冷やし中華 Hiyashi Chuka

A typical summer dish in Japan is Hiyashi Chuka, which literally means Cold Chinese (noodles). Basically it is a cold noodle dish with lots of colorful topping. The most traditional combination is tomatos, cucumber, eggs and ham. It comes with yummy sauce too.

During the last days Munich had summery weather and I decided to make Hiyashi Chuka for dinner. In Japan we would use special Chinese noodles for this dish but since I am living in Munich it's not easy to get a hold of them. I use normal spaghetti pasta with a bit of a twist.

Here is my quick way of making Hiyashi Chuka


Noodles:
Overcook the spaghetti (1-2 minutes more than the usual) in the way you usually cook, but add a tbs of "Natron" to make the pasta a bit more like Chinese noodles. After the noodles are boiled, make sure to rinse them with cold water. It gives the nice texture to the pasta.


Topping:
Basically you can have any topping you like. The more color the merrier. I put ham this time but of course it could be a vegeterian version as well :) I like sprinkling some sesame seeds on the very top.

Sauce:
Lemon juice
Sesami oil (can also add a bit of sesami or even Tahin)
Soysauce
Vinegar (sour ones are better than something like Balsamico)
You can adjust the ratio according to your liking.

I am sure I would be making this dish quote often during summer months ;)

Chocolate cookies (maybe the best)

Recently I baked yummy chocolate cookies. I am usually a very humble person but these were really good. Addictive. The cookies are good right after (and maybe a day later) for its "fudge" texture [in Japanese we call it しっとり "shittori"]. They are also good when they become a bit dry (day 2 or later). The former reminded me of the Japanese cookies brand "Country Ma'am". The latter tasted like the cookies I had from Fortune and Mason (friends brought it from London once ahhhh....)

This recipe is not mine and this is the link to the original recipe :)



I would have like to just put the link, but unfortunately it's not in English so this is the rough translation of the original (with some commentary).

Chocolate cookies (yields about 40 pieces)

• 200g of dark chocolate (I used a block of Côte d'Or (Belgium brand) "Culinaire" --which in my opinion is the best chocolate for baking! I brought it in Belgium over Easter. Unfortunately they are not sold in Munich)
• 100g sugar
• 50g butter
• 2 eggs (M/L)
• 200g of all purpose flour
• 2 tbs of baking powder (must sieve)

Melt chocolate and butter (*); whisk sugar and butter together until it becomes creamy and add the (*), flour and baking powder
Put a lid/cellophane and put it in the fridge to cool (1-2 hours, but naturally can be more). Take out the dough and make small balls (c.a. 10g). Bake in pre-heated oven about 15 min (175 C). Eat hot or cold.

The cookies grow so don't put them too close to each other or make them too big :) 10g is about a tbs.

Alternation to the original recipe:
The original recipe calls for powdering the dough with powder sugar at the end before baking. They look prettier as you can see in the picture of the original recipe if you follow the link. But cookies are sweet enough (I could reduce the amount...) as it is. I also made my cookies flat cos that makes it bake faster =) even them I had to put the oven at a higher temperature than asked (200C) and baked longer (c.a. 25 min). I have a really crappy oven.

I baked with yummy Belgium chocolate- next time I would probably use one from the local supermarket so shall see if there would be any difference to the taste!

Bavarian breakfast

My sister was visiting last week and for this special occasion we did a "Bavarian breakfast" except for the weissbier part. We had white sausages from the butcher and home made Obatzda "orange cheese butter."

Here is my variation of how to prepare this meal:

*Munich's white sausages!*
Heat (not boil) white sausages with a slice of lemon (I put a whole one this time) and some parsley for extra nice favor! Better to buy organic lemon and always rise off the peel with luke warm water before putting it in the pot. Of course you could just heat up the sausages, but adding these two make it even better!

*Obatzda*
Obatzda is best when it is prepared a bit in advanced -- preferably the night before so it can rest for some hours in the fridge (the onion becomes milder too). For this recipe, I used half a butter (c.a.125g) and one small Brie cheese (75g) and 1/2 of a small onion (diced, and rinsed with water). Mix the cheese and butter until it is soft and add the onions. You can add a hint of beer for extra flavor (optional). at the very end add a spoon of "Edelsüß" paprika powder and mix well to get the beautiful orange. Make sure to only put this particular paprika powder because the taste as well as the color would be completely different if you use another kind.

















I bought the sausages at "Vinzenmurr." it's a Munich butcher "chain" so nothing special but I find their sausages quite delicious after comparing a couple. If you know a good place drop me a line! :) I'll be up for trying out new ones!

Spaghetti al pesto con Mango

My quasi Mother-in-law introduced me to use Mango in pasta --so the fruit is not a desert but part of the main dish... I altered her recipe a bit since I couldn't get a hold of some of the ingredients in the local supermarket.

Mango pasta with Pesto and shrimps.

- (Whole wheat) pasta cooked al dente
- Ripe mango, diced
- Pesto (original recipe calls for Coriander pesto, but I just made normal ones with Basil)
- Shrimps -> fried with olive oil and some spring onions, diced

The original recipe uses raw spring onions but I don't like raw spring onions (or onions) so I fried them together with the shrimps.

Very summery dish and a nice twist to the usual "Spaghetti al pesto"

Bread experiment No.1

I haven't baked bread with my own mixed for some time, but I got inspired by a friend's boyfriend who now does not buy bread from the bakery any more but bakes once a week by himself. He also gave me a tip to make a bread notebook so I can keep track of what would be the best combo of ingredients! I decided Sundays are perfect days to do this bread experiment.

Bread experiment no.1

Rye : Wheat = 2 : 1
Flour mixture : water = 3 : 2
Temp: 220 degrees
Sauerteig extract and yeast
Left it sitting for about 10 hours (not intentionally...) before baking

Other notes:
Weather was rainy and cold
Added 30g of seeds but would add more next time.

Teriyaki Okara Pate

Okara is residue of soy beans after making tofu. It's been one of my new challenges to make tofu from scratch and thus every now and then i have okara at hand. This is one of my favorite dishes --Teriyaki Okara Pate. I mixed the okara with eggs and some flour and fry it. It's a quick and easy and nutritious dish :) (It's quick but getting Okara is a bit of a pain)

For this evening, I treated myself with some nice wholesome Japanese food... good sticky rice and miso soup!
The orange dish in the top corner is "Kinpira" The typical dish of Kinpira is using carrots and gobo (Burdock or Schwarzwurzel) but this time I substitute it with the root of celery. It went quite well and I think I would use this recipe to eat up the "giant" root :)

Gourmet salad

My bf usually doesn't enjoy eating salad, but he enjoyed this one... maybe because of the shrimps... I name the salad "Gourmet salad" :) it includes more ingredients than my usual simple ones ;)

- Apples (diced)
- Walnuts (roasted with a pan)
- Parmesan cheese (just a sprinkle, optional)
- Shrimps (fried with olive oil)
- Feldsalat (corn salad in English)
+ Lemon dressing (lemon juice and olive oil + S&P)