Salmon Crisp on a bed of lettuce salad with wasabi salad dressing

* Wasabi  dressing:
2 tbsp. sour cream
2 tbsp. mayo
1/4 tsp each of salt, pepper, garlic powder and sugar
wasabi paste as much as you want.
squirt of lemon or lime.
* Prepare all the salad ingredients like olives, tomatoes, cucumber, radish, and whatever you like, and let it rest in the fridge.
* For the lettuce salad, the trick is to drizzle a bit of dressing on it, mix it, and put this in the freezer while you fry the fish.

1. Marinate your fish with lemon, garlic, chopped parsley, salt and pepper for at least 20 mins.
2. Mix flour and garlic powder 7:1 ratio.
3. Beat an egg.
4. heat up the pan with oil good for frying.
5. Dip the fish in flour-egg-flour. Fry for at least 7 mins on each side, depending on the thickness of the fish.
6. Drain in paper towels.

* Assemble the salad. Drizzle more salad dressing and add some croutons and crispy onion bits if you have.
* Top it with the fish. Enjoy...

SansRival

Craving for this for a long time now, until Mama Bear Antunes brought a similar dish to our 'Ladies Birthday Celebrants Only' dinner. Checked a lot of different recipes, and thought I'd wing it.  :P)

 

Sans Rival

Make a Meringue:
5 egg whites
3 tbsp. caster sugar
½ tsp. cream of tartar.

Spread out flat on a greased baking paper lined oven tray. Bake in 150 degs C for 45 mins. Don't burn. Cool.

Dough: Beat in mixer (high)
5 egg yolks
4 tbsp sugar
(until fluffy)
Slowly add 60 ml veggie oil
add 1/4 to ½ cup buttermilk (or plain yougurt)
1 tsp. Vanilla flavouring
add ½ cup sifted cake flour.
Chopped almond is optional. (1/4 cup)

Put in another oven tray (same size of what was used in egg whites), lined with greased baking paper.

Bake in 185 degs C for 20 mins.
While cooling: Make the buttercream
* Beat 500 gms. room temp butter
* Add in batches : 1½ to 2 cups of icing sugar. (according to your taste)
* Alternating the icing sugar with 250 ml of warm whipping cream. (double cream)

* Add 1 tsp. Vanilla flavouring.
 Don't make this super sweet.

Layering:
1. Cut meringue and cake dough into 3, lengthwise.
2. First layer: cake dough
3. 2nd layer: thin spread of buttercream
4. 3rd layer: Meringue
5. 4th layer: thin spread of buttercream
6. 5th layer: sliced almonds (chips) You can use chopped almonds if thats whats available.
7. Reapeat the layers until all the meringue and cake dough are used.
8. Cover the sides with the rest of the buttercream.
9. Then sprinkle the rest of your almonds on the sides.

Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

My beautiful ladies! Thank you so much for tolerating my mischievous ways... Love you.

Turning Japanese

Choosing everyday meals for the family is turning out to be a job! Especially when you have made a couple of good meals in a row, members of the family, big and small, expects that you will top the previous meals. 

Having said that, I strongly believe that Japanese food is the simplest way of wowing anyone who would sit at your dining table. Clean flavours, uncomplicated processes, fresh and its up to you if you want to get filled or not.

So one night, I made Chicken katsu. It basically means 'cutlets'. This is an original Portuguese dish, brought to Japan, and twisted (in this case pounded) to cater to the Japanese palate.

* Chicken breasts, sliced thinly, wrapped in cling film, pounded.
* Dabbed with cornstarch (I added garlic powder in mine), dipped in whisked egg, then breaded with panko and sesame seeds mixture.
* Pan fried, no need to deep fry.

Served with heated soy sauce, mirin and teriyaki sauce mixture.

Eaten with steamed rice and a bowl of miso soup.

On another night, as I was busy working from home, I didn't really have time to cook. So I asked my lovely husband to grab fresh salmon (caught the same day) and chicken pieces.
Salmon was served as sashimi. 

* Sliced thinly, dipped in Japanese soy sauce with wasabi and a squirt of lemon. - from Wikipedia:  A reputed motivation for serving wasabi with sashimi (and also gari, pickled ginger), besides its flavor, is killing harmful bacteria and parasites that could be present in raw seafood.^[1]


Chicken pieces, marinated in yakitori soy sauce and and then fried in oil.

 

Result? A happy girl!