Soy Milk & Miso Hot Pot

We love our hot pots (or steamboats). Fish and Century old egg with coriander soup base. Satay hot pot... Ma-lak (super chilli hot) or even just plain chicken stock with some tomatoes and potatoes thrown in. Its probably one of the easiest things to prepare when you know you have a group of people that is going to come raid your apartment in the next hour. Which in my case, was exactly just that.

Soy Milk & Miso Hotpot
First tasted in Osaka, Japan - Recipe put together by Astrogirl

Soup Base

• 2 tablespoons Miso paste
• 1 piece of kombu
• 300 ml of unsweetened soy milk
• 2 L of water
• 2 tablespoon of dashi stock granules
• 2 tablespoon of Mirin
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• Soya sauce to taste (if required)
• 1 onion (sliced)
• 1/2 chinese white cabbage (sliced 5cm pieces)
• 2 green spring onion (in 5 cm pieces)
• 6 re-hydrated shiitake mushrooms (stems discarded, halved - optional)

Bring water and kombu to boil in large pot, add dashi and mirin. Then add mushrooms, onion, white cabbage and white parts of spring onion. Boil until cabbage has soften. Add in Miso paste, sugar and salt. Add in the soy milk right before serving and bring the soup back to a simmer. Serve the hot pot on top of a portable gas stove or in a shabu-shabu pot.

Other Ingredients to throw in:

• Defrosted cuttlefish \ pork \ fish balls
• Thinly sliced beef, fish or pork
• Shelled Prawns or any type of oyster, shellfish or molluscs
• Tofu
• crab stick
• fresh corn
• fresh mushrooms & Enoki mushrooms
• Fresh Fish paste (added in separate spoonsfuls)
• Vegetables (e.g. sliced carrot, coriander, spring onion, chinese radish or any other greens)

Taste the soup base and season with some soy sauce is required. It should taste a bit on the saltier side. Choose any combination from the 'Other Ingredients' list. For this hotpot, I added in some of the defrosted balls, crab stick, tofu and fish paste. Once it starts to boil add in all of the soy milk. And then turn the heat down. If you keep it boiling for too long, the soy milk will start to split.

Things to add at the end of the hotpot:

• Cooked plain white rice
• Mochi (glutinous rice cake)
• Egg
• Noodles (eg. instant, egg noodles, udon).

Nearing the end of the hotpot, when the soup base has absorbed the essence of all of the additional ingredients that was boiled in it... (Don't let this soup go to waste !)

You can poach an egg in the soup or spoon out some soup into a bowl and have it just like that. Or keep the soup bowling and add some rice or noodles into it. The 'japanese' way would be to have it with Mochi.

Notes:

• Dried shiitake mushrooms are available at nearly every asian grocery store. To re-hydrate them, rinse them under water to get rid of any dirt, then place them in a bowl of warm water with a smaller saucer on top to keep them under water. Best to keep overnight.
• Enoki Mushrooms needs to have the bottom brown parts (roots) trimmed and washed thoroughly.
• If you are preparing prawns for the hotpot, a good way to make sure they retain the 'fresh texture' and wont suffer any 'over-boiling', is to put the shelled prawns into a bowl of cold water with about 1-2 teaspoons of salt for about 30 mins. Pour out the water when ready.
• Raw meat like pork or beef is easier to slice if you leave it in the freezer for about 1 hr or so.
• The white powder substance on the Kombu is where most of the flavour is. Don't be tempted to wash it off.

Banana Muffins

I spent most of last night cleaning out my fridge, and judging by some of the 'expired goods' I had found.. its something I haven't done in a while. Amongst some of the items I found that were possibly still in the 'usable goods' department, I found 4 rather brown bananas. Super ripe bananas makes super yummy banana bread...banana cake or muffins. I went with the muffins option this time.

Did I say that the bananas were super ripe ??

Banana Muffins
recipe adapted from allrecipes.com.au

• 3-4 Large bananas, mashed (I use 4 because I had 4 left in my fridge)
• 2/3 cup white sugar (original recipe calls for brown sugar)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup soften butter (about 100g)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Combine and whisk flour with baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl blend butter with the sugar until it goes a light creamy colour, add in egg then mashed bananas and vanilla.

Fold the wet mixture into the dry flour bowl. Be careful not to over stir.

Spoon the mixture into a buttered muffin tray. About 3/4 full. Bake for about 15-20 mins, until it starts to brown. Makes 6 large muffins.

Notes:

• Cut the butter into small cubes so to soften it faster.
• I added about a couple of splashes of milk (about 1/4 cup) into the mixture at the end. The original recipe doesn't call for it, but I added it because my mixture was looked a bit gluggy and dry.

Oysters Kilpatrick & Mornay

These are definitely one of my favorites to cook up when I have Oysters available, and have already gobbled down too many raw ones.

For Oysters Kilpatrick:

• 4 Pieces of Bacon (sliced and chopped up finely)
• 1 Tbl sp of Butter
• 6 Tbl sp of Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 Tbl sp of HP Sauce
• 1 Tbl sp of Tabasco Sauce
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Melt butter in saucepan, add in Worcestershire, HP & Tabasco sauce. Once sauces are combined add salt & pepper to taste. Sprinkle bacon over oyster and spoon sauce over the bacon. Place under hot grill, and leave until bacon starts going crisp. Usually about 3-4 minutes.

For Oysters Mornay:

• 1 Cup of Milk
• 2 Tbl sp of Butter
• 2 Tbl sp of plain flour
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 tsp French Mustard
• 1/2 Cup of grated tasty cheese
• Cayenne Pepper

Make a roux by melting butter in a saucepan then slowly adding flour, then milk until a white sauce forms. Add mustard then cheese, salt & pepper to taste. Add cheese sauce to oysters, sprinkle with Cayenne pepper and extra cheese. Place under hot grill for about 3-4 min, until cheese topping starts to brown slighly.