Back In August

Time needs to slow down

Tokyo 2014

So it took me about 7 months to finally post photos from my Tokyo trip back in March. After a week in Hong Kong with my parents and relatives, it was definitely a good break just to travel by myself. Tokyo is one amazing city and loads of cheap eats. I ate 26 pieces of sushi for USD$33 at a conveyor belt sushi joint at Shinjuku Station and it was darn good sushi too.

Here's the list of all the places I went on my Tokyo trip: Keika Ramen Gontran Cherrier Tokyo KitKat Store Gyoza Stadium AFURI Ramen Little Nap Coffee Stand Bar Hermit Bourbon Side Tokyo Solamachi + Tokyo Skytree Bandai HQ Senso-ji Temple VenusFort - Shopping center in Odaiba

Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup

I love spending Sundays making stock. Such a relaxing thing to do and makes the apartment smells so nice. Also if I wanted to eat instant noodles on a Wednesday, I can use my own stock instead of using the powdered soup base. Or use it to cook lentils instead of water. Or add cooked rice to make a really quick congee. So much possibilities!

One of my favorite soups that my mom makes is the chicken and snow fungus soup. It's sooooo comforting. I've never used snow fungus but I was in a Chinese market and decided to pick up a pack. I just like eating them as I slurp the soup. My mom adds a bunch of other Chinese herbs and stuff which I'm not familiar with but......using the snow fungus for the first time is a small step forward, I guess.

While I was in the Chinese market, I also got a bag of these Shanghai style noodles. These are pretty awesome. Cheap and usually it takes about 1 - 2 minutes to cook. Talk about a quick meal, eh?

-------------------------------------------------------- Stock 1 whole chicken 1 daikon (roughly chopped) 1 onion (cut in half) 4 scallions 1 knob of ginger (skin on, lightly smashed) 1 snow fungus (soaked for 1 hour, rinsed, and roughly chopped) Soy sauce Sesame oil Salt and pepper

Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup 1 pack of noodles Scallions (sliced into thin strips) Cilantro Miso paste Chili oil Bok choy

1. Put the whole chicken into a large pot and fill it up with water. Bring the water to a boil, lower the heat a little and let it simmer for 15mins. This removes the impurities for a cleaner stock. 2. Take the chicken out and rinse it. Clean the pot and place the chicken back in. Also put in daikon, onion, scallions, garlic, and snow fungus. Add enough water to cover everything and bring it to a boil. Once it's boiling, lower the heat to low, and let it simmer away. 3. After an hour, take the chicken out (keep simmering the stock). When it is COOL enough to handle, pull all the meat out. Return the bones to the pot and simmer for another 30mins. 4. After 30mins, taste it. Season it with soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, and pepper to taste. 5. In another pot, bring water to a boil and cook the noodles according to the package. 6. While you wait for the noodle water to boil, add a tablespoon of miso paste to your soup noodle bowl and add a ladle of chicken stock. Stir and mix in the miso paste. 7. When the noodles are done cooking, add the bok choy into the pot along with the noodles and cook for 30secs. 8. Take the noodles and bok choy out of the pot and into the noodle bowl. Add the chicken meat and top it off with cilantro and thin slices of scallions. 9. Ladle in more broth and add chili oil.

Pork Cheek With Beans And Lentils Over Toast

So I did an impulse buy at my local butcher shop. I haven't eaten them but rarely do I see pork cheeks for sale. Without thinking, I bought a pound and stuffed them in the freezer for another time. And couple months went by (I actually had forgotten that I bought them) and I finally decided to cook with them. I randomly saw this video of Jamie Oliver cooking beans served with pork and that's how I came up with this idea. This is a great dish, you can eat it as is or on toast or over rice or add extra stock for soup. Oh the possibilities!

-------------------------------------------- 1lb pork cheek 1 red onion (roughly chopped) 1/2 cup lentils 1 cup beans (if dried beans, soak overnight and rinse) Handful of thyme 2 cloves of garlic (peeled and lightly mashed) Hard cider (I used a 16 oz can of Crispin cider and it was the perfect amount) Salt and pepper 3 tablespoons of butter Parmesan cheese Handful of parsley Olive oil Hot sauce and whole grain mustard (optional) Bread

1. Preheat a 300 degree oven 2. Add oil to a hot pan and brown the cheeks, both sides 3. Put the beans, lentils, onions, garlic into a roasting pan and season with salt + pepper 4. Place the cheeks on top of the beans/lentils and add the thyme 5. Pour enough hard cider to just cover the cheeks 6. Cover with tin foil and jam it into the oven for 2.5 hours 7. After 2 hours, the cheeks should be nearly done 8. Take tin foil off and cook for another 30 minutes in the oven 9. After 30 minutes, take the pan out of the oven 10. To finish, mix in butter and grate about 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese (more if you like) 11. Mix and taste to check if it needs more salt + pepper or not 12. Assemble! 13. Get a slice of toast, spoon the pork cheek/beans/lentils onto toast 13. Drizzle hot sauce, olive oil, and desire amount of mustard 14. Grate parmesan and add parsley

Note: Of course if you have a Dutch oven, you can brown the cheeks and braise in the same pot. I don't so I had to brown them in a pan first before putting everything into a pan.

Pork cheeks from Fleisher's, sourdough bread from Orwasher, and beer mustard from Anarchy in a Jar.