Meatless Monday Potluck Lunch Party - Japanese Food

What did we bring to our #MeatlessMonday potluck party this time?

Here we go!

Vegetarian sashimi.
They are made of konyaku, I was amazed how close the texture and taste to real sashimi.


Vegetarian yakitori including mock beef and mock sausages.


Tangy cold noodles salad. Glass noodles and shredded vegetables in sesame oil & vinegars.
Very refreshing!


Vegetarian pork chop - again, really close to the real deal. I was completely shocked.

To go with the pork chop cutlet, I made this.

Vegetable Japanese curry.
It went really well with the vegetarian pork chop.
I generally have no access to mock meat, so I try to make do without.
The curry has carrot, potatoes, baby corn, broccoli, and mushrooms. Very colorful!
I used my favourite S&B Japanese curry cubes.
Oh, actually I can't take any credits for this. My wonderful helper did it, I simply gave her instructions ;)


Soft tofu with vegetarian "meat floss"


Soy sauce konyaku noodles with mock shrimps.


Cold spinach side dish.
Blanched spinach with soy sauce, black vinegar, manuka honey, sesame oil.


Beansprouts spicy side dish.
Blanched beansprouts, spicy 7 spice powder, sesame oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper.

And the star of the show...

Toblerone Cheesecake!
Cream cheese & cream & melted toblerone on chocolate crust, topped with shaved toblerone.
There is no way it is no

Who says meatless means not good (or must be healthy?)?
Ahem!

We're having a break next week because Mid Autumn Festival Holiday.

'Til next time~!

Meatless Monday Potluck Party

How to combat Monday blues?
We do it by having #MeatlessMonday potluck party every week and it works!
We choose a theme and plan what we're going to bring (we can't have 6 noodle dishes, no? Nobody would be able to work after that).

We love our #meatlessmonday so far.
It's exciting, it makes us look forward to Mondays, it challenges us, and it makes us realise that meatless does not mean not good!

So here's our menu this week.
The theme is Asian.

Mushrooms and veggies lettuce wraps.


How adorable! Tasty too!


Nam yue (fermented tofu) "pork belly", dried shiitake mushrooms, glass noodles, napa cabbage and beancurd sheets stew.


Vegetarian "pork belly"!
It's amazing how they can mimick the appearance and texture of the fatty part of pork belly.


Beancurd wrapped sticky rice cake and glass noodles in tomato broth.


Too cute!

What did I make?
I made gado-gado, a very popular Indonesian salad.

Blanched: long beans, mini napa cabbage (because I dislike cabbage), beansprouts.
Boiled potatoes and hard boiled eggs.
Fresh tomatoes & cucumber.
Fried: tempe chunks, tofu puffs, crispy sweet potato or crackers.
Dressing: gado-gado peanut dressing + lime.


Yum!
I made a version without boiled egg and dressing without garlic and shallot for our vegetarian friend (dressing = crushed roasted peanuts + salt + palm sugar + lime).

And our dessert!
Our dessert was given a freedom not to follow the Asian theme, because.. cheesecake.
We want cheesecake. Cheesecake is Asian. Cheesecake is everything.

It's no-bake blueberry cheesecake, with reduced sugar and no egg too!


So light and yummy!

Next week's theme: Japanese.
Looking forward to it :)

The Grilled Pork Neck Dish That I Bring To All Potluck Parties

I don't know how to call this dish... I used to call it sate (or satay - I am not a big fan of this word, Indonesians say SATE!) grilled pork neck because I make it how I make sate, but nobody's convinced because there is no skewering involved, there is no peanut sauce and the end product doesn't look anywhere within 100m radius of sate. So, I see how sate or satay might not be a great name for it :)

So let's just call this the Grilled Pork Neck Dish That Rita Brings To All Potluck Parties. BecauseI really brought this dish to almost every potluck party I attended. People love it (or at least they pretend to), and even if people don't love it - I have no issues finishing it myself. Hehehheh. 

It's very easy to make. Idiot-proof level.

I can't think of easy ways to ruin this dish... except maybe if you're bringing this dish to a party naked, and it is not a nudist party. That will ruin the dish. Sorry - I tend to go off topic like that.

Now, to make this dish.

Recipe

Meat

- Pork neck meat (I usually buy frozen ones from Kai Bo. You can buy fresh if you want), or you can substitute this with thigh chicken fillet with skin on.

(Quantity recommendation: if this is one of the many dishes of a potluck party, 1 big slice of pork neck meat that's available in Kai Bo frozen food shop should be ok for 4 people. If you're treating this as one of the main dishes, then 1 slice serves 2. If you're serving this to a crazy greedy pork-lover, allow 1 per person)

Marinade

- Shallot, thinly sliced (1/2 shallot per 1 slice pork neck)

- Kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)

- Soy sauce 

(Ratio of soy sauce : sweet soy sauce = 1 : 3)

- ground nutmeg, ground coriander seeds, cumin

Dipping sauce

- Kecap manis

- Fish sauce (just a dash)

- Lime juice (or lemon juice)  

- Lime wedges or lemon wedges

- A bit of ground nutmeg

- Thinly sliced shallot (just a bit - you can set aside some when slicing shallot for the marinade)

- Chopped fresh chillies (preferably the green birds eye chilli - cabe rawit ftw! or omit if you can't handle the heat)

Mix well & serve in small bowls with the lime or lemon wedges 

How to do

(Ideally prepare the night before serving)

Marinating

Defrost meat if you bought frozen. Pat dry, po ke the meat all over with fork (or meat poke...r?). Place meat in container, add marinade, massage the marinate all over the meat and refrigerate overnight (or a couple hours).

Grilling

Preheat oven to 250C, grill meat until the surface gets nicely caramelized. You can baste with the marinade or make more of the dipping sauce for basting. This normally takes about 40 minutes in my oven.

Charcoal grilling would be awesome too.

When done, slice diagonally and thinly, squeeze lime juice all over it and serve with dipping sauce.

And wait for the crowd to ask you for the recipe ;)