Simple cooking with no added oil: Minced pork with fried tofu and Chicken and beans

        Very Easy to Prepare Dishes     

      

Minced Pork, Tofu and Mushroom

No oil was added to prepare this viand. Minced pork was boiled in red wine; carrots were added followed by the maitake mushrooms and fried tofu;  aka miso, soy sauce and brown sugar were added later.  No oil was added.


                                                     Chicken and Beans

No oil was added here. Chicken slices were boiled in water and afterwards, added with pre-boiled black beans and soybeans , carrots and sea kelp.  Catsup was added as a seasoning. Strands of chili were added as a kind of topping.

                                                                                                                                                june242013 lani

Is this a new kind of breakfast for you?

One time, for breakfast, I prepared a pasta dish wherein the sauce was made from  plump tomatoes (from Miyazaki City, Japan), garlic, my home-made cucumber pickles and dried basil powder.   I also pressure-cooked some sardines (very fresh when I got them from a shop in Miyazaki City), flavored it with soy sauce, and drizzled it with a little amount of olive oil.  Then I fixed an egg omette with dried pork shavings (which I bought from Khon Kaen, Thailand).  This was enough for me even if I did not have any rice.  What do you think?



Tomato-garlic pasta with pickled cucucmbers, pressure-cooked sardines, egg omette (with dried pork shavings) and a glass of milk



Fried chicken with lime leaves, pumpkin in soy sauce with minced pork and Japanese pickled vegetable "Takana"

   
Photos included: Fried chicken with lime leaves
                          Pumpkin slices with minced pork
                          Japanese pickle "takana"
                          Kiwi and orange slices with choco fondue


   Here is a simple meal that I have prepared recently. One is fried chicken made tender by boiling in  water with lime leaves over slow to moderate fire. I did not put so much water when I boiled the chicken meat so by the time it's tender, most water has gone, leaving only the meat fat. I fried the boiled chicken meat by transferring it  into a frying pan with 2 tablespoons or less of olive oil pre-fried with crushed garlic to add flavor to my meat.  I didn't drench the meat with any bread crumbs or flour; that leaves out extra calories for weight-watchers like me. It is just meat with salt and pepper.    



Fried chicken with kefir leaves

     I also prepared a very easy dish - pumpkin with minced pork flavored with soy sauce. As the name suggests, it is pumpkin (the uncut one) boiled over moderate fire. The soft pumpkin is cut into several pieces. The minced pork is sauteed in olive oil pre-cooked with slices of garlic and onions. The pumpkin slices were added along with a tablespoon of soy sauce and a dash of black pepper. I added some dashi broth to make the taste more tasty (dashi broth is water obtained by boiling bontio flakes in water; the mixture is drained to get ony the liquid portion).

Pumpkin in soy sauce (with minced pork)

To perk up these viands, I purchased a Japanese pickle called "takana".  It is a vegetable similar to mustard and tastes very much like it. The pickle is spicy because of the added chili and savoury as well due to the sesame seeds in it.  I remember eating a similar kind of pickle when I was a child. My mother prepared home-made pickled mustard and added it in meat dishes.



"Takana" pickles (it is spicy hot because of the chili in it)

The whole meal is presented on the table like this:



The whole dinner except rice and dessert (The dishes also go well with bread instead of rice)


For dessert, slices of oranges and kiwis were placed on a plate. Melted chocolate (melted bitter-type chocolate bar with milk) or choco fondue served as the dip for the fruits.



Orange and kiwi slices with choco fondue






Philippine dish "Adobo" and Mashed Pumpkin with spicy cod roe mayonnaise

I am featuring here one of the most favorite Philippine foods all over the world, "adobo".  Adobo can easily be cooked. It can be all chicken or all pork or a combination of both. Bite-sized pieces of meat are marinated for at least 15 minutes in soy sauce with garlic and black pepper. Then minced garlic is sauteed in oil (here, I used olive oil) until it is lightly brown in color.  The marinated mixture is then sauteed into the pan with garlic, added with 1 bay leaf and some peppercorns. After 5 minutes of heating in medium fire and turning the meat occasionally, water is added to tenderize the meat. It is always my habit to add hot water so boiling continues even if water is added. Then, I add a tablespoon of vinegar to it and let the mixture boil further until water becomes less and the meat has become soft.  The pan is covered during cooking.  I prefer to have more sauce so I stop cooking  right amount of sauce has remained. Adobo goes well with the fresh leaves of a Japanese herb called "ashitaba". It is becoming a very popular herb because of its nutritional benefits found in recent studies.




Philippine "adobo" with the nutritious leaf called "ashitaba" (a Japanese herbal plant) and mashed pumpkin with spicy cod roe or "mentaiko" mayonnaise

 The other dish I am showing you here is so easy to prepare. It is mashed pumpkin. After washing the pumpkin, I just put the big chunk in a pressure cooker with water enough to soak it. I pressure cook for 15 minutes to soften even the green outer part. Afterwards, I add salt and black pepper and mashed everything. I top it with spicy cod roe mayonnaise or the Japanese mentaiko mayonnaise which I have purchased from the Hakata station of Fukuoka City, Japan.  Spicy cod roe is actually fermented cod roe with red chili pepper.  This dish blends well with sliced cucumbers.

Beef offals and steamed potato slices with crab meat and walnuts

I  put about 1 tablespoon of virgin olive oil into the frying pan and spread it around the whole surface. Next, I arranged the thin potato slices (about half a centimeter thick) on the surface. Then, I sprinkled a ready mix of celery and salt ("Sal au Celeri" here, a gift from my part-time job superior when he went to France).  I covered the frying pan with another frying pan to create a hollow spaace in between two frying pans. My reason? I'd like to let the natural juices of the potatoes to return to the same frying pan as I cook.  This is similar to the principle of reflux in which the water that evaporates flows back as condensed water. So, the food is cooked in its own juices. The potatoes are tastier and there's no need for a high temperature oven.  The bottom is then again checked if the potatoes have become golden brown.  Here, in the photo, I did the same for both sides to make both sides golden brown. I decorated the surface of the cooked potatoes with crab meat in can, walnuts and spring onions. Its taste is simple. Is the source of carbohydrates here in this meal.

Beef offals or even pork offals are available in stores already cleaned and boiled; however, I still pressure-cooked them to make them tender. The offals are  marinated with chili, catsup, sugar and soy sauce before cooking them under high pressure.


The combination of the two foods above makes for a light meal because you might want to eat them without rice or bread  (You can, if you want to, though). The two could be eaten as a meal or even as a snack.

Note:   Giblets and offals are the edible parts of an animal that do not come from its carcass. The organs are called giblets when they are the entrails of poultry; offals when they come from four-legged slaughter-house animals (Source: Web)

Chicken dish with Japanese pickled plums, lemon and garlic 鶏肉料理：梅干しとレモンとにんにくで美味しいおかずとなりました

   This dish is so easy to prepare. Just fry the chicken in a non-stick pan with  a teaspoonful of olive oil to make the surface golden brown then add a liquid mixture of mashed salt plums or Japanese pickled plums （umeboshi) with a teaspoonful of freshly squeezed lemon and garlic. Plums are already salty and sour so please make sure that the combination of lemon juice and plums gives the right acid in the dish.  I add a teaspoonful of honey to balance the saltiness and sourness of my mixture. The mixture is added with purified water and a little amount of red wine to partly soak the chicken and make it tender. It takes about 10-15 minutes (with the pan covered) over low fire to make the chicken dish tender and the liquid mixture turns into a sauce.

梅干しとレモンジュースのコンビでさらににんにくを加えて鶏肉のソース

フライパンにオリーブ油を小さじ一杯入れて鶏肉をフライします。キツネ色になってから水と梅干しとレモン汁とにんにくと赤ワインを入れて弱火で煮込みます。液体はソースとなりますから鶏肉の美味しいソースができあがります。10~15分煮込んだら鶏肉が柔らかくなります。梅干しやレモンなどの組み合わせに蜂蜜を少し入れたらすっぱさと塩からさにバランスが与えられます。

The side soup dish here is miso soup with fresh tofu in it.

味噌汁には豆腐を入れました。Mungbean sprouts are fried in a small amount of oil over low fire in order to retain the crispiness for hours. Dried oregano is added for a savory flavor. もやしを弱火でフライしました。。香ばしいオレガノを少々加えました。Fresh tomatoes（sweet!) and strawberries serve as a healthy after-meal treat. 甘いトマトと苺はデザートの代わりになります。The rice here is a mixture of Japanese white rice and Philippine black rice. ご飯は日本の白米とフィリピンの黒米です。

Another healthy option for your dinner table もう一つのヘルシな食事の選択

Red bean-based soup with vegetables, chicken and fish cakes, and  fresh mackerel fried in a small amount of extra virgin olive oil

    I made a soup made from red beans (I pressure cooked the beans to make them very soft), green peas, carrots, corn, grilled chicken, fish cakes and garlic - flavored with soysauce and dashi.  Afterwards, I sliced the fresh mackerel that I bought (fishbones removed just after buying it), dipped the slices in one beaten egg, afterwards dredged in oatmeal and soymilk powder added with salt, turmeric and chili pepper.  In the photo there's a small cabbage/cucumber side dish, too. For dessert, it's two sweet strawberries plus 1 citron (cooked in sugar solution). 　
　　I hope you like it.

赤い豆を圧力なべで柔らかくしました。そのにグリンピースとにんじんとトウモロコシを加えてさらに焼いた鶏肉を少し入れてそしてかまぼことにんにくをいれました味付けはだしと濃口醤油でした。　これを作りながら、新鮮な鯖を少ないエクトラバージンオリーブ油でフライしました：卵１個とオーツミルと豆乳パウダーを付けてフライしました。味付けはウコンパウダー、塩と唐辛子パウダ－でした。サイドデイシュは朝付けのキャベツときゅりでした。甘い苺と水あめに付けた金管はデザートとしました。

いかがでしたか。