The grocery store tossed some free plant-based chicken-style nuggets into our grocery order a few weeks ago. They apparently came with a packet of barbecue sauce, but I decided that I'd rather enjoy them like this.

Sadly the Kidlet wasn't a fan of the plant-based meat and I do think it would've been better with freshly made chicken katsu. But this was a nice way to use up the nuggets and TF and I both enjoyed it.

Chicken Katsudon

From Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

• 100mL dashi stock
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. light (regular) soy sauce
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. mirin
• 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1/2 small onion, sliced
• 1 piece chicken katsu, sliced (or 100g chicken nuggets)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 green onion, chopped
• ~3/4 c. cooked rice

Directions

1. Combine dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Add onion and cook until onion has softened.
3. Add chicken.
4. Pour beaten eggs over and around chicken.
5. Sprinkle with green onion.
6. Cover and cook for ~1 minute.
7. Place rice in a large bowl.
8. Slide chicken-egg mixture out of the pan and onto the rice.
9. Serve with cabbage salad on the side.

I'm tired. This will be a short write-up.

Dashi Stock

From Just One Cookbook

Ingredients

• 10g konbu
• 10g dried bonito flakes
• 1L water

Directions

1. Use scissors to snip the konbu in a few places.
2. Add the konbu to the water and slowly heat it up over 10-15 minutes.
3. Just before the water boils, remove the konbu.
4. Add the bonito flakes and bring to a boil.
5. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-60 seconds.
6. Remove from heat and set aside for 10 minutes.
7. Strain the broth. Konbu and bonito flakes can be either discarded or reserved for another purpose.

I accidentally bought two cabbages. Now we have A LOT of cabbage to eat. We had this cabbage salad with dinner tonight. It was a big hit. Even the Kidlet liked it.

Cabbage Salad with Sesame Dressing

Slightly adapted from Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

• 1/4 of one small cabbage, shredded
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 2 Tbsp. toasted sesame paste¹
• 5 Tbsp. Japanese mayo
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. light (regular) soy sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp. sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
• sriracha (optional)

Directions

1. Shred the cabbage and place it in some cold water. Set aside while you make the dressing.
2. Combine sugar, sesame paste, mayo, vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil and mix very well.
3. Drain the cabbage.
4. Place a portion of cabbage in a bowl and top with a spoonful of dressing and a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds.
5. If desired, top with a little sriracha as well.

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¹ I had "mixed sesame paste", which is a mix of toasted sesame seeds and roasted peanuts. If you don't have any sesame paste, you can toast and grind some sesame seeds yourself. Alternatively, a good quality natural peanut butter (with no added sugar or salt) will also work. ^Back

I needed some side dishes to go with my pasta. (I probably should've been looking for proteinaceous sides, but I was in a vegetably sort of mood; what can I say!) I ended up settling on a modified cabbage and bulgur dish + these roasted apples and onions. The Kidlet did not like this dish, but it's hard for me to feel too sad about that because it meant that I got to eat her portion. And I thought it was delicious! Definitely way better than the cabbage thing.

TF has requested that we do a double batch the next time we make this. Which I am totally on board with. Especially since it's a super easy recipe. And we always have onions and apples on hand. The main thing will be to make sure that we have enough. The Kidlet goes through a lot of apples in a week and we use onions in pretty much everything. It's... unpleasant when we run out of either. So making a double batch of this would probably require a bit of advance planning just to make sure we're well-supplied on the key ingredients. It certainly doesn't take much else though! Five minutes of prep and then you can just bung it in the oven and forget about it! Beautiful.

Maple Roasted Onions and Apples

Slightly adapted from Food Network

Ingredients

• 3 onions, cut into wedges
• 3 royal gala (or similar) apples, cut into wedges
• 2 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 3 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 tsp. dried thyme (or 1 Tbsp. fresh)
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F).
2. Toss everything together in a roasting pan.
3. Roast at 220°C (4250°F) for 35-40 minutes.

I actually woke up early enough this morning to have the wherewithal to make breakfast. (Usually that falls to TF during the week.) I figured that since we had some leftover rice in the fridge, I'd give these rice pancakes a go. They're a bit fragile and tricky to flip, but I'm happy with how they came out overall. I had mine with a bit of scallion-soy sauce, TF had hers with ssamjang, while the Kidlet opted for plain, unadulterated pancakes (though I suspect she would've taken some ketchup on them if we'd offered).

Rice Pancakes

Slightly adapted from Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

• 2-4 slices of bacon or veggie bacon
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1-2 green onions, chopped
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 c. cooked rice
• 2-3 eggs
• 1 tsp. chicken or vegetable stock concentrate
• 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1-2 fresh red chilies, sliced on the bias (optional)

Directions

1. Cook the bacon.
2. While the bacon in cooking, chop/grate your veggies and combine them in a bowl.
3. Chop the bacon and add it to the bowl along with the rice, eggs, stock concentrate, and pepper and mix well.
4. Heat a bit of oil in a pan and spoon in some of the rice mix.
5. Flatten the mixture into a pancake. If using chilies, press a few slices into the top of the pancake.
6. Cook until the underside is lightly browned.
7. Carefully flip the pancake and brown the other side.
8. Remove cooked pancake from the pan and repeat with remaining rice mix. (You can cook 2-4 at a time depending on the size of your pan and pancakes.)
9. Serve with your favourite sauce: soy sauce, ssamjang, sriracha, hoisin, ketchup, mayo, etc.

牛奶面包 (Milk Bread)

This is not 湯種牛奶面包 (Tangzhong/water roux milk bread). Apparently many (most?) Chinese bakeries will use a gelatanized roux to help improve the texture and rise of their bread. As far as I can tell, this technique started in Japan and then got popularized throughout Asia. 湯種 is actually a Japanese loan word (which, I guess, is why I can only seem to find it written with traditional characters). That's actually the kanji for "water roux" (yudane), which has been borrowed back into Chinese and given the Mandarin pronunciation tāngzhǒng. Anyway, apparently using the roux is pretty characteristic of many Asian breads. This recipe, however, does not use a roux. It still manages to come out amazingly soft and light and high-rising. Seriously. Really incredibly so. But, if you're looking for a roux-based breaad recipe, this is not it. Just FYI.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I can continue singing the praises of this bread. It is sweet and light and fluffy and delightful. It is very different from my usual whole grain recipes. But sometimes you just gotta have a sugary white loaf. I'm treating it as dessert and telling myself it's fine.

I think the biggest problem I had with this loaf was getting it out of the pan. I may have been a bit overzealous with the egg wash and it stuck a bit. And the loaf was just so soft and delicate (especially when it was still warm) that it was basically impossible to get it unstuck without some denting, squishing, and tearing sadly.

It's still delicious though!

I'm looking forward to trying this as a component in some other recipes. For now, here's the basic dough.

Hanzi/汉字: 牛奶面包
Pinyin/拼音: niúnǎi miànbāo
English/英文: milk bread

牛奶面包

From Woks of Life

Ingredients

• 160mL heavy (35%) cream
• 250mL milk
• 1 large egg
• 75g sugar
• 570g all-purpose flour, divided
• 11g yeast (instant or active dry)
• 7g coarse sea salt
• egg wash (made from 1 egg + 1 tsp. water)
• simple syrup (optional)

Directions

1. If possible, bring all ingredients to room temperature before starting.
2. Mix milk into cream.
3. Add the egg and mix until well-combined.
4. Add sugar and mix well.
5. Holding back ~80g of the flour, add flour ~70g at a time, mixing well after each addition.
6. Add 70g more flour along with the yeast and mix mostly incorporated.
7. Add the salt and mix again.
8. Spread the last 10g of flour on your work surface, turn the dough out onto it, and knead for 15 minutes.
9. Shape into a ball, cover, and let rise in a warm place for ~1 hour.
10. Knock back, knead for another minute or two, and then divide into two equal portions.
11. Round each portion and rest for ~5 minutes.
12. Grease two loaf pans very well.
13. Shape each portion into a loaf and place one into each loaf pan.
14. Cover and let rise in warm place for ~1 hour.
15. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
16. Brush tops of loaves with egg wash. Don't put too much or brush too close to the sides of the pan or it will weld itself to the pan and be very difficult to remove!
17. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 25 minutes.
18. If desired, brush the tops with simple syrup for extra sweetness and shine.
19. Let rest in pans for 5 minutes.
20. Carefully remove loaves from pans and transfer to wire rack to cool.

For this one we actually had packages of "bibim ramen" on hand, so I skipped the sauce described here and just used the sauce in the packet. I've included the full sauce recipe here, but if making it with bibim ramen packages from the cupboard, skip all the sauce assembly.

Bibim Ramen

Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

• 1 package ramen
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp gochujang
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• ⅓ of the ramen packet
• 1 hard-boiled egg, bisected
• ¼ apple or pear, julienned
• 2-3 slices cucumber, julienned
• a bit of cabbage, julienned
• sesame seeds

Directions

1. Cook ramen in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, then quench in cold water.
2. Whisk together sugar, gochujang, vinegar, sesame oil, and ramen powder to form sauce; toss with noodles.
3. Top with egg, apple, cucumber, cabbage, and sesame seeds.