Celebratory Sekihan

This post isn't just one to celebrate the new year 2008, but is one really dedicated to my mum and her own culinary adventures. The sekihan, also known as osekihan, or Japanese red-cooked festival rice, has been made by mum as well and I proudly present it to you here.
The adzuki bean is the second most important dried pulse in Japan and together with glutinous rice, known as mochi gome, they are the combination of red and white -- colours associated by the Japanese with joyous occasions and celebrations such as weddings and birthdays. In a sense, the sekihan (red-cooked festival rice) is a celebration cake. The glutinous rice is a sticky rice and are very small, rounded grains. This type of rice is also seen in traditional Chinese rice dumplings or ba zhang which has a sad story behind it about a Chinese poet who out of love for his country drowned himself in the sea to escape the corruption brewing within the imperial court. The countrymen who loved him so made dumplings (meat covered in rice and then wrapped in lotus leaves) and threw them into the sea. The dumplings were meant to lure the fish away from eating his body so that he could finally be at peace after death.
For more details on this story, leave me a comment I'll get my dad to retell it :D

Glutinous rice is also seen in lots of desserts like the nonya pulot hitam and little cakes common in Southeast Asia. In Thai cuisine, it is served as a dessert with coconut milk and fresh mango. Mmmm. To many, glutinous rice may be very strange due to its sticky texture which is very much unlike Japanese rice (it is sticky too) and tends to be almost glue-like. However, it absorbs flavours very well and hence, is very adaptable in either a savoury or sweet situation. What a clever grain indeed!
The adzuki bean, might I have you know, is considered very healthy and is used in Chinese herbal medicine as an antidote to stomach upsets and as a laxative! When cooked, it has a subtle sweet taste and aroma and its colour stains the rice to give its well-known purply red colour. Beautiful! One can find the adzuki bean in popular Japanese cakes or snacks like dorayaki or Japanese pancakes as a bean paste filling.

Here's how to make it: (the japanese kitchen by Kimiko Barber)
400g mochi gome (glutinous rice)
110g adzuki beans
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds
*salt and sesame seeds mixture is known as gomashio

Wash the rice until water runs clear, set aside.
Wash and rinse the beans and put them in a saucepan with water. bring to boil, cook for 5minutes and strain off. Add 850ml water and bring to boil over a low to medium heat. Turn off the heat, cover and leave to stand 10mins.
Transfer the beans to a larger saucepan. Reserve the cooking liquid in a bowl and pour a ladleful of liq from a heigh of 30cm back into the bowl. Repeat with 5 more ladlefuls - it will intensify the redness of the liquid.
Add the rice to the saucepan and pour in 700ml of liq - if there is not enough, add water instead. Cover and add a pinch of salt before placing over heat. Bring to boil and cook for 5mins, turn off heat and don't lift the lid until it has steamed for 15mins more.
Stir and serve with gomashio.

It is usually eaten after cooked but can also be served at room temperature.

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Pork Chops & Roasted Winter Veg

Simple pleasures start from simple things. Sounds so much like one of my high school values and no matter the no. of times we rebelled against the motto and the way the school was ran, simplicity and prudence was indeed the way forward in my opinion. Pork chops always remind me of the early days when Dad used to take us out to this little family-run restaurant called Baystreet 21 (wasn't the best places to eat but it was alright and close enough for an easy drive) most Sundays. It was always a toss up between Pork Chop or Fish&Chips for me. I was such a greedy lil chump. On days when I was willing to give up my best-loved chips for more meat and less floury carbs, my pork chop was always served generously drowned under a blanket of thick black pepper gravy with a side pot of applesauce. Mmmm. What a treat that was!

2008 should begin with us looking back on the things that pleasured us most; to look towards our roots. Like a popular Chinese idiom: look upon the direction of the river that flows, and think back to its beginnings to remember your roots and what got you to where you are today. Pork chops will always remind me of Daddy's hard work and his determination to put not just any food, but good food on the table for us.
I am thankful that I never go hungry.

These chops above were soaked in papaya juice for tenderising. One good way to tenderise your meat is to marinade it; or use bi-carb with some form of acid. However, I was working with the simplicity idea and was going to pan-fry them with only salt, pepper and chopped chilli padi. The papaya juice doesn't leave any strong taste in the meat; you've got all the good porky taste no worries! What it does though apart from tenderising is it caramalises on the meat and leaves a glossy golden brown glaze that looks so good.
The roasted vegetables was very easy to do. This one was inspired by a Potato Salad recipe from Nigella Express. Pumpkin, sweet potatoes and carrots in good-sized chunks. A smashed clove (get a suitably large one) of garlic left in some olive oil for a while to flavour the oil. This oil will be used to marinade the vegetables for a quick second before it goes into the oven. Then mix in some honey mustard or whole grain mustard (whichever suits your tastebuds best) and then coat the vegetables with this oil mixture, pepper, chopped parsley and some italian herbs. Remember to have the roasting pan in the preheating oven with oil in it so you've got a hot pan and hot oil ready. Once you're ready, carefully place all the veg on the roasting pan, you'll hear an impressive sizzling if the oil in the pan is hot enough and then roast for bout 40min give or take. If you're serving quite a lot of people, it's a good idea to do a pan of roast potatoes too, which I did as I can never have roasted veg without a small serving of roast potatoes too!

That's done; Happy New Year guys, pray this will be the start of an even more exciting year filled with endless possibilities and promising events. Hope the new year resolutions are all set as well. Mine is to stick to keeping fit and getting a Kylie Kwong cookbook to get in touch with my Chinese side. Definitely something very essential if I intend to stick around the kitchen. :) Cheers folks.

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