serene’s posterous

I had some frozen fish filets from Trader Joe's that had been sitting in the freezer for way too long.  Since it has been quite cold in our apartment, I thought of making fish soup.  Chinese-style clear gingery soup with fish slices and tomato.

I fried about a knob's worth of sliced ginger with sesame oil, then added some Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and water to make the soup.  I added some quartered roma tomatoes into the soup too. 

I then sliced the defrosted fish into fairly thick slices and added salt, pepper, a dash of corn starch and a bit of sesame oil to marinate the fish slices.  Since the fish slices cook so quickly, I just dropped the slices into the simmering soup and fished them out just as they looked about cooked. 

I cooked some xiao bai chai, enoki mushrooms and spring onions in the broth, and then re-added the fish slices to the broth for my meal with a steamy bowl of rice.  The soup was a touch too oily, so I think I will have to use less sesame oil when browning the ginger.  Also, some kiam chye (salted green mustard) would probably add some flavor to the soup.  Otherwise, the soup had a mild fish taste that sort of reminds me of the sliced fish soup you can get in Singapore.

Our Thanksgiving trip to New Mexico featured English muffins at the breakfast spreads in the hotels.  I came home wanting to eat English muffins, so with a new jar of blueberry jam and English muffins from Trader Joe's, I have been getting my fix every morning.  Yesterday's breakfast included clementines, a glass of milk and a mug of hot Harmutty tea with a touch of sweetened condensed milk.

Before moving, I decided to reduce some of the pantry items we had lying around by doing some baking.  It was my first attempt at banana bread.  I used a recipe that was oil based rather than butter based because I didn't have any butter left at home.  I didn't add the lemon rind, reduced the sugar to slightly over 1/2 cup and used a mixture of chocolate chips and walnuts.  It didn't turn out perfect because I think I overmixed the batter causing the bread to be a little heavy.  I tried the same recipe again in the new apartment, but I guess the loaf browned too quickly in the smaller oven, and I ended up with not so great banana bread again.

I think I am going to try a butter based banana bread next.  Perhaps this recipe that came from Molly Wizenberg's book.

I guess it is a little weird to like canned sardines.  My mom used to make sardine sandwiches for me with canned sardines in tomato sauce, plus onions and a dash of freshly squeezed lime. 

I usually just fry up some onions with the sardines and add some chopped thai chilies, and marinara sauce (mixed with a bit of Sriracha).  And I would squeeze some lime juice over everything to cut out any fishy taste.  This time, I stir fried some broccoli and added cherry tomatoes as well to make it a balanced meal.

I baked these last minute for a friend's bake sale, so I had to make do with whatever ingredients I had at home.  I tried to make the cookies vegetarian (butter OK, but no eggs), so I roughly used this recipe, with some changes.  I used 1/2 cup of butter, doubled all the spices and fresh ginger, used 3/4 cup brown sugar, replaced the molasses with honey, skipped the raisins, and instead of rolling the dough balls in sugar, I just sprinkled some turbinado cane sugar over the flattened dough balls before baking.

I am currently a little obsessed with roasting cauliflower.  It is probably a little warm these days to be firing up the oven, but I haven't been able to resist.  I have been mostly tossing the chopped up cauliflower with smashed garlic cloves, a little salt and pepper, olive oil and curry or chili powder.  And then baking in the oven for about 20min at 400°C.  I just love how the cauliflower gets brown on the edges.

I had some frozen Coho salmon fillets from Trader Joe's in the freezer, so I decided to make Teriyaki Salmon.  I had some Kikkoman Kotterin Mirin in the fridge, so I mixed that with some soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil, and marinated the salmon with this mixture.  I added some garlic cloves and sliced ginger to the mix too.  Broiled the salmon for about 5-10min, until the salmon was cooked, and then sprinkled some chopped scallions over. 

Next time, I may want to sprinkle some sugar over the salmon, and broil a little longer to get a sugar crust.

Tasty lunch on Sunday.  We redeemed all our deli coupons (given for purchases above $30) from Marina Food at San Mateo and obtained about a pound of BBQ Pork (Char Siew) and half a roast duck for practically free.  Eu-Jin then stir fried bean sprouts for the veggie part of our meal.  Pictured is a small portion of the duck and char siew, and lots of bean sprouts over rice in the bowl.

This is riffed off one of of my mom's regular dishes.  She would stir fry shrimp and squid with onions, peppers and tomatoes with a touch of sweet and sour sauce.  Since Eu-Jin doesn't eat shell fish or shrimp, this would be something I cook for myself only.

I don't have any sweet and sour sauce so my sauce is a tomatoey combination with tomato sauce, some sweet mirin, soy sauce and a touch of Sriracha sauce.  I stir fried the shrimp (no squid because I am too lazy to buy and prepare squid) to set aside first.  Then I stir fried garlic, onions, orange peppers and broccoli.  When the veggies were almost done, I added the cooked shrimp and tomatoes, as well as the pre-prepared sauce.

Saw this article on NYtimes on sriracha sauce.  I love the garlicky chili taste of the sauce, because it reminds me of the garlic chili sauce we get in Singapore, kinda like the cousin to tomato sauce.  I got a bottle of the sauce recently from the Chinese grocery store, and have been using it liberally on all sorts of stuff.  I recently mixed some sriracha sauce with plain yogurt to make a weird egg salad.  It was strangely satisfying to have a pinkish slightly spicy egg salad.