tokyo

yet another travel post! it may seem like i go on a lot of adventures, but really this year is an exception. normally in my free time, i sit at home and twiddle my thumbs and cook to keep insanity at bay... heh heh. but this trip was a long time coming. even before my husband and i were married, we fantasized about going to japan together. we had only traveled twice together besides to and from our respective homes; new york and new zealand. we had a blast together and were looking forward to doing it again. fast-forward to 4 years later and we haven't traveled to any new places at all. luckily when we got married, my parents gave us money towards our honeymoon. and that's what this was, a belated honeymoon to japan. ^^


oh, the food. the service was impeccable at every restaurant we ate at; i am not used to servers being so polite after living in copenhagen for 4 years... ok! that's the first and last jab at denmark for this post. while my husband was more interested in eating as much quality sushi he could fit into his tummy, i was looking forward to comfort foods like freshly-made ramen/udon/soba, katsu-sando, tarako, pretty much anything with tofu.. i did get to eat all those lovely things, but i feel like i didn't eat enough noodles. the ones i had were all very good, with perfect bite and length. nothing sadder than a short noodle when you are expecting to slurp. (;


they have a tendency to eat eggs quite raw in japan; which i have absolutely no problem with, since they take the necessary precautions. i never got sick from food in japan, even though i was served almost raw eggs to crack on top of the tsukemen pictured above. and the yolks are bright orange! you can also get them already cooked (somewhat) at convenience stores if you have a craving. seems like those shops are much better in asia than any other place in the world, or at least it seems that way to me. i only ate breakfast once in a hotel because you can always find a delicious bento at the convenience store and they will warm it up for you. or if i wasn't feeling hungry, i'd just buy an umeboshi onigiri for later. everything was delicious, i don't remember tasting anything i didn't like. even tomato chocolate.. it took a while, but it grew on me. ^^


along with seeking out and ingesting all the food, we did do some sightseeing. in tokyo we went to koishikawa korakuen gardens, tsukiji market, and attempted to enter the imperial gardens which turned out to be inexplicably closed on the one day we had time to go. it was closed sunday, and monday was a national holiday.. 'health and sports day.' grrrr! i highly recommend visiting the other two places, though. contrary to what i've read online, you don't need to show up at tsukiji market at the crack of dawn unless you want to watch the tuna auction or line up at sushi dai or daiwa zushi. we weren't interested in a 5am wake-up call, so we moseyed along at our own pace and reached the outer market at about 11:30. it was still bustling with activity and we sat down to a delicious (and reasonably-priced) sushi lunch at a random spot. afterwards we poked our heads into the actual fish market, which was all but shut down. merchants were hosing the place down and the boxes were empty, but we did get to witness two guys wrestling with a slice of tuna.


we only got to see a fraction of the city so i'm hoping i can go back someday. especially for the shopping! be on the lookout for places like tokyu hands, muji, and 100 yen shops for cool stuff that won't put a dent in your wallet. besides not eating enough noodles, my other regret of the trip was not buying enough groceries and clothes! especially packs of umeboshi and seaweed at tsukiji. i did get some but my suitcases were almost halfway under the weight limit. it's very unusual for me to not be right at 23kg! i should have bought more stuff... but i was thankful for the lower weight once we got home. we live on the second floor (third floor to americans) of an apartment with no elevator, so coming home from trips is hard in more ways than one! my husband was probably also grateful, as i tend to squeeze provisions into every corner of the flat. but he'll thank me when the zombie apocalypse is upon us...

chicken and eggs

to the vegan readers; look away! sorry, but this summer i have been eating meat more than my usual habit of twice a month. i blame it on the smell of the grill! P:



i am in love with this lemon pulihora. it's a great rice dish with yellow mung beans and lots of lovely spices. in fact, i made the tandoori chicken masala just to go with the rice. i'm ashamed to say that i made the chicken using a seasoning from a box that a friend of mine gave me. but at least it was made in india and therefore semi-authentic! D:




chicken appeared on the menu again this month in the form of pulled chicken. i've been missing the taste of pulled pork but i don't have a slow cooker and it's too hot now to have the oven on for 4 hours. so this recipe really came through for me. it was great in sandwiches for the next couple days. (:




pictured above is supposed to be spareribs and potatoes. apparently the package of meat labeled 'spareribs' in denmark is actually closer to a thick cut of pork belly.. so this was unintentionally a really rich dish and i could only eat one rib at a meal. but normally with REAL spareribs it's so good that i can't stop until it's gone. here's my mom's recipe; sorry it's so vague, but a lot of korean mom recipes are like that...

mom's baby back ribs

rack of ribs
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
1-inch piece of ginger, chopped
a handful of coffee beans
2-3 cups water
1/2 cup beer or white wine
2 tbsp doenjang (korean soybean paste)
3 bay leaves
some ground pepper
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp sugar

barbecue sauce of your choice, kc masterpiece or sweet baby rays for me!

put all the ingredients except ribs and sauce in a pot and bring to a boil. add the pork ribs and boil for about 40 minutes until tender. drain and brush the boiled ribs with barbecue sauce. heat oven to 325 F/160 C and cook for 15-20 min. you could also grill them for about 10 minutes. coat with more sauce before serving, if you like.

finally, one of my friends gave me the gift of fresh farm eggs. he volunteers there but he's vegan so he won't enjoy all of the 'fruits' of his harvest. along with the eggs, i also got honey and some redcurrants. he does eat redcurrants but there were so many that there was no way he and his girlfriend could eat them before they went bad. one of these eggs is a duck egg. what do you make with duck eggs?

a korean hostess

last week, i hosted a dinner party with a theme of korean food. usually when i invite people over for a meal, there is a relaxed and relatively... ghetto atmosphere in our flat. people have sat on the floor, some of the bowls are mismatched, and there is only the main meal served family-style followed by a dessert. well, at least this time people weren't sitting on the floor! with such a small apartment, there is only so much i can do when it comes to feeding a group of more than 4 people. but it was great fun! appetizer, main, and dessert were served in a timely manner and i can feel my cooking confidence growing by the day. i foresee many more dinners to be hosted by me. (:


pictured above is a simple pan-fried tofu dish which i topped with garlic, scallions, soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. a wave of homesickness overcame me as i was preparing the meal; when my mom would cook at home, my brother and i got to taste-test everything. of course it was all perfect and i had nothing to add, but i'd keep sneaking by to 'test' another piece and another and another. especially when my mom makes fishcakes! as i asked my husband to taste-test a couple pieces of the fishcakes, i missed my mom so much! by the way, maangchi posted the fishcake recipe on the day after my dinner! what a cool coincidence. ^^


there was a vegetarian in attendance so i made sure there was enough for her to eat. my mom can tell you that acorn jelly has always been one of my favourite foods; way before i was even aware of veganism or gluten intolerance. but this dish is perfect for both of those since all it contains is the starch of the acorn and water. even though i love it, i am always pleasantly surprised when non-koreans enjoy acorn jelly, as the consistency and concept are so strange. it was served with the same sauce as the tofu, which i now regret (lazy me!), but they taste so good together. at least no one complained. (;


the other dishes served were soy sauce eggs with daikon and jalapenos, water kimchi (more on this later), classic napa cabbage kimchi, a salad, and galbi. i think the dinner went well even though i decided to serve quinoa at the last minute, which was a struggle to eat with chopsticks. stupidly, i did not check on the brown rice that i'd set in the cooker; it turned on and back off again for some reason. so obviously the rice never got cooked... but it works again now and thank goodness for that! i hope my mom is still reading my blog and will be proud of my hosting skillz, though they'll never come close to hers. but maybe after 30 more years of dinner parties, i can be half the hostess she is!

dumpling leftovers bento

if you've ever bought hot dog materials in an american supermarket, you might have noticed that buns and wieners always come in uneven numbers. well, not to say even versus odd, but you get something like 8 buns and 10 wieners. but it's been a very long while since i've even eaten a single hot dog so maybe things have changed for the better. anyway my point was that homemade dumplings are much like that. i've never seen just the right amount of filling made for the perfect number of wrappers. if you have extra wrappers, you can simply freeze them. but what do you do with leftover filling...?

freeze it?
hmm, might be too moist to become filling again. though i might try it sometime.

toss it?
do you think i'm made of money?!

...make it into a patty to put into your work lunch?
bingo.

to make a vegan filling like mine (tofu + shiitake + spring onions + mung bean sprouts) stick together as a patty, you'll either need bread crumbs, flour, or else you gotta un-vegan it. in my laziness, i just added an egg. it went well with my salad and i still felt somewhat virtuous. but maybe next time i'll just dunk it in panko and fry the hell out of it. (;

danish doshirak

i finally made a somewhat normal 'danish' lunch this week, though maybe it is just a scandinavian dish. little shrimp, egg, and rye bread. it's one of the fastest meals i can make and not terribly unhealthy. the more i use this bento box, the more surprised at how much food fits into it! at first i was afraid it was too small but it really is just the right size. maybe after looking at it i feel satisfied and fuller somehow. :P

fridge-cleaning chigae

here is another effort to clean out the fridge; kimchi chigae with tofu, cabbage, and potatoes. i added an extra heaping spoonful of gochujang and gochugaru to give myself some extra energy for the rest of the day. ^^


at the end of the week i reheated it and added a raw egg on top while the soup was still piping hot. when you mix them together, the egg cooks and you get lovely little white feathers of it throughout the soup. and of course the gooey yolk is a treat. i managed to take a quick shot before the egg cooked and the soup was still steaming. mmmm...

first time frittata

this morning i was in the mood for something salty and at the same time felt the need to clean up leftovers. my stomach didn't leave me enough time to bother to look up a recipe but this frittata turned out very well. i sauteed some bacon and frozen spinach in garlic and a little olive oil, whisked two eggs with milk, and mixed it all together a bit of sheep cheese that has some kind of herbage. the mess was poured into a small buttered tart form and baked at somewhere around 200°C for... well, i don't even know. i left it alone to make a cup of coffee and was startled to see it puffing up. i took it out of the oven and fretted. but when i turned back to the frittata, it had flattened nicely. wtf, eggs.


the cheese and bacon were flavourful enough so i didn't add any extra salt. i thought i was going to share this with my fiance but as usual he preferred white bread and cheese for breakfast. so i ate it myself. though it could be worse, i am pretty concerned about his diet and always try to get him to eat some vegetables. the only vegetarian dish he looks forward to is hummus and the only vegetable i see him enjoying is potatoes. doesn't like cucumbers or onions. i offered to pack him lunch, which would be so easy since i pack my own in the morning before work. but he doesn't want to trouble me and/or doesn't like to eat my mostly vegetarian meals. many times he goes without eating anything at work and obviously that's not the healthiest way to go. i want to cook something that he'll enjoy eating but i don't want to help him eat more meat. what to dooo~

ANYWAY. as many other blogs have stated, this is a good way to use up that little bit of veg that's knocking around in your crisper/freezer. for me, it was also a nice weekend treat that was slightly more decadent than scrambled eggs and bacon. (:

meringue is mine!

throughout the years of baking, i've always been afraid of whipping egg whites. not sure why. at least in the united states eggs are quite cheap and that would have been the best time to experiment. i guess i just couldn't visualize how they would go from transparent goop to airy peaks and always hearing about the fine line between perfect and over-beaten didn't help. yet i had 3 egg whites sitting in the fridge from one daring bakers challenge and 2 more in the freezer from another. have i ever mentioned how much i hate wasting food? man, it is like throwing away money. ANYWAY back to the egg whites that were calling to me for a couple months. it seems like there isn't much to do with them except macarons and meringues, and maybe angel food cake if you have a dozen egg whites.

when i found karin's recipe for meringue, i got excited. it calls for exactly 5 whites! score! after much anxiety and fiddling with the hand mixer, i finally got the transparent goop to turn into... something not so transparent? it was definitely airy but there were no stiff peaks. i got too scared and stopped beating once it became white, for fear of over-beating. obviously that was a mistake. but once it came out of the oven, the meringue had a delicate crust and almost marshmallowy insides. it's been a while since i've had a meringue, but i'm pretty sure this is off the mark. however, i won't mark this a fail since i overcame my fear of egg whites and the meringue tasted delicious. even moreso with whipped cream and blueberries.

for breakfast.

yeah, you heard me.

milan cookies

the july daring bakers' challenge was hosted by nicole at sweet tooth. she chose chocolate covered marshmallow cookies and milan cookies from pastry chef gale gand of the food network.


pulling these familiar items out again feels both comforting and a little intimidating. i used to count every single calorie and jog like a madwoman but that was a pretty miserable lifestyle for me. now i eat what i want, stop when i'm full, and exercise when i feel like it. obviously i've put on a few pounds after leaving my silly diet behind but i'm much happier this way and so is the dane, now that he can enjoy normal meals with me. (:


the first half of the cookies came out very cake-like. either i didn't spread them out adequately (expecting them to do so on their own) or the oven wasn't hot enough. the latter half ended up nicely crisped but brown. oh well. at least both types of disappointment tasted delicious.



there was also a lot of chocolate filling left over! i can't understand why; it doesn't look like i was stingy with it. i hope my roommates can finish these milan cookies because after 3 i felt extremely sleepy and full. despite the recipe stating that 2 whole tablespoons of vanilla should be added, they've got just a hint of it and the zest in the chocolate adds only a whiff of lemon; perfect with a cup of coffee.


of course i had to make a special owl cookie for my dane. fairly sloppy but i hope he likes it. (:

restocking the azn section of the pantry

breakfast was an easy korean-style steamed egg; perfect for when you are not feeling like poached or boiled eggs but don't want to consume oils so early in the day. from all the recipes i've seen, it seems like it's loosely based around very few ingredients. i mixed one egg with a few tablespoons of water, a pinch of salt, one stalk of spring onion, and tossed in some rehydrated mushrooms. next time i'll go for a shorter cooking time; 15 minutes of sitting in the steamer basket of the rice cooker was a bit too long and the egg became a little dry. hey, my contact lenses aren't going to put themselves into my tiny eyes. ):


the spring onions i bought about 2 weeks ago are still giving. i don't remember where i saw the article, but i vaguely recall there was a video on the page describing how to stop wasting these lovely greens! just cut off what you need and leave an inch or so of the white part. set them in a bit of water for a day. you should be able to see a little regrowth. plant them in a pot in a sunny spot in your kitchen and water it when the soil feels dry. just keep clipping off what you need and you'll rarely need to buy spring onions again. can you see where it's grown back? (:


today i got my bike back from the shop. i'm so happy that my basket is fixed now, though i could have done it soon after it was broken. the kickstand was also adjusted and a spoke re-attached. what can i say? i have a hard time spending money on this sort of thing when i don't have any income. but with work on the horizon, i don't feel bad about it. ^^



so of course i filled my newly fixed basket with all sorts of goodies! certainly these prices are nothing compared to the korean markets of california blah blah blah but they are pretty good deals considering i'm in copenhagen. i got these from three different shops by the central station; boasam (which i've mentioned in a previous post), chinatown market, and bangkok trading. my reciepts looked something like this:

15kr rice vinegar 355ml
15kr mirin 355ml
12kr agar agar powder 35g
10kr fresh daikon radish 875g
12kr silken tofu 500g
12kr silken tofu 500g
12kr pressed tofu 350g
26kr dried shiitake mushrooms 170g
20kr fresh bok choy (10 heads)
23kr dried soybeans 1kg
5kr fresh ginger 200g

162kr = $30.37 USD!! arg... oh well, it could have been much worse. i'm not sure what i'll do with the agar agar powder but i get a bit queasy when i use regular gelatin so i'm sure an opportunity will present itself. fruit jigglers?! as for the bok choy, it looked so good that i couldn't resist. and with all the fruits that are available nowadays, i realized i haven't been eating that many vegetables. my friends mr. garlic and ms. bok choy will help me out in that department. (8

new toy

right when i was donning my gloves and heading out to the office, the dane called me.

"i bought an egg cooker!"

don't we already have a couple of those in the apartment? they're called "pots" iirc... but he insisted that it was worth the 100kr and was coming up the stairs at that very moment. a few minutes later we were looking at some kind of alien incubation device. i have never even heard of an egg cooker before. i don't mind waiting around 7 minutes to boil an egg and buying a whole new appliance to do it seemed like a waste.


however, i tested it out once i got home (from biking through the snow, brr!) and i can say that it's pretty awesome. you fill the included measuring cup with water up to one of the lines based on preferred done-ness and number of eggs, rather than boiling a whole pot of water. poke a hole in the blunt end of the egg, set it inside with the pierced end up, put the lid on, and it rings when it's done. even the needle is built-in; can you see it? one egg sacrificed itself for the test run on medium. delicious success!

miso grateful

apparently february is soup month. fine by me, as our cabinet is well-stocked with miso paste and some dried accessories for it. my mom was kind enough to send me off with a bag of instant miso and a couple extra packets of the paste itself. it's so nice being able to have hot soup in the time that it takes to boil some water once you get home from running around in the cold. and of course a little spice to clear up the sinuses... (;

murder scene

my kimchi is still holding its own in the fridge and freaking out the roommates. i think kimchi chigae is in order soon! the stuff is ripe. if only i could bring myself to spend $8 on tofu for proper chigae... P:

modern art or peeling FAIL?

the last carton of eggs i bought was entirely too frustrating. no matter how long the cold water bath after boiling, the shells stubbornly held their ground. or rather, their egg. i've heard that old eggs are easiest to peel and this particular one was last in the bunch that was expiring the very day i boiled it. no way to explain it, i suppose. but a shoddy-looking peel job wasn't going to keep me from having a shoyu egg for a night snack. mmm!



the new carton is much more, uh, normal. this morning i peeled one flawlessly for a shoyu egg to top breakfast. carrots and green beans dressed with a mix of watered-down miso paste and rice vinegar. a sprinkle of sesame seeds didn't hurt.

danish = better?

10 danish organic eggs... but there's only 2 left inside the carton. (;

i never liked eggs.

they looked perfect and strange to me; how could they be so symmetrical and smooth? yet the goop took on curious shapes when cooked outside the shell. and how wonderful the bright, runny yolk looked! i wanted to use it as paint.* but eating them resulted in stomach problems for me that i won't elaborate on. the taste and even the smell of eggs became associated with the sick feeling i'd get. which sucks since koreans put egg on top of pretty much anything! fried on top of bibimbap, stirred into soups raw, folded into kimbap, whites and yolks julienned on top of duk guk... the list goes on! it's very rude to pick out only the things you like from a communal plate, so inevitably i would get a sizable morsel of egg and be forced to eat around it.

now i know better, but when i got into baking i didn't understand the impact of eggs. i just didn't want to handle them in any way! ironically this was the time that i was on my crazy diet and therefore many (mostly unwise) ingredient swaps were made in attempts to create a delicious yet low-fat/low-cal/high fiber treat. flaxseed meal heated with water does not equal the eggs in moist muffins. vegan baking intrigues me. how are you able to get a fluffy cake with no eggs or milk? because my tweaked treats were usually unsurprisingly uninteresting. and more often than not, flat.

eggs and real butter will make your baked goods taste better. psst, use lurpak! it's available in the states because it's so good, as some popular blogs have demonstrated. luckily eggs never harmed me in the form of baked goods, although custards had me feeling slightly uneasy at times.

organic, unhomogenized skim milk

there was rarely a drop of regular milk at my parents' house.

my dane really likes coffee and that has inevitably rubbed off on me. nowadays i prefer it black or with a dollop of heated milk, rather than the super-sweet vietnamese coffees of orange county with condensed stuff at the bottom (though i wouldn't turn one down today). so i've been having at least 4 ounces of milk every day. it's well-known that most asians are lactose intolerant and my dad and i fit the bill. dad solves this problem with lactaid but it makes me gag, not sure why. so when grocery shopping, my mom appeased both of us by getting the aforementioned fake milk for him and kirkland organic soy milk for the kids. i loved that soy like a sister. thank GOD for costco! 12 cartons of vanilla flavour for $14? you just know some farmer is probably getting shafted by prices like that.

one sunday, the dane was having a hard-boiled egg for breakfast. i'm pretty sure it was since almost all grocery stores are closed on that day, except on the first sunday of the month. i decided it was worth a shot since i've somewhat overcome the lactose hurdle and we had no other options in the fridge besides herring with no rye bread. the only reason i took a chance instead of skipping breakfast was because i didn't have to go anywhere that day and the apartment was mostly empty. so if i had a bad reaction, no one else would have to witness it. surprise! the egg had no ill effect. being cheap and healthy, you can imagine what i've been having one of almost every morning here. (:

so... wtf? how is it that after years of minimal consumption, milk and eggs have suddenly become a daily routine for me? was it slowly increased intake or the high quality of danish dairy?

state-controlled organic: just look for the red Ø!

blame it on old danish viking magic. and also on my fiance, for making me try old things again.

*i have never used egg tempera paint before. not sure why!