Almost every single day I've got the same problem of not knowing what to cook, despite quite a collection of cookbooks and bookmarked foodie blogs...;). Quite regularly I ask my husband, "Hey, what do you want to eat today?" because I am sometimes desperate for new ideas, and our conversation always ends with "What do we have?", "What can you cook then?", " What's your suggestion?" - so instead of giving me some ideas, he asks me back...;). But silly me never learns, I keep asking him almost everyday anyway even though I know he's going to question me back ;).

These shrimp balls are quite special, because the recipe is from my mum and this was the first recipe I gave my husband around 12 years ago (*O* - I'm really getting old...;)) when he told me that his mum liked Asian food and would like to know some good Asian recipes - Of course we were just friends at that time, I was a bit too young for a boyfriend ;).

This recipe is certainly not for the faint-hearted nor the health-conscious, because it involves deep-frying white bread....*Upps...*. Anyway, I have a good excuse to make these shrimp balls again because the last time I ate them was probably ten years ago ;).

Ingredients

• White bread - remove the brown sides and cut into small cubes
  
• 500 grams shrimps, chopped finely
• 2 stalks green onions, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1.5 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• A pinch of white pepper
  
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 4 tbs corn flour (or tapioca flour)

Instructions

• Mix all ingredients stated, except the white bread cubes.
• Take one tablespoon of the shrimp mixture and coat it with the bread cubes.
• Shape the bread coated shrimp mixture into a ball. Repeat.
• Deep-fry the shrimp balls until golden brown.
  

Another song I want to share today is called 'Teil mit mir den Frieden' (which means something like 'Share with me the tranquility/harmony') by a rather unknown German group, Leander. I think it's such a pity that this group doesn't get the recognition it deserves. The singer's voice is breathtaking and the text of this song is simply beautiful...!

Yesterday I made yaki gyoza (Japanese-style pan-fried dumplings). I have made quite some varieties of dumplings in the past, simply because dumplings are one of my favourite foods. This time I used the recipe from Cooking With Dog, I am sure a lot of you are aware of this cute cooking channel in YouTube, if not you should definitely check it out...! It's my absolute favourite channel in YouTube and I have followed this channel since two years ago. I love the humour written at channel's header too "Cooking with Dog - It's not what you think" ;).

I have tried making gyoza in the past, but I never really knew how to pan-fry them correctly. Just look at my Chinese/Indonesian pan-fried dumplings. Do you see how ugly the bottom parts look ;)? Thanks to Cooking with Dog, now I know.

Yaki Gyoza

• 120g Ground Pork
• 100g Cabbage
  
• 50g Onion
  
• 50g Nira - Garlic Chives
• 1/2 tbsp Soy Sauce
• 1/2 tsp Sugar
• A pinch of Pepper
• 1 tbsp Sake
• 1/2 tbsp Sesame Oil
• 1 tbsp Potato Starch
• 1 tsp Grated Garlic
• 1/2 tsp Grated Ginger
• 1/2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
• 25 Gyoza Skins
• 1 tbsp Sesame Oil
• Flour for dusting
  

Gyoza Dipping Sauce

• 1 tbsp Black/White Vinegar
• 1 tsp Soy Sauce
• Chili oil or sesame oil
  

Happy with the result, my husband loves the gyoza too :)!

I do realise that in the past weeks my blog has been bombarded by bento-related posts. I've got a bento fever, I am very aware of this, but I just can't help it. It is simply so addictive making cute characters out of food :). But I have always been rather artsy and I like to express myself and channel my feelings through creating something 'nice', since I have never been that good at words, especially orally. My dream when I was younger was to be an author, but growing up with two languages and now three has been a rather confusing journey and I sometimes think that I cannot speak any of the three languages perfectly. My husband thinks I am crazy because I often tell him that my English is getting worse by the day because now I live in Germany. Maybe it's the perfectionist in me, I just can't bear to make mistakes. Maybe I need to be more positive and think that at least I can speak all three languages fluently...;).

Anyway, today's post is about fried radish cake. Even though I love making bento meals so much, from time to time I still want to post some recipes which I like.

Radish Cake or Lo Pak Ko in Cantonese is very commonly served in yum cha restaurants. Compared to the other dim sum delicacies, such as har gao, shao mai or chee cheong fun, radish cake is quite easy to make at home. As long as you have a food processor, making this cake is really just a piece of cake ;). I used to grate the radish manually in the past and grating a whole radish with a grater does take quite some time and energy to do. Fortunately yesterday I tried the easier method and simply used a food processor to shred the radish. Tastewise I don't notice any difference, grating the radish manually IMHO doesn't make the radish cake taste in any way more superior.

Ingredients

• 1 medium daikon radish
• 1 tablespoon oil
  
• 2 - 3 chopped Chinese sausages
• 5 - 6 Shiitake mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 1 tablespoon fried onion
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon 5-spice powder
  
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  
• Salt, pepper and sugar to taste
• 250 grams rice flour
• 50 grams tapioca flour
• 500 milliliter water

Instructions

• Peel the daikon radish and cut into cubes. Shred the radish cubes in a food processor with 100 milliliter of water. Set aside.
• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wok. Stir fry sausages, mushrooms and green onions. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce, 5 spice powder, fried onion, salt, pepper and sugar and keep stirring until fragrant.
  
• Add shredded radish and cook for 5 minutes.
• Mix rice flour, tapioca flour and 400 millilitre water in a bowl.
• Pour the rice/tapioca flour mixture into the wok, cook for 1 minute.
• Grease a cake pan. Pour the radish cake mixture into it. Steam for app. 40 minutes.
• When cold, refrigerate overnight. This will make the cake easier to cut.

Steamed radish cake





Slice the cake and you can directly eat it, but I prefer to pan-fry my radish cake. It tastes much better so.

Serve your fried radish cake with fried onion, chopped scallions and chili sauce.

After posting low-carb recipes three times in a row, I'd now like to go back to the real heart and soul of 'Cooking Gallery' - dumplings and noodles ;) - this doesn't mean that I have neglected my mission to eat less carb. If you have followed my blog for some time, you would have noticed that I LOVE dim sum, rice and noodles. These are the things I wouldn't be able to live without...! So, from time to time I still do want to enjoy high-carb meal like this...:-).

The magic potion for this dish is still this man below ;). I am simply in love with his beautiful chili condiments. This time I used his 'Fried pork with chili in oil'. This dish is super easy to make and super yummy...!

Ingredients - serves 2

• 400 g Udon noodles
• 250 g ground pork
• 100 chopped mushrooms
  
• 2 tbs fish sauce
  
• 3 tbs 'Fried pork with chili in oil'
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• Pepper to taste
  
• Frozen wontons and meatballs
• Chopped green onions and fried onions for garnish

Instructions

• Heat 1 tbs oil in a wok.
• Toss in the ground pork and mushrooms and stir fry until slightly brown.
• Add fish sauce, 'fried pork with chili in oil', oyster sauce and pepper.
• Simmer the meat sauce, stirring occasionally until cooked through.
• Place cooked udon noodles in a bowl. Top with the meat sauce, cooked wontons and meatballs. Garnish with green onions and fried onions.
  

If you want to make wontons yourself, you can look at my wontons recipe here.

Of course I didn't use real shark fins...;)! I don't really see the point why anyway. I have tried eating shark fins quite a few times, usually in soups with crab meat. They're ok, but also quite tasteless. The texture is a bit jelly-like and reminds me of cellophane noodles - which I used in my dumplings instead of real shark fins. I made these fake shark fin dumplings quite some time ago, after browsing some recipes from my beloved Chinese Snacks cookbook. I ate my dumplings with rice flake soup drizzled with chili oil and roasted peanuts.

Ingredients (adapted from Chinese Snacks by Huang Su-Hei)
(makes around 30 - 40 dumplings)

(Fake) Shark Fin Dumplings

• 250 g chopped prawns
• 100 g pork fat (I didn't use this)
• 100 g ground pork
• 100 g pre-softened cellophane noodles
• 1 tbs cornstarch
  
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• wonton skins

Spicy Rice-Noodle Soup

• 100 g rice flakes
• 400 ml chicken broth ( I used 2 chicken thighs to make the chicken broth)
• 2 tbs chili oil
  
• Salt, pepper, sugar and chopped green onions

Rice flakes

Rice Flakes after cooking

Drizzle chili oil onto the dumplings. I used ready-made Szechuan chili oil which is very hot and aromatic.

By the way, I submitted two pictures to Maangchi's site some time ago. My pictures are the Piggy pork buns and Mandu with Kimchi. Please vote for me...!! You have to log in to vote, but it only takes around 2-3 minutes. Thanks in advance for your support - it's highly appreciated :)! Here are the two pictures:

No, I have not been married this long. But I have known my husband for a long, long time (at least in correlation with my age!). Twelve years ago on October, 3rd, I got to know him for the very first time...You can say that he's my childhood sweetheart..., or maybe not? Because we didn't get together until a few years later (and by this time I was no longer a child ;)).

Last year I prepared something typical German to celebrate our 11th Anniversary (since October, 3rd is also the German Reunification Day), but this time I prepared a feast - an Asian feast to be exact. A feast, because I spent hours in the kitchen preparing the planned dishes and also because after eating these arrays of food, we were not able to eat dinner anymore...;).

I made kimchi, salt and pepper squid, fried wontons, ebi nigiri sushi and a family of bunny pork buns (unfortunately only Mr Bunny turned out quite good-looking - Mrs Bunny had rather messed up eye make-up ;) and Miss Bunny looked kinda grumpy :(). We also had mochi as dessert. I bought the mochi from my local Asian grocery store. If you want to make mochi yourself, check out my Quick and Easy Red Bean Mochi recipe!

Recipe coming soon...!

Do you see how messy Mrs Bunny's eye make up is? And the head of Missy Bunny didn't turn out well, rather wrinkled, making her look grumpy...

The Bunny Family looks better before steaming I guess... (Btw, if you want to see another cute pork-bun family, check out my Piggy Pork Buns post!)

Mr Bunny is apparently the best looking one in the family...!

The weather has not been very friendly the past few days - it's dark, gloomy, cold and wet. Winter is definitely on its way! But this also means, "soup time" for me :)! I have always enjoyed eating different types of soups and stews, especially when the weather is bitterly cold, there's just something comforting about slurping a bowl of warm noodle or chicken soup...! Well..., I don't actually slurp my soup, but I somehow like the word 'slurping' because it reminds me of Japanese cartoon characters who totally enjoy devouring their ramen ;).

Actually I made this mandu soup a few weeks ago, when the weather was not that chilly yet. But I just didn't feel like posting about this soup until now. I used the same mandu recipe as last year and the stock is extremely easy to make: basically just water with dashi granules and sesame oil.

Ingredients - serves 1

• 5 mandu
• 500 ml water
• 3 tsp dashi granules
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• Chopped green onions
• Seeded red chillies, sliced
• Toasted sesame seeds
  
• Thin omelet (optional)

What to do

• Bring water to a boil. Add the mandu and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add dashi and sesame oil. Stir and let cook for another 50 seconds.
• Transfer the mandu soup to a bowl.
• Garnish with chopped green onions, chili slices, sesame seeds and thin omelet.
  

I was in the mood for dumplings again (well, when not...;)?), but this time I wanted to make easy, fuss-free dumplings, so I used ready-made dumpling wrappers to save time. These are just normal steamed pork dumplings with the usual ingredients of ground pork, green onions, oyster sauce, and the like. However this time the sauce is different. I wanted something spicy instead of something sourly for the sauce (which is the case when you use black vinegar as condiment), so I whipped up some homemade hot and spicy sauce using sesame oil, chili-garlic sauce and Thai chili-paste (which contains some dried shrimp).

Ingredients

Pork Dumplings

• 250 g ground pork
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tsp soy sauce
  
• 1 tsp paprika/cayenne pepper powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp minced ginger
• Dumpling wrappers

Hot and Spicy Sauce

• 5 tbs sesame oil
• 1 tbs Lee Kum Kee Chili-Garlic sauce
• 1 tbs Thai chili paste in oil

Steam the dumplings for 8-10 minutes.

Serve with the hot and spicy sauce!

I made my first Mandu (dumplings in Korean) around a year ago when I just started blogging. Last week I made mandu again, but this time with some chopped kimchi, as I also wanted to consume my homemade kimchi in another way than just as a side dish.

You can make your own dumpling wrappers with just flour and warm water (look at my guo tie recipe), but if you've got no time to spare, ready-made dumpling wrappers can be such a timesaver!

I shaped my dumplings in 3 different ways. Which shape do you like best?

I used Maangchi's recipe this time to make the basic mandu. But I added some chopped kimchi to add some extra kimchi-kick ;).

Ingredients (makes 80)

• 1 cup ground pork
  
• 2 cups ground beef
• 2 cups chopped chives
• 4-5 soaked and chopped Shiitake mushrooms
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 tofu, chopped
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 1/2 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• 1 egg
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• 2 cups chopped kimchi
• Mandu skins

Pan-fry your kimchi mandu and serve with kimchi and salad.

This is my favourite way of eating kimchi mandu! I let my mandu float and swim on top of kimchi sauce :).

Another piggy-themed food :)! I was inspired to make piggy-shaped pork steamed buns after I saw Kristy's cute mantou buns a few days ago. The recipe itself is adapted from Maangchi's savoury Jjinppang mandu, because I am not into mantou buns with sweet filling. I thought these sweeties would look rather festive to celebrate my 100th post - after 1 year and 1 month of blogging, post no.100 is not very impressive I know, but hey, juggling between work and blogging is not that easy, so I feel a little bit proud ;).

Ingredients (adapted from Maangchi's site)

Dough

• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp yeast
• 2 tbs oil
• 3 cups flour

Filling

• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 2 cups mushrooms
• 400 g pork
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tbs oyster sauce
  
• 1 tbs minced garlic
• 1 tbs sesame oil

What to do

• Check the video from Maangchi below.
  

The little sweeties before they're steamed. I used red food-colouring for the ears and snouts.

How brutal...! Sorry little piggies, but I cannot resist taking a closer look at what goodies you have inside ;)

Three little piggies ready to be gobbled down by the bad, hungry she-wolf...;).