Pumpkin Balls - Japanese Style

This is a wonderfully nice and tasty finger food/snack/appetizer.

Ingredients

1. 600g Pumpkin or 900g Potato
2. 200g Chicken meat – add pepper, 1/2tbsp salt, 1/2tbsp mirin – marinate for 15 mins - to this, Fish added Sake too
3. 1 onion or more if you like
4. 2 eggs
5. Plain flour
6. Rising Flour
6. Bread Crumbs

Seasoning

1. 2tsp salt
2. 3tbsp Potato Starch/Cornflour
3. Pepper

Directions

1. Cut the pumpkin into pieces, steam for 10 mins till soft, smash into paste while adding 3tbsp of potato flour.
2. Slice marinated chicken meat and onion into cubes.
3. Heat wok with some oil, fragrant(meaning fry till the flavour comes out) the onion, add in chicken meat, and stir fry until cooked.
4. Mix pumpkin paste, onion, cooked chicken meat and seasoning in a bowl evenly.
5. Knead well into balls. Coat with a layer of plain flour+ rising flour (in equal quantities), beat egg solution and a layer of breadcrumbs.
6. Deep fry till golden brown then drain well and serve with some tonkatsu sauce. - or, with Fish, its wholegrain mustard(tangy) and Japanese Mayonnaise.

Very nice to savour as the pumpkin is sweet. The best pumpkin is from Japan - but that costs a bomb. However, i've tried and really..the local ones aren't that bad too. Organic's good too!

This is a great recipe to have fun with - get 2 friends to help and have fun with all the flour, egg and breadcrumbs!

Sausage Casserole

This is a wonderful dish that me and fish made a while back. It was bursting with flavour!

Ingredients

1. 2 cups Jasmine Rice - the rice you have at home
2. 2 1/2 cups of Stock - whatever you have, chicken, vegetable..
3. 2 different types of sausages - i used Johnsonville Better Cheddar and Cabanosi(a salami type of sausage) - 2 cheddar and 3 cabanosi
4. Onions - roughly sliced/diced - whatever you like.
5. 1 Red Capsicum - finely diced - anyway you like really..
6. Fresh Mushrooms - I used white buttons but found that they didn't go too well, i think shitake would be better

Directions

- Firstly, chop up the onions, capsicum and mushrooms.
- Best if you have a heavy base saucepan that you can fry and boil in. If not, with a little oil, fry the sausages whole. - Again, the amount varies with how much sausages you like.
- After frying, slice the sausages into how thick or thin slices you like - thick is better though - Leave aside first
- In a saucepan, fry the onions, then the capsicum till soft. I added the mushrooms last as they cook the fastest.
- To that fried mixture, add the stock - add less if you prefer a drier end product - you can always add in more stock later if need be.
- Add in the rice and the sausages.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for around 15 mins or more - depending on the moisture level you would like your rice to be.
- No extra salt is needed, but pepper can be added.
- Serve nice and hot!

P.S. His house didn't have a heavy base saucepan, so instead we used a korean hotpot which was wonderful too.

Bon Appetit! 

Green Tea and Black Sesame Ice Cream!

I had the black sesame ice cream - the one on the left and Fish had the green tea ice cream on the right. It was divine! Very very nice to eat. The picture was taken after i've almost finished half of it. It wasn't an enormous scoop but enough to end my meal. For a scoop, the black sesame is $2.50 and the green tea is $2.90. Fish said that the green tea ice cream is much better than the one at Bugis - Uzumaki. It has distinct green tea taste and a subtle maple syrupy taste. I don't like green tea but i tried it and it was good. The black sesame is flavourful and very authentic.

We found this small treasure at a small ramen shop in Century Mall in Tampines. It is called Uma Uma Men and they sell Ramen, Don, Tenshi and Sushi.

We had ramen and i felt it didn't taste too bad. I found it a little salty, but Fish said it was ok. He prefers this place more as compared to Ajisan. He also said that the pork katsu with cheese was very good, but on the day we went, it was sold out. So we had stir fried beef with onion which we felt that the meat could be a little tenderer and the price was a little steep, around $8.90 for a small plate. We also had Vegetable tempura, which was ok by my standards and it was the only way i could get myself to eat vegetables. HaHa..

A unique thing on the menu is that they have mini sets. From what i remember, it is around 3 different types of noodles - mini sized for those that cannot make up their mind, with side dishes. I think around $12+.

I had the corn butter ramen - went their around 4pm and they had an offer - so mine costed around $4.50 only. Fish had char siew ramen if I’m not wrong and this came with half an egg. He loves the egg as it is cooked in the sauce they use to braise the char siew and the egg yolk and watery and has the flavour of the soup. He even asked for an extra half an egg for $0.50. You could ask for extra stuffs and this would cost differently. If i didn't remember wrongly, extra char siew is $2.50 and extra corn is $0.50 - there's still others, but i don't remember them already.

The place is small and the kitchen can be seen. Because of the fact that the shop is in a corner of the Basement 1 floor, the amount of people in the shop is not a lot. - Relatively empty.

Overall, we would go back there again for the food especially the ice cream which was wonderful and satisfying!

They have another branch at the Capitol Building near City Hall MRT Station. They are open daily from 11.30am till 10.30pm. Last order is at 10pm.

Hope to see you there one day - if not for anything else, but their ice cream!