Asian Inspirations

Discover the authentic in Asian cuisine food

Vegetables

Wing Bean Salad

by Leave a Comment

To Prep
For seasoning sauce, pound chilli, shallot and garlic finely, and mix together with sugar, fish sauce and lime juice in a small mixing bowl.
Peel and devein the cooked prawns and thinly sliced.

To Cook
Place coconut milk over low heat until just boiling. Set asides. Combine wing beans, sliced porks, prawns and coconut milk in a large mixing bowl, mix gently. Add the seasoning sauce, mix well. Combine roasted peanut, desiccated coconut and 2 tbsp shallot sliced, mix through.
Transfer to a serving plate, garnish with the remaining fried shallot, serve with salad such as lettuce.
Hint: Blanching with wing beans in highly boiling water with adding 1 tsp oil, press them down under boiling water for 2 mins. Remove from heat, drain, and soak immediately in very cool water until completely cool down. Drain and slice.

Okonomiyaki

by Leave a Comment

To Prep
Whisk together the eggs, cornflour, chilli powder, salt and sushi seasoning.

To Cook
Heat oil over medium heat in a non-stick fry pan. Cover the pan with vegetables and noodles. Cook for 1 min.
Pour enough egg mixture to cover vegetables and noodles. Cook on high heat until egg mixture is set and edges have browned.
Add a handful of bean sprouts and sprinkle shredded nori and fold pancake in half.
Serve this Crispy Vegetable and Noodle Pancake with mayonnaise and picked ginger on the side.

Tempura with Wasabi Tartar Sauce

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Add tempura batter mix to cold water and whisk through, do not over mix. Coat your choice of ingredient in the batter and deep fry in hot oil (150˚C -180˚C) until golden brown.
Mix wasabi paste, mayonnaise, capers, gherkins and chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve with assorted tempura, fish and chips or use as a dipping sauce.

Japanese Style Beef Stew (Sukiyaki)

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Put all ingredients for simmering sauce into a pot and bring to the boil, for 1-2 mins. Turn off heat and set aside.
Heat oil in a pan over low heat. Spread beef slices over the bottom of pan. Pour in simmering sauce. Turn up the heat to high and simmer beef for 1 min. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 1-2 mins or until food is cooked.
Ladle into individual bowls and serve immediately.

Balinese Green Bean Salad

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Prepare beans and blanch in boiling salted water for 4 mins, then refresh in iced water until required.
Using a large mortar and pestle crush the peanuts finely, add the sesame oil, chilli, garlic, salt, palm sugar, lemon grass, ginger, pepper, lime zest and juice until well combined.
Add the ABC Kecap Manis and coconut milk to the peanut paste and blend until sauce is smooth. Taste and season with salt. Place sauce and water into a small pan and heat over a low heat stirring 2 mins.
Combine the drained beans, sesame seeds and shallot in a large bowl.
Arrange the beans on a large serving platter and pour over the peanut and coconut dressing.
Garnish with toasted coconut and shredded kaffir lime leaves and Lime Wedges.

Glutinous Taro Balls in Coconut Syrup

by Leave a Comment

To Prep
Combine the taro, rice flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.
Roll into balls about the size of a macadamia nut.
Boil coconut milk, palm sugar and water on low heat.

To Cook
Gently place taro balls into the syrup and cook for 3-5 mins. Serve warm.
Your Glutinous taro balls in coconut syrup is ready!

Stuffed Hairy Gourd in Oyster Sauce

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Cook hairy gourd in a pot of boiling water until tender. Drain and let cool.
Combine minced shrimp meat with marinade ingredients. Mix well. Dust the inner part of hairy gourds with corn starch and stuff with marinated shrimp.
Prepare a steamer over high heat. Steam hairy gourds for 8 mins. Remove from heat and discard excess juice.
Sauté mushrooms and pour in sauce mix ingredients. Stir and heat through. Pour over steamed hairy gourds and serve. Garnish with chopped spring onions and red chillies if desired.

Thai Glass Noodle Salad (Yum Woon Sen)

by Leave a Comment

To Prep
Soak bean vermicelli in warm water for about 5 mins or until softened. Drain and roughly chop.

To Cook
Heat oil in the pan/wok and cook the chicken mince. Add a dash of fish sauce and stir fry until the chicken is cooked. Add bean vermicelli and stir to mix well. Remove from heat.
Add fish sauce, lime juice, tomato wedges and sugar to the chicken mixture and stir well. Add the mint, garlic, lemongrass, chilli and minced coriander; stir well.
Line a serving plate with lettuce and then spoon the chicken mixture over the leaves. Garnish with shallot and coriander leaves.

Korean Soft Tofu Hotpot (Sundubu Jjigae)

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Heat cooking oil in a saucepan. Cook pork quickly for about 2 mins over medium heat. Add garlic and continue cooking for 10 secs.
Turn heat down to very low and add the chilli powder and chilli oil and cook for 2 mins. Stir well and make sure you don’t burn the chilli powder.
Add water and onion and bring it to a boil. Simmer soup for about 5-7 mins. Add in pipis and cook for about 2-3 mins until shells have opened.
Add the tofu with the rest of other ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer soup for about 1-2 mins and season with extra salt if necessary.
Add 1 egg yolk to soup towards the end of cooking time, careful not to stir yolk until its set.

Korean Soybean Paste Hotpot (Doenjang Jjigae)

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Add water and dried anchovies to a Korean clay pot or a sauce pan. Bring this to a boil, skim off impurities that float to the top. Reduce heat and simmer the stock for about 10-12 mins. Discard the anchovies and add more water if stock has reduced considerably during cooking.
Add the potatoes and cook at a simmer until the potatoes have softened. Add onions,garlic and soy bean paste into the pot and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 mins and add in the rest of the ingredients except chilli powder. Simmer the soup until the zucchini have slightly softened.
Sprinkle in chilli powder (if using) at the end of cooking. Jjigae should be served bubbling hot in the clay pot.
Your Doenjang jjigae is ready!

You can add mushrooms, seafood and other vegetables into jjigae. Also substitute dried anchovies with beef if preferred. Quickly sauté beef with garlic in the clay pot before adding water if using beef.

Kimchi Pancake (Kimchijeon)

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Mix water to the buchim mix in a bowl and lightly whisk.
Add kimchi and onions to the batter.
Heat frying pan with 2-3 tbsp of oil. Ladle ½-¾ cups of batter to the pan and swirl batter so that it’s flat and round.
Panfry until crisp on either side, turning over once. Place on a plate with kitchen towel to drain oil.
Repeat with remaining batter and add more oil for each pancake.
Mix all the soy dipping sauce ingredients together and serve.
Your Kimchi buchim is ready to be devoured.
Tip: If not using buchim mix, substitute with 1 cup of plain flour, 2 tbsp of rice flour, 1 egg, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp soy sauce.

Hot and Spicy Rice Cake (Tteokbokki)

by Leave a Comment

To Cook
Soak rice cakes in a bowl of cold water for about 20 mins if using rice cakes stored in the fridge or freezer. If using fresh rice cakes, there is need to soak. Pull rice cakes apart into individual pieces is they are stuck before cooking.
Fill saucepan with water and gochujang. Bring this to a boil. Put in the fish cakes and onions and simmer for about 5 mins. Alternatively, to lessen the spiciness, reduce gochujang and substitute with some tomato sauce for colour.
Add the rice cakes, garlic, gochugaru (chilli flakes), soy sauce, sugar and corn syrup and cook until the rice cake are soft, this should take about 5 mins.
Drizzle in some olive oil before serving.

To Serve
Tteokbokki can be served with hard-boiled eggs, cooked instant ramen or even fried mandu (Korean dumplings).