New pizza from Trader Joe's

ps: I use Breville oven, and bake for 15 mins instead of there suggestion.

Easy homemade cheese

I have 1/2 bottle of whole milk, and it will expire tomorrow, so I need to do sth instead of drinking it. Let's make cheese for the first time in my life!

- Boil the milk in a small pot, when it boils, turn off the heat

- Squeeze 1/2 lemon then add the juice to the boiling, stir well, you will see whey and curd separately, then leave it there for 10 minutes

- Prepare a filter like this

- Use your hand to squeeze the extra liquid, and here is CHEESE (add some salt will be better)

Stuffed shitake

1. Ingredients (for 2 people)

- 1/2 pound ground pork
- 5 to 7 shitake mushroom: choose the big one, I often buy at farmer market

- 2 green onion, cilantro (optional)

- 1 tomato

- 1/4 onion

- salt, pepper

- 1 spoon of bread crumbs or flour

- 1/2 cup of water

2. Method:

- Clean the mushroom, remove the stem from the cap

- Chop the stem, 1 green onion, and onion

- Mix meat, bread drums, chopped vege, pepper, and salt

- Preheat oil in a pan, medium heat,

- Stuff the mushroom caps with the mixture and put into the pan each side 5 minutes 

- Chopped tomato then add into the pan, if you have fish sauce, add 1 spoon, add 1/2 cup of water (here I change to another pot)

- After 5 to 10 minutes, add chopped green onion and cilantro

Stew lamb leg by pressure cooker

1. Ingredients:

- 1/2 Lamb leg 

- 1 potato, 2 carrot, 2 small onion, 1/4 celery

- Garlic, rosemary, sage

- Salt: 2 spoon, peper 

- 2 cups of water

- 2 spoons of oil

2. Method:

- Marinate lamb meat with 1/2 rosemary, salt and pepper for 15 to 30 minutes

- Cut potato, 2 carrots, 1 onion into stew size

- Chopped a  garlic, celery, sage and 1/2 rosemary 

- Preheat the pot with 2 spoons of oil at medium heat, cook each side of the meat until brown (5 mins each side)

- Take the meat out, add chopped vege, and stir well until the onion get transparent 

 - Add meat, and the other vege, add one more spoon of salt and 2 cups of water. Close the lid, use high heat, after 10 minutes, use low medium heat for another 30 minutes (make sure the indicator is not over orange color)

- Here is the result after cooking:

The healthiest fry chicken

Sometime I miss fried-chicken flavor, but living in a closed house with very poor kitchen fan, I can not fry chicken everyday. Here is my solution, and it works well for me, it both time consuming and oil consuming (too much oil is not good, right?, but too few you can not fry chicken).

1. Ingredients:
- 1 pound of cut boneless chicken thigh (I bought a box from Mitsuwa)
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup of flour
- salt and pepper (1/2 tea spoon each)
- Oil: I don't use high heat, so any oil is fine, today I use sesame oil. I don't use a lot of oil, just enough to cover every corner of a pan, may be 3 to 5 spoons.

2. Method:
- Mix meat with salt and pepper, marinate for 5 to 10 minutes if you have time or while you preheat the oil at medium heat

- In a plastic box, put the chicken and flour together

- Shake it well

- Place the chicken 

- Turn each side after 5 minutes, do it twice, after 20 minutes, your chicken dish is ready! You can use paper tower or Japanese oil removing paper before serve.

Chou farci - Pork stuffed cabbage

1. Ingredients:

- A whole savoy cabbage ( just around $1 at farmer market)

- 1 carrot (chopped)

- 1/2 onion (chopped)

- 4-5 mushrooms (chopped)

- Parsley and basil: 1 spoon for each chopped herb (if you don't have fresh leaves, used the dried one that every Trader Joe's sells it)

- 1/2 pound of ground pork

- 1 egg

- Stock: chicken/pork/ beef or vege is ok, even water

- bacon or prosciutto (I bought at Wholefood)

- Salt: 1,5 spoon, pepper

- Cotton string

2. Method:

- Clean the cabbage, cut the leaves out and boil them in boiled water for 1-2 minutes

- Risen the leave under cold water to let them cool down

- Mix meat, egg, chopped onion, carrot, mushroom, 1/2 amount of chopped herbs, salt, and pepper

- On a flat surface (or you can make it in a big bowl to make the round shape), put 3 to 4 strings cross each other before placing the biggest leaves in the shape of blooming flower

- Add a small leave in the center

- Start to stuff: 1 layer of mixed meat (around 1/2 inch) then 1 layer of leaves until all the meat gone.

When stuffing, try to make the whole piece as round as possible.

- Close the outside leaves and tight the strings

- In a medium pot, add stock/ or water (up to 1/2 volume of the pot), heat until it boil, then add the cabbage and the rest of chopped herbs. Make sure the water can cover the cabbage. After it boils again, cook at low medium heat.

- After 1 hour, take the cabbage out, the remain stock you can use to cook soup

- Cover the cabbage with bacon or prosciutto and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degree

- And here is my final chou farci

- This dish can eat with pickle baby cucumber (I bought from Trader Joe's). This one is imported from France.

How to use WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker - My first dish

To test the WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker we just bought last week, I cook stewed-pork shoulder with radish in soy sauce ( kind of popular dish in Asia).

1. Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds of pork shoulder (pork butt, pork belly is ok. I choose pork shoulder because it's less fat), I keep the whole piece but you can cut it into stew-size
- 1 medium radish

- Green onion (it's better to have big Japanese green onion, but the other green onion is ok)
- Sliced ginger
- Garlic: 3 to 5 gloves
- 5-spice powder (any Asian market, even Wholefood sells it):1/2 tea spoon
- Black cardamom: A spice used in cooking Vietnamese Pho (optional)
- 1/2 cups of rice wine (optional)
- 1 spoon of sugar
- Pepper
- Soysauce: 3 spoons, (or you can use 1,5 spoons of soy sauce and 1.5 spoons of thick soy sauce)
- Salt: 1 tea spoon
- Water: 2 cups

  

2. Method
- Marinate pork with pepper, 5-spice powder and a little bit salt for at least 5 minutes
- Heat 2 spoons of oil in the pressure cooker (not cover lid) at medium heat, than add the meat.

- For each side, cook 5 minutes. I know it takes time, but if you cut into smaller pieces, it will be faster.

 - Add ginger, garlic,  Black cardamom, and onion, stir 1 minutes to make fragrance

- Add radish, soy sauce, and water to cover the meat.

- Close and lock the lid, use high heat for 10 minutes or until you see the yellow indicator pop up, then reduce the heat to low medium to make sure the the indicator not over orange color. Cook for 30 minutes after you see the orange indicator.

- After 30 minutes, I turn off the heat and leave it there for 20 minutes.

- Because I cook the whole piece of meat, so when it get cool and stored in refrigerator, I can slice it as thin as I want. It's suitable for ramen  or other soup noodles dish. Or you can reheat the sauce, add chopped garlic, green onion, and cilantro, than cover the meat (after slicing and heating).

Chicken curry - Vietnamese flavor

1. Ingredients
- I box of cut chicken thigh ( I bought from Mistuwa: chicken thigh for nabe)
- Curry powder (the best one is Vietnamese curry powder)
- Chopped lemongrass: 1 spoon (if you don't have Vietnamese curry powder
- 1/2 tea spoon of sugar
- 1 tea spoon of salt (or 2 spoons of fish sauce if you have)
- 1 tea spoon of flour
- 1/2 cup of water
- Green onion and 1/2 onion

2. Method
- Marinate all ingredients with chicken for 5 to 15 minutes (except onion)
- Add 1 tea spoon of oil into a preheated pan, than put all the chicken and marinate sauces, use medium high heat, stir well for 5 minutes.
- Add flour, stir well in 30 seconds,
- Add water, Close lid for 10 minutes, stir well every 5 minutes,
- Finally, add green onion and onion,
DONE!