Easy recipes: Easy Chinese American dinner rolls in the rice cooker

 We've been stuck at home for a while now so have been looking into some new recipes.

As the summer gets really hot here I wondered if I could cook things in the instant cooker instead of the toaster oven. 

Here's a quick and easy 

Ingredients list: 

2 eggs

1 TSP instant yeast 

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk (we substitute with soy milk)

2 cups flour 

1.5 TBP oil (I use coconut)

Knead the dough for at least 20 minutes

Put it in a container and seal it to let it rise for 20 minutes

Put it sealed into a rice cooker for 40 minutes. 

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Easy recipes: Crispy waffles

 Yes, we have attempted the crispy waffles originally from here and

https://www.inspiredtaste.net/25708/essential-waffle-recipe/

But we actually have made a lot of changes to the recipe to be more Taiwanese

Ingredients

3/4 cup of cake flour

1/4 cup of tapioca starch

1 cup of runny yogurt

1/3 cup of coconut oil

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 Tsp baking soda

1 egg (best at room temperature)

1 Tsp vanilla extract

Mix the wet ingredients first with blender

Then pour into the dry ingredients

Mix by hand at this point and try not to over mix

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Easy recipe: Instant pot eggplant and carrots curry

So I ran across this recipe and thought it would be great as eggplants are difficult for me to cook on the stove. I tend to either overcook or undercooked them when I do eggplant curry on the stove so figure out an easy way to cook them in the instant pot when I saw this recipe:

https://www.cookwithmanali.com/instant-pot-eggplant-carrot-curry/

Here's my easy version of it:

Ingredients:
1 whole onion - chopped
2 long eggplants or 1 if you have the bigger thicker ones - cubed
2 small carrots or a bag if they're the snack bags - cubed or thinly sliced
2 cans of coconut milk
2 cubes of the curry spices or you can make your own from the receipt linked above
4 cups of water (or 4 in the cans of the coconut milk)

Optional:
3 tomatoes
basil
tofu or any meat on hand

Instant pot
You can do the saute steps like in the recipe linked above or you can just put in all the ingredients and press the soup option like I do.

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Easy recipe: Zha jiang mian or fried noodles sauce

So I actually got this recipe from my mother and it's not inspired by any recipes on the internet but if you want an equivalent that seems to be a good match or better measured, this one here should work:

https://jeanetteshealthyliving.com/zha-jiang-mian-recipe/

Ingredients:
1 TBSP oil or sesame oil
1 onion chopped - I actually use ginger instead sometimes like photoed here
1/4 cups of soybean sauce
1 TBSP corn starch - we use tapioca starch here in Taiwan to be mixed with 1 cups of water
1 lb of ground pork (or beef, or turkey or whatever you have, this is very flexible)

Optional:
If you have leftover vegetables like I did with mushroom you could put them in also. This is a very forgiving and flexible recipe.

Steps:
Stir-fry onions until soft. Then pour in the meat until browned. Mix the cornstarch with water and the soybean sauce and pour into the pot. Mix for 3-5 minutes on medium heat.

Cook whatever noodles you have on hand and mix it in.

You can put in whatever vegetables you have for garnish also.

Here's the end result.

You can use whatever sauce you have on hand:

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Matcha or green tea cakes

Being in Asia, there's plenty of matcha or green tea powder around so I usually grab one when I shop and have them on hand.

Here are some of the recipes I've done that the kids taste-tested and were good.

Soft green tea/matcha coconut soy milk cake

2 eggs - separated into yolk and whites
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1/4 cup of soy milk
3/4 cup of cake flour
1/4 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tbsp of matcha/green tea powder

Egg whites mixture/meringue
Beat the egg whites, I always add 1/4 tsp of vinegar to make it easier to form peaks (The acid in the vinegar helps to break down the coils of amino acids in the egg white's proteins so that they can repeal each other and form the foam that you see: https://www.ourstate.com/bakers-basics-meringue/)
1/4 cup sugar added in 3 different times to not disturb the forming process
Apparently, meringue is especially hard to do in humid weather like we have in Taiwan so I usually need to do at least 10-15 minutes on low-medium/high egg beater.

Combine the cake ingredients in another bowl. I usually have to heat the coconut oil to get it into a liquid form unless it's the middle of the summer.

Shift the cake flour into the bowl. Mix well.

Then mix the meringue into the cake four in 3 batches.

Then bake at 130 degrees celsius or 265 Fahrenheit for 20-30 minutes.

The bunny is looking a bit doubtful here but it tasted great, just didn't rise as I probably didn't put in enough baking soda.

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Easy recipes: lamb in the instant pot

Hello,
My husband really likes lamb so for Easter I tried piecing together these two recipes to make a lamb dish in the instant pot.

We couldn't decide on a lamb shank or lamb stew so ended up with a combination of the two, a lamb shank with a lot of sauce.

My receipt is adapted from this one here and the 3 cups lambs suggested by the grocery store.
https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/instant-pot-lamb-shank/

Ingredients
3-4 lamb shanks (or in our case, a whole package)
2 Tbsp olive oil (for browning lamb)
2 Tbsp Costco's Kirkland no-salt seasoning (or Trader Joe's 21 seasonings)
2 larger peppers (sliced)
1 large ginger (12-15 slices)
1 medium onion
8 garlic cloves (sliced or diced)
Optional: other vegetables
Sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice wine (or rice wine vinegar)
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp brown sugar

Optional garnish: basil

Instructions:
Browning the lamb
-Put the pot on the saute function, wait for it to get hot.
-Put in the olive oil, then season the lamb and saute it in the pot, 5 minutes each side
Put everything else except the sauce into the instant pot
Mix the sauce and pour it evenly over the lamb
Reset the pot and use the normal lamb setting (or 40 minutes)

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Chanko Nabe

Lately, our family has been trying to gain weight (you have to walk a lot here and the kids appetites have been better) so I've been on a hunt to try to find recipes that will help you to gain weight, not surprisingly most recipes are for those who are dieting (><) and the only people I could think of who would be wanting to gain weight are sumo wrestlers and cancer survivors.

So here's a recipe from a sumo wrestling champion:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8qejkb/chanko-nabe

for the meatballs:
1/2 lb ground pork
1 each egg
1/2 teaspoon miso paste
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 tsp sake
onion, minced

for the soup:
6 1/4 cups fish broth
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons sake
3 tablespoons mirin
1/4 cup daikon, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch nira, chopped (smaller green onions)
1 bunch green onion, chopped 1-inch pieces
handful cabbage, chopped
handful bok choy, chopped
12 ounces firm tofu, sliced

Directions
1. Make the meatballs: In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together. Using wet hands, roll meatballs into 1-inch balls and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. In a medium-sized pot, warm up the fish broth, soy sauce, sake, and mirin until hot.

3. Add chopped daikon and carrots to the pot, and cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes.

4. Add pork meatball in pot and cook 10-15 minutes.

5. Add shiitake, nira, green onion, cabbage, and bok choy, and cook for 10 more minutes.

6. Lower the heat and add sliced tofu (do not boil in high heat), cooking over low heat for 5 minutes.

7. Add salt and pepper, and soy sauce if you like.

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Easy stir fry from costco vegetables

As a busy mom I tend to look for short cuts for healthy meals whenever I can. One that we've discovered is the bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables from Costco with their Japanese BBQ sauce. Basically, you get this bag and add a bit of oil into a wok, put the Japanese BBQ on top. Make some rice and you have a great healthy meal.

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Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐) in the Instant Pot

It has been a while since we've posted so here is another recipe for the instant pot:

This is one of our favorites for the summer as in the instant pot it means no turning on the stove or oven!

This recipe is adapted from the Chinese site here: https://icook.tw/recipes/273411

For 4 people:
Minced pork (or ground beef) - 150 gram or around a quarter or half pound
Tofu - two boxes (I like to cube them)
Onions and green onions (minced also) - about 1/4 cup
Oil (olive or sesame works) - 1 TBS
Rice wine - 1 TBS
Soy sauce - 1 TBS
Brown sugar - 1/2 TSP
Soybean paste - 2 or 3 TBS

To thicken:
1 TBS tapioca starch (or corn or other kinds of starch)
1/2 cup of water

To make:
Have the setting on "saute" for your instant pot, on ours, it is the waterless setting for chicken
Put the oil into the bottom of the pot
Put in the minced meat and the onions
Put the soybean paste, mix
Then put in the tofu cubes
Then pour the rice wine, brown sugar, soy sauce mixture over the tofu

Reset the setting to beans on pressure cooking - close the lid to not let the water run out.

Then it beeps and it is ready!

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Taiwanese 3 cups chicken in instant pot

Recently we got a great deal on an instant pot. I've always wanted one of these but we had too many cooking appliances in America. Since coming to Taiwan, the ingredients are a bit different and our schedules require a bit more hands-off dishes. So I'll share some recipes.

The Taiwanese classic dish is 3 cups chicken or in Chinese 三杯雞  Sān bēi jī

This version for the instant pot is in Chinese (https://icook.tw/recipes/55521) so here's the English translation:
If you don't have an instant pot, this is supposed to be a good recipe with youtube video available here in English: http://bit.ly/1bybbta

1 package of chicken (recipe said 14 pieces that are already cut up)
Ginger - 5 slices
Garlic - 2 cloves - mashed/pressed
Sesame oil - 20 ml or 1 cup

Sauce
1 cup rice wine
1 cup soy sauce
3 TB of sugar (I used brown)

1. Put in chicken pieces in boiling water to rinse (aka skim the scum)
2. Put the instant pot on the "no water" setting for ribs, put in the sesame oil and ginger
3. Put the rinsed chicken in with garlic
4. Put in the sauce, you can put the lid on or off here. (I usually put it on)
5. Wait until the pot tells you it is ready.

Here's what my pieces looked like:

It was a big hit - definitely "koalaty" tested:

Now I'm on the lookout for some good ribs and soup recipes.

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Easy toaster oven banana bread

So we only have a toaster oven and I really wanted banana bread and thought, why not give it a go in the toaster oven? American styled bread seems to be pretty expensive here but this turned out really well and we've been making it whenever it gets cool enough to turn on the toaster oven.

Originally from here: https://toasterovenlove.com/petite-whole-grain-banana-bread/

Adapted for our small oven-make 1-2 servings (our two kids share a small loaf)
Heat the oven to 325F (180C in our oven)
Ingredients:
Wet together:
1/4 cup banana
1 egg
1 TBS yogurt
1 TBS oil (I use coconut)
1/4 Tsp vanilla
Mix the dry together:
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 Tsp baking soda
1/4 Tsp cinnamon
1/8 Tsp salt

Put them both into a bowl and mix.
Put into bread pan and set timer for 25-30 minutes.

I never seem to have enough time to take a picture before it gets devoured because it is that yummy.

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Zuppa Thai Taipei - soup with Thai and Taiwanese flavors

Previously, when we lived in America, I had the recipe for Zuppa Toscana that was delicious. So after we moved here I had to re-invent the soup with my own recipe and it turned into a soup with Thai and Taiwanese flavors:

Ingredients:

1-2 sausage - for this we bought the Taiwanese ones that you can get off the streets or in grocery stores

1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

sea salt - (just a pinch)

Black pepper (or whatever spice you like)

6 cups of broth (I used the broth from our hot pot mix)

4 large potatoes, diced

1 bunch of whatever vegetables you like, chopped fine

3/4 c. coconut cream

4 slices cooked bacon, chopped

Herbs for seasoning

Directions:

In a large pot over medium heat, cook bacon, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate to drain the fat.

Add onion to the pot and let cook until soft/caramelized, 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute or less. Add in the sausages. Season with salt and pepper. Add broth and potatoes and cook until potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

Stir in your vegetable of choice and let cook until leaves are tender and still green, 1-2 minutes, then stir in coconut cream, and bacon and simmer around 5 minutes.

Season with pepper, whatever herb you like, and serve.

Here's the final product, and it was delicious and very different from the original zuppa toscana!

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