Tsukimi Soba- Authentic Asian dishes at the Homestead

When you think of Urban Homestead cooking... Asian Delicacies usually don't come to mind. But if you take a closer look you will find out that true Authentic Asian cooking is synomounus with Traditional Homestead cooking. As with Homestead Cooking your not going to have every ingredient and therefore you need to supplement certain items. The main goal with Urban Homestead cooking is to use a few items in every dish that has been grown or raised on your city Urban sprawl. Pictured here is one of my favorite Comfort Foods--- Tsukimi Soba aka Buckwheat noodle soup with egg. The combination is to die for. This soup is a perfect detox food for when you want to clear your mind and reset yourself... Here is how I prepared it.......

Ingrediants:

-Dried Buckwheat Noodle
- Bunch of Green Onions finely chopped
- Dried Seawood (Wakame)
-French Fried Onions
-Egg
-2 Cups of water
-1 Teaspoon Hon-dashi http://www.amazon.com/Ajinomoto-Dashi-Soup-Stock-5-28/dp/B0002YB40O
-half Teaspoon of seasalt
-1 Teaspoon of sugar
-2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce (Kikkoman Soy Sauce, my wife says it has to be Kikkoman)


Cooking Directions:

Noodles: boil buckwheat noodles as per instruction in boiling water. drain and set aside.

Soup: Boil 2 cups of water in a sauce pan. Once its boiled, turn down the heat and put Hon-dashi, salt. sugar and soy sauce. Right before you serve the noodles, put dried seaweed and crack an egg in hot soup and let it cook just enought the egg white gets cooked.

Serve noodles in a big bowl, garnish with sliced green onion, french fried onion. Pour hot soup over the noodle. The last ingredient is to SLURP!!  Make sure you slurp your noodles. Slurping is a Custom in Japan..Its welcomed... To not Slurp shows displeasure with the food. Enjoy!!











 

Freshly Layed Eggs makes a Delicious Flan

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

My Wife Used for Ingredients:
1 & 1/2 cup sugar
6 Medium or Large Freshly layed eggs
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 13 oz cans evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. You will need 6 (ramekins-the ceramic bowl in the pic) or other specialty flan cook ware and a large baking pan to put them in.

Pour 1 cup sugar in warm pan over medium heat. Constantly stir sugar until it browns and becomes caramel. (If you warm sugar to long it will become bitter; you might want to add just a cap full of water but it is not required) Quickly pour approximately 2-3 tablespoons of caramel in each ramekin, tilting it to swirl the caramel around the sides. Reheat caramel if it starts to harden.

In a mixer or with a whisk, blend the eggs together. Mix in the milks then slowly mix in the 1/2 cup of sugar, then the vanilla. Blend smooth after each ingredient is added.

Pour custard into caramel lined ramekins. Place ramekins in a large glass or ceramic baking dish and fill with about 1-2 inches of hot water. Bake for 45 minutes in the water bath and check with a knife just to the side of the center. If knife comes out clean, it's ready.

Remove and let cool. Let each ramekin cool in refrigerator for 1 hour. Invert each ramekin onto a small plate, the caramel sauce will flow over the custard.

Recipe Copied and modified from: http://mexicanfood.about.com/od/sweetsanddesserts/r/easyflan.htm