A Little Blog

Start with just a small area or section of your room or kitchen. Even just a small area on top of your desk, or a single shelf, can work wonders.

This is because the difference can be felt surely, even say if you had just removed a pile of read (or unread) newspapers, cleared a bunch of empty bottles, or discarded some old shoes. It’s as if the air around the newly cleared space have been made lighter.

There is also a new momentum to keep decluttering. So do start, no matter how small the space.

2 cup flour
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup milk
2 large egg, seperated
1/4 cup melted butter
vegetable oil

1. Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda

2. In another bowl whisk buttermilk and milk, yolks, butter. Blend into dry mix.

3. Beat whites in another bowl until stiff.

4. Fold into batter.

5. Fry.

1 tsp yeast
3 cup flour (bread flour)
2 tbsp oil
4 tbsp yogurt
1 tsp honey
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Mix, rise, grill in very hot oven till puffy, 5-6 min.

Flour 200g
Soba Flour 200g
Egg 1
Salt 10g
Cider 300cc (can be substituted with water, milk, beer)
Water 700cc

Mix batter, leave overnight before use.

Alternative recipe:
1.25 cup milk
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup flour
1 egg
1 tbsp oil

1 cup flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted butter

Mix milk + water + eggs
Sift flour into mix
Add salt and butter

For sweet crepe add 5 teaspoon sugar

language_difficulties - mandarin and english language campaigns in singapore, originally uploaded by mikeleecs.

What’s Singlish? Japan has Engrish, Singapore has Singlish. Despite language campaigns, Singlish shall remain. “华语cool”, wat.

The easiest way would be to buy a mix for making okonomiyaki, and follow the instructions on it.

(the wonders of camera-rotation..) You would have to add just an egg and some water, in addition to the cabbage and toppings.

Otherwise, for a very basic version:
100g flour
1 egg
100ml water or dashi stock

150g cabbage, finely chopped
toppings eg bacon, prawn, ham, squid

1. Mix flour, egg, water. Add cabbage and mix. You can mix in rest of toppings at this point if you like.
2. Heat pan, oil surface. Pour in batter mixture, shape into round flat cake. Place toppings on top if you haven’t.
3. When bottom is cooked flip the cake over and cook further till both sides done.

Put okonomiyaki sauce, mayonaisse, bonito flakes on top and serve. You can also put dried seaweed or aonori (青のり).

As the name okonomiyaki implies, you can place whatever toppings / fillings you like. Variations include cheese, pork, vegetables, and even Japanese mochi.

The above recipe would be what’s usually known as the kansai style.

If you can find something that’s called a mountain potato (yamaimo or 山芋）add about 1-2 tablespoon grated to the wet mixture. You won’t really need this if you bought a mix that contains yamaimo as part of the ingredients.

Some say yamaimo is an essential ingredient in okonomiyaki. I have seen an okonomiyaki mix that has no yamaimo at a Japanese supermarket. I wondered whether to buy the mix. Then I bought the mix, with 山いも, as pictured above. (”Yamaimo, aplenty”)

And yes, you can find grated yamaimo in some Japanese supermarket stores.

Ingredients:
Eggs 2
Butter or oil

I am still practicing making a good omelette whenever I can. The very first few ones I ever did were too thin, and overcooked - I had too large a pan, and probably used too hot a flame.

Eggs should ideally be at room temperature, lightly beaten will do.

For two eggs, about 18cm pan size is good. You could use smaller pans, and have a thicker omelette. However it may be harder to cook since the bottom gets done way before the liquid parts that linger above.

The Japanese way would have the mixture stirred in the pan soon after it’s poured in. It helps create a fluffy texture.

Flame control: now I have medium or low flame - the omelette might cook slowly, but it’s better than overcooked.

From plain omelettes, variations include adding cheese, ham, and other assorted ingredients.

—

Video addition and edit:
Below’s a video showing a Japanese chef cooking an omelette. He’s basically perfected his technique. You will notice that he uses a roaring flame - but since he does everything swiftly, there’s no overcooking of the eggs. After watching the video, I have adopted the same method. Of course, this chef still does it better than me.

Fried rice
Eggs 2 to 3
Milk 1tbsp
Salt to taste

1. Fry rice with your favourite ingredients: ham, peas and so forth are good.

2. Beat eggs with milk. Make omelette in pan.

3. Place omelette over rice in plate, serve with ketchup.

Notes:
The Japanese NHK (their public television) cooking program recommends a 18cm pan for omelette making. With larger pans, you could just increase the number of eggs - and make a bigger omelette.

For bread dough:
Strong Flour 200g
Milk 100ml
Butter 40g
1 egg
Dry yeast 1tsp
Sugar 2tbsp
Salt

Cinnamon spread:
Cinnamon powder
Brown sugar
Butter

Makes around 6 buns.

1. Warm milk, add dry yeast. Wait till mixture foams or around 10 minutes. Add egg yolk and mix.

2. Mix dry dough ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix. Add tiny bit of salt if desired.

3. Leave dough to rise, about 1 hour or till about doubled in volume.

4. Flour work surface, and roll out dough to a flat rectangle, around 20 cm x 30 cm.

5. Spread cinnamon powder, sugar, butter on dough.

6. Roll up dough along the length.

7. Cut dough into equal pieces, around 5 to 6.

8. Leave to rise further for another 1 hour or so.

9. Bake at 180C for around 15 minutes.

Notes:
From this recipe I produced my first buns that wasn’t made from a bread-machine. Prior to the first successful batch, I botched one. Be sure to have yeast do work by having warm enough mixture — so dough can rise. (otherwise, have extra time for yeast to do work - or add more yeast).

Cinnamon sugar will do the trick as well.