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Grilled Beef with Teriyaki Sauce Ingredients 2 x 220g Scotch fillet beef steaks Ground black pepper Vegetable oil Teriyaki sauce: 1/4 cup Kikkoman soy sauce 1/4 cup mirin 1/4 Japanese cooking sake 2 tbsp brown sugar (or to taste) Method Prepare the sauce first. Combine everything in a saucpan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes or until sauce is reduced to half. Transfer to a heatproof bowl to cool. Place steaks in a ziplock bag (or just use a dish) and add 2 tbsp of the sauce that has cooled down. Add some ground black pepper if desired. Mix well and leave to marinade for about 1 hour. Heat a grillpan or frying pan on high, lightly greased with some oil. Drain the excess marinade from the steaks and fry the steaks for about 3 minutes each side. Pour in 1-2 tbsp of teriyaki sauce and let it coat the steaks. When the steaks are cooked (medium rare), transfer to a plate and let it rest for 5 minutes, covered with aluminium foil. Reserve any remaining sauce in the pan for later. Sli...

I've been eating too much Korean Fried Chicken lately it's not funny. I decided to try a healthy Korean dish this time which is a stew made with beef short ribs. It's cooked in a light soy-based broth that reminds me of bulgogi, but made into a stew instead. It contains honey and mirin, and so tends to be on the sweet side. It's a nice change from the salty braised pork belly stew that I'm so used to at home. Galbi  in Korean translates to "shortrib" and " jjim " refers to dishes made by steaming or boiling. Galbijjim (Korean Braised Beef Short Ribs) Adapted from Korean Bapsang Ingredients 3 pounds meaty beef short ribs 1/2 onion 3 -4 thin ginger slices 5 garlic cloves 3 white parts of scallions Braising Liquid: 1/2 cup soy sauce 2 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons honey (I omitted this) 1/4 cup rice wine (or mirin) 2 tablespoons of sesame oil 1/2 medium Asian pear, grated (about 1/2 cup) 1/2 small onion grated 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1 teaspoon...

  Mention the word "satay" and I am instantly reminded of my childhood years and years ago, how the Malay Satay Man would peddle his mobile satay stall on his bicycle in my neighbourhood, tooting his horn. Sometimes, I could even smell the aroma from my house, even though he could be grilling his satay down the road. I would get all excited at the prospect of having satay for dinner, and run to the window to see if I could detect any "smoke" signals in the sky. He made one of the best satays in town, and the fact that he peddled his stall around the neighbourhood meant that we could walk up to him with empty plates and bowls waiting to be filled with freshly made satay. Those were the simple things in life back then, though coming from a foodie family, food was and is a big deal, as to most Malaysians of course. Malaysian Satay is such a luxury item in Sydney. I don't think I've ever ordered satay here before, not when I know it costs multiple times less bac...

  In all my years of eating and cooking, I have only recently embraced bittergourd into my cooking repertoire. I was visiting my mum and she was wondering what to do with the leftover roast pork she had in the fridge. She suggested doing a stir-fried bittergourd with roast pork dish, which I've heard of but never tried before. I can't remember if she ever cooked that during my childhood, but back then, I shunned anything that had bittergourd in it. I was a picky eater when I was young. Dare I admit that I never ate my veggies until I was in my late teens. Okay, my kids don't have to know this. Really. Anyway, back to the bittergourd. I decided to use beef instead of roast pork in this dish, cooked with salted black beans. To make it a one-dish meal, I tossed it with some flat egg noodles (we call this Mee Pok in Singapore, though I'm not sure why) and added a splash of black vinegar, and it turned out to be a most slurp-worthy and delicious bowl of noodles. Mee Pok (Fla...

  As Mr G was clearing the dishes after dinner, he started whinging about how he's always clearing the dishes. I told him "I've always offered you the chance to cook while I babysit and clean up, but you always say that I'm the cook". Well, I knew he would rather "clean up" than cook anyway, and dare I say that I trust my cooking more? Haha. I have to give him credit for some of his culinary skills. Let's see now... Mr G's forte lies in his famous Hainanese chicken rice . Famous because anyone who is invited to our home for the first time is usually treated to this Singaporean favourite. Oooh...he bakes a good pineapple-glazed Christmas ham, and roast beef too. We'll be looking forward to that soon! And last but not least, he does a pretty good lasagne. I say "pretty good" because the recipe is in his head, and sometimes it can be a little inconsistent. The last lasagne he made had too much béchamel and mozzarella cheese in it. He b...

  In my previous post , I wrote about my first time dining at a Lebanese (or Middle-eastern) restaurant, Al Aseel . I had ordered the "Mixed Plate", comprising an array of dips and a three types of grilled meats on skewers - chicken, lamb and kafta. I wasn't a fan of the chicken as I found it a little dry. The lamb was not bad, but my favourite was the kafta.   Kofta  generally refers to savoury balls of ground meat (or vegetables, potatoes, lentils etc) mixed with spices, herbs or other ingredients. In Lebanese cuisine, it's called kafta and is usually made with ground beef, allspice, parsley and onions. I decided to make a lamb kofta kebab instead by placing the lamb mince on skewers and then grilling them on the barbecue. You can use either beef, lamb or a combination of both. You may serve this with some Lebanese bread (or any flatbread), hummus and tahini sauce with tabouli as a salad.  I also made some beef kebabs which...

Soto Daging (Beef Soto) is a Malaysian dish comprising cubes of compressed rice sitting in a richly spiced beef broth, served with tender slices of beef , bean sprouts and sometimes potato croquettes (known as begedil ), and then garnished with crispy fried shallots, chinese celery (or coriander leaves) and spring onions. My favourite part of the dish is the hot chilli soy sauce, which we call " kicap cili ". It is a simple blend of finely chopped bird's eye chillies, garlic and soy sauce, and is usually mixed into the soup just before eating. The heat from the chillies together with the garlicky soy sauce somehow adds extra depth to the flavours of the soup and gives it the drool-factor (in fact, I am salivating right now trying to describe it). Nasi Impit (Compressed rice) You may have also heard of Mee Soto, which is typically made with chicken instead of beef, and uses noodles instead of compressed rice. The broth is usually lighter in terms of both flavo...

Have you ever eaten food that made you smile ? It's when you take the first bite, and suddenly all your tastebuds are awaken and you feel a calming sense of euphoria which translates into a big smile spread across your face. Some foods (like chocolate, ice-cream and chilli) can trigger the brain to release more  endorphins in the body, which is why we feel happy or even " high " when we eat them. One of my most memorable encounters with such "happy food" was at this restaurant called Modestos in Singapore, where I ordered the tiramisu for dessert. When it arrived on the plate, I could already tell how good it must be, looking at the moist and creamy layers of sponge and mascarpone, topped with a generous dusting of cocoa powder. The first mouthful just overwhelmed me with that warm and fuzzy feeling inside, and I just couldn't contain the urge to smile. Needless to say, it was the perfect way to end a meal, and I would always order it each time I we...

Wa means Japanese and Fu means style. So this dish is a Japanese-style hamburger (or hamburg), which is really a grilled beef patty (or a giant meatball) topped with a Japanese-style sauce. It sounds so simple, and yet the combination of the moist and tender beef with the shimeji mushrooms (love the texture!) and dashi gravy is so delicious. The potato salad is a great side dish for this as it helps so soak up some of that mushroom gravy and makes the perfect mouthful when eaten together with the hamburger patty. This was a comforting and enjoyable meal for both G and I, although the kids weren't too excited about it when they spotted bits of onion in the meat. I guess I should dice up the onions a little finer next time and hope they don't notice them! Wafu Hamburger with Shimeji Mushrooms Adapted from Essentially Japanese by Hideo Dekura Ingredients Vegetable oil 1 brown onion, peeled and chopped 600g (1 1/4 lb) minced beef 1 tsp salt Freshly ground black pepper...

At this point, some of you must be wondering why I am constantly cooking Japanese food. Well, Japanese recipes are often simple and span only half a page of a cookbook, which makes it less daunting especially when they usually come with a list of less than ten ingredients. Compare that to Malaysian cooking which may use spices and sauces from A-Z, with plenty of chopping, pounding, crushing, toasting, frying, simmering and keeping a constant watch while cooking. I hardly have half a day to spend doing all that especially now that I'm back at work, and it's impossible to keep the children out of mischief. Just today, while I was preparing pork chops for dinner, my little toddler managed to empty almost an entire bottle of shampoo all over the floor in the shower. So, anyway, as I was saying, I'm in the Japanese food phase recently and I decided to have a go at making Japanese potato croquettes (known as  Korokke , no priz...