Myhumblefood cookbooks are finally out!!!

Tags

myhumblefood; myhumblefoodcookbook

After two long years my books are finally done and dusted. I’ve compiled two books, the first Myhumblefood book concentrates on Asian home cooking. The second book is a little more fun; along with some Western home cooking, I’ve also added a section on Food Art which is something I really enjoy. They’re both priced at RM 300 a set for people residing in Malaysia, or SGD 120 a set for those in Singapore.

Free delivery for those in Bangsar and Damansara Heights only.

Please PM me for details!

Special note: 50% of gross profit from the sale of the books will be donated to the National Kidney Foundation as well as the Great Heart Charity Foundation. Should you decide to also donate in addition to buying the book(s), 100% of your donation will go directly to these causes.

Thank you all very much for your love and support!

 

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Korean Chicken Soup

Tags

chicken broth, chicken soup, cleaneating, cleaneats, easy recipes, garlic, healthy, Home Cooking, homecooked, Korean, korean chicken soup, Soup

I’ve previously mentioned in an earlier post on how to make clear chicken soup. This recipe is similar except that there’s a lot more garlic and scallions in it. It’s a healthy dish and an easy one to make too. All you need is a little time to draw out the chicken essence into the soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken (3 – 4 pounds) – some say that cornish hen works best but as I couldn’t find one, I used an antibiotic free adult chicken
• 10 – 12 garlic cloves
• 1 small piece ginger, sliced
• 1 medium onion, cut into halves
• 3 scallion stalks – white parts
• 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns (optional)
• Codonopsis roots (very much optional!!! I only added this because I had it in hand but the traditional Korean chicken soup does not include any herbs – this excludes the famous Korean Ginseng Chicken soup which has young ginseng and red dates in it)
• 3 Red dates, pitted (again, very much optional)
• Extra chicken bones (optional)
• 10 cups of water
• 3 scallions – green parts, finely chopped to garnish
  salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Instruction:

1. The chicken has to be at room temperature before working with it. If you’ve kept it in the fridge, allow it to sit, covered of course, for half an hour at room temperature.
2. Cut off the wing tips and the tail end. If the chicken came with its head and feet intact, cut those off too. I’m unfortunately squeamish in this area.
3. Remove any excess skin, otherwise the soup will end up overly loaded with oil
4. Remove giblets from the chicken cavity.
5. Wash the chicken under running water and pat dry.
6. On high fire, prepare a pot of boiling water (pot has to be large enough to fit all the ingredients with room to spare so that the water doesn’t come splashing out as it boils)
7. Lower the chicken (and extra bones if you have any) into the boiling water and boil for 3-5 minutes before draining the water from the pot. This step helps to ensure further removal of impurities (blood, gunk, etc)
8. Add the garlic, onion, white parts of the scallions, ginger and peppercorns (and only if you have it, the roots and the dates) to the pot. Lastly add the water. The water level should be at least 2-3 inches above the chicken as it will reduce during the cooking process.
9. Bring everything to a boil over high heat and then reduce the heat to medium-low to simmer, covered for about 40 -50 minutes. During the cooking, skim off any foam that starts floating about on top. Otherwise you’ll have yourself some really murky looking soup!
10. Remove the chicken from the broth and place into serving bowl. If you’ve used extra bones, continue simmering for another 30 minutes. If I were just making regular chicken soup, I’d be simmering the lot for 1.5-2 hours. Doing that would compromise the chicken meat but it makes for extremely flavourful soup. As this recipe goes, the chicken should not be overcooked, yet we need the soup to be flavourful. This is where the extra bones come in handy – you can boil those without caring if they become tasteless in the end!
11. Add salt to the soup to taste.

To serve, you can serve the chicken and the soup in a large decorative soup bowl, garnished with the green scallions.

OR you can ladle some rice into a bowl, top with bite sized chicken bits and pour the soup in, topping everything off with the scallions.

I chose to eat mine with plain rice porridge and some kimchi. Seaweed would have been amazing too!

Maguro Tuna Avocado rice bowl (Maguro Avocado don)

Tags

avocado, clean, cleaneats, cleanfoods, easy, easy meals, easy recipes, healthy, homecooked, ikura, leeks, maguro, maguro avocado don, maguro avocado rice bowl, mayonnaise, one person meal, onebowlmeal, quick meals, rice, rice bowl, solitary eating, soy sauce, tuna, tuna avocado

This is one super easy and delicious don! (don = rice bowl dish in Japanese). All you need to actually cook is the rice. The rest is all about slicing up the sashimi and avocado and assembling the rice bowl. Since the current trend now is all about clean eats, clean foods and healthy eating, I suppose this makes the cut (if you ignore the ubiquitous mayonnaise blobs popping up among the luscious chunks of creamy avocado and fresh maguro).
Ingredients (for 1 person)  

• 100 grams sashimi grade maguro tuna
• 1/2 ripe avocado, pitted and skinned
• Mayonnaise – amount at your discretion, I used Japanese mayonnaise
• Cooked short-grain white rice
• 2-3 tsp soy sauce depending how seasoned you like your tuna
• Optional (for garnish) – chopped chives, seaweed flakes and thinly sliced leeks (only the white parts). I would highly recommend you add these as they add texture, lots of flavour and freshness to the dish
• Optional – 2 tbsp ikura (sashimi grade salmon roe)
• Optional – furikake (a type of Japanese rice topping/seasoning)

Method

• Slice up the maguro sashimi into thick chunks, I cut mine into 3/4 inch cubes but do it however you like.
• Season the maguro with soy sauce and set aside.
• Cut up the avocado into cubes/chunks roughly the same size as the maguro.
• Place the rice in a bowl (if you’ve opted for the furikake, mix it into the rice before arranging the rice in the bowl) and pile the maguro and avocado on top.
• Squeeze mayonnaise over the dish in zig-zag lashings or you can add them in blobs like I did.
• Add the ikura and garnish with chives, seaweed flakes and sliced leeks.
• Serve

I enjoyed it so much I had it again for the next meal… only in the sloppiest, most disgusting way one eats when alone:-  Still tasted amazing nonetheless!

Roast vegetables

Tags

broccolini, butter, corn, oven roast, roast vegetables, sweet corn, truffle oil, young corn

 

I suppose this isn’t so much a recipe, more of what works for me when it comes to sweet corn, young carrots and broccolini. An oven temperature of 200-205 degrees celsius is recommended for these vegetables, and a short cook time of 15 minutes in the oven (sweet corn has to be steamed 5 minutes beforehand).

A lot of recipes that I read require the vegetables to be in the oven for 45 minutes, but these vegetables would overcook and turn mushy. 15 minutes is perfect for them to retain some of their original crunch.

Carrots, trim the leaves off and use a small knife to scrape the surface of the carrot to clean. Rinse and pat dry. They’ll look like this after you’re done!
Cut up the corn into three sections and place into a steamer for 5 minutes. Pat dry.
Wash and pat dry the broccolini.

As I’ve repeatedly mentioned throughout this post, always make sure the vegetables are dry before seasoning and roasting. No one likes mushy vegetables!

To season:-

• Sweet corn:- 2 tsp truffle oil per ear of corn and dash of salt rubbed into the corn
• Young carrots:- enough olive oil to evenly coat a very thin layer of oil onto the carrots. Season with salt and sprinkle on some sugar (I tried honey, it didn’t work out too well)
• Broccolini:- again, very thinly dressed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Lay out the vegetables on an aluminium foiled sheet tray and roast for 15 minutes at 200-205 degrees celsius.

Place the vegetables on a serving plate and brush the corn with some butter before serving.

This is a tray of roast vegetables which were cooked differently, also at 200 degrees celsiuse but for 45 minutes. Seasoned with olive oil (I suspect I didn’t add enough oil), salt, pepper and garlic powder. Not bad actually. I tried to keep the vegetables the same size as much as possible so they’d cook at the same pace. Will try this again with more oil!

Shaoxing Wine Ginger chicken

Tags

chicken, Chinese, easy, easy meals, easy recipe, ginger, ginger wine chicken, healthy, Home Cooking, scallions, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, shaoxing wine ginger chicken, South East Asian, spring onions, white pepper, wine, wine chicken

This dish brings back a lot of memories from my Warwick days. For some reason I remember that the preparation process was long and tedious back then! It involves deboning chicken thighs/drumsticks and skinning and julienning ginger. At the present though, I no longer find it as long and dreary a process. Perhaps I could attribute it to… better knife skills? Or maybe just better knives, I don’t think my knife skills have improved at all since then!

This is a very warming, hearty dish and the sauce is lovely with freshly cooked white rice. It’s currently a favourite with the family and guests who happen to try it! It doesn’t take very long nor need many ingredients and makes a perfect addition to the dining table. I include pictures from two attempts at cooking this dish and I realized that I naturally throw the same ingredients into the pan, despite starting off with perhaps a couple less ingredients in one of the photos. That goes to show that agaration (the South East Asian technique of cooking by guesstimating) isn’t very far off from precision after all!Ingredients from trial number 1Ingredients from trial number 2.

But don’t worry, I’ve consolidated the ingredient list and summarized it as below:-

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 2-3 stalks of Spring onions including the white bits with roots removed
• 3 inches of ginger, peeled and roughly julienned
• 4 Chicken thighs with skin on, deboned
• 3 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 3 tbsp clear chicken stock/broth
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

Chicken marinade

• Shaoxing wine 1 tbsp marinade
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2-3 tbsp soy sauce
• white pepper
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp corn flour

Cooking Instructions

Upon deboning the chicken, remove the skin from two of the chicken thighs and discard. Keep the skin on for the remaining two chicken thighs. We want some chicken fat rendering in the gravy but not too much!

Trim off the excess fat and remove the tendons from the chicken. Tendons are tough to cut through and unpleasant to eat so be thorough in removing them whenever preparing chicken! Once that is done, cut the chicken meat into bite-sized, uniform pieces so they cook at the same speed. 

Place the chicken in a bowl and lightly mix in the chicken marinade with your hands. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes at room temperature.

In preparing the scallions/spring onions, cut them into thirds or 2 inch sections. You can take some of the green sections to slice thinly for garnishing as well.

Heat up some oil in a pan/wok on medium fire. When the oil is hot enough (i.e. if you drop a piece of ginger into the oil it starts to sizzle right away), slide the ginger into the oil gingerly (I’m so funny I know) and fry for a minute until the ginger starts to turn a little golden and the gingery aroma seeps out. The point of this step is to flavour the oil with ginger as well as prep the ginger so it’s at its best to mingle with the chicken.Add the chicken pieces and fry until half-cooked.

Then, flip the pieces over and add the chicken stock, sesame oil plus Shaoxing wine and cover to cook for a minute. We’re quick-braising/stewing the chicken with some moisture, not searing it to death. Remember, the chicken has to be swimming in a luscious pool of delicious gravy!Upon uncovering, add the spring onion sections into the pan/wok and stir fry for a little while more. Taste to check if it needs more white pepper or salt.

And it’s done!Not the fanciest of dishes but highly satisfying and easy on the stomach. Healthy too!

Check out the before and after picture of trial number 1. I used 10 thighs for that round of cooking!

Wiped clean. ❤

Lobster glass noodle soup with shaoxing wine.

Tags

big head prawn, big head prawn noodle soup, Chinese, chinese lettuce, chinese soup, chinese soup noodles, coriander, dinner, easy meals, glass noodles, healthy, Home Cooking, huatiao, large prawns, lobster, lobster glass noodle, lobster glass noodle soup, lobster noodle, lobster noodle soup, lunch, Noodles, One bowl meal, prawns, seafood, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, Soup, South East Asian, stew, wine broth, wine soup

Here is the second half of the lobster (first half of which went to making the lobster pasta) and the easier recipe of the two. The original version called for fresh river prawns/big head prawns but since I had the lobster, I figured I could use that instead and add in some large prawns as a bonus. Since there is no recipe that I could refer to online I tried to recreate the taste the best I could remember. Turns out I’m actually quite satisfied with the results! Now without further ado, the recipe:-

Ingredients (4 pax)

• 1/2 lobster
• 6 large prawns (in my first attempt I used 3, but the attempt with 6 prawns tasted better)
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced onion
• 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine (maybe a dash more if you like)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• Chinese lettuce (I used a quarter of a head), cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 150g Glass noodles
• Spring onions chopped into large three inch sections.
• Coriander for garnish
• Finely chopped spring onions for garnish
• salt

The array of ingredientsGlass noodlesLarge lobster.

So we shall start with the prawns. De-shell all the prawns and set the shells/heads aside. Do NOT throw them away! Then devein them and cut each prawn into three sections.Size of the prawn heads and my hand, just for comparison. Lots of flavour in those prawn heads! 

Cut the lobster into half. If the lobster is as spiny as this one, do use a towel and be very careful when handling it. A pair of strong kitchen scissors would be a great help here.

More pictures of the lobster… as you can probably tell, I’ve added pictures from a second lobster noodle attempt into the mix. The second lobster looked way fresher and more succulent with its firmer white flesh and golden globules.

When you’ve managed to cut the lobster into half lengthwise, chop the tail into three parts and dig out some of the flesh from the head (I forgot to do that here) and set that aside with the prawns. Leave the orange/golden stuff behind.

Heat up some oil in a large pot and fry the ginger, garlic and onions until the onions are translucent and the aroma of the ginger comes out. It helps to crush the ginger before or during this step.Add the prawn shells and fry until half cooked (almost that coral colour they become when they’re fully cooked) before adding the lobster head to the pot.Continue frying for a minute or so, adding a little oil if it gets too dry. Then add the shaoxing wine to soak up all that flavour that’s coming from the prawn shells and lobster head. I actually would have liked to add another half cup of shaoxing wine but I was worried my family may not like the taste so I stuck with half a cup, but go ahead and use that extra half a cup if you like. 

Add the stock and simmer for around 15 minutes before turning off the heat. Cover the pot with its respective lid and leave it for perhaps an hour.

Then, remove the prawn shells from the stock (if you had a strainer bag in the first place, use it to hold the prawn shells because it can be a chore to pick them out from the soup).

Toss in the lobster and prawn meat that was set aside earlier, along with the spring onion sections, lettuce and glass noodles. The reason why we cook the shells and the meat separately is so that we can extract the most flavour out of the seafood from the shells without overcooking the meat, which is only added at the end. If you were to cook the meat right at the start, you’re going to end up with some very hard, overcooked and dry chunks of prawn/lobster which is such a waste of good seafood.

Place the lid back on and bring the soup to a boil.

Add the sesame oil at the end and season with salt. Top with chopped spring onions and coriander. Easy peasy!

Yoghurt and fruits

Tags

edible flowers, fruits, healthy, healthy living, plate decoration, yoghurt

Kanto style Sukiyaki すき焼き, Japanese hotpot

Tags

bacon, black pig, cast iron pot, easy, grilled tofu, Home Cooking, hot plate, hotpot, japanese, kanto style sukiyaki, kanto sukiyaki, kurobuta, leeks, mizuna, nabe, nabemono, pork, pork shoulder, raw eggs, seared tofu, shirataki, streaky pork, sukiyaki, udon, yaki tofu, yaki-dofu

On a recent trip to Hokkaido, I finally got to try sukiyaki. It’s a pretty commonplace dish, one that I’ve never tried because most of the time sukiyaki tends to be a quintessential beef hotpot dish. I don’t eat beef so I could never have it. In Hokkaido however, I found a sukiyaki place that offers the pork option. After cooking the pork in the sauce and dipping it in raw egg, I fell immediately in love with sukiyaki.

Many cooking videos and recipes later I discovered that there are two main types of sukiyaki; kansai style sukiyaki and kanto style sukiyaki. Kansai style sukiyaki calls for the method of frying the meat in some rendered fat and sugar before adding the sauce and the rest of the ingredients to the pot. Kanto style is where the sauce, called warishita (割り下）, is prepared beforehand and everything is thrown in. This is what I am more familiar with. Normal chinese hotpot sessions normally have large boiling tubs of soup with various vegetables, fishballs and meat thrown in. I guess sukiyaki is a little more special as it seems to be geared towards good cuts of meat. It is also sweet and savory making the cooked meat perfect with a bowl of white rice.

I was initially worried about the idea of using raw egg back here in Malaysia. Salmonella and all. Then I discovered that pasteurized eggs are safe for raw consumption as they eliminate risk of Salmonella and Avian flu virus. Make sure you do your research before buying and consuming raw eggs in any circumstance! I bought mine from safeegg at Aeon:-

http://www.safegg.com.my/subContent/what_is_safegg.swf

Ingredients (feeds 6 people)

warishita (割り下）sauce

• 3/4 cup sake
• 3/4 cup mirin
• 3/4 cup sugar and 1-2 tbsps extra sugar in case you want it sweeter (*edit* I used less sugar and found it so much better, around 2/3 cup. I’d recommend 2/3 cup of sugar  rather than 3/4 cup as it is less cloying and enhances the taste of the ingredients better)
• 1.5 cups light soy sauce (I got the low sodium Kikkoman soy sauce, which is why I still had to add a little salt afterwards; it wasn’t salty enough ;p)
• 2 tsp salt
• 4.5 cups water

Other ingredients 

• 1.5 kg of sliced meat (I got some sliced pork belly, pork shoulder and even managed to get some kurobuta meat)
• 1 leek
• 4 stalks of spring onion
• 6 pasteurized eggs
• 1 carrot
• 1 large onion
• 1 pack firm tofu
• 1 pack enoji mushroom
• 10-12 fresh shiitake mushrooms
• 1 pack other mushrooms (whichever you like)
• Shungiku leaves – I couldn’t find these so I used mizuna. You can use any other preferred leafy vegetables
• 1/2 chinese cabbage
• Udon (I used 3 packets but since we also had rice we couldn’t finish all the udon. Cook as much as you think you need)

For sukiyaki it would be sufficient if you had a multi-purpose cooker placed in the center of the table so as to cook all the food as you eat. I do NOT think it is a good idea to throw in all the ingredients and cook it in the kitchen and brought over to the table. It pretty much defeats the purpose of sukiyaki and more often than not your ingredients will be overcooked and will lack the “freshly cooked” taste to it. I used a cast iron pot with sides high enough so that I can fit all the vegetables comfortably, as well as a hot plate.

Cooking Instructions

• Wash all the vegetables and mushrooms.
• Cut off the roots of the spring onions and cut the spring onions into 3 sections.
• Cut off the roots of the enoki mushrooms and separate them
• Cut off the stems of the shiitake mushrooms and create star shape patterns onto the cap of the mushrooms

It’s also a good idea to arrange the vegetables in large plates as you go along. Presentation is always important in Japanese cuisine!

• Slice the carrot thickly
• Slice onion
• Cut the chinese cabbage into bite sized pieces
• Pour a tablespoon of oil into a frying pan and fry/sear the surface of the tofu. What we are making here is yaki-dofu or grilled tofu. This is a good step-by-step on how to make it:http://japanese-kitchen.net/yaki-dofu-grilled-tofu/
• Once you’re done searing the tofu, cut it into bite sized pieces

Tadahhh! All that effort of cleaning and cutting those vegetables! Not to mention searing tofu. I accidentally broke off some of the edges T___T

• Prepare the udon according to instructions and set aside
• Drain the shirataki and set aside

Next, combine all the wareshita ingredients in the pot and simmer to dissolve sugar.

Prepare all the meat and have it on standby with the vegetables.

Start the sukiyaki feast!   

Place your pot on the hot plate and bring the sauce to a simmer. Cook the meat, dip into raw beaten egg and eat with fresh white rice. Throw the ingredients in according to your preference but I’d suggest putting in the leeks, onions and carrots first along with the meat as it lends more sweetness to the sauce. Not that it matters much, the sauce is already sweet enough, it’s just that these vegetables also take more time to cook. Enjoy!!

Tamagoyaki / Dashimaki Tamago (Egg Roll)

Tags

bento, dashi, dashimaki tamago, Egg, egg roll, healthy, japanese, mirin, sake, tamago, tamagoyaki

The above picture is from my 2nd attempt at making tamagoyaki. Its a pretty common food in Japanese and Korean cuisine. Perhaps the only difference is that the Koreans don’t make it with sugar, dashi or sake. Of course, the Japanese tamagoyaki has both sweet and savory versions but I prefer the sweet version. While it is helpful to have a rectangular pan for this recipe, it is not necessary. You can make tamagoyaki using a normal frying pan.

For my first attempt, I made tamagoyaki using only 3 eggs and using a low fire. Not only did I have to wait a longer time for the egg to cook, but the egg roll came out kinda small, flat and not as fluffy. It was worse when it got cold and shrank further in size T___T. I poured in only enough egg to cover the surface for the first round but this was a mistake in my opinion.

In my 2nd attempt, I used 5 eggs on medium-high heat in a smaller and deeper frying pan. I poured in half the eggs for the first round of cooking and that made the egg roll fluffier. The end result? Thick egg rolls!!! ❤

Other than that generally the cooking methodology is still similar, which is why I’m including my first attempt here as well.

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 1-1.5 tbsp sugar
• 5 tbsp water or dashi
• 1 tsp salt (more or less depending on how salty the dashi is)
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1 tsp sake

You will need some kitchen paper for oiling the pan after each round of frying as well.

Instructions

Combine the dashi/water, sugar, mirin, salt and sake into a bowl. Mix thoroughly.

Break the eggs into the bowl with the dashi mixture and beat to just combine but do not overly beat it as we want some egg white bits in the tamagoyaki. Run a chopstick a few times through the mixture to ensure that the eggs are broken up and can be poured easily.

Keep a bowl of oil with kitchen towel next to the pan. You will use this to continuously oil the pan after each round of cooking.

Oil the pan and heat it up on medium-high flame.

Pour in half the eggs.

Scramble it a little. Fold over when the bottom is set enough to flip it over. Oil the exposed side of the pan, and then gently push the “omelette” to the side of the pan. Oil the rest of the pan before adding more egg. This time add just enough egg to cover the pan.

Above, I’ve already pushed the first layer of egg to the side and added the 2nd thinner layer. Lift the first “Omelette” so that the second layer of egg goes underneath to coat the entire pan. See those bubbles forming? Pop them!

Hehehe! Once this layer is more or less set, flip the thicker part onto the thin layer. This would create the “roll” layer. Again, oil the exposed part of the pan, push the egg to that side and oil the rest of the pan. Then add another layer of egg. Continue the process until all the egg is used up.

The last bit of egg… and you’re done! Brown the outsides if you like but don’t overdo it. If you want to shape the tamagoyaki into something more rectangular/oval you can make use of a sushi mat, but you have to shape it when it’s still hot.

Lastly, slice the tamagoyaki and serve 😉

I did not shape the tamagoyaki so the shape of it has a mind of its own T___T

I’m also going to add pictures from my first attempt. You can see that the heat is lower and the pan is bigger. So I “rolled” the egg several times and pushed the egg to the middle instead of the very end.

Waiting for the egg to cook before flipping the roll towards the left.

Above, after pushing the roll to the middle, I added another layer of egg. 

Continue the process…

Finally done.

Now to cut it!

As you can see, the roll isn’t very thick. Also, it shrank after it cooled and wasn’t as fluffy. Which is why I prefer the first method of cooking on medium high heat and in a smaller pan. Cooking half the eggs and scrambling them in the first round saves time and also makes the eggs fluffy. So try it yourself and see which way works well for you.

I’ll leave you with some youtube links on making tamagoyaki :-

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Aurora Salmon at Kuriya Fish Market, Great World City, Singapore

Tags

Aurora Salmon, fatty salmon, food tasting, japanese, Kuriya FIsh Market, Leroy Seafood Group, Norwegian Seafood council, premium salmon, review, salmon sashimi, sashimi, singapore

About a month ago I attended a food tasting event at Ichiban Boshi at Great World City. It’s a place I used to frequent pretty often until a year or two back. I had a couple of not so very pleasant experiences and have since tried to avoid going back. However they’ve just recently introduced something interesting called Aurora Salmon at the Kuriya Fish Market which is attached to the restaurant. It is a kind of premium sashimi-grade salmon from Norway brought in by the Leroy Seafood Group.

The name itself caught my interest, there’s just something whimsical and a tad bit mysterious about it, just like its namesake “Aurora”. This salmon is indeed farmed under the Northern Lights of the Arctic Circle in a pristine environment and optimal conditions so as to produce salmon with a higher fat content. I’ve tried wild salmon before as well, it is a much deeper orange and has less fat content which is perhaps why I prefer the farmed ones.

I have to be honest and state that my favourite fish to have as sashimi is the tuna. I rarely ever specifically order salmon sashimi unless it comes in a set or in one of those mixed sashimi dishes. But I thought I’d set my prejudice aside and give it a go.

Seeing all the food bloggers there and the variety of good cameras being used, I was embarrassed clicking away on my iPhone. My SLR is just not user friendly enough to snap food pictures at a close distance or I’m just not good enough to handle it correctly. Not all the pictures here are mine. I need a 35mm lens!!!

So here’s the lunch menu:

And here are the chefs preparing salmon sashimi for us. The fish is absolutely plump, shiny and beautiful.

     

So we all had a first taste of the salmon sashimi before we sat down to lunch. I first tried it with soy sauce, but the soy sauce had a sour tang to it that got in the way of the salmon so I tried it again later without the soy sauce.

I must say as far as salmon sashimi goes, this is good stuff. You may not realize it right away, and you may even need to taste test normal salmon sashimi against the aurora salmon sashimi to see the difference, but it is indeed smoother, fattier and more savoury than your normal salmon. And then later on you might not want to buy normal salmon anymore.

So here are a few more pictures into lunch. I’m not sure if they will be including this into the Ichiban Boshi menu, I only know that the Aurora Salmon is being sold in Kuriya Fish Market outlets. The salmon is flown fresh into Singapore within 2-3 days of harvesting so I’m feeling pretty confident about its freshness.

Aurora Salmon carpaccio salad. It’s all right as far as salads go but I think the salmon skin could do with some work.Aurora Salmon sashimi. More of this please.

Aurora Salmon Miso Soup. I’m not a fan of salmon cooked in soup, it is so much tastier fried, baked or as sashimi. If you prefer milder flavours then perhaps you might like this, but fish cooked in soup tends to get overcooked and have a tendency to get tough as a result.

My favorites, the salmon teriyaki and assorted sushi platter 😉 Anything with mentaiko and mayonnaise is a winner! XD I hope for less rice in the sushi platter next time though, there was way too much in terms of rice to fish ratio.     

As I was leaving, I was pleasantly surprised when they handed me some Aurora Salmon sashimi to take home. Best door gift ever!

Salmon sashimi for dinner then!!!While I still don’t order salmon sashimi at restaurants I find that I’m actually craving this Aurora salmon, in all its buttery and smooth finery. It’s perfect with hot rice.Definitely going back for more soon!