Mixed Salad with Rice

The heat is on in Frankfurt. I ought to be ashamed of myself for not being able to withstand 25 degrees Celsius since I’m from Singapore. My excuse is that the tiny island is well equipped with air-conditioning. You could shop on Orchard Road without ever seeing the sun for goodness sake!

Here’s what we’ll be expecting this week in Frankfurt. Temperatures are up and although I don’t take the heat as well as Daniel, I love clear skies and plenty of sunshine. You won’t find me tanning myself though.

When I asked Daniel what he fancied for dinner on a hot day, he suggested mixed salad with rice. It reminded him of what he would get when they get their occasional heatwave in the UK.

Here’s a list of ingredients we used in our mixed salad which by the way is perfect for any hot day.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Iceberg salad (lettuce)
1 yellow pepper, chopped
3 small carrots, grated
5 radish, thinly sliced
Half a cucumber, sliced
1 avocado, chopped into cubes
1 tin of tuna mixed with kidney beans and corn
A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
Gouda cheese, cut into cubes (or any cheese you prefer)

Instructions

Mix the ingredients all in a huge bowl. Add salad dressing only after you’ve dished up. This is so you can keep the remaining salad without it becoming all soggy overnight.

To make it a more substantial meal, we heated up some Uncle Ben’s Basmati Rice with Curry. You could serve it with a bread roll or long grain rice. Or, just help yourself to more salad if you want to omit carbs.

 

The different ingredients used gave the salad an excellent texture. While the avocado was softer (more of a creamy texture), the pepper added crunch to the salad overall. And since it was so light, it does help cool is down on a hot day. Always a bonus to NOT stand in front of a cooking stove too!

What do you like to have on a hot day? Feel free to suggest a recipe or two in the comments section below!

Soba Salad with Honey Soy Sauce

With temperatures looking like they will soar slightly over the next couple of weeks, I'm really eager to share with you a tried and tested Soba Salad with Honey Soy Sauce recipe.

Refreshing Soba Salad, perfect on a hot summer's day.

Soba is one of my favourite Japanese noodles. It's made out of buckwheat and you'll just need to boil the noodles according to the instructions on the packaging. If you live in Frankfurt, soba is readily available at all Asian supermarkets.

This recipe was adapted from Just One Cookbook (my favourite online Japanese cooking resource).

Firstly, here's the list of ingredients for the sauce (For original recipe, please see here.)
1 Tbsp. canola or grapeseed oil
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
½ tsp. mixed chilli & pepper
3 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. soy sauce

Other Ingrediants
3-4 bundles of soba noodles (serves 4)
1 spring onion
2 medium carrots, grated

Instructions
1. Mix the oil, mixed chilli and pepper and sesame oil in a small sauce pan. Heat it on medium heat for 10 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the honey well with the soy sauce.

3. When the oil mixture is done, carefully mix it with the honey and soy sauce. Whisk well to ensure that the honey is dissolved.

4. Cook the soba noodles according to the instructions on the packaging (no need to add salt!). Once it's cooked, run it under cold water and set aside to drain.

5. In a big bowl, mix the soba, spring onions, carrots and honey soy sauce. Toss the mixture well and serve either cold or at room temperature.

Although I had this for lunch on a day with a maximum of only 14 degrees Celsius, I can imagine how refreshing the noodles would be on a hot summer's day. I love it so much that I'm serving it for dinner as a main dish with a couple of pan-fried salmon fillets.

Deep-Fried Elder Berry

Elder Berry Flowers - Holunder

I love visiting the Farmers' Market at Konstablewache in Frankfurt on Saturdays. The market is ever so vibrant. It is little wonder that it attracts the locals and tourists alike. 

At the market, you'll be treated to many fresh produce such as vegetables, meat, poultry, cheese, fish and so on. It also prides itself in selling traditional German food such as wursts (sausages), Schnitzels and breads. I was really excited when i found a stall selling deep-fried holunder flowers. I love elder berry for its natural sweetness. It is often used to make jam, juice and even champagne!

My glass of fresh elder berry juice. It is so much better than the cartons of juice you  find in supermarkets!

My highlight on Saturday was deep-fried elder berry flowers. Yes, deep-fried flowers! I've not had anything like that before but I love holunder so much that I had to savour it!

 

The man grouped the flowers in a bunch and the lady was responsible for frying the flowers. She's so skilled! All the holunder were fried to perfection. The once soft petals were then covered in crispy, golden-brown batter. 

Deep-fried to perfection! Crispy and golden-brown!

If you're in Frankfurt on a Thursday or Saturday, you'll have to visit this market at Konstablewache. You will LOVE it!

Vegetable Tempura

One of the set dishes I always order at a Japanese restaurant is Vegetable Tempura. I love the crispy batter and how it soaks up the tasty tempura sauce. As I’m currently in the phase of experimenting and learning how to cook Japanese cuisine, I made Vegetable Tempura for dinner.

I like cooking to be fuss-free. Ideally, I should be able to get all the ingredients from the 4 different German supermarkets within walking distance from my apartment on a weekday. When I decided to make tempura, I wasn’t sure if I could get tempura flour. Therefore I was thrilled to learn from Just One Cookbook that I could make my own batter at home! So convenient and definitely cheaper too!

I didn’t exactly use the same vegetables as Nami-san’s recipe but I’m glad they still turned out well. As we only get asparagus in Spring in Germany, I was quick to get a bundle the moment I saw them. I also used sweet potatoes and an eggplant (aubergine). It turned out to be a feast for Daniel and I.

The tempura was crispy and so much less oily than what you would get in restaurants. I never reuse frying oil because I simply can’t bear the thought to, so I would like to think that deep-frying at home is cleaner than the ones you get outside.

Nami-san also provided the recipe for tempura sauce on her blog. Seriously, does she need to buy any bottled sauces? She seems to know how to make everything from scratch and make it look so easy!

As it was a slightly warm Spring Day, I served the lovely tempura with Zaru Soba. Ahhhh… Refreshing it was! Unfortunately I didn’t have all the ingredients to make the dipping sauce for the soba so I took the easy way out and used bottled Mentsuyu.

If you’re a vegetable tempura lover, do try the recipe out at home. You’ll love it!

Any packet of soba will give you cooking instructions but I found the detailed instructions on Just One Cookbook really good to ensure I get the texture right.

Here are the links to the recipes.
Vegetable Tempura & sauce recipe
Zaru Soba recipe
I hope you’ll enjoy the vegetable tempura and Zaru soba as much as I did!

BBC Good Food Vegetable Ragu

Do you have days when you just don’t feel like touching and eating any meat? Yesterday was one of those days for me. While I do love poultry and meat, I do occasionally feel like a good vegetarian meal such as Vegetable Ragu.

This year I started learning to make my own pasta sauce. Not only are they surprisingly easy, they also taste fresher and healthier. This vegetable ragu recipe from good old BBC Good Food is a gem as it is so cheap and easy to make.

Since recipes aren’t set in stone, I omitted celery and red lentils in my version. I added dried basil and cayenne pepper to spice it up a little. And I’m currently in love with balsamic vinegar so I was rather generous with it too. As it cooked on the stove, the ragu was bursting with sweet smelling vegetables – the perfect healthy comfort food on a cold day.

This is to me the fun part about cooking – not restricting yourself to whatever the recipe calls for and taking initiative to tweak it to your preference.

Meatless Mondays

Starting next Monday, I'll be taking on a new mission also known by many as Meatless Mondays. As the name suggests, it simply means not having meat on Mondays. 

I do love eating meat. However, I'm not a fan of handling huge slabs of raw meat. Also, I'm trying to have more fruits and vegetables to ensure that I get the necessary vitamins. 

Meatless Mondays is also a good way for me to look for proteins and iron in other sources of food. I'm sure I'll be sharing some vegetarian recipes soon! And if you know where to find excellent vegetarian recipes, please do let me know.