The Japanese "Hamburg"

My boyfriend bought me a Japanese cookbook for Valentine's Day.  It was a beautiful book with great pictures, explanation on how the cuisine developed, and great recipes to try out.  The first one that I tackled was the Hambagu (ハンバーグ) , or hamburger steak.

The Japanese have a way with developing their recipes.  They take the foreign and make it comfortably Japanese.  The Hamburg is a great comfort food.  It is a hamburger patty drenched with a savory sauce often served with white rice and veggies on the side.  Now, shame on me for forgetting to take pictures of it when I made it--I've just been so keen on just eating it first!

Hamburg as pictured in an anime

The steps to make it are very simple.  You assemble the burger patty, cook it, and then create the sauce from the pan drippings.  The recipe I was following was straightforward and came out great.  I'm doing this from memory, so I hope the listed amounts are correct.

Burger Ingredients (4 large patties)

• 6 oz minced onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 oz ground pork
• 8 oz ground beef
• 1/2 cup of panko crumbs
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 egg

Sauce Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sake
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup Worchestershire Sauce

Cooking Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

The first step is to mince your onion and garlic.  You then melt 1 tbsp butter in a pan over medium heat and cook the onions and garlic until it is translucent.  Set this aside to cool as you assemble the meat mix.

Use a small bowl to hold the panko crumbs and pour the milk in.  Let the panko soak up the milk for at least 5 minutes.  My suggestion is to mix it up well before you let it sit on the counter.  Just make sure that most of the crumbs get soaked into the milk.

Now, get your other ingredients together into a mixing bowl.  Measure out your meat.  I have a handy food scale so I can easily set it to g/kg/oz/lbs without having to convert. :)  I like to put the meat in first, then the salt and soy sauce, then the panko crumbs, cooked onion and garlic, and lastly, the egg!  You then squish this mixture with your hands until the ingredients are evenly distributed.  Also, I should say that you can substitute your meats for other ground meats and the texture will still come out pretty good.  It's really the panko crumbs that makes it so tender, so you can substitute for less fatty ground meat if you wish.

The traditional Hamburg is a big burger patty.  If you want to do it this way, you divide up the meat mixture into 4 portions and then shape the patties about 1 inch thick.  I did it this way the first time I made it, but the second time, I made little meatballs instead!  I made meatballs about 3/4 inch thick, squish a little bit flat so that it's like a little slider patty rather than a rolly poly meatball.  This works just as well as a big hamburger patty--just watch your cooking time.

Heat 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp vegetable oil over medium heat in your pan.  Wait for the oil to get hot before putting in your patties.  In my normal skillet, I fit about 2 large patties in it at a time.  With little meatballs, you can put more in at once.  The average time for a large patty is about 12 minutes total cooking time.  Make sure that you flip your patty or meatballs halfway through.  To see if your meat is cooked through, stick a toothpick in and see if the juices run clear.  Then you're good to go!  Plate the patties while you make the sauce.

Keep the pan at medium to medium-low heat.  Pour the sake into the pan (I substituted with Chinese rice wine that I had) and swirl it around for 20 seconds.  Use your spatula to scrape the pan so that everything comes off the bottom.  Then add in the ketchup and Worcestershire sauce and cook for a minute or two, mixing until everything is well blended.  Then pour the sauce over your burgers and serve!

Since the sauce is very salty and savory, it's a great match with plain white rice and some steamed veggies.  Enjoy!

Black Garlic Flavor Ramen!

A curious thing was found in our Chinese market a few months ago.  There was a new ramen flavor out and it was absolutely delicious!  The culprit?  Nissin Demae Black Garlic Oil Instant Ramen.

I LOVE ramen.  It's incredibly delicious and versatile.  It may be instant ramen or cup noodles, but you can take it and change the way you eat it to be healthier and without the stigma of omg-cancer-causing-noodles.  In Japan, traditional ramen is a wholesome meal with noodles, a hearty soup/stock, and toppings, like meat and veggies.  I had ramen in Japan before when I visited over a decade ago.  We had found a random shop tucked between these other stores.  (I can't remember if it was in Tokyo or Kyoto at the time. I think it was when we were in Tokyo's Shibuya district.)  It had one counter with maybe 6 seats.  The bowl is large and filled to the brim with soup, noodles, and toppings.  I had trouble finishing the soup on my own.  It was absolutely delicious and a great meal though!

Back stateside, traditional ramen is lacking.  We often only have the options of instant or packaged noodles which don't come close the real stuff.  However, I still enjoy a good bowl of ramen every now and then.

As far as instant goes, I love the Nissin brand.  Their plain sesame oil flavor is great because it's, in essence, just a plain broth.  I like to add fresh cut scallions and egg into it while I boil it on the stove.  One of my favorite veggies to add to any Asian soup or stew is napa cabbage.  You chop it down the stalk and let it simmer in the soup and it will soak up the oils and flavor to make for a soft, flavorful addition.  You can also cook some bok choy in a pan on the side and then add it into your noodles.

The black garlic oil flavor was a rare find!  I was browsing the aisles and I spotted this one tucked away.  It was simply because I love garlic flavors that I took a chance on this one.  It did not disappoint!  When boiling the ramen in a small pot, I add in the soup base packet.  After I scooped out my portion into my bowl, I added the oil packet directly into my bowl.  This way, I could get the most of the flavor without losing any to the (inevitable) extra soup in my pot.

All around delicious.  If you have an Asian market near you, see if you can find it!

Japanese-Style Chicken Curry

Curries are a delicious and flavorful food to try!  Curry from different countries taste completely different due to the types of spices used to create them.  My favorite type of curry is the Japanese-style since I was never great at eating spicy food and their mild curry is truly very mild.

My favorite curry restaurant from NYC is GO!GO!Curry!  They are so authentic to their Japanese origins and they have a great brand.  If you dine in at one of their small tables, you can watch their original Japanese restaurant's staff and mascot doing their antics back in Japan on TV.  I watched one episode where they packed maybe a hundred curry bento boxes for this children's baseball team's lunch.  It was sweet and I stared at the boxes piled high with envy.  I also watched people attempting the curry challenges to eat a monster-sized portion of katsu curry within 30 minutes to get it for free.  GO!GO!Curry! has such a fun brand with lots of deals, and they host annual curry-eating competitions.  Check them out if you're ever in NYC (or in Japan)!

I've always bought a box of Japanese Golden Curry Sauce to dissolve in water and make at home.  Here's how I make my version! :)

Japanese-Style Chicken Curry

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Golden Curry Sauce Mix 8.4oz (mild or whatever you can handle in spiciness)
• 1.5-2 pounds of raw chicken (thighs, tenders, or breasts--I prefer tenders or thighs)
• 3-4 medium-sized yellow (Spanish) onions
• 4 medium-large russet potatoes (Eastern potatoes work as well)
• 3-4 carrots (I'm a picky eater so I don't include carrots in my curry)
• Salt and pepper

Ingredients-wise, you're essentially preparing a big pot of stew.  You can pick and choose how much of each ingredient you'd like to have, but it's best to have an even amount of each item.  When you chop it all up, you'll see how everything stacks up.  Most curries include meat, potatoes, onions, and sometimes, carrots.  I usually only use chicken, potato, and onion in mine.  Japanese restaurants will often serve fried pork (katsu) or chicken cutlets over the rice covered with curry sauce.

The box of curry sauce claims to be enough for 12 servings.  The sauce comes in condensed cubes that you can then add into the water and dissolve.  To prepare the full box, 8.5oz, you'll want to use a stockpot to get the most out of it.  There are directions on the box stating how much water to use.  Remember, you're going to be adding in a lot of ingredients, so the pot should not be completely full when you first boil it!  Also, depending on how thick you want your sauce to be, adding too much water will only water down your sauce.

1. Fill your stockpot with water.  The more water you use, the more watery and less flavorful your sauce will turn out.  Start with the directed amount of water and set it to boil on medium-high heat.  While your water is heating up, prepare the ingredients.  I like to start with the chicken.
   
2. Trim and discard the fat on your chicken before cutting it up into bite-sized pieces (about an inch or less in width).  You'll want to maintain a square/cube shape.  Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
   
3. Wash your hands (and board, if you're using the same one), then prepare the onions.  Cut off the ends and peel the outer layers off.  Chop into squares or slice into strips--I prefer squares.
   
4. Next, peel your potatoes and cube them.  Remember, you're looking for a consistent size/shape so that everything mixes well.  At this point, your water may be boiling.  You can throw the potatoes into the pot to boil.
   
5. Prepare a frying pan for the chicken.  Add a little vegetable oil with the heat on medium.  When the oil is hot, add the chicken to the pan.  When it is partially cooked, add in the onions to cook as well.  You can turn off the stove when the chicken is fully cooked or no longer pink.
   
6. When the potatoes are softened, you'll want to start mixing in the sauce cubes.  I use chopsticks to hold onto a small cube and gently stir it in the water.  It dissolves quite quickly into the hot water.  You don't have to do it like I do, but I suggest adding one cube at a time until it is mostly dissolved before adding in the next one.  You'll see as you add in the sauce cubes, the sauce will thicken up quite nicely.
   
7. After you have added and dissolved all of the sauce cubes, you're ready to add in the chicken and onions. You'll want to stir every 10-15 minutes to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the pot.  You can turn down the heat to medium-low and let it simmer.
   
8. Now, the secret ingredient!  Mix your curry with LOVE!  The best part about curry is that it tastes great for days after you first make it.  This is because the longer you let it simmer, the more flavorful the meat and veggies get.  They really soak up the curry flavor and become so delicious.  If you're looking to serve your curry on the day of, you might want to let it simmer for an hour or so before serving.  It is great over some fresh white rice, but you can also try curry with noodles!

Stir-Fried Chicken Udon

I am a huge fan of Japanese food.  One of my favorites is stir-fried udon.  Typically, udon noodles are used in a noodle soup, but I love having it stir-fried.  You can buy packaged udon from your local Asian supermarket.  I typically buy a five-pack pre-cooked which comes with the soup base individually packaged as well.  This makes prep so fast when you want something to eat.

Ingredients:
- 2-3 packs of udon (I use 3 for two people since we eat lot!)
- 1 chicken thigh (slice the meat off the bone into small cubes)
- 1/2 an onion (chopped)
- Taiwanese bok choy (chopped)
- scallions (chopped)
- salt & pepper
- soy sauce

First, stir fry the chicken over medium heat with some vegetable oil.  I wait until most of the pink is gone before adding in the salt, pepper, and a dash of soy sauce.  Then I stir until all of it is evenly coated and the chicken takes on a nice brown from the soy sauce.  Put this aside in a bowl now.

Next, cook the veggies.  I did the onions first since they take a little longer to soften and then added in the bok choy.  Add a little bit of water and cover to let it simmer.  In about 5 minutes, it should be done.  Now, add some salt to taste.

Add in the udon.  I just rip open the package and plop it right into the pan.  If you still have some water left in the pan, great, if not, add a little in.  I like to stick my chopsticks in to break apart the noodles.  Then cover it and let the udon noodles soften.

After the noodles have softened, add the chicken back in.  Then add the soup base packet in.  Since I used 3 packs of noodles, I only used 2 packs of the soup base.  That way, it's not overly salty since it's meant for use as the soup.  Now, you just stir fry the noodles until it is well mixed.  Add scallions on top and give it a good mix before plating.

Ramen: Cup Noodles

How many of you love to have ramen? RAMENNNN. Being in college, ramen is a staple part of my diet. Of course, it's not the healthiest thing ever, but it's still delicious if done right. And if you're look to eat good ramen and be healthy, your best option is to forgo the flavor packet. That one packet is all the unhealthy ingredients that make it taste so good. If you want to be healthy, just have the noodles cooked plainly and add in healthy ingredients.

With this one, I put in two defrosted fishballs, which are already cooked, into the hot water to warm with the noodles and then topped it with some chopped scallions. (You'll come to see that I love having scallion with a lot of foods as a garnish.)

If you're familiar with ramen, you'd know that Nissin makes the infamous Cup Noodle brand. A big tip out there for all of you lazy bums eating Cup Noodles out of the styrofoam cup: DON'T DO IT. Styrofoam is one of the worst kinds of packaging out there (and it never decomposes, polluting our environment) and it definitely isn't supposed to be in contact with high temperature things, like hot, freshly boiled water. I always rip the seal off (and dump out the dried veggies), flip the cup over into a large bowl, and dump the noodles out. Then I add the hot water and cover the bowl with a plate until the three minutes are up. This one here, that looks oh-so-delicious, is in fact, one of the cups of Cup Noodles. So besides being better for you out of that cup, it always looks so much better this way!