Seafood/Fish/Corn Chowder

If you want to make a corn chowder, do the same thing but replace the seafood with 1 can each of cream of corn and corn niblets.

Seafood/Fish/Corn Chowder
(serves 6-8)

Ingredients:

• 8 strips bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 1 medium carrot, finely diced
• 3 stalks of celery, finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 medium potatoes, finely diced
• 2 lbs seafood (eg., white fish cubes, scallops, prawn, mussels, clams, etc.; whatever you have on hand)
• 1 370ml can of evaporated milk
• 5-6 cups water
• 2 tsps dried thyme 
• a pinch of cayenne pepper (doesn't make anything spicy; just brings out the flavour)
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Add a splash of water to a large dutch oven and brown bacon until crispy over medium high heat. Set bacon aside but keep all the bacon grease in the dutch oven.
2. Add onion, carrots, celery, garlic, dried thyme, cayenne pepper, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Mix well until garlic is fragrant.
3. Stir in flour and mix until you can't see any more white/raw flour. Slowly add in water while stirring the veggie/flour mixture. It'll be kind of clumpy but adding in water slowly will help unclump everything.
4. Add in potatoes and evaporated milk. Bring to a simmer and simmer on low for 15 minutes, covered. It'll form a skin but no worries; just stir to get rid of it.
5. Turn heat up to medium low and stir in seafood. Keep stirring occasionally until seafood is cooked through; about another 10 minutes. Season with more salt and pepper if needed.
6. Serve with bacon "bits" on top as garnish and French bread/baguette to sop of the chowder.

Takoyaki

I LOVE these things. I will usually go to the Summer International Night Market just for these. Sure there are other foods, but there was always this one vendor who did these really awesomely. No one has ever done them as nice so I go less often. Maybe once a year now...

The other day I was totally craving these, so I decided to borrow a pan and make some. Now I have my own pan (yay!) so I'll make these another time. I overloaded myself last time so YEAH...Hubby and I can polish off a batch of this and we'd be stuffed (and I had made two batches...yikes!), so you probably can serve about 4-5 people as appetizers.


Takoyaki
(makes 24-30 balls)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups dashi (I use instant and then cool it down to room temperature before using)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2-3 green onions, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp pickled ginger, chopped
• 180g cooked octopus or 7-8 baby octopus, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• Canola oil (for greasing pan)
• Okonomi sauce
• Japanese mayo
• Bonito flakes/some sort of furikake
• Dried seaweed flakes (optional)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, mix together dashi, eggs and soy sauce. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together flour and salt. Whisk in the wet contents from the small bowl until the batter is no longer clumpy.
3. Heat your takoyaki pan over medium high heat. Using a napkin or a brush, generously grease the pan well. When the pan starts to smoke, carefully fill the holes in the pan with batter. 
4. (If you need to do this in a couple of batches, then portion out your octopus, green onion and pickled ginger accordingly.) Drop a piece of octopus in the center of each hole. Sprinkle with green onion and and pickled ginger. 
5. Lower heat to medium and cook for another minute or two, until golden brown and you can use a skewer/takoyaki pick/chopstick to break the contact between the takoyaki and pan. Using the pick, turn/flip the takoyaki over to the other side, while stuffing the batter that overflows over the edges/from the turning ball into itself using another takoyaki pick (1 per hand!).
6. Cook until golden brown, crispy on the outside and they turn easily in their holes. Transfer balls to a plate. Repeat with remaining batter, if necessary.
7. Drizzle okonomi sauce, then Japanese mayo, then bonito flakes/furikake and seaweed flakes (if using) over the takoyaki. Serve hot, but be careful because the inside is super hot.

Lemony Garlic Shrimp

Uber simple and very lemony. It's good for when you make a rich starch or if you want to put it in a salad to add a warm component. Heck, or just have it as an appie or a snack! ;)


Lemony Garlic Shrimp
(serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb raw shrimp, deveined and shelled
• 1/2 small onion, finely diced
• Juice of 1/3 of a lemon
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt & pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp olive oil

Directions:

1. In a small mixing bowl, mix together garlic, shrimp, a pinch each of salt and pepper. Set aside for 5-10 minutes.
2. Heat up a skillet over medium high heat. Add butter and olive oil. When butter and olive oil is heated, add onion and cook until just softened. Push the onions to the sides and add shrimp to the middle empty part of the skillet in one single layer.
3. Once the shrimps start to curl, turn over to cook the other side for a few seconds until that side starts turning pink.
4. Stir in lemon juice. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if necessary.
5. Serve shrimp alone as an appetizer or over couscous, quinoa, pasta, in a salad, etc.

Stir Fried Snow Pea Leaves with Prawns

This is really just another variation of my Garlic Stir Fried Snow Pea Leaves. I had some and needed a very quick lunch. K really liked the prawns but I had to shovel it down quickly so he wouldn't be able to eat much. Not that I'm trying to starve my kid, but he's pretty sensitive to shellfish, so it's just best if he doesn't have too much of it.


Stir Fried Snow Pea Leaves with Prawns
(serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb snow pea leaves, rinsed
• 1/2 lb medium prawns, shelled & deveined
• 1 red hot chili, finely diced
• 2-4 ginger slices
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Tbsps canola oil
• Salt, to taste

Directions:

1. Heat a wok over high heat until smoking hot. Add canola oil. Once the oil is shimmering, quickly drop in the ginger slices, garlic & chili. Cook until fragrant.
2. Toss in prawns and cook until just starting to turn opaque.
3. Add in the snow pea leaves, turning over as you add more. Keep turning and mixing until about 2/3 of the leaves are all wilted. Season with salt. Cover with lid and cook for 3-4 minutes or until all the leaves have wilted. 
4. Serve with rice (and a protein side dish if you need more protein).

Ahi Tuna Sesame Poke

It was difficult but I managed to take a picture of this before Hubby devoured it! No, I'm kidding. I actually made this just before going to bed the other night and then left it in the fridge for him the next day. Usually he forgets to eat the food I make for him the next day, so I gave him a piece to sample first so that he'd remember it was in the fridge for him. Little did I know that it worked a little TOO well. He did actually devour it all before I could have more than one sample piece. :(

Oh well. He liked it and that's what matters. :)


Ahi Tuna Sesame Poke
(serves 2-3, or 1 hungry Hubby)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb sushi grade Ahi tuna, cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 tsps soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• 2 green onion, finely diced

Directions:

1. In a medium mixing bowl, toss everything together until tuna is well coated. Serve with a side of sushi rice or by itself as an appetizer. If you want it saltier, just add 1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce.