My weekend back home in Hawaii was quick and my schedule was tight, but I begged my Mom to take time to show me how to make one of my favorite dim sum dishes called loh bak gou, or daikon cakes. These are the white, creamy gelatin like slices filled with bits of mushrooms and sausages. At the restaurants, they’ll usually serve them up pan-fried, with the crispy edge.
But when my Mom made loh bak gou at home, she would steam it and we would eat it piping hot from the pan, with all that fresh flavors.
The main ingredient of the loh bak gou is the daikon, which is the Japanese word for the white Asian radish (which kind of looks like a large white turnip). Most English speakers might recognize the Japanese word daikon even though this Asian white radish is popular in China, Korea and lots of other Asian cultures, too.
My Mom was very particular about what type of daikon to use. I never realized there were different varieties, but apparently each variety is popular with each culture. For example, the Japanese daikon is typically long and slender, like a big root. The Korean daikon is stubby and typically has shades of light green, like a mint blush. The Chinese version is stubby like the Korean, but pure white with no green coloring. My Mom said this variety often found in Chinatown is the best to use because they cook up without a bitter taste as the other varieties, which she says are best for soups.
It’s probably a good idea to get all the ingredients for this dish from Chinatown. (See full recipe below.) This is a real authentic Chinese recipe calling for certain ingredients you’ll only find in Chinatown, including the dried shrimp and the Chinese-style bacon, called lap yuk. The lap yuk is what my Mom used in the video below (where she makes her first special guest appearance in my cooking videos), but when we were small, she’d use lap cheong, the Chinese sausages, which I think a lot of restaurants use today.
The loh bak gou is pretty easy to make, but watching my Mom I could see a lot of the measurements are based on how things look, whether it needed more rice flour or more water, it all depends. In the end, it turned out like how I remembered. Now I can make it for myself at home, and you can too! Enjoy!
Risotto is always a quick dish to make for dinner because it takes about 20-25 minutes to cook the rice, and then you have this creamy goodness for a meal. But this time I mix it up by using farro instead of the traditional Arborio rice.
I discovered farro, an Italian grain, last year and love the healthy aspect of it because it’s a whole grain. Then I started seeing it on restaurant menus, mostly in soups or salads, but once as a risotto. So that’s how I came up with this simple farro risotto and rapini dish. This dish is healthy (well, except for the cheese and butter) and it’s all vegetarian. (Full recipe is below.) Enjoy!
Just in time for Valentines, here's my video on making chocolate truffles. You know that I like making chocolates, mostly around the holidays when the weather is cooler, so here's a demo on making chocolate truffles (sometimes called bon bons).
What I like about chocolate truffles is that you can infuse it with all kind of flavors. And in this demo I infuse it with coffee beans to give it that nice coffee flavor (which I love to taste but not drink, oddly enough). Again, I chatted so much with the details on the instructions that I had to split the video into two parts to fit the YouTube time limit. So be sure to watch both videos.
By the way, this is my first video in my new kitchen. Look how shiny it looks. I feel like I'm in a studio kitchen! :) Also, I'm using a new video camera so I'm adjusting to the wide angle and getting used to positioning the camera. So sorry if some shots aren't the best. I'll get better as I get more comfortable with the camera. But in the meantime, watch this and then make some chocolates yourself. Enjoy!
When I think of Thanksgiving leftovers, I automatically go to turkey jook. Pretty much every Chinese mom will be gathering the leftover turkey bones and meat and dumping them into a big pot of rice and water to create a bowl of jook. (OK, probably several bowls.)
I have friends who would go and order jook at restaurants. It's a very popular breakfast dish. But I rarely order jook because I can make a nice bowl by myself. Some people think it's so much work, but I made this video to pretty much shatter that myth. Sure, it takes some time to make jook because it's one of those slow-cooked one pot dishes. It takes between 1 hour to 1.5 hours to make a small pot of jook, but the actual technique is super easy.
In this video, I'm using leftover roasted duck that I had for dinner one night from Chinatown. I used the hard-to-eat meat/bones for jook because the slow cooking helps the hard to get to meat fall off the bones. The recipe is pretty much easy to get from the video, but you can also follow a previous jook post I did awhile back. But whatever you do, save those turkey bones for your morning after jook! Enjoy!
Many of you probably heard of beef broccoli, a popular dish at Chinese restaurants. My family ordered it often when we went out for dinner on the weekends. But I don’t eat red meat that often as an adult, so instead I make this recipe with chicken.
This is such a basic recipe that I figured it’ll be a good feature for my “Dinner Fast” series because you can pretty much get this all done in less than 30 minutes. When you watch my video, you’ll see how easy it is. Enjoy!
Chicken Broccoli Stir-Fry
Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients: 1/2 lb. chicken breast, cubed 2 cups broccoli florets (from one head of broccoli) 5 to 6 crimini mushrooms, stem removed and chopped 1 t ground white pepper 1 T soy sauce, light 1 T sesame oil 1 T Xiao Hsing rice wine or cooking sherry 1 T oyster sauce 1 T minced fresh ginger 1/4 cup chicken broth salt for seasoning 1 T cornstarch 2-3 T canola oil
Marinate the chicken by mixing it with the white pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil and Xiao Hsing rice wine. Set aside for at least 10 minutes.
In a wok or large skillet, heat 1 to 2 tablespoon of oil over high heat and then add chicken (don’t pour in the marinade with the chicken). Brown the chicken pieces, about 2 to 3 minutes, then remove from wok and set aside.
Rinse out wok or wipe away any residue chicken pieces, then warm 2 to 3 tablespoon of oil. Add ginger and mushrooms and sweat the mushrooms for about 2 minutes (you can add a pinch of salt to help in the sweating process). When the mushrooms look almost cooked, then throw in the broccoli and stir-fry for a minute. You might want to add a pinch of salt to season the broccoli. To cook the broccoli faster, add about a 1/4 cup of chicken broth and then cover to cook for about 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove cover and then add chicken back to wok, and blend everything together.
Mix cornstarch with a little bit of water to create a slurry, then add the slurry a little at a time to the wok to create a gravy. Add as much as you like, making sure the heat is high to help cook the cornstarch faster. If it looks clumpy, thin it out with some water or chicken broth. Remove wok from heat and add oyster sauce, blending well. Plate with steamed rice and garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
Makes 2 to 3 servings.
Pair with a glass of Riesling.
TIP: Have the cornstarch slurry ready before you add the chicken back into the wok, because once you add the chicken everything will move pretty fast so you want to be ready. If you take too long, then the chicken will lose some of the brown sear you created earlier because it’s mixing with the moisture from the vegetables.
THE ORIGINAL BEEF BROCCOLI: If you want to make the original inspiration for this recipe, beef broccoli, that’s no problem. Just substitute the chicken with the beef. But instead of cooking the beef first, cook the vegetables and when the vegetables are almost done, then add the beef in the middle of the wok (push the vegetables to the side). You do this because beef doesn’t have to cook as long as chicken, and some people like their beef a little on the pink side.
This Sunday is Chinese New Year (go tigers!) so I thought I’d post a video of a Chinese dish. Potstickers are one of my favorite things to order at restaurants but I’ve never made them at home. My mom never made them either; she only taught me how to make won tons. But we loved eating potstickers, which we call “wor teep” in Cantonese.
Potstickers aren’t necessarily a traditional new year dish, but some families do like to serve them because they look like money and the Chinese love to think about money for the new year – and the kids love em too (potstickers that is, although kids love money I guess).
I’ve seen chefs demonstrating how to make potstickers (aka gyoza in Japanese) and it always looked so easy. So here’s my video, when I make potstickers for the very first time. Check it out to see how they turn out on my very first try. And then make some for your family this lunar new year. Enjoy! (BTW, I apologize for sounding so dead in the first few minutes of the video. And I don't know what's happening in that frozen image of the video clip below! Damn you YouTube!)
Pork-Leek Potstickers
Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients: 1 lb. ground pork 1 large leek, rinsed and diced (about 2-3 cups) 1/2 cup water chestnuts, finely diced 2-3 dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and finely diced 3 T soy sauce 1 T Xiao Hsing rice wine or cooking sherry (optional) Salt and pepper 1 package potsticker wrappers (50 count)
Combine and blend well all the ingredients (except the wrappers) to make the filling. Then fold your potstickers by placing a wrapper in one hand and using a spoon to scoop about a tablespoon of filling into the wrapper.
Create an egg wash with one egg and a bit of water. Use the egg wash to help seal your potsticker by dabbing the egg wash on the edge of the wrapper.
After you placed the filling and egg wash, fold over to create a half moon. Then crimp your potsticker from the middle, pinching three times along one side then doing the same from the middle on the other side. (The pinching is like your folding a bit of the edge over each other. This helps shape your potsticker more like a half moon.) Make sure you have a flat bottom.
In a non-stick saucepan with cover, warm about 2 tablespoon of oil over medium high heat. Place your potstickers to brown the bottom for about 2-3 minutes, depending on the heat of your stovetop. Don’t move your potstickers. Pour about 3/4 cup to 1 cup of water and immediately cover pan because the oil will splatter.
Cook covered for 8 to 10 minutes. To make sure your potstickers are done, cut one open to check. If the water dries out before your potstickers are cooked, add a bit more water. If the potstickers are done but you still have a lot of water, pour the water out.
When your potstickers are cooked and water is nearly evaporated, cook for another minute uncovered to allow the potstickers to get crispy on the bottom again. But watch to make sure you don’t blacken your potstickers.
Freeze any potstickers you don’t cook. When you take them out from the freezer, you may need to cook them a couple of minutes longer.
Plate your potstickers and serve with a dipping sauce like red rice wine vinegar.
Makes 50 potstickers.
TIP: When buying potsticker wrappers, it’ll be in the refrigerated section of the Asian grocery store or Asian food aisle of the market. The wrappers are round and are labeled either potstickers or gyoza. You can also use leftover potsticker wrappers to make ravioli.
Of my videos demonstrating some of my easy recipes, the one that ranks among the most viewed is my spam musubi video. I’m pretty sure it’s because people like searching for the word Spam. (47,163 views and counting on YouTube.)
So I decided to cook with Spam again, this time making fried rice, which can be a really quick and easy dinner to make. Fried rice is great because you can pretty much create your rice dish with whatever ingredients you have in the refrigerator or your pantry. Of course, you’ll need to have some pre-cooked rice, preferably leftover rice that’s been in the refrigerator for a day or two.
Just to make this Spam rice even more crazy, I added crushed pineapples just to give it a Hawaiian twist. Check out my video to see how simple it is to make fried rice and use the recipe below so you can give it a try. Enjoy!
Spam Fried Rice with Pineapples
Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients 3/4 can of Spam, cut into 1/2-inch chunks 3-4 cups of cooked rice (long grain, leftover) 8 oz. frozen peas and carrots, defrosted 3 eggs, scrambled 1 small can of crushed pineapples (drained and squeezed of juice) 1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped 2-3 T soy sauce 2-3 T Xiao Hsing rice cooking wine (or sherry wine) 1 t ground white pepper salt, if needed Canola oil
In a non-stick wok or large skillet, warm some oil over high heat and add the eggs. Season with a pinch of salt and scramble as you cook and then remove and set aside.
In the same wok, add the Spam chunks to brown for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove from wok.
Heat some oil again and add the peas and carrots, then add the rice, making sure everything gets blended. Season your rice with white pepper, soy sauce and Xiao Hsing wine, making sure everything blends together. Then add the Spam and scrambled eggs, followed by the crushed pineapples and green onions. Since most of the items are cooked, you just want to stir-fry everything to blend well and then taste to see if you need to season it with more salt. If it tastes to your liking, plate it up and you’re ready to eat.
Makes 5 to 6 servings.
Pair with pot of hot oolong tea.
TIP: When making fried rice, it’s important to control the moisture level of the ingredients in your wok. That’s why you cook the ingredients in parts and stages to make sure it gets the chance to fully cooked and not get crowded in the wok. Be sure you squeeze out as much of the juice from the pineapples so you don’t add more liquid to the fried rice.
SPAM OR BUST?: OK, so I use Spam as the main protein but you can easily substitute it for ham or even Chinese sausage known as lap cheong.
I thought I should get back to the roots of my blog, which is to come up with quick-and-easy recipes that single people can make because 1) they don’t have the time because they’re too busy trying to mate, or 2) they want something special because single people deserve to eat well, too.
So in these “Dinner Fast” videos, I’m showing some simple recipes that are super fast to make. And nothing’s faster than seafood, and here I make one of the classic Chinese dishes of black bean clams stir-fry. It’s so easy, especially if you use the black bean sauce from the jar. (Or you can go ferment your own black beans and then pound them with garlic to make your own sauce. I’m not.)
In case you don’t believe this recipe is easy, just count how many times I say “quick and easy” in the video. :P
Below is the actual recipe for you to follow after you see my quick-and-easy demo. Enjoy!
Black Bean Clams
Copyright 2009 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients: 1 lb. manila clams (about 12-15), scrubbed 1 T black bean sauce 1 clove garlic, minced 1 t red chili flakes 1 T cornstarch 1/4 cup chicken broth or water 2 T canola or vegetable oil cilantro for garnish
In large wok or skillet, heat oil over high heat, then add garlic and black bean sauce and cook for about 30 seconds. Add clams and let them cook covered for about two minutes. Check to make sure the wok hasn’t dried out. Add either chicken broth or water (about a quarter cup) and cook until the clams start to open up (another 3 to 5 minutes).
In a small bowl, mix cornstarch with a bit of water to create a slurry. Add the cornstarch mixture to the hot wok to thicken the broth. (Add a little of the cornstarch at a time to get the consistency that you want in the gravy.) Finish off by adding the chili flakes to taste.
Place in bowl and garnish with a twig of cilantro. Serve with steamed rice.
Makes one serving. Pair with sake.
TIP: Pick up your clams in the seafood section of your supermarket after work and make your dish fresh. But if you’re not cooking your clams right away, place the clams in a brown paper bag (moisten the bottom with some water) and refrigerate.
BLACK BEAN SAUCE: This sauce is so popular that it’s pretty easy to find in most Asian stores or in the Asian foods aisle of most stores. Lee Kum Kee is the brand found in most stores, just refrigerate after opening. Because this is salty from the fermented black beans, I usually don’t add salt to the dishes that I make using this sauce.
Here’s another cooking demo for you, and this one is all about curry. I know, you’re thinking, Single Guy, why make curry in hot weather? It’s that age-old Asian belief that in hot weather, you should get your body hot as well and that maintains the equilibrium. Plus, I live in the part of the Bay Area where you still see people wearing scarves at night around this time.
Curry is also one of my favorite things to make because it’s pretty easy, at least the way I make it.
My apologies if this video seems a bit choppy, but I have a tendency to chatter on. And this time I decided I didn’t want to post another two-parter video. So to keep within the YouTube limit, I had to edit down the video to 10 minutes. Hopefully you’ll still get the gist of the demo. If not, I have the full recipe for you below. Enjoy!
Chicken Curry Copyright 2009 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients 3 boneless and skinless chicken thighs (about ½ lb.) 1 garlic clove, minced 1 sweet onion, diced 1 T soy sauce 1 T sesame oil 1 t white pepper 2 T curry powder 1 t ground cumin 2 carrots, chopped 2-3 small potatoes, peeled and chopped 1 cup sugar snap peas 1 ½ cup chicken broth (or 1 can Swanson’s chicken broth) 1 cup water 1 cup coconut cream (or coconut milk) 2 T extra virgin olive oil 2 T cornstarch Salt to taste
In a small bowl, marinate the chicken with the white pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. Set aside.
In a large saucepan or pot, warm the oil over medium high heat and add the chicken to brown on both sides. (About 1 to 2 minutes on each side.) Then toss in garlic and onion and cook until onions soften (about 3 to 5 minutes).
Add chicken broth and water. Cover and bring to a medium simmer.
In a small saucepan, warm the curry powder and ground cumin. Then throw everything in with the chicken. Add carrots and cook for about 10 minutes, then add potatoes and cook until all the vegetables are almost tender (about 15-20 minutes, the length depends on how chunky you cut your vegetables).
Just when the vegetables are almost done, add the sugar snap peas and coconut cream. In small bowl create a cornstarch slurry by mixing the cornstarch with a bit of water. Slowly add this to your curry (you might want to bring up the heat so the curry is near boiling) until thickened to the consistency you like. Taste the curry and add salt as needed for taste. Serve with steamed rice.
Makes 6 servings. Pair with a glass of Riesling.
TIP: There’s a variety of curry powder. I personally like this brand called S&B Oriental Curry Powder that you can find at most Safeway stores. The can has a yellow and red label. The curry itself is a yellow curry and on a milder side. If you want spicier curry, try something from the Asian or Indian grocery stores.
WATCH THE HEAT: When adding the vegetables, you’re going to bring down the temperature of your curry pot so you may need to adjust the heat to bring the pot back to a nice simmer, and then you can lower if needed.
I’m back in front of the camera with another food demo/video. Sorry for the lack of videos lately, but I’ve had a hard time thinking up things to demonstrate that can be both educational and fast to do within the 10-minute YouTube limit on videos.
But I had a jar of kim chee in the refrigerator recently and that made me think of one of my favorite dishes that I do make quite often—partly because it’s so easy and partly because I love eating it.
I guess my Korean-style Mapo Tofu could be considered my signature dish. I’ve used this dish as my demo when I first submitted an application for “The Next Food Network Star” a few years back (still waiting for that call). It’s really easy to make, which is why I make it often during the weeknights for dinner. There are only three main ingredients (ground meat, tofu, and kim chee) and you can make it in less than 10 minutes.
It’s so easy that I thought I’d prove it to you by creating this video that shows all the simple steps. The actual recipe can be found in my original post here. Over the years, I’ve found that I’ve used the silken or soft tofu more often than the firm (medium). The soft tofu totally makes this a comfort food dish. Enjoy!
A really simple and cheap thing to make during these tough economic times are won tons. They're made in virtually every Chinese household as a basic lunch dish. Most Americans are exposed to them in won ton soup, but most Chinese eat them with noodles known as won ton mein. Growing up, I had to help my mom fold all the won tons because it's one of those things that, while easy to make, can be time consuming, like empanadas!
Here is a video demonstrating how to fold the won tons, and I bet after you watch it you'll agree they're pretty easy. After I uploaded the video to YouTube, I was surprised to see so many videos demonstrating the recipe. But hopefully you'll like mines the best. :) (And sorry that YouTube froze the video in the middle where I look like a deer in headlights. Ha!)
Again, I talk so much that I couldn't keep the video to just 10 minutes, which is the limit on YouTube. So I had to break them into two parts. Here's the first part, which demonstrates how to actually make the filling and then wrap the won tons.
And here's the second part where I show how you cook the won tons and make up a bowl of won ton mein for lunch. The full recipe is below.
Here's the actual recipe for my won tons. I'm focused primarily on the won ton and the filling, but if you want to make a bowl of won ton noodles, just buy the ready-made noodles from a Chinatown store (or the refrigerated Asian section of your grocery store) and cook them in a bowl of chicken broth and you're good to go. Enjoy!
Won Tons Copyright 2009 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients 1/4 lb. ground pork 7-8 small shrimp, shell removed and deveined, minced 3 dried shiitake mushrooms, hydrated, minced 1/2 cup water chestnuts, finely chopped 1 T spring onions, finely chopped 1 egg 1 T soy sauce 1 T Xiao Hsing wine (or sherry) 1 t ground white pepper 1 t sesame oil 1 package of pre-made won ton wrappers*
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and blend well. Using pre-made won ton wrappers, assemble your won tons using about a quarter size lump of filling for each won ton skin. Fold by placing filling in the middle, then fold over one corner to the opposite end, using a tab of water to make the corners stick together, creating a triangle. Close the edges to get the air out and then use your middle finger to push down the center of the wrap while bring the two opposite corners to finish the won ton.
Bring a pot of water to boil, then drop in your won tons and cook for about 2 to 3 minutes until the won tons float to the top. You can serve with Hong Kong-style egg noodles and broth to create a bowl of won ton noodle soup or serve by themselves with broth for won ton soup. Garnish with some chopped green onions.
Makes about 50 won ton pieces. * Both the won ton wrappers and noodles can be purchased at grocery stores in Chinatown or the Asian foods aisle in your local market. It'll be in the refrigerated section because they're typically fresh. For the wrappers, be sure to buy the square versions.
TIP: You can freeze your filling and use it to make more won tons later.
FRY THEM: A treat popular with kids is frying your won tons. Bring a wok or pot filled with oil to a high heat and then drop in your won tons. It'll cook until golden brown and then float to the top when ready. Do not crowd your wok and pot with too many won tons. Give them space to fry. Bring them out with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels to drain.
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a demo video, and today I’m posting two! Well, it’s actually just on one topic but I had to split the video into two parts to upload onto YouTube. (Dang 10-minute limit!) I’m showing you how I make paella, one of my favorite dishes to make for Sunday dinner. People think it’s labor-intensive, but I find it pretty easy and nice to cook since everything’s in one pan. Plus you can bring the pan onto your table and eat right out of it.
Below are the two videos (don’t forget to watch them in order or you’ll totally get confused) and I’ve reprinted the recipe below. I actually posted the recipe a long time ago on the blog, but I’ve tweaked it a bit because, as you know, when you cook something again and again, you always find ways to refine it. Plus, I think these steps are a bit more authentic to a traditional Spanish paella. Well, as authentic as a Chinese-American guy making paella can do it! Enjoy!
I TAKE REQUESTS: OK, so I'm running out of ideas for kitchen demos. If you'd like to see something demonstrated or want to watch me cook something, I welcome your suggestions in the comments section! You can have a video dedicated to you! FYI: YouTube might be acting up in watching videos, especially if you're using the Firefox browser. So if you don't see a video, click on the title to go to the direct link where the video sits in YouTube. Sigh, technology!
I’m in the home stretch of my posts from my recent vacation in Honolulu. Gosh, I didn’t realize how much I ate during this trip until I started blogging about it. But don’t worry, this vacation slide show is definitely coming to an end. The following is one of four final posts that should wrap up my Hawaii vacation posts this week.
Fun and Wacky Dishes with Friends or Family 1585 Kapiolani Blvd., Honolulu Ground floor of Ala Moana Pacific Center near Ala Moana Shopping Center Open Sun.–Thu., 11:30 a.m.–1 a.m.; Fri.–Sat., 11:30 a.m.–2 a.m. PH: 808.941.3701 Reservations recommended, major credit cards accepted Validated parking behind the restaurant www.shokudojapanese.com
HONOLULU Most of my vacation was spent with my mom and family, but I saved one Friday night for a mini reunion with some high school friends. I told them I wanted to go to someplace new and fun and that’s how we ended up at Shokudo Japanese Restaurant a few yards down from the new Nordstrom parking structure on Kapiolani Boulevard.
Shokudo has actually been open for more than two years, but it was new to me (and my friend Margaret who suggested the place). Its name means “dining room” and shouldn’t be confused with “sudoku,” which is the Japanese mind puzzles. (For some reason, I had “Sudoku” on my mind and I kept telling my family that’s where I was going that night. They were completely confused.)
When I arrived, the restaurant looked like a ramen noodle shop with its bright colors and somewhat tacky letterings. Sitting outside was my friend Leslie, who got there early because her optometry office is just a few steps away. (BTW, if you’re looking for an optometrist in Honolulu, you should check out my friend Leslie. She’s really nice and her new place is centrally located on Kapiolani Boulevard near Ala Moana and, of course, Shokudo. Tell her Chef Ben sent you!)
We went in to claim our table at this bustling place and ordered some drinks and a couple of pupus (Hawaiian for appetizers) while we waited for the rest of the gang. Leslie says she comes here often with her young kids, and I can see why. The place is loud, so kids could scream and no one would bother. Since this was a Friday night, however, I saw mostly young people at the bar ready to kick off the weekend with some specialty drinks. I got the specialty cucumber mojito, and the drinks totally remind me of a place like T.G.I.Friday’s where everything is colorful and crazy. (One of my friends later ordered something called “Lava Flow.”)
The place was splashed in red, including this huge red-cloth lantern in the center of the dining room. The servers were all young and dressed in black. They were all very friendly and fun to chat with.
Leslie and I ordered the Seafood Dynamite ($9.95) because I remembered how fun it was when I had it at Nihon Whisky Lounge in San Francisco. Leslie also ordered the Tofu Salad ($8.95) because that’s her favorite. By the time we placed our orders, the rest of my friends arrived: Margaret, Bertha and Gordon. Let the party begin!
Shokudo is a place where the menu has photographs of the food, so it’s definitely not like eating at someplace like Nobu. But the prices are more reasonable, and my friends ended up ordering a lot of food. Here’s a look at everything that came that night:
First up was the Seafood Dynamite. This didn’t come flaming like it did at Nihon in San Francisco and the taste didn’t compare either. I like the version at Nihon better. Shokudo’s Seafood Dynamite, served with pieces of bread, were OK but without any distinguishing flavors.
The Tofu Salad is probably really healthy for you but it was a bit boring. It was like they just cut up some greens and put the tofu on top, then dressed it up a bit. While it tasted all right, I didn’t exactly love it.
Hamachi Carpacchio ($12.95). This was one of the really beautiful dishes that came out that night. The hamachi (yellowtail fish) was pounded flat like carpacchio, giving it a super tender texture and elegant taste. Again, the arrangement on the plate took advantage of the beautiful coloring of the raw hamachi fish.
Mochi Cheese Gratin ($6.95). This is one of Leslie’s favorite and I had a lot of reservations about it. Basically it’s mochi, which is the steamed Japanese sticky rice, combined with cheese baked into a gratin. In my mind I just thought it would be a big plate of goo. But when it arrived, I took my first bite and was totally transformed into a supporter of this dish. The chef was smart to balance the cheese and mochi with the saltiness of the thinly sliced seaweed on top. The seaweed combined with the mochi and cheese created a wonderful umami flavor. I loved it. (Not recommended for old people who may choke, though!)
Chicken Karaage with Spicy Tartar Sauce ($8.95). I told the gang that I wasn’t into fried foods, but they could order one dish if they wanted to. So of course they went for the chicken karaage, which is the traditional Japanese-style fried chicken. The plate looked really big but I can’t vouch for the taste because there were so many other dishes that I passed on trying it.
Oh, they sneaked in another fried dish. This is a big plate of fried calamari. Pretty standard stuff. Again, didn't try it. I'm not into grease.
We had two orders of sushi rolls. One was the Tempura Roll ($10.95) and the other was the Spicy Tuna Roll ($9.95). Both were done really nicely. The tempura roll didn’t really have a strong greasy flavor that you sometimes get from the fried tempura, and the tuna roll was nice and fresh. (BTW, this is the kind of wacky place that serves sushi pizza.)
We got two kinds of ishiyaki dishes. Ishiyaki is the cast-iron rice dishes that get their influence from Korean cuisine. The dish comes to the table in a hot cast-iron bowl, and the server asks if she can mix it for you. Of course, I’m always in for dinner and a show so we had her mix up the Ishiyaki Unagi ($9.95) that we ordered. The barbeque flavor of the unagi (broiled eel) contrasted nicely with the slightly burned rice. We also got the Ishiyaki Garlic Shrimp ($11.95), which was also good but I liked the unagi better. (For some reason, I didn’t get a shot of the shrimp ishiyaki, I think because I was too busy eating the unagi rice.)
Old-fashioned Yakisoba Noodles ($8.95). This was our final dish and it’s supposed to be yakisoba noodles, which are the pan-fried noodles. But in this picture you can hardly tell they’re noodles because they garnished it with a wee bit too much bonito flakes. Some Japanese restaurants like to garnish with bonito flakes, which are shavings of the dried bonito that’s made with shrimp and other seaweed flavorings and used for broth, because when the thin shavings are placed on top of something hot, the heat makes the shavings do a little dance. You just have to take my word for it (or go to a Japanese restaurant where they serve a dish with bonito garnish and see for yourself).
Shokudo’s diverse menu will certainly make anyone satisfied. And despite the fact that it looks and acts like a T.G.I.Friday’s (the crew comes out to sing if it’s your birthday), the food is surprisingly good. It’s creative, fresh, hearty dishes that’s part comfort food, part crazy creations. Definitely a fun place to spend with friends while reliving your childhood days.
Single guy rating: 3.25 stars (wacky good)
Explanation of the single guy's rating system: 1 star = perfect for college students 2 stars = perfect for new diners 3 stars = perfect for foodies 4 stars = perfect for expense accounts 5 stars = perfect for any guy's dream dinner
Drunken dessert: Cherries Jubilee My friends and I were full from all the food at Shokudo, but we still wanted dessert. We decided to go someplace else, but for some reason we all ended up at Gordon’s house and we forced him to make cherries jubilee for us. We were all slightly drunk (or maybe it was mostly me) so this is what happens when you make cherries jubilee while under the influence. I, for one, was just glad I didn’t have to cook in the kitchen while on vacation. Enjoy!
Seared scallops are one of my favorite meals to make—for myself or often as a starter for a dinner party. There’s something about the caramelizing of the scallops that brings out the flavor of this delicate shell fish. Scallops are like a good piece of meat. All you need is salt and pepper and a quick fry on high heat. You can never cook them wrong, unless you char them.
I debated whether to make a video about me cooking scallops because it’s so easy it’s like watching butter melt. But then I thought, hey, maybe this will show someone who’s intimidated by the idea of pan-seared scallops to actually make them because it really is so simple? And this video will prove that. In the video I plated my scallops over a lemon-mint risotto. The full recipe is below. Enjoy!
Here’s the second part of my two-fer on live crabs. It’s this really super easy way to prepare it after you’ve killed and cleaned it. It tasted soooo good that it was one of those rare occasions where I forgot to take a picture of the final dish to accompany the recipe below. The fragrance of all the garlic, butter, wine and crab juice melding together was so enticing that I started eating it right away once I was done filming the demo. Oh well, you can see the finished product in the video. Enjoy!
Roasted Garlic Crab Copyright 2008 by Cooking With The Single Guy
Ingredients: 1 fresh Dungeness crab (about 2 lbs.) 6 T butter 6 cloves of garlic, minced white wine (about ½ cup) cilantro or parsley for garnish
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Kill and clean your live Dungeness crab, cutting it into sections with the legs. Place the pieces (including the top shell) in a 9”x13” baking dish or roasting dish lined with aluminum foil. Sprinkle butter pieces and minced garlic all around (not just on top but underneath as well). Add wine to create a ¼-inch layer of liquid for steaming. Cover your pan with aluminum foil and place in oven and cook for 20 minutes.
When done, transfer crab pieces into serving dish (if you use a nice ceramic baking dish, you can just serve straight from the oven in the same dish), making sure to reassemble the pieces to make it look like a crab and keeping all the juices and melted butter from the pan. Garnish with cilantro or parsley. Serve immediately with bread.
Makes one to two servings.
Pair with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
TIP: Before placing crab pieces into baking dish, place them on a cutting board and cover with kitchen towel. Then with the side of a hammer, hit the pieces to create some cracks. This will help the crab cook faster and infuse it with the butter and garlic. It’ll also give you a head start when ready to eat.
IT’S ALL COOKED: If you don’t feel like buying a live crab and killing it yourself, you can do this same recipe with a pre-cooked crab. But cook it for maybe 5 to 10 minutes to basically warm up the crab and to let the butter melt and infuse the crab.
I finally got around to making that cooking demo on how to kill and clean a live Dungeness crab. This, as some of you might recall, was something I had planned to do last year until I ran into a feisty crab who pinched my finger (making two puncture wounds) and totally threw my game off for filming. (I still ate him though, the bastard.)
It’s not like I find pleasure in killing live animals (and again, PETA, please don’t write me). I just believe certain food like seafood tastes best when fresh. And nothing gets fresher than killing a crab right before you cook it.
Most people who are willing to buy a live crab for the freshness will only end up dropping the whole thing into a pot of boiling water. While this works, you’re basically cooking the crab with all the innards and junk inside. So I choose to clean the crab before cooking it (which is what most Chinese cooks will do) to avoid messing up my cooking water with intestines and such. Gosh, this post is really getting gory.
For those who buy their Dungeness crab pre-cooked, you’re losing out on really moist succulent meat because even though some supermarkets say they got the crab that morning and cooked it, you really don’t know if that crab has been sitting around since the day before. (Crab meat begins to dry out after cooking, and even more so sitting in those refrigerated counters.) So why not cook it yourself? It’s actually a few simple steps (despite what you’ll see at one point as I struggle to remove the hard shell).
So today’s demo is focused on just the killing and cleaning part of cooking with a live Dungeness crab. My crab wasn’t as feisty this time because I actually bought him at the Richmond New May Wah Supermarket on Clement Street in San Francisco. So that meant more than an hour ride by Muni and BART back to my Oakland apartment. (You should have seen all the stares I got when people noticed my paper bag moving. Ha!) By the time I got home, the crab was pretty lethargic from being out of the water for so long. Still, at least it was fresh!
Come back tomorrow when we feature the good part—my demo on cooking the crab in a simple garlic wine recipe. NOTE: Dungeness crab season in the Bay Area lasts until June, but most of the crabs are caught—and therefore more plentiful—early in the season in November. This year the season was delayed because of the massive oil spill in the Bay. Learn more about the season and crabs in the Bay Area in my previous post on crab fisherman Duncan MacLean.
Happy holidays to everyone! I hope you're all enjoying this special time of the year with family and friends and, of course, some good food.
In the spirit of giving, I thought I'd do something special and create this video below. It's actual a blooper reel of my attempts in making my In The Kitchen demo videos for the blog this past year. As I've mentioned before, I'm a one-man, low-budget production. So when I do these demos, I usually just wing it with no written script or no director. What that usually means is me making several tries at talking and making sense at the same time. Not as easy as you might think.
Anywho, hope you enjoy my bloopers! And thanks again for visiting my site. I wouldn't even subject myself to this public humiliation if it weren't for you! Happy holidays!
Probably one of the more popular recipes on this blog, and even among my friends when I talk to them about cooking, is this recipe for Sticky Chicken. It's a recipe I learned from my younger sister when I first started cooking years ago. And through the years, I've practiced the most difficult part, the caramelizing of the sauce to make it thick, goey, and sticky. This isn't a recipe that's quick to make, but it is definitely simple. Just a few ingredients, just a few easy steps, and in the end you'll have a dish your friends will oooh and aaah over at the dinner table. Plus get all sticky fingers from eating it. Enjoy!
My “In The Kitchen” series is back from hiatus. OK, so some of you didn’t even miss it. But my three subscribers on YouTube probably did. :P
I started out doing these demos to share basic cooking techniques. But then I realized that my cooking style is pretty simple since I don’t like to do a lot of work. So really, I don’t use a lot of fancy culinary techniques. That’s when I decided to demonstrate some of my basic recipes. The challenge with that, I’ve found, is that it’s hard to explain the steps of the whole dish in 10 minutes, which is the max on YouTube. (I’m a little OCD with steps so I tend to over-explain things.)
Anywho, this frustration over what to do with my demos resulted in a lot of inaction over the months. But after I got my new laptop, I was inspired to crank up iMovie and do another demo. So here’s my primer on making risotto.
I’ve said before that I love risotto, and it’s one of those dishes that you can be really creative with, adding ingredients of the season to make your own signature risotto dish—as long as you have the basic risotto part down. So this demo shows the basic steps of risotto, and then you can build from there to create your own dish. For my part, I ended up making a wild mushroom risotto with speck. (See recipe below if you want to make it at home after watching my video.)
BTW, if you have any suggestions or special requests on what might make an interesting demo, send me an email at singleguychef@comcast.net with your ideas. For now, turn down the lights and enjoy!
Wild Mushroom Risotto with Speck
Ingredients: 2 to 3 cups of mixed mushrooms (chanterelles, tree oyster, shitake, etc.), stem removed 5 to 6 thinly sliced speck (about 2 oz.) ½ sweet onion, diced 1 cup Arborio rice 1 cup dry white wine 2 ½ cups chicken broth ½ cup Parmegiano Regianno cheese 2 t fresh sage or thyme (dried version ok) 1 garlic clove, minced 1 T butter 2 T extra virgin olive oil salt to taste
In a medium saucepan, warm butter and tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat and then add garlic and onions. Sauté until translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Then add rice and stir to toast the rice for about a minute. Add wine and cook at medium heat until most of the wine has burned off. Then add two ladles of chicken broth with the sage or thyme, occasionally stirring your rice to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pan. When the rice has absorbed almost all of the broth, add another two ladles until the rice is done. (About 15 minutes.)
In a separate sauté pan or skillet, warm a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat and then add mushroom. (Cut larger sized mushrooms to quarter pieces to make it easier to eat.) Sauté the mushrooms with some salt to extract some of the moisture. Add to your risotto near the end when the risotto is almost done. (Save some mushrooms to garnish on top.)
When your risotto is almost done and you’ve added the mushrooms, remove your pot from the heat and add the grated Parmegianno Regianno. Season your risotto with salt to your taste. Let it sit for about a minute and then plate. Get your thinly sliced speck and rip the slices into pieces on top of your risotto. Garnish with your extra mushrooms and some grated cheese and serve immediately.
Makes two servings. Serve with a mixed green salad.
Pair with a glass of Barbera wine.
TIP: Speck is a leaner version of prosciutto. If you can’t find speck, you can substitute it with regular prosciutto.
In this demo, I show you an easy way to skin a peach, revealing the beautiful orange-colored flesh that I use in a savory dish, my Peaches and Pork Stir-fry. You can get the complete recipe in my original post here.
All photography on this blog are original photos of Benjamin Seto unless noted otherwise. All photos are copyrighted and may not be used without permission. Contact owner for licensing rates.
If you'd like to hire Benjamin to photograph your food, check out benjaminseto.com for samples and more information.
My weekend back home in Hawaii was quick and my schedule was tight, but I begged my Mom to take time to show me how to make one of my favorite dim sum dishes called loh bak gou, or daikon cakes. These are the white, creamy gelatin like slices filled with bits of mushrooms and sausages. At the restaurants, they’ll usually serve them up pan-fried, with the crispy edge.
