Last-minute meal ideas: beef tacos

Let me paint a scenario for ya: you bump into a friend you have not seen in months on your way home, you start chatting and catching up on each other's lives, you start wondering, Geez, why haven't I made time to catch up with this person sooner? You invite the person to dinner at your house out of impulse, then realise that you have not done any shopping or meal planning. Oops, too late to pull out now. Time to make a quickie detour to the shops. Ideas are running through your brain as you try to figure out the best recipe to impress but no-fuss so to allow time for all that talking you are about to do. Well, I am one who often finds myself in that situation, as I love food and people both so much and what better way to catch up with my peeps than over a home-cooked meal? 

One of my go-to recipes in situations like this is tacos. Okay, I would not exactly call it a 'recipe', as the ingredients are sooo easy to prepare and the assembling is done at the table in DIY fashion. My version of tacos is essentially made up of Mexican tortilla (shop-bought small tortillas, corn or flour)+grilled meat (I like grass-fed beef steak)+salsa and salad+sauce (I am a hoarder of chili sauces). Cooking method is a no-brainer also: season your steak with your favourite seasoning (be creative!) and grill to medium/medium rare (that's how I like it. You should cook to your desired consistency. Don't let any steak snob tell you that you can't). Rest the meat before slicing. While meat is resting, make a salsa. I used corn, diced avocado, halved cherry tomatoes, diced Spanish onion, diced cucumber and chopped coriander (or cilantro) with a sprinkle of lime juice and S&P. Before dishing up, I heat the tortillas on the grill for a few seconds till they are warm, and wash up some lettuce. Voila! My favourite sauce to go with beef tacos is definitely the smokey chipotle sauce. I am sure you don't need me to tell you how to make a taco: fill->wrap->enjoy!

What is so wonderful about a taco meal is that I often have leftover steak and salsa, and they make a perfect healthy salad the next day for lunch. Just add leftover sliced steak (re-heated lightly on a grill, if you like) and salsa, and drizzle some olive oil and smokey chipotle sauce, there you have it! The colour of the dish is absolutely irresistible, and the taste is refreshing, tangy, smokey and each mouth full is a perfect combination of tender steak and crunchy vegetables and herbs. Oh Myyyy...

So for your next last-minute meal, give this beef taco 'recipe' a go. Remember: good food is about finding good flavour and texture combinations, not about how long you slave over the stove for.

Bulgogi-grilled beef with a twist

As a carnivore, I love my beef dearly. While I do love a good ol' steak and chips, sometimes I just crave something a bit more...interesting, if you will. Bulgogi is a simple Korean grilled marinated beef dish, commonly eaten in a lettuce roll with kimchi, Doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste), rice and other side dishes and condiments. The secret to tender and sweet beef is in the marinade. Can you spot the secret ingredient in Bulgogi?

Bulgogi, served with lettuce, kimchi, Doenjang (Korean fermented soybean sauce) and steamed rice

Ingredients for Bulgogi (serves 4-6):

• 600 grams scotch fillet (or other lean cuts of beef)
• ¾ cup light soy sauce
• ¼ cup water
• 40 grams caster sugar
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 nashi/Asian pear
• 1 large onion (brown or white)
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• Black pepper and salt to taste
• 1 brown or white onion, sliced
• Shallots, sliced

Method:

1. Slice the beef as thin as possible. Add in soy sauce, water, sugar, garlic, salt and black pepper. Puree the pear and onion in a blender and add to the marinade. Leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes
2. Add sesame oil to the marinade right before grilling. Note: add the sesame oil earlier if you prefer a stronger sesame oil flavour
3. Heat a lightly-oiled heavy based grill pan or non-stick pan on high heat. Cook the marinated beef (minus the marinade) for around 2-3 minutes. Add a little marinade so that the beef would not dry out. Add sliced onion and cook for a minute or two, until the onion starts to collapse. Add sliced spring onion before turning off the heat
4. Serve bulgogi hot with a small amount of steamed rice, kimchi and a small amount of fermented soybean paste on a lettuce leaf. Roll up and enjoy! Note: it is considered rude in Korean etiquette to bite into the lettuce roll, so make sure your lettuce roll is small enough to fit into one mouth full!

Emma’s Japchae-korean comfort food

Emma’s Japchae (note: the picture below depicts a chicken Japchae)

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 150 grams scotch fillet or any other lean cuts of beef
• 250 grams Japchae sweet potato noodles (around half a packet, however, you can put in more and less noodles, depending on your liking)
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large carrot (or two small carrots), julienned
• 1 large green or red capsicum, cut into thin strips
• 6 small dried shitake mushrooms, rehydrated in warm water for 1 hour, and cut into thin strips
• 2-3 Chinese black fungus, rehydrated in warm water for 1 hour and cut into thin strips
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Sauce for the noodles:

• 4-5 tbsp light soy sauce (to taste)
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp of sugar

 Ingredients for the beef marinade:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp of sesame oil
• 1 tbsp of caster sugar
• 4 tbsp of light soy sauce
• Black pepper

 Method:

1. Cut the beef into thin strips and marinate in garlic, sesame oil, caster sugar, light soy sauce and black pepper for 30 minutes
2. Marinate the sliced shitake mushrooms with a pinch of sugar, a drizzle of light soy sauce and sesame oil, set aside
3. Cook the sweet potato noodles in boiling water for 5 minutes (or according to the packet instruction). Rinse in cold water well and drain well. Cut noodles with a pair of scissors. Add the sauce for the noodles and mix well. Set aside
4. Stir-fry the vegetables separately (one ingredient at a time) in a lightly oiled non-stick pan on high heat with a pinch of salt (to help draw the liquid out and help the vegetables collapse faster) and set aside
5. Stir-fry the shitake mushrooms and black fungus, and set aside
6. Stir-fry the marinated beef with garlic on high heat for a couple of minutes and set aside
7. Stir-fry the noodles for a couple of minutes on high heat to allow it to absorb the flavour and colour of the sauce mixture. Put the stir-fried noodles in a large bowl and mix with the cooked beef, vegetables and mushrooms. Add more light soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil to taste (it is a little like ‘salad dressing’ to this noodle dish, as the soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil help bring everything together. Make sure to taste before adding more in order to adjust the quantity to personal preference) while the noodles and other cooked ingredients are still warm. Mix well
8. Serve warm or cold, on its own or with steamed rice and Kimchi. The noodles should be glossy, shiny, soft and slightly chewy. Note: you can add English spinach, strips of omelette, Chinese broccoli, seafood and/or a variety of Asian mushrooms, and substitute beef with chicken or pork in this very ‘forgiving’ recipe. When it comes to what you put in Japchae, the sky is the limit!

The beauty of one-pot cooking-Sukiyaki

A few years ago, I went back to Japan to visit family friends. We were invited to stay with Mr. S and his family. It was a real honour to be invited to stay with Mr. S and family, as the Japanese do not easily invite people to stay at their home. Mr. S's wife is a wonderful cook (like most older Japanese women), and she cooked dinner for us every night. One day, she told us she was going to cook something special for us for dinner, and I was excited. When we got home that night, I was instantly drawn to that ‘special dinner’ I had been promised. I rush to the dining room to find her preparing ingredients for Sukiyaki-a traditional Japanese hot pot. It had been a while since I had authentic sukiyaki, so I was positively excited. Sukiyaki is a traditional Japanese hotpot-one of the easiest, yet most delicious one-pot wonders. It is essentially thinly-sliced beef with various vegetables, Asian mushrooms, firm tofu and gelatinous noodles (shirataki noodles) braised in a sukiyaki sauce, and dipped in raw egg before eaten. Mrs. S fried thinly-sliced Japanese Kobe beef in a dry pan on medium heat, as the fat released from the marbled Kobe beef lubricates the meat and keeps it moist. She then carefully added shitake and enoki mushrooms, chopped Chinese cabbage, shirataki noodles and firm tofu into the same pan, and fried them for a minute or two before adding the sukiyaki sauce. Sukiyaki sauce is made by simply mixing mirin, light soy sauce, sugar and cooking sake (or you can purchase ready-made sukiyaki sauce from any Japanese supermarket). The beef, mushrooms, vegetables, noodles and tofu are gently braised, covered, in the sweet sukiyaki sauce until all the ingredients are tender and cooked through. As the recipe is very forgiving, you can practically throw in whatever thinly-sliced meats and chopped vegetables you fancy. While traditionally Kobe beef is the main meat ingredient in sukiyaki, I do not see anything wrong with thinly-sliced chicken or pork. Sukiyaki is usually cooked in a traditional sukiyaki pan, on a gas stove put at the centre of the dining table. You fish out the cooked ingredients, piping hot out of the pan, and dip them in a whisked raw egg before eating. While the idea of eating raw eggs is not particularly appetizing, in this case, the raw egg is partially cooked by the heat coming from the piping-hot ingredients, and serves as a 'silky' dipping sauce. Sukiyaki, like other hotpot dishes, is more than just a dish-it is a social institution that brings family and friends together. Nothing beats sitting around the table with loved ones, sweating to piping-hot sukiyaki, and drinking warm sake on a cold winter night. So for your next dinner party, ditch the old-school-3-course approach and let the one-pot approach shine!