Daikon

Cooking up a storm here in Wellington.

I have a few recipes to share on my day off. You might be able to tell what the secret ingredient is in the third one by the title ;D

Recipe number one:
Adapted slightly from a food magazine in order to get correct serving size. It serves two :)

Honey Chicken Stir Fry
Ingredients:
Enough chicken for two
Veges for two (Carrot, broccoli, mushrooms, beans etc etc.) I used half frozen veges and half fresh)
1 clove of garlic
3 Tbsp honey
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp flour
1 Tbsp water

Method:
1. Chop up garlic and cook in some oil until garlic aroma fills your kitchen. Add chicken and cook.
2. Add veges when chicken is cooked through (if using frozen anyway).
3. Mix other ingredients together in a small bowl and add to the mixture. Stir fry until it thickens.

Garnish with sesame seeds and spring onion if so desired :)

The second recipe involves chocolate.


Yes, chocolate of the kit-kat variety.


At least, only if you want to be fancy like me. Otherwise chocolate chips will suffice :)

Chocolate chip cookies!
Or if you're me, kit-kat cookies ;D

Ingredients:
1 cup self-raising flour (sifted)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 mini kit-kats

Method:
1. Beat butter and sugar together. Add egg and vanilla essence. Beating well after adding each.
2. Add flour (and salt) bit by bit, mixing well after each addition.
3. Divide mixture into four and add crushed up kit-kats to mixture (separated based on flavour, of course). Or, if you aren't Erin, don't divide it and just chuck some chocolate chips in ^^
4. Spoon out mixture onto greased baking tray. I got about four cookies per kit kat flavour. So that's 16 overall (this recipe is halved from another I found).
5. Cook at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes (give or take).

I used four flavours of kit-kats. The blueberry one was definitely the best. The flavour was really strong and it totally took over the whole biscuit. Yum :)

Now finally, onto the daikon.

I bought a daikon today:


It was from Moore Wilsons and cost me like $3.00 which is really good considering how huge it was. Here is a visual which might enable to you visualise said daikon:


So, about that big! The one I got wasn't even the biggest one either. Some of them were HUGE!!!

On to the recipe...
Miso soup! It was so exciting to make. And eating daikon just transported me right back to Japan. Ahh, sweet nostalgia...

Miso soup:
Ingredients (to make a big ol' pot full):
4 cups of dashi stock (eg 4 cups of water + 1 tsp instant dashi)
1 carrot
170g daikon
1/2 an onion
50g tofu
80g miso paste (I used white but you can get different types. You can also buy miso paste that already has dashi stock infused into it!)
1 Tbsp mirin

Method:
1. Chop up veges into fairly thin half moon shapes. Cut onion long and thin and cook in microwave for 1 1/2 mins, and cut tofu into cubes.
2. Bring dashi to a boil and add daikon, carrot and onion. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until soft.
3. Mix together mirin and miso and add to dashi. Add tofu. Bring to boil.

Done!

I feel extremely accomplished. Can't wait to have a Japanese style breakfast tomorrow and I also can't wait to try many interesting things with my dear daikon.

Not much longer until I'm home!! I can't wait for these tests to be over. They are positively killing me.

Oh! I'll write a birthday list like I said I would.
I must brace myself for some intense thinking, this could take a while...
Cooking books are always good - absolutely any kind!
Mascara!
Skin coloured lipstick
Japanese lunch box (bento box) - from fancy world. Claire knows the kind.
Julie and Julia (DVD)
Sets of anime on DVD!!!! Such as fruits basket.
Exciting kitchen utensils that I could make use of in my culinary adventures. Like a bamboo steamer!!!! That would be very very cool!
New stockings - skin coloured, black, exciting ones!!!
A lifetime supply of daikon...

That's the extent of my thinking for the moment. It's late, i'm tired. Thus, bedtime!!

Ciao~