Tempura (Shrimp and Vegetables) pictures (1 of 3)
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A few weeks ago, I tweeted about guest bloggers on Rasa Malaysia and Mable Tan—a fellow Malaysian who resides in Australia—responded and came to my rescue. Mable is a fantastic baker and a great cook; her blog “Happy Monkee” is beautiful and delicious. In her past life, Mable was a writer and stylist working with Seventeen, Marie Claire, Female (leading magazine in Malaysia and Singapore) and Going Places (inflight magazine of Malaysia Airlines). Please check out Mable’s guest post below and learn the secrets of making light and crispy tempura, a popular Japanese recipe. Please also pay a visit to her blog. Thank you!
Unlike Japanese breadcrumb (panko), tempura is a lighter, fluffier version. The idea is to keep the batter as cold as possible and also not over-mixing the batter. I’m so used to clump-free mixes that it takes ginormous willpower not to beat it till it’s smooth. Apparently, an over-mixed batter will result in activating the wheat gluten and causing the batter to be more chewy and dough-like when fried (great if you’re making doughnuts).
Now, what you might not know about tempura is that it was actually introduced to the Japanese by Portuguese missionaries and traders. The first shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, loved it so much it became widespread and adopted into the culture. If you go to Portugal today, there is a very similar dish called peixinhos da horta or “garden fishies…”
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Nabe (Yose Nabe/Japanese Hot Pot) pictures (1 of 7)
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(Attend hands-on hot pot workshop in Los Angeles by Harris Salat, the author of Japanese Hot Pots. Classes are available on November 14-15, 2009. Click here to learn more.)
Fall is in the air, even here in Southern California. Days are getting shorter and cooler. These past few days, the sky has been dull and wintry and this morning, it rained.
I start craving foods that keep me warm—soups, hearty stews, and hot pots. To me, nothing tastes quite as invigorating and uplifting than a meal of simmering hot soup or stew. I made nabe, or Japanese hot pot, a delicious medley of ingredients steeped in dashi broth and cooked inside a clay donabe, or nabe pot…(get nabe or Japanese hot pot recipe after the jump)
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Yakiniku (焼き肉) or Japanese grilled meat/BBQ is my favorite.
I love playing with my food. When I was a child, I often engaged myself in masak-masak (literally means cook-cook in Malay language)—a childhood cottage cooking game where I would “steal” ingredients from my mother’s kitchen and then cooked them into “food” using candles and kid’s cookware. [...]
I have always liked dumplings—those little dough-wrapped morsels filled with stuffing consists of ground pork, seafood and vegetables—but my appreciation for dumplings deepens and intensifies only in the past few years due to my many trips to Beijing.
Beijing—the culinary capital of Chinese food—is the cradle of some of the best dumplings on earth. Dumplings [...]
When I was in Oahu, other than stuffing my face with malassadas (malasadas), sampling local Hawaiian cuisine, and feasting on shrimp, I ate Japanese food almost every day. Oahu is a real gem for Japanese food, thanks to the many Japanese tourists and also locals who are obsessed with Japanese cuisine.
There are countless authentic Japanese [...]
Just a couple of weeks ago, my friend Marc at No Recipes shared his udon recipe with Rasa Malaysia readers. In his guest post, Marc also shared his dashi recipe–the building block of Japanese cuisine. Finally, I knew what to do with the giant piece of kombu (dried seaweed) and dried bonito flakes in my [...]
There is no secret that I adore Japanese cuisine and wish to learn more about it. Today, I am very pleased to have Marc at No Recipes as a guest writer on Rasa Malaysia. Marc shares his kitsune udon recipe, elaborates on Japanese dashi (the building block of Japanese cuisine), and introduces key Japanese ingredients [...]
Teriyaki Chicken
Guest Writer: My Cooking Hut
Please welcome My Cooking Hut (please check out her curry laksa post) back as she guest posts yet another droolsome dish: Japanese teriyaki chicken and shares her teriyaki chicken recipe with us.
I believe I don’t have to elaborate too much what Teriyaki Chicken is. This ever so popular Japanese dish [...]
