, is one of my family's favorite delicacies. My dad is a huge fan of glutinous flour and sweets. This little Japanese delicacy with the combination of glutinous rice flour and sweet red bean paste makes the perfect all year round prominent snack in my house. My mom almost makes it every other week, if not every week! Hence, this recipe I am sharing here is adapted from my mom's original recipe:

Ingredient
(note: makes about 20 mochi)
Glutinous rice flour: 1 Pack or 16oz
Water : 1 1/3 cup
Coconut milk: 1 can
Sugar: ¾ cup
Oi: 2 table spoon
red bean paste: 1 pack

A lot of friends had asked me what exactly is glutinous flour and where can you find it in the store. So I thought I would just show you guys pictures of what it looks like to make it easier to find. From left to right, they are: glutinous rice flour, coconut milk, and red bean paste. All can be found in any aisan market.
Procedures:
1. Combine glutinous rice flour and sugar together
2. Slowly add in the coconut milk and; mix until smooth
3. Prepare a glass shallow plate, brush with oil
4. Pour the mixture from step 2) onto the greased glass plate, steam over high heat with cover for 30 minutes. (hint: use a chopstick to test if the flour is fully cooked. If not much flour mixture stick to the chopstick, it’s done)
5. While the mixture is steaming, in a separate bowl pour 4 table spoons of glutinous rice flour and microwave it for 1 minute. This is for dusting the mocha at the end.
6. Transfer the cooked flour mixture (or the dough) to a greased surface and cut into small pieces using a plastic knife (depending on the size of the mochi you want to make, I usually cut into pieces a bit smaller than the size of a ping pong ball).
7. Note: the cooked dough is super sticky, so make sure you work with a pair of food gloves. Take one piece of the dough, stretch it gently so it will be large enough to envelop the red bean paste, and place it on the palm of your hand, then fold the edge to seal the mochi, lightly roll it into a ball shape using both palms, then coat it with cooked flour (or desiccated coconut).

Salmon Rillettes/Salmon Spread

I love salmon (period)! Salmon it's one of my favorite type of fish. I heart it both raw and cooked, regular and smoke. This pretty pink fish not only trigger my taste bugs it also triggers those fond memories of my Berkeley life - the life with my favorite ladies (Ca, Joyce and Galeen). why? because it was one of our favorite dishes on the dinner table. It's one of those stable items on the weekly Costco run must buy list. We brought it to our dinner table at least once a week and never got tired of it because we invented so many different ways to cook it (i.e. grilled salmon filet, salmon tofu stew, etc)......enough of history...so I was actually going to share this newly found favorite salmon recipe which I tried out last night. This dish is super easy to make and it tastes fabulous. It liternally take less than 15 minutes! It's a great dish to serve as appetizers before a dinner party. And it can also be made a couple of days in advance!

Ingredients
· 8 ounce (250 g) piece of salmon, preferably wild, bones removed
· Salt
· 5 tablespoons (75 g) unsalted butter
· 1 tablespoon olive oil
· 1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
· 2 tablespoons chopped chives
· 4 ounces (125 g) smoked salmon, cut into thin strips, then cut into ½-inch (2 cm) pieces
· ¼ teaspoon chili powder or smoke paprika (I use pimente d’Espelette) or a few turns of freshly-ground white pepper

Procedures
1. Season the salmon on both sides lightly with a bit of salt. Steam in a steamer basket until just cooked, about 8 minutes.
1. Once cooked, remove from heat and let cool.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, mash together with a fork the butter and the olive oil until very smooth. [Note: This is très important; otherwise there’ll be big chunks of butter in the finished rillettes.]
3. cut smoked salmon into small little pieces
4. Stir in the lemon juice, then the chopped chives and smoked salmon.
5. Remove the skin from the salmon and flake the cooked salmon over the mixture, then fold the pieces of salmon into the rillette mixture along with the chili powder.
6. Season with salt, if necessary.
7. Scrape into a serving dish, cover, and chill for at least two hours. Let come to room temperature before serving.

The spread can be eatten with either toasted bagguet or cracker. I personally like it better with cracker.

Dining Out - Hawaii Edition II

What I noticed in Hawaii which is not here in the bay area (sad) is the series of authentic Japanese noodle/udon houses. We would randomly run into some very traditional small noodle house while we were walking! This udon house – Warukame had caught my eyes as we passed by during our first day there since nearby our hotel. Then every day we walked by there is a long line out the door. I begged my travel buddy to try this with me almost everyday. She said she’s not a noodle person and ignored my request. I vouched to try this before I left Hawaii and finally got the chance on my last day in Hawaii alone.

Hawaii Food Series #2: Warukame Udon

So what is so special about this place. First of all, the udon was freshly made in-house! You can actually see them making the udon from scratch, boiled, and prepared right in from of you. I noticed that all their udon ingredients (e.g. flours) were from Japan. Second of all, this restaurant is cafeteria style dinning. You get to custom order your udon, with the type of broth, meat, etc. and then you pick if you want any sides which are mainly tempura.

There are about 6 types of different udon on the menu, cold udon, curry udon, beef, udon, etc. I ordered the kake udon with a soft boiled egg (regular) where they crack the egg in front of you. Then as I proceeded to the tempura/misubi station, I selected the fish cake tempura ($1.25), sweet potato tempura ($1.25), and a spam misubi ($1.75). All of the above came in less than $10! Very reasonable!







kake udon with a soft boiled egg (regular) - The udon is so delicious. It tasted so fresh and had a nice chewy consistency, just like the one I had in Osaka.

fish cake tempura (huge!) and sweet potato tempura - I took my first bite of the tempura and my eyes lit up immediately. This is by far the lightest tempura I’ve had. Crispy and not too heavily battered. Most importantly when I bit into it I didn’t had a mouthful of oil squeezed out.

Gotta have the Misubi while you are in Hawaii. So I ordered 1 to-go for my mid-day snack later.

I really like this place. Everything at Marukame is fresh, good quality and meticulously prepared. A simple restaurant focuses on quality over quantity. And under the budget in Hawaii? This is considered dirt cheap. I wish we have a place like this in the bay area.

Dinging out - Hawaii edition I

I just came back from a 5 days summer trip to Hawaii – Oahu with my dearest roomies. As one of our travel routine/traditions, we go out of our way to find out the best to eat in town. Though we didn’t have as much time (due to our super packed activities schedule) as we wished this time in Hawaii, we managed to seek out a couple of good eats to fit into our schedule. Don’t worry. Good food is meant to share. So I will be sharing them with you guys in the following series of blog posts.

Hawaii food sharing #1 – Sansei Seafood Restaurant & Sushi Bar

As many of you know, Hawaii has a pretty heavy concentration of Japanese descendants. The Japanese in Hawaii are one of the major and most influential ethnic groups in Hawaii. And in recent decades, Hawaii also became one of the top travel destinations of the Japanese. So when visiting Hawaii, Japanese cuisine is a must! Japanese restaurants are ubiquitous, ranging from fresh sashimi to traditional hand-made udon house. The task, hence, to pick out a few good ones to try becomes especially difficult. After some detail researches and recommendation from native Hawaii colleagues we finally narrowed down our list to a few. This Sansei Seafood Restaurant is the 1st one we tried in Hawaii. It’s located in the Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa. So one would guess the food it toward the fusion range. And it is indeed true. While it serves some of the best quality sashimi on the island, it only showcases a series of creative rolls and main dishes. However, when we first read the menu we thought that the menu was a bit overwhelming from which we could not get a sense of what their specialties were. So we thought we would order a bit of everything to see what is good.

Appetizers – Panko Crusted Ahi Tuna

It says on the menu that this is an award winning dish so we decided to give it a try. Sashimi grade Hawaiian ahi, arugula and spinach wrapped into a sushi roll, panko-crusted, flash-fried and served with Sansei’s mild soy wasabi butter sauce. I’ve never had ahi tuna wrapped with spinach before and fried. Though it was not one of those “Wow” dishes, it was a good combination.

Appetizers -Mango Crab Salad Roll
Sansei’s Asian crab salad, ripe mango, Kula greens and crunchy peanuts wrapped in a mamenori handroll and served with sweet Thai chili vinaigrette. I like this one a lot. The crab was freshly hand-picked and the sweet thai chilli vinaigrette is so refreshing. It was light and fresh which was perfect to eat in the hot weather of Hawaii.

Sashimi – wild king salmon
We ordered this from the daily special menu as we wanted to try out their sashimi. As you can see from the picture, it’s very fatty. The color looks so beautiful and it tasted just like the way it looked – so delicious. It’s one of the best salmon sashimi I’ve ever had. Highly recommended!!

Sashimi – o toro O toro is one of my favorite sashimi, though I normally tried to avoid ordering it because of its rich oil content and price. But since I was traveling with a toro lover, this was a must order! This o-toro did not disappoint us at all. It’s of top quality and melt right in your mouth! Love it

Entre- Hamachi Kama
Another of my favorite Japanese dish. This hamachi kama is much bigger compared to ones I’ve had before. It’s grilled to perfection! Much better prepared than the ones in the bay area. And it's so fresh that I didn't even need the dipping source on the side.

Roll - we thought we would also try out their rolls as well. unfortunately, I forgot the name of it. Basically, it's tuna and salmon sashimi on top of california roll. Nothing fancy, yet it's perfectly prepared as well. Instead of artifical crab meat, it's made with fresh real crab meal. And what I liked the most was that every piece is bit size so I didn't feel like I was only eating rice.

With the two of us, I think we ate way too much. At the end, we were left with no room for dessert. Overall, I thought the quality of the food here is top norch though it's still a bit on the pricey size. I would highly recommend their sashimi!

Pound Cake - the classic recipe

Pound cake has earned its centuries-long popularity. It owes its name to the traditional ingredient - one pound each of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs- which remain essentially the same today. As for all my recipes, I tend to air on the lighter side on sugar and butter. Instead of using all the butter the recipe calls for I used 1/2 cup sour cream in place of 1 stick of butter so that the cake remain airy and rich, not tough a dense. I also cut the sugar by 1/4 as my mom doesn't like it too sweet.

The recipe I have below is the classic recipe. I know no matter how pure and wholly satisfying the original, variations are too tempting to resist. You can feel free to dress up the classic version in creative ways, with sprinkled toppings, adding fruits such as blueberries, and easy glazes and saurces. Since I am making this for my mom's teacher, I am staying conservative to only adding peacan to the classic recipe.

Note that the below recipe makes a delicious tranditional pound cake, and it's also the base for inventive variations. Recipe makes two 5-by-9-inch loaf pans.

Ingredients:
-1 pound (31/4 cups) all-purpose flour
-1 tablespoon coarse salt
-3 stick of softened unsalted butter
-1/2 cup sour cream (non-fat)
-1 1/2 cup of sugar
-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
-9 large egg (room temperature)
-1/2 cup toasted peacan

Procedures:
*Preheat over to 325 degree, butter two 5-by-9-inch loaf pans.
1) Combine the flour and salt in a bowl (see number 2 below)
2) Cream the softened butter, sour cream, and sugar with a mixer on high speed until pale and fluffy, for 8 minutes
3) Scape down sides of bowl, reduce speed to medium and add in the vanilla extract
4) Lightly beat 9 large, room-temperature eggs, and add in 4 additions, mixing thoroughly after each and scraping down sides
5) Reduce speed to low, and add flour mixture in 4 additions, mixing until just incorporated
6) add in the peacan until incorporated
6) divide batter between pans. Tap on counter to distribute and smooth tops.

Bake until a tester inserted into center of each cake comes out clean, about 65 minutes. Let cool in pans on a wire rack for another 30 minutes before removing from pans.


This is the end product. I didn't use my usual loaf pan because we had to give it to the teachers. So use the paper container I got from Daiso. Still works!

Wood Tavern

WOOD TAVERN is one of my favorite restaurants in this lovely college town – Berkeley. It is one of those restaurants I immediately fell in love with on my first visit and continue to manage to meet my expectation every time. So when I was scratching my head on where to take my mom for her birthday this year, Wood Tavern conveniently came to mind due to its consistency in maintaining quality new American style cuisine.

Wood Tavern offers a limited seasonal menu that rotates every season. I noticed, however, that while other dishes on the menu changes, there is one dish manages to make its way through the seasonal menu every season - the super thick cut pork chop, which is also my favorite dish here. I can't resist to order it every time I spot it on the menu. As I highly recommended this dish, both of my parents ordered this dish.

We started off with the house bread. The bread was decent. But I only had a small piece as I wanted to leave room for the meal


We order two bowl of aparagus soup as appertizers for my parents. I took a few spoonful and it was quite tasty. The cream, while adding to the pretty presentation, also added a nice kick to the soup so it didn't taste too greeny.

Ju 姐 and I order its famous pork belly to share. The pork belly was really tender and yet cripy on the outside with a nice glaze. I especially liked the plums and figs that went with it. It's really refreshing.

this is the famous grilled double-cut pork chop with bacon, corn, potato and masala cream saurce. The summer sweet corn goes so perfectly with the masala source. The sauce was so addicting that I tempted to dipped the bread in there (excuse my blurry picture please)!

Since both my dad and mom ordered my favorite dish, I thought I would try something new this time. I order the shrimp risotto, which turned out to be a nice surprise! The risotto was cook to perfection, al dented and the saurce had the perfect shrimp taste. One of the best shrimp risotto (in white source) I've ever had. Of course, those who knows me, my favorite risotto is still with La Siciliana Trattoria down the street. hehe!

Ju 姐 is a meat lover, so she ordered the grilled rib eye steak. It didn't say how many ounce this thing was on the menu, but from what it looked like..I believe it's at least 8 oz! The quality of the meat was really good

Dad and Mom and Ju Jei.

We order the warm chocolate cake for dessert the birthday cake (i originally meant to bake my mom a birthday cake but didn't have the time as I was in the middle of another S-1 filing :( )

The chocolate cake comes with a freshly home-made mint ice cream. When I said freshly made I really meant it made in house becase I could taste that they use fresh mint leave! I've never liked mint ice cream but this came in a pleasant surprise. I guess now I can't say I don't like mint ice cream.

Overall, the food was amazing as always. What I found out this time around that impressed me it's the dessert. I am sure I will come back for another special occasion..maybe when he comes.

Tonkasu Ramen @ Izakaya Sozai

I didn't use to like noodle soup/ramen/pho, or simply anything drench in a soup form. Now that whenever I see soup or noodle soup on the menu, regardless where and what I am eatting, I found myself attracted to ordering my daily dose of soup. I blame all this to one of my dearest roommies, Galeen, or Mrs. Wong soon-to-be, or the soup devil! Galeen is an all time soup lover. And if there is one thing she could not live w/o on her food list, it would be SOUP! When we were roomming with her, we made sure soup was always a stable on the dinner table.

So yesterday, after Galeen's UCSF graduation ceremony, we had lunch in Sunset area. We parked our car near Izakaya Sozai and was reminded of their yummy Tonkasu Ramen. As the name entails, Izakaya Sozai is an Izakaya house and not a ramen joint. However, they have got one of the best bowl of Tonkasu Ramen in the bay area. I have had try quite a few ramen joints in the area as well as trying the real ones in Japan, I think this place serves decent ramen. I remember when I first tried out this place when they first opened, I came for the Izakaya (small plates). Since it's Izakaya style, they serve everything small plate and the menu was quite limited, so when we saw filling ramen on the menu we gave it a try. While everything on the menu was mediocre, the ramen was surpringly great. It's nothing fancy, but straight to the point: tasty pork broth, half cooked egg, sheet of seaweed, and springles of union. The noodle was bouncy and chewy too. Now when we return to Izakaya Sozai, we return for the ramen and only complement our meal with the small plates.

btw, their ramen is now on the 2011 SF 100 things to try list
http://www.7x7.com/big-eat-2011-100-things-try-san-francisco-you-die