Tofu Pudding

Tofu pudding is one of a Chinese desserts made with some soft form of tofu. There are two flavor of this dessert, savoury and sweet. Northern Chinese people and Taiwanese are having savory tofu pudding. Guangdong people are having sweet tofu pudding.

In Hong Kong cuisine, it is served with sweet ginger or clear syrup.Traditionally it made in a wooden bucket. You would able to see this wooden bucket in some traditional Chinese restaurant, some Chinese restaurants in China-town as well, as one of the dim sums. Tofu pudding is best eat in hot. However, a lot of restaurants and markets would serve cold tofu pudding. Hot Tofu is served with sweet ginger, and cold one is serve with clear syrup.

There are several cuisines that people would like to serve with the tofu pudding. The traditional is sweet ginger. Others may mix it with black sesame paste, which is known as “Black & White”, while half of the bowl is tofu pudding, and the other half is black sesame paste. Sometimes would mix it with red bean soup, which people will call it “Red & White.” Others may mix it with mung bean soup, which people will refer it as “Green & White.” Also, you can mix with “Taro Sai mai lo” which is a dessert soup with taro, pearl tapioca, coconut and evaporated milk, people will call this mixture as “Purple & White.” Nowadays, many shops will create various flavours, such as mixed with different kinds of fruits, jelly, or other kinds of traditional Chinese desserts. Although there are different fusion, I think the traditional one with sweet ginger is the best.
This the video that show how to make the tofu pudding in a easy way.

Tofu

5g of Cornstarch

10g of Gymsum Powder

1000ml of Soy Milk (preferably Unsweetened)

32g of Water

Syrup

236g of Water

1 Bar of Brown Sugar Candy

50g of Chopped Ginger (optional-more flagrant)

And here is the video

Wagashi - If you love sweets you are missing out!

Hi all, sorry for the delay until this post as Im sure you all want to more about Japanese food. Right?

All sorts of Wagashi

Well today I will be blogging  about “Wagashi”, traditional Japanese confectionary. Im sure most of us don’t think much about artistic sense when eating sweets, but this particular “Wagashi” will take you beyond just artistic sense as each individual Wagashi is crafted by a professional craftsman, which has been passed on by generation to generation.

Wagashi is often served with tea in tea ceremony. So if you get the chance to attend in a tea ceremony, don’t forget to pay attention on what type of Wagashi is served before you have your macha (green tea).

As you may have guessed, Wagashi came into the Japanese culture as the tea ceremony becom  I think I will blog about tea ceremony next week seen as I have brought it up here!
e popular amongst the Samurais. Yes,! tea ceremony was originally only for men, and mostly Samurais, no women were allowed at this stage. Tea ceremony is where you can explore your philosophical sense through understanding the purpose of each process you must follow and the whole atmosphere.

Tea Ceremony

So Wagashi plays an important part of the tea ceremony. Wagashi began its history as the production of sugar developed in early Kamakura period  (1191), through China. China learnt how to produce sugar from India and it was traded amongst with Green tea and dim sum.

Wagashi become more popular towards Edo period (1603~1868), where a lot of Japanese culture really became vivid and people were looking for more leisure.

As I explained before, Wagashi plays an important role of the tea ceremony because Wagashi was one of many elements which expressed the seasonal characteristic. As you can see in the photo there are many different shapes, colour and texture of Wagashi, they all express seasonal characteristic.

Whether that is through using seasonal ingredient or through shape.

As I have noted before that Samurais were the main attenders of tea ceremony? Well guess what!? Samurais were good with hands too! Making Wagashi.

Most of Samurais would know at least one kind of Wagashi that they could offer to guests when they invite other Samurais for tea ceremony to discuss about serious stuff… So serious…

So if you are one of the people who dreamed about becoming a Samurai, not only you have to practice your sword skills but you better start helping your mother cook dinner too! So you get practice of making dishes then you can try making some Wagashi!

Here is a youtube clip demonstrating how one particular Wagashi is made.

Although Wagashi was loved by all citizens and was very popular, the demand for Wagashi has dramatically dropped since the Meiji period, where western culture were brought in and took many’s attentions.

Hence since then, the number of Wagashi craftsman has also dropped significantly. So if you want to try Wagashi, you might have to search for specific retail or do your own research. I have found this site which might help you Here

Guilty Pleasure Lite Snack - Pisang Molen

Hi peeps, its Otto again. This evening I dunno why I always feel hungry even though I have eaten a lot earlier today. It kinda reminding me about the snack I used to eat back in Indonesia when I was hungry. In my hometown, Medan, we have something called Pisang Molen and is usually bought when class was over in front of the school.

It is basically a snack dish made from banana coated sheets of dough and then is fried. This dish is a sort of variation in the processing of fried bananas in a traditional way and usually is sold by someone riding a traditional cart. (I dunno how to describe better L )

Here take a look at the picture to get better image of it J. My first bite of this Pisang Molen is when I was having a sleepover in my cousin’s house. It taste really sweet, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Since then it was somehow my favourite snack and I often buy it after school. That’s all for today. Tell me about your favourite snack on the comment below J

How to Cook Sam Gye Tang

hello this is call Sam Gye tang and it is nourishing food and it makes keep warming human body and good for the circulation of the blood 

there are not much to prepare for this food.

Firstly, chicken, jujubes, licorice root, a wild mulberry tree, milk vetch root, Angelica root,

Gralics, soy sauce, salts, black peppers, noodles. 

First step is boil the water and clean the chickens, and put the all the materials in the boiled water.

it gonna take more than 3 hours, then it becoming more healthy and delicious. 

then oil is coming and just scoop up the oil.

after more than 3 hours, prepare the noodle. 

and this is step is not necessary but, it is make it more easier to eat. 

after boiled everything, put them all and make it pleasantly salty with salts, pepper and soy sauce. and this is done for the Sam gye tang!!!

this is really healthy food and delicious. 

How to cook Man-doo gratang and Dub Bab

this is call Man-DOO gratang in the middle side and the other plate is spam,cha dol dub bab. 

this is fusion and mixed cooking for everyone. so we gonna show how to cook for that with pic

Firstly, need to prepare, Onion, Eggs, Spam, thin meats, special sauce for the dub bab, mayonnaise, for the dub bab!!!

and Man doo (can get from Woolworth, and possible to use dim dum as well)

Cheddar cheese, bacon, onion, minced garlic.

boil the man- doo~ it takes around 15min to 20 min

however need to check it is done or not.

parch the sliced bacon, onion and minced garlic while boiling man-doo.

it take around 10 min. oh. need to parch onion and garlic first, 2min later put the bacon.

put any tomato sauce(from Woolworth or any shop) and parch together. 

it better to make pleasantly salty with parmasan cheese. 

put the man doo first and spread those sauce like this picture.

and lastly, spread Cheddar cheese, put it to micro wave around 5min

Then it is done for the Man-doo gratang!!!!!

parch the spam and meat first!!! for the dub-bab!!!

while doing this make special sauce

for the one plate(1 person)= 2 spoon soy sauce, 1 spoon vinegar and 1 t spoon sugar!!

Then it will showing like this picture!!!

and lastly!!!

parch the onion and eggs together!!!

put in to the plate rice -> sauce -> spam -> mayonnaise ->meat -> and onion and eggs!!!!

it is done for today!!! have a great dine with these cooking!! it is very simple and delicious! i guarantee for that!!

Next time i will do the nutritious food!!

have a good day^^

History Of Sushi!

The history of Sushi,

As you might have figured by now that Sushi is Japanese, …….no? Well you do now!

But even for those who have tried or never have, the history of cultural food is something we don’t come across often, even though we eat three times a day! Or more if we include our morning and afternoon snack! Oh, we cant forget about those 2 minutes noodles we have after we had enough of late night studying, right?

Chicken in Sushi..... Please.....

Anyway, today I am going to give you a brief history of Sushi, which you can ask your Japanese friends, (don't worry I will be your friend if you haven’t come across a Japanese friend) and they probably would not have a clue and reply back saying “Sumimasen”. But also you can think back it next time you are having sushi for a meal, that sushi has a great history of roughly 823~1221 years (Since Heian era).

Over the history, people have changed, culturally, mentally, with the looks. While everything changes around us, so as our diet. So Sushi too has changed its form throughout history. Sushi really become the form that we consume today in Muromachi era (1401~1573),

Yatai(Mobile Restaurant)

However, it was the cultural influence of Edo people (Tokyo) at the time, which dramatically changed the form of sushi today. Edo people were really fussy about time, so they wanted everything to be done quick!

2~3 times bigger!!!!

Just imaging Sushi like going to McDonald’s to get a meal and get going again. How many Sushi would you need to fill your self up, and think, most people walked everyday for miles on end, imagine if you were walking to another prefecture! So the original Sushi were recorded around 2~3 times bigger than what we see today. So Samurais would go

to a Yatai (mobile shop), grab E-Kan (1-set) of sushi and start his journey to another prefecture.

However, as Sushi become more available amongst the locals, they didn't want it to be as big, so they cut the E-Kan into 2, hence in Japan we often still call 1 Kan for 2 pieces of Sushi.

So next time you go to a Sushi restaurant, you can ask for E-Kan of Salmon or Tuna!

I will leave it there for today, there are a lot of historical information which I would need to write a book to cover, but if you want to know more, please comment below and I would make another post about it!

Sayonara!      

                             Iori Hashida

Hong Kong — Street’s snack

There are numerous streets’ snacks in Hong Kong, and these snacks are really popular among young adults. Every summer when I back to HK, I will definitely buy those snacks. Apparently, these snacks are cheap but super delicious. If you have a chance to visit HK, I highly recommended.

1) Ball Waffle (gai-daan-jai; gai-daan = egg) The ingredients of ball waffle are egg, sugar, flour, and light evaporated milk. Then this mixture will put into a waffle iron, which looks like a racket. Afterward the ball waffle will turn golden-yellow. It actually tastes like cake, but is less softened.Ball waffle start from 1960, a store’s employer did not want to waste the extra eggs. So he tried to put in flour and butter, and created this ball waffle.

It calls “ball” waffle (gai-daan-jai) is because the waffle iron has a lot of holes. “Gai-daan” in Cantonese means egg. So every ball is looked like an egg, that’s why it calls gai-daan jai. In recent years, a lot of store created different flavours, such as chocolate, strawberry, etc. However, remember to eat it when it is warm. Those ball waffles that put on the shelf probably turned cold and is not that delicious.

2) Hong Kong-style Waffle (“Grid Cake”) The ingredient of this HK-style waffle is just like the western one, but we do not serve with butter and syrups. These waffles usually make and sold by street hawkers and eat it warm on the street. They are similar to a traditional waffle but a little bit larger, round in shape and divided into 4 quarters. Butter, peanut butter, sugar, and evaporated milk are spread on one side of the cooked waffle and then it is folded into a semi circle to eat. In recent years, many store created different flavours too, such as chocolate, honey melon flavour. However, I still thought that the traditional one is the best.

3) Shark’s fin soup

Fortunately, it is not real shark’s fin, they are only cellophane noodles. The reason that using cellophane noodles instead of real shark’s fin is because people are pretty poor in the past, they do not have money to eat real fish fin. Therefore, a poor cook created this shark’s fin soup by using cellophane noodles, adding Chinese dried mushroom, auricularia auricular-judae, and slides of pork. Most of the people will serve with white pepper, chinkiang vinegar, and/or sesame seed oil as seasoning. Some would like to add slides of dace, and/or lettuce in the soup. Shark’s fin soup is one of my favourites. I like to add both 3 seasoning. Sometimes I do not like to add chinkiang vinegar because I think it’s a bit sour, but I will definitely add sesame seed oil and white pepper. These 2 seasoning will make the soup much more delicious.

To be honest, you are able to buy all these snacks on the streets in HK commonly. If you are going to Mongkok, you can find these kind of stores everywhere. These recommended stores are stores that are more popular in HK.

Nasi Goreng - Simple Yet Pleasing

Hi peeps! This is Otto. Today I want to talk about Indonesian “classic” dish – NASI GORENG. Nasi goreng is literally fried rice in Indonesia, and what differentiate it with typical fried rice is that it is stir fried with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce). It is really easy to cook nasi goreng and almost everyone in Indonesia can cook it, although I cannot cook it that well though, however my mom can make a very stunning dish of nasi goreng with meatballs and chopped bird-eye chili. YUMMMMM!!!! :9 . You don’t have to be chef to be able to cook nasi goreng and that’s what makes it so attractive and you can add any variation to it ;) . Although it is simple, it is considered as the second in 'World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods' voted by 35,000 people in online poll next after rendang. Here take a look at some mouth-watering nasi goreng variation :)

Homemade Nasi Goreng with Sausages

Traditional Nasi Goreng

Seafood Nasi Goreng

Super Spicy Nasi Goreng (my favourite)

Thats all for my first post hope you guys enjoy it!!

Hello world!

Hi, Néih hóu, Apa kabar, Anyoung haseyo,  Konichiwa,

Group us internationals will be telling you about unique traditional food, which I am sure many of you haven’t seen, heard or tasted before.

We are all from different part of Asia, we have Otto who will be updating about delicious dishes from Indonesia. John will be giving us insight on Korean food, he will even cook for us!. Tiger will be posting all the latest flavours from Hong Kong, where nothing goes to sleep. Lastly but not least we have Iori, who will be discovering the history of many of the Japanese food which you may have seen or tasted before.

We hope you gain some in sight to Asian food that you have yet to discover, because Asian food you have come across in Sydney is only a tiny part of what our culture has to offer. Join us to explore the unseen cultures yet to be discovered or tasted!