Cooking Lab - Kale & Beef Omelette w Blue Cheese

Happy 2014!!

After last night's party & firework spectacular, most opted for a sleep-in this morning.

It the first day of the new year, what better way to start the day and the year with a goodness-filled breakkie?!!

(c) GMV - Got My Vote!

This is one hands-down omelette. Packed with super-healthy Kale, beef mince and creamy blue cheese, laced with white wine & truffle oil!! Oops  :)

Ingredients:

- Eggs x 3 (Fresh eggs from the barnyard!)

- Milk

- White wine

- White truffle oil

- Butter

- Kale leaves 

- Beef sausage mince

- Blue Cheese

Instructions:

1. Roughly chop Kale leaves.

2. Minced the leftover cooked beef sausages in the food processor.

3. Throughly beaten the eggs and add some milk. Today is a special occasion, so drizzle in some white wine & truffle oil.

4. Melt the butter in the pan on low-medium heat.

5. It's a half and half Omelett, cook Kale & minced beef as shown so that the half stay separated.

6. Pull the pan off the heat to allow to cool as the eggs will be added next.

7. Once the pan has cooled a little, add the egg mixtures to cover all ingredients.

8. Once the eggs have set a little, lift the pan off the stove and shake & swirl the pan a little so that the Omelett isn't sticking.

9.Tilt the pan to the sides so the running yolk go over to the edges of the pan.

10. When the eggs are almost done, add the blue cheese.

11. Fold in halves when cheese has melted.

Volià!  Breakfas is ready!

Garnish with some French onions, Basil, tomato & Avocardo. Salt & pepper to season. Yum~

Very morish indeed! Creamy blue cheese goes well with Kale. 

An energy-packed morning goodness to start the year! It's going to be a fantastic year!!

Cooking Lab - 2013 New Year's Eve Feast

New Year's Eve Party!

Count down to the new year in style with a selection of glamorous party dishes designed to share.

(c) GMV - Got My Vote! ❤️

New Year's Eve is always important and lavish at our household. We all gathered around doing count downs in merriments & happiness. Ample food and drink should last till the wee hours into the new year's morning!

Festive food always take some thoughts & preparations. My contributions to tonight's party menu are:

Appetizer - Mentai Potato Salad

Entree - Korean round Dumplings in kimchi and Pork & Chive flavors 

Main - Grilled Wagyu Beef

Sushi - Salmon Chirashi Platter

Call me superstitious, but I like to start the year with food that will bring wealth, prosperity and abundance. 

Sharing the meanings behind my dishes and see how quickly the guests rush for a serving of those :)

After the champagne toast, it's time to feast! We are welcoming the new year and a symbolic time to eat food that bring good luck and fortune in 2014.

Mentaiko (明太子) cod-fish roe and their red colour symbolize bounty in the coming year.

Like most round food, green peas symbolize the colour of money. One boy was most fascinated by his impending wealth after eating all the green beans :)

There were more younger kids, so we mashed the potato salad up and served in smaller bowl. While the adults help themselves with the chunkier version.

Kyoja Dumpling $7.99/650g packet

In Pork & Chive Flavour 

In Kimchi Flavour

(Manufacture by Kyoja Dumpling

149 Georges River Road Croydon Park NSW 2133 Tel: 8004 9661; 0434311715)

Scattered some pink flowers to share the love, joy and beauty all around.

The round plump dumplings represents full money sacs, which are said to bring good luck and wealth for the new year.

I specifically pick Pork & Chive flavor. Pork always have positive association to wealth & prosperity. Chive is symbolic of richness of life for a long time (韮=久)

Lucky food and charming decorations.

This is (鏡餅) 'Kagami Mochi' decoration and is displayed as a good luck charm.

It is stacked together from 2 rice cakes (mochi) and an orange (代々) placed on top. It symbolize the continuity of generations and longevity.

The 9:00pm firework started!

The Japanese eat prawn for longevity - the curve of the prawn resembles the hunched back of an elderly person and they have long mustache :D 

While we young people may not think too much about it, but I am the elderly parents appreciated the thought.

The Chirashi Sushi is served on a circular bowl to symbolize things coming in full circle.

Wagyu Karubi $60.00/kg

(Osawa Enterprises

15 Bellfrog Street Greenacre NSW)

We all believe New Year is the time to start fresh. The soaring sparkling fireworks marked the new year with a loud bang!

Happy 2014 everyone !!!

A year filled with loads of happiness,luck, love and of course food!!!

Lots of Love xoxo

Cooking Lab - Salmon Chirashi Sushi (ちらし寿司)

For those of you that never had it, chirashi sushi is a bowl of vinegared sushi rice topped with colourful toppings make it looks very festive.

It is not as hard as it looks. Once you've got all ingredients, it can be assembled under 30mins!!

Delicious, Stunning and suitable for festive occasions!

(c) GMV - Got My Vote!

My take for tonight is a bit extravagant, capturing the essence of the sea. 

Rushed out to the fish market in the morning before the NYE road closure. The ingredients aren't cheap, but it's still cheaper than going to a sushi restaurant and pay a premium surcharge for tonight.

Ingredients:

- Sushi Rice 2 cups

- **Secret Weapon** Chirashi Sushi Mix $6.99/ packet (contained pre-cooked lotus root, carrot, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushroom seasoned in sweet vinegar pouch)

All Seafood are from the Sydney Fish Market:

- Sashimi Salmon 500g @ $49.95/kg from Peter's Fish Market

- Cooked Medium Tiger's Prawns 500g @ $28.95/kg from De Costi Seafoods

- Japanese seasoned seaweed $3.00/packet from Claudio

- Avocardo x 1

Instructions: 

1. Cook the rice in a rice cooked use less water than you normally would.

2. Once the rice is cooked, spread it out on a large flat bowl and let it cool down.

3. Pour the gomoku (五目) vinegar mixture packet over the rice, start fanning and use a rice spatula to gently stir the rice using circular spreading motions. 

Note** (Do not mash - this is not a mash potato, that is the last dish :D, or destroy the rice grain particle. The secret is trying to evenly distribute the vinegar and prevent the rice from sticking together! Each rice grain should glisten!!)

4.Place the rice in a serving platter/bowl and let it cool down to room temperature completely before placing the toppings. 

Assemble Plating:

5. Place peeled prawn in star pattern. Insert a slice of salmon sashimi in between the gap. Loosely sprinkle the Japanese seasoned seaweed around. Place Avocardo slices on top. 

6. Edge the bowl with the rest of the cooked prawns. What is Summer without peeling your own prawns?!!

Topped with a large sashimi rose to symbolize a blossoming year to come :)

7. Overlap half a piece of sashimi with the next one and roll them up!! Put a dash of wasabi paste at the center.

8. Lastly, scattered the dry seaweed & seasme seeds on top!! (It comes with the Chirashi Mix) - and ready to be served! 

Traditionally, Chirashi ingredients should cut into (上品) elegant small pieces, but Sis is into big mouthfuls of flavorsome food - 歯ごたい or as she says 'chew-worthiness' :D 

Plus, Sydney has an abundance of fresh seafood at hands - so why not!

Fresh ingredients, natural flavor and the elegance of the presentation .. I always get abundance of joy whenever I make this dish.

It was a knockout and guests gasped in admiration when saw it. It tastes as good as it looks!!

No wonder D commented on this one luxury way of eating sashimi! They were all gone relatively quickly~

Cooking Lab - Mentaiko Potato Salad (明太サラダ)

Getting ready for the New Year count down!!

Making an easy & delicious Mentaiko potato salad that is loved by adults & kids!!

I remembered I first tried Mentaiko potato salad at a local Izakaya - called Totoya. It was a friend's family business. It was always busy with afterwork businessmen enjoying a cool glass of beer on a hot Summer day. I always love the food there with fresh grills, sushi boat and various authentic Japanese dishes.

It was a place reserved for special occasions. I also remembered that I had my first graduation dinner there, too!! The gigantic sushi boat was a wow, but it was their pink Mentaiko salad served like a gelato in a cup that always linger on. From that point on, Mentai Potato Salad is reserved for celebratory occasions!

I know, it's just a simple salad, you can have at anytime, but it has a special spot in my heart ever since Totoya ceased trading :(

Tonight - it's definitely called for a special occasion! To welcome the new year ahead with my special Mentai Potato Salad! 

(c) GMV - Got My Vote!!

Mentaiko (spicy fish roe) is a delicacies in Japan. The savory of Mentai (明太子) and a hint of spicy is so addictive and surreal!

It has none of the fishiness taste and something you can't get out of your head  - taste it once, you will be hooked ~

Ingredients:

- Washed Potatoes x 6 peeled & cubed

- Carrots x 6 peeled & cubed

- Eggs x 2

- Boneless Leg Ham @ $25.98/kg x 3 slices

- Frozen Peas 2 cups

- Mentaiko x 2 pieces

- Kewpie Japanese Mayonnaise 

- Salt & Pepper 

Instructions:

1. Hard boil eggs in salted water, peel and set aside.

2. Boil potato and carrot cubes until they are soft. Add peas in the last 5 minutes.

3. Let them cool down.

4. Remove Mentaiko from skin.

5. After the potatoes are cool, add Mentaiko, chopped boil eggs, ham slices and Kewpie mayonnaise and mix well.

The legendary Mentai potato salad is ready! Guarantee to jazz up the New Year dinner party ~~

The stunning display of the Mentai Salad dish! Keep it cool on the fridge until tonight - it is a very warm day!! I hope my friends are preparing enough drinks for tonight!!! 

This salad goes well with sake, beers on its own too!

We have kids coming to the party tonight - so tweak it just slightly to a kid-friendly version!!

Put some of chuck potato salad into the food processor and refine into a fine dip mash. Not too mashy - kids should still be able to taste the fine bits & pieces.

Serve in small bowls for the kids' table garnish with tomato and boil eggs. Not surprisingly, Mentai potato mash gone in a second, leaving the salad & tomato behind.

The processed version is also good as dip on crackers!!! Except they went quite quick before I can find a packet of crackers!!

This version also reminds me of Greek's taramasalata!! 

It's not as pink as I remembered - and I think Totoya use Mentaiko sauce to achieve that grapefruit colouring!

A really really good salad on a hot Summer day!!!

Cooking Lab - Grilled Smoky Beef Sausage and Bean Salad with Tabouli in Plum dressing

A fairly simple salad for Summer.

A delicious side that goes perfectly with the backyard BBQ sizzle! 

We quite like this tangy refreshing salad against the meaty beef-n-bacon sausages. The awarding winning blood-plum dressing adds an extra vinegary punch. 

Or if you have leftover sausages, chop them up and transform into a nice salad dish for the next day.

(c) GMV - Got My Vote! 

Give the leftover sausages a second life by turning them into a refreshing salad. 

Weekends are for friends and families to gather around the BBQ. As usual, we've over-catered and ended up with a lot of leftover grilled meat. It would be a pity to throw them away, as they are all good quality. 

I quite like the idea of clever cooking where you can generate different dishes from a base ingredient. So transforming  these grilled sausages into another spectacular dish. 

Ingredients:

- 300g Smoky Beef & Bacon Sausages 

- 1 can Organic Cannelloni Beans

- 300g Tabuli Salad

- 2 Boiled Eggs 

- 2 Tomato 

- 500g gourmet salad pack 

- 4 tabespoonTar 10 Blood Plum Vinegar Dressing 

- Sea salt and black pepper

Instructions:

1. Warm up the grilled beef & bacon sausages; or Grill the sausages on the frypan if you are starting from scratch. 

2. Slice the sausage into round disks.

3. Boil the eggs and slice them into quarters.

5. Wash and drain the cannellini beans. Dice the tomatoes.

6. In a large salad bowl combine the garden salad, a can of cannellini beans, diced tomatoes, and sliced eggs together.

7. Add a generous amount of blood plum vinegar dressing and toss well to cover.

8. Add the grilled sausage slices and combine all ingredients together until everything is well coated with the dressing.

9. Add the fresh tabouli salad on top just before serving.

10. Season with salt and pepper.

11. Serve.

It looks very flavourful and very satisfying as well. 

Note: You can use this as a filling for a wrap if you need some carbs to go with it. 

It tastes quite healthy and light; and it does not leave a cluggy feeling. Since the salad contains meat, it is quite a substantial meal by itself. Of course, you can serve it as a side dish as well. 

The perfect solution to use up all your leftover BBQ meats!