Home cookin': Japchae

Tonight we decided to cook Korean in the tajine pot. Not the first time to cook korean, but bulgogi is real easy anyways. so...first complex korean dish? Actually this isn't that bad. Most of the ingredients are shared by the Taiwanese, so they weren't hard to find or expensive in cost. Clear cellophane noodles, seasons, meat, vegetables and it's done. Actually without some variations in spices, it about the same as a Taiwanese dish I know of. This dish is called Japchae in Korean pinyin. In the process of cooking it, I think we didn't add enough oil, so some of the noodles got burnt at the bottom. But it scraped off easily and actually adds a pleasant texture to it. It doesn't taste burnt, just some added crispyness. I'll probably keep burning a little next time we try this. Discovery by accident. And for the lubricant? Korean beer Hite! I figured we needed Korean beer for a Korean meal. It ended up complimenting the meal pretty well. It tastes light but with more spice and hoppy-ness at the end. The other beer is Orion, an Okinawa beer. Not Korean, but Japanese beer famous in it's southern most island bordering Taiwan. Orion tastes similar to Taiwan beer. Well enjoy the food photo, i'm off to get some ice cream from the grocery store.

Home cookin': Lemon Tripe with chickpeas

Miniatures! I've always been fascinated with miniatures. I think it's been instilled into our childhood exeriences to like miniatures. Because most toys are pretty much miniatures anyways. Girls get miniature dolls and boys get miniature cars (excuse the stereotype). And the more details involved the more they fascinate me. I've build plenty of scale models in my youth, and it just got more fun the higher the difficulty rating got, because it would include articulating windows or arms or gun turrets. Anyways, the day started of pretty dreary and grey, so Yuki and I grabbed our umbrellas and headed over to the Miniature Museum of Taipei. It's not too far from the SongJiang NanJing MRT station (捷運松江南京站)。 The miniature museum of one of two in Taipei area. The second and much larger outdoor location is called Window On China in Longtan (龍潭鄉). I didn't feel up to bringing my camera today, so I just stole one from Google images. All the scale reproductions were extremely well put together. Most of them were of european and american style houses and castles. However there were a few asian themed examples too. My favorite is the miniature of an old japanese street with food and service stands possible from the 1960's era. There are even some of the beautiful victorian homes of San Francisco. Some miniature rooms, as Yuki pointed out, included a miniature within a miniature. It's really a cool place to visit and convenient to get to. The Entrance cost was $180NT. Student fee is $150 but my school doesn't count. The gift store has miniature kits, so you can bring some home and try for yourself too. Overall, a great place to visit while in Taipei. It's one of the less popular places that may not be in a tourist book. This is all we pretty much did for the day. Relaxing and stress free and most importantly cheap. heh! So for dinner we grabbed some ingredients and tried out the next recipe in Yuki's Tajine cookbook. Lemon Tripe with chickpeas. It turned out sour and powerful in flavor with the great chewy texture of tripe. Although probably too chewy. It was our first time cooking with Tripe. We found out later, after dinner, that it helps soften the Tripe if you soak it in a brine solution for 2 hours prior to cooking. Next time.

MMOT (袖珍博物館)
104台灣台北市中山區建國北路一段96號
http://www.mmot.com.tw

Tajine pot: Thai Panang Curry

Let me introduce you to the world of Tajine cooking. My girlfriend introduced it to me, and planned to buy one in Taiwan for the longest time. So today, she finally saw one she liked at a store near the Breeze center. So she bought it. She instantly went to the japanese book store in old Sogo (Fuxing) and bought a Tajine recipe book. For those unfamiliar with Tajine, it is "is a dish from North Africa, that is named after the special earthenware pot in which it is cooked. The traditional tajine pot is formed entirely of a heavy clay, which is sometimes painted or glazed. It consists of two parts: a base unit that is flat and circular with low sides, and a large cone or dome-shaped cover that rests inside the base during cooking. The cover is so designed to promote the return of all condensation to the bottom. With the cover removed, the base can be taken to the table for serving." For our first trail run, we decided to make Thai Panang Curry over Thai long grain rice. Ingredients include potatoes, bamboo shoots, green peppers and chicken. The food turned out great! She found that the Tajine really cooks the food a bit faster. Much like a pressure cooker as she said. The only faults that we came into were: the pot is too shallow to cook for more three portions and the lid doesn't have a ventilation hole. Too much steam would build up and start spitting curry all over the place instead of letting some steam off through a ventilation hole. If only I had a drill. But then again, I wouldn't want to possible ruin the beautiful orange polka dotted design the lid had. Thats ok. We'll make do. What dish do I want to add to the kitchen arsenal? Hmmm...escargot dish?