My Favourite YouTube Channel - Cooking with Dog

Apart from baking, I enjoy cooking very much too. One thing I like the most that you do in cooking but not baking is chopping. I feel empowered with a nice, sharp kitchen knife - for example, there's a sense of satisfaction I get when I manage to chop up an onion into a neat mince, despite having tears rolling down my face! Another important thing is that I get to learn a lot from my mum when we're working together in the kitchen. The tips and tricks that are passed down the family from daughter to daughter is always valuable, as you probably won't be able to find them anywhere else.

Occasionally I'd be in charge of making dinner, using the opportunity to try dishes that made my mouth water the instant I saw them on the Internet, or say, practice cooking more so I don't have to survive on just instant noodles when I get to uni! This is what I made for dinner last night:


So, back to my favourite YouTube channel. I stumbled across it a few months ago, and after watching my first video - I was hooked. Literally. I have been known to procrastinate by watching video after video on Cooking with Dog. In short, the videos teach you how to make everyday Japanese dishes, demonstrated by a lovely Japanese woman, and hosted by a dog called Francis.In this post I'd like to introduce you to this wonderful channel and show you some of the dishes I've made:

Hamburg Steak, also known as Hanbagu - my latest dish. It's a Japanese recreation of the American Hamburger, but it's a little thicker and very juicy, and is served as a main dish.


I think my go at it was pretty good - the patty was indeed very juicy and the onion gravy was absolutely delicious - it smelled great with the addition of butter, but wasn't very oily or heavy. The potato wedges were also pan fried, but the potato was parboiled, cooled slightly then cut. I was surprised that even by cooking them in a pan, the exterior was still very crispy and it's much quicker than roasting them in an oven. However, a glitch did occur - I severely over salted the broccoli, so it was inedible. Oops!

Yaki Gyoza (Pan fried dumplings). My sister and mum helped out a bit with this as we wrapped them together one afternoon. Frying them in sesame oil gives a lovely, enticing fragrance to the gyozas and by using the method, the skin crisped up very nicely. Hard to resist eating a whole plateful! I like to dip them in some soya sauce mixed with Chinese black vinegar and a dash of sesame oil.


Omurice, which was my first attempt at making something from CWD. Okay, the ketchup blob was a fail, because I was pouring from the bottle, not from a squeeze bottle. But apart from that, I remember that the tomato fried rice was delicious even on its own. I was so glad that the omurice came together well - i.e. I didn't tear the egg or overly brown the surface. The lady makes it seem so easy on the video, but in fact, it's actually really hard to control the size of the egg sheet, how much rice to put in, and keeping it intact when flipping it over is actually very hard!


Technically, a dessert: Shiratama (chewy glutinous rice balls). There isn't an actual video on it, but one day I had a huge urge to try make shiratama, and I followed the instructions on their video on Tofu Dango. I simply mixed roughly equal amounts of Japanese glutinous flour (shiratamako) and water, shaped them into balls and boiled them until they floated and were cooked.

These little balls are chewy, the perfect accompaniment with ice cream as it provides a great textural contrast. Here, I ate them with Goma (black sesame) ice cream that was scooped with a mini ice cream scoop so they are around the same size as the shiratama, and with a sprinkling of ground black sesame seeds. An alternative to the normal wafers or cookies, adding a nice twist to your otherwise plain bowl of ice cream!

So, I hope that you will watch some of the videos from that channel too and try your hand it some of the dishes!

Do tell me if you have any other favourite cooking channels that you would recommend! I'm never tired of watching videos on cooking or baking :)