With the cake done I got started on what turned out to be the easiest part of dinner. The Wontons. I bought the wonton wrapper/dough at the Japan-Sage Market for just under $2.00., now while it didn't come with directions, this was easy enough to figure out without the directions. What you'll need is some wonton wrappers, cubed cheese, and a little water. Set out one wonton and put a tiny cube of cheese near the middle. Before you fold the corners to meet, forming the triangle, dip your pinkie in water and get the edges wet. This will hold the dough together better. Seal it up good because you don't want cheese getting in your oil. It should look something like this when you're done: Heat the oil in a non-stick skillet, or a wok if you own one. It should be around 300F before you turn it down to a medium-high. Put the wontons in but don't over-crowed your pan/wok. As they turn brown, pull them out so they don't burn.
Look yummy huh? Oh they were!
Then it was the chicken... This was not as fun as I hoped.
Poke holes in the thawed brumbsticks befor you put the drum sticks in a marinade of soy sauce, ginger, and sake. Let it sit in the fridge for an hour. When the time's up, dry them with a paper towel before you put potato startch on them.
Heat the oil in your pan/wok to around 400F then CAREFULLY put the chicken in.
Here is where my night took an interesting turn.
I fried the chicken as long as it said and damn things still weren't done. No we had to throw them in the ovan for almost an hour before they were done. Pissed off does not come cloud to how mad I got.
Over reaction? Yes. But things don't usually go that way for me in the kitchen so I over reacted.
And oh my god it was SO GOOD! Does anyone have good chicken frying tips?
To those of us in America and/or Europe, Christmas is what December has become all about. For better or worse. Just saying Christmas brings images of snow, cookies, Santa Clause, decorated trees, hug credit card bills, car crashes, Secret Santa, and those god awful sweaters. Families gather for Christmas dinner (or in the case of mine, breakfast) and the munchkins run around the tree shouting, “Lookie! Lookie! I got just what I wanted!” However! This is not exactly the case in Japan. Let me remind you all of something: Christmas is a Christian Holiday. Christianity is in Japan, yes, although Shinto and Buddhism are the norms. So they view Christmas differently than you or I. They have taken many of our traditions and adopted them in their own way. Christmas trees are brought into the home, holiday parties are held, and gifts are exchanged. I’ve read that they have Christmas Markets in many cities now that bring is a lot of crowds. While we Westerners make Christmas a family event, in Japan it’s more of a couples event. Kinda like Valentine’s Day, couples go out to dinner and then maybe a hotel or someplace very romantic. And, just like V-Day, if you’re a single girl-be ready for constant reminders of it. In most of the big cities, Tokyo and Sendai especially, they string out the whole downtown with lights. Trust me when I say this isn’t your next-door neighbors’ light display, oh hell no, google or bing ‘Christmas lights in Tokyo/Japan’ and just look at the pretty lights. Christmas Even is a lot bigger in Japan than Christmas Day, too. I’ll save that post for New Years Eve here though so we can compare the two. Onto dinner! On Thursday after we closed early at my first job, mom and I drove over to the Sage Market to pick up some snacks an’ such for x-mass eve. You know how on x-mass eve we usually eat a ham or something? In Japan they have KFC. Yes you read that right. Kentucky Fried Chicken (or Kitchen Fried Chicken, whatever KFC is calling it this year). It’s the busiest night of the year for that company in Japan and I’m not 100% sure why. I read somewhere that it was because a Japanese man said he liked eating KFC on x-mass eve so most of the country ran with that idea. Although there is a KFC literally right across the street from where I work, joined with Taco Hell, I’m not stopping there on my way home. I like KFC and all but if I want fried chicken I’ll fecking make fried chicken. But first is everything else. After work yesterday mom and I drove over to the Japan-Sage Market to pick up some snacks for dinner.
Two kinds of squid, one is seasoned with sake and I couldn’t place the other flavor. If you aren’t sure what Pocky is then let me say it’s basically a biscuit with frosting on it, very yummy. And the shrimp flavored chips are the best thing ever! They aren’t very shrimpy and they are crunchy. You can usually find Pocky and shrimp chips in the Asian section of your grocery store.
The first seasoned squid was yummy to me, I'm not sure what dad thought, mom was so not impressed-she didn't like it at all! The sake squid we've had before, again mom's not a fan. However we all liked the shrimp chips and pocky.
On Christmas Eve, Macy's gave it's employees the best gift ever! There was NO music playing! Why do I call this the best gift ever? After Halloween we hear NOTHING but friggin' christmas music! I've grown to hate carols because that's all I've heard for the last two months. Over kill much? Yes. Anyways.
After work on Christmas Eve I came home and began fixing dinner. The menue I selected was:
Ginger Flavored Fried Chicken (thank you about.com)
Fried Wontons Christmas Cake (thank you joyofbaking.com)
And the only thing that didn't give me grief in one form or another was the cake. I really think I'm a better baker than a cook.
First thing I did was the cake because it would have to chill and the eggs would need to come up to room temp. Christmas Cakes in Japan are really nothing more than a sponge cake with strawberries and whipped topping. Sounds easy right? Well not so much, sponge cakes are known for being tricky because they have more eggs in them than your average cake. It makes it a lot easier for them to get flat or be over mixed. What you do first is separate 6 eggs, then set the ovan to 350F (177C).
After they are separated you let them come up to room temp., to prevent icky things from happening to them I'd recomend covering with a towel, foil, or something of the like. Once they come up to temp., it's time to break out the sugar and cake flour. I used wheat cake flour. Sift 1 cup of flour into a bowl with 1/4 cup of sugar. Set aside. In a mixing bowl add the 6 egg yolks to another 1/2 cup of sugar.
Now here it said to beat on high for 5 minutes or until thick, fluffy, and lightly colored. I decided to hand whisk this so the egg yolk didn't get over beaten... so if you do that, go at a medium-fast speed until the mix is lightly colored, fluffy, and your arm's ready to fall off. Then beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of water, until well mized in.
You'll know it's well mixed when it 'ribbons off' all that means is you scoop it up with something and it slides off consistandly, doesn't prip, but looks like a ribbon.
Set aside and pull out a clean bowl. Put the egg whites inside and be ready to whisk again! For this I do recomend a mixer. Use the lowest setting you've got and whisk until the whites are foamy.
Next, slowly add in 1/4 cup sugar and beat on low until it's shiny and stiff peaks show. That means as you turn the beater off and lift it out of the mix, there's a peak that won't melt/sink right away or at all.
Bring back over the other mixture and add in the white mix, very GENTLY fold them to gether. Those who don't know what this is: you take a spoon/spacula scoop up a bottom part of the mix and bring it over the top. Reapeat this until it's mixed/folded well.
So now it's all mixed together. Take out a circular cake pan and non-stick-spray the bottom only.
I put my cake pan over a cookie sheet just incase the cake batter went over the edge. I've had it happen with other cakse. Let the cake bake in the ovan for about a half hour or 35 minutes. When it's ready you should be able to stick a toothpick in and have it come out clean. I prefer to use a butter knife for this trick, though, because it'll go all the way through the cake.
If it comes out clean, leave the cake in the pan and let it cool completely. This could take an hour or so, one thing you can dso is start the frosting.
I forgot to take pictures of the frosting sorry.
Here's what you do. Put 1-2 cups heavy whipping cream in a bowel, add a 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1 tablespoon sugar. stir lightly and put it in the fridge for a half hour, along with the whisk/beaters you want to use for this.
As it gets chilly break out the strawberries. I do not recomend using the frozen ones for this because they are too juicy. Get fresh ones! Cut about five in thirds and then the tops off another 5. Set asaide.
When you take them out start whisking on low speed. You'll know this is done because it will be thick and have stiff peaks. Set aside.
Once the cake is completely cooled, drop it once or twice to loosen it out of the pan. Put onto a plate and with a cake-wire or long kitchen knife cut the cake in half.
Add a layer of frosting on the bottom half of the cake. Next add the cut strawberries onto that later of frosting. Frost the other cut layer-bottom and then flip it onto the frosted strawberry half. Begin frosting the rest of the cake, starting from the middle of the top and working your way out and down. Save a little of the frosting and put it in five small mounds on the top of the cake for the five strawberries.
Ta da! You now have a Christmas Cake! Of course you can make it extra fancy by adding x-mass decoratios or a dusting of powdered sugar.
First off, I’m sorry about the long absence. Life got in the way and soon I’ll be starting back at school again.
I have been cooking though, mostly one-pot dishes to keep the family warm. Snow hit Utah just before Turkey Day (Thanksgiving), and the warmest we’ve been since then is like 50 degrees F. Last night I cooked up Niku Dofu, which is simmered tofu and meat, I used a beef steak cut. You start off by boiling soy, sake, dashi and sugar in a pan then add the sliced beef/meat. It only boils until it turns color and you pull it out of the liquid then set to the side. Now here is where I had to substitute, not by choice, see you’re supposed to use enoki mushrooms; however daddy didn’t find any at the store. Button mushrooms got thrown into the pot instead.
After the mushrooms, a medium quartered onion goes in too. Followed by one block-firm, cubed, tofu. Simmer them all together for about five minutes before reintroducing the beef. Cook them all together until they are cooked through, serve immediately.
I didn’t cook anything else to go with that dish last night ‘cause I was very short on time. A few options could be the usual rice or maybe even some stir-fried veggies.
Next week, I’ll only be cooking one dish and I’m going to push for it to be the Christmas Eve dinner. I’ll be surfing the net in search of what is usually eaten, other than KFC, in Japan. Since x-mass isn’t a traditional holiday in Japan, I don’t expect traditional foods. XD
Shut up about last week. I simply forgot. So here's what I cooked on Monday, but first a catch up.
I've been mostly helping my mother with a horse show, and haning out with my friend Chel. On Saturday Chel and I went to the Pagan Pride festival in Murray Park. It was our second year going and while we had fun, we both agree they where low on real vendors this year. Everyone seemed to push for giving readings (tarot cards and runes) to others.
Later that night I went out and saw Resident Evil: Afterlife. It was okay and the only thing I wish the movie really put more effort into the siblinghood of Chris and Claire, since there was next to none.
Dinner on Monday was a ramen dish that I pretty much made up on the spot. Before daddy left for work, I asked if he had any requests on what I should cook this week for the dinners. He asked for a pork noodle dish. I chose to use ramen noodles since I know pork would go better with those than the udon I have hiding.
Here's a fact about ramen noodles. It's not a noodle dish that originates from Japan. Ramen noodles are from China. The Japanese really like their ramen and they eat it (as far as I can tell) more than the Chinese do.
In many bigger Prefectures/cities in Japan you can find whole streets dedicated to cooking ramen dishes. Tokyo unquestionably has the most in the country. There are also a few ramen centered eatteries here in the sates, you just need to know how to look for them. I suggest yellowpages or Dex.
Ramen is also cooked differently in the regions of Japan. Sapporo, for example, likes to put miso in their ramen dishes. While Tokyo you'll find more dishes that are onpar with soba dishes.
Onto my cooking! Our trip to Wally World to get what we needed was um... interesting. First off their leek selection was very EW! I took the two leeks that I could find that looked the best. The rest where slimey and looked like they'd been dragged down a rough road. Ew.
The other funny thing that happened was during checkout. The cashier looked at my leeks and said, "What the heck are those?!" She had never seen leeks before! I told her they where like onions and I used them when cooking Asian food, she was all "Oh...okay."
Then we got home and after putting away all the other groceries, I started on dinner. After giging the leeks the scrubbing of their lives, I sliced them.
Next I took the can on bamboo shoots and the can of water chestnuts, opened them and drained the liquid. Once the liquid was out of the cans I put the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts on a plate with a paper towel under them, to soak up any leftover liquid.
Next was the pork. I cut it into bite size pieces and only used to slabs (for lack of better turm).
I used two blocks of ramen noodles, throw away the packets, I don't use them when cooking like this. Add 2 - 3 cups of water to your pot of choice and let it come to a boil. As it heats up put in 1/4 teaspoon dashi powder, 1 tablespoon mirin, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon white miso. Once it boils them add the blocks of ramen noodles. After the noodles are loose enough that you can stir them away from each other (that make sense?) add the veggies and the meat.
Bring the heat down to a mideum-high and let everything keep cooking until both the meat and veggies are done. You can serve with other foods too, I didn't since it was just dad and I at the time.
^_^ Let me know what you think if you ever try it.
Busy. That’s where. A lot has happened since my last post.
Firstly, one of my laptops named Viking decided it was time to die a very odd epic death. See he had been acting slower than usual and I did all the normal scans for infections, took off the useless stuff, cleaned out my compressed files. That didn’t work so I asked my dad to give me the format and reinstall disk. Here’s where it gets odd. The format and reinstall didn’t work. We tried it like ten times with two different disk and the computer wouldn’t do it. It read the disk, it just didn’t come back up naked (for lack of better term) like it’s supposed to.
Viking is now in my closet on top of a box. There’s a brand new computer on my desk named Boo. And Boo is full of all kinds of awesome. I’ve had him a little over a month now and love it. Secondly, I’ve been making lists and itineraries for the trip to Walt Disney World the first part of November. The only one in my immediate family doing so I might add! Sheesh. Mom screws around on facebook and dad does who knows what on his computer. At least I try to be productive.
Lastly, um we had a car get murdered this month. Dad was on his way to work last week when he got hit on the passenger driver side of my 2001 Taurus by a gravel truck. Dad’s fine! He just had minor whiplash (also injured his pride) and the truck driver was fine too, just glad dad wasn’t hurt. Mom was at work and I was off in dream land when this happened, so when dad called me he woke me up… and since it was just after 12-noon I needed to get up, but still! Mom got him and we were told two days later that my car was dead.
Down to one car for those two days was interesting. I called into Macy*s ‘cause we were still running around doing things, mom wanted to go car shopping after everything with the insurance was completely done, and there was no way in hell I was going into work by that hour then having them rush back to get me. No. Just no.
I haven’t been car shopping with my parents in years. I don’t think I’ve been there when they bought a car, I’ve been in several with them. Dad wanted a brand new car since he’s never had one before, mom was cool with that so was I. He asked me if I had any preferences on cars to which I responded “Um, an automatic with oh-shit handles.” I TRIED to drive a stick a few years ago, mom’s Passat is a stick and I ended up flooding the engine. …yeah I fail. The Taurus had no handles on the roof, just the hooks for hangers, which is bad when making sharp turns or slamming on the breaks should you be my passenger.
Anyways, we ended up getting a 2010 Honda Civic. I LOVE THIS CAR! Having a CD player is nice after just listening to tapes me whole driving life… only thing is all my audio books are on tapes…
This is what my last two months have been filled with and why I wasn’t blogging. There will be a food blog update with real food either later tonight or sometime tomorrow. It will include pictures and my takes on some snacks I bought today at the Sage Market.
I really got distracted with too many things to put down right now and just haven't blogged about my cooking. But there is hope!
My biggest distraction pretty much took over my Thursday cooking, our trip to Walt Disney World in October - November. I decided to theme the meal to a movie we watch that night as a countdown thing. So during the last meal themed to go with The Sword in the Stone, dad commented on how nice it was for him not to cook one night. I have offered to cook two nights a week now, once on Monday and then again on Thursday. He seemed to like that idea so I'm going to run with it.
Monday's will now be the day I cook a Japanese meal, and Thursday's will be for the countdown until furthur notice. So look for an update come Monday.
No it is not a type of sushi. Kinda looks like one though but there is no rice.
Before we get into the cooking, I’d like to share with you all a band I found from Japan called Versailles. Versailles in a J-Rock band who also does Visual Kei, visual kei translates to “visual lifestyle” so it’s all about the visual. In Versailles case, the visual is Victorian Aristocrat. One thing about this band that really threw me for a loop is that they are all boys…
Anyone else think it’s unfair that they make cute girl(s)? The band members are Kamijo (vocals, with the big white coat), Hizaki (guitar, the one in the pink dress), Teru (guitar, sitting on the floor) Yuki (drums, behind the couch to your right), and Jasmine You (base, the one behind the couch to your left).
I am sad to report, however, that in 2009 they lost their band member Jasmine You. Jasmine You had been experiencing health problems and he passed away suddenly on August 9th. They have not replaced him and I do not think they will.
Below is their music video for the song Serenade off their upcoming album Jubilee (10/01/10)
For more you can check out their webpage: http://versailles.syncl.jp/ (yes it is in Japanese) They also have a myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/versaillesjp (it’s in english)
Onto the food!
It was a somewhat frustrating cooking experience to say the very least. I think the easiest thing I cooked all day of yesterday was the rice (since pre-made lunch as cereal doesn't count).
For this meal one needs boneless chicken thighs... I could not find any so I used chicken breasts instead. The other thing I substituted was a yam for a carrot, ew!! I hate carrots! Moving on-I also left out the sake because I thought we still hade some white cooking wine at home hiding. Well either it's hiding really well or we just don't have it anymore since I didn't find it.
So yesterday I took he chiken out of the freezer and into to the fridge, it wasn't complete thawed by the time I was ready to poundthe crap out of it. While I let it keep thawing I grabbed a few handfulles of spinache ad threw them into a pot of boilng water for a few minutes, just to wear them down-for lack of better term.
Once they had wilted the way I wanted, they got drained, splashed with cold water, and lightly wringed out. Putting them on a plate I re-filled the pot with water and put one yam cute up like french fries. I haven't cooked yams before and figured I'd try it like cooking a potato so they were just fork-tender. It worked. Yay!
As the spinache and yams cooled down it wa time to smash my chicken! Muwahaha! I used a freezer bag, putting the chicken in it, and a rolling pin since I don't own a mallet... yet. Pounding food is noisy. Anyone else every notice that? The chicken got thin enough to roll so in the center I put a few spinach leaves and one too two yams.
I'm not sure the tying job I did would be considered right but it did hold up. Cooking the chicken is where all this got me frazzeled. Adding the mirin and soy sauce got them all golden-brown like what was asked for, however, when I cute open the first one... it was not done in the center. Can you say health hazard? So I put them all back in the skillet for about 15 - 20 minutes. I also added to the side of the skillet some panko covered yam fries. Those cae out yummy!
After the chicken finally got cooked and succeeded in ruffling my blonde feathers, mom could not stop going on about how good this was. And boy was it!
Now I had hopped to have a picture or three of the meal up for you all to see. Sadly I couldn't find batteries to my camera and the other was with my dad. I'll have pictures next time! :)
YAY Thursdays! I didn't make a bento for the family today because I didn't get that far.
Okonomiyaki is like a Japanese pancake that married a pizza. There are any different styles to cook it, the two most popular being Osaka and Hiroshima’s style . I cooked the Osaka style a couple weeks ago and really liked it, so this week I’m trying the Hiroshima to compare the two mostly and see which I like better.
So after I got up and dressed this morning I started on the Daifuku. Daifuku is a type of mochi (rice cake) that has anko filling, anko is a sweet red bean usually in a powder or past form. I have never cooked this before so it was interesting to say the least. On my first try the dough was more like batter, way too watery, on my second try I has to use two different rice flowers (sweet and glutinous) before I got it the way it needed to be. I added about five drops of green food coloring to give it a contrast for tonight’s dinner, then I popped it in the microwave for 2 minutes. When I pulled it out next I added just a little more water, stirred it, and put it back in for one minute.
The directions say to start flattening the dough the minute it comes out of the microwave. OUCH!!! It burns so my advice is to slam your hands on it quickly, remove, scream ouch, repeat. After I got it kinda flat I rolled some anko past into balls and stretched out pieces of the dough over them. The key in doing all this is the potato starch, it keeps the dough from sticking to my hands too much.
After I got all the anko covered with the dough, I put the Daifuku in the fridge. Originally I didn’t plan to start cooking the rice until four but mom’s home with stomach flu and she wanted some for lunch. She ate her share while the rest went into the fridge.
Making the Okonomiyaki was easier this time. Cooking the dough with the veggies (cabbage, green onion and bean sprouts) while frying the noodles turned out easier than I had originally thought. Yakisoba sauce tastes kinda like barbeque sauce, only better. I’m not a fan of BBQ. So after you cook the dough and veggies you add the meat slices, I already cooked my meat slices a little first so I knew they would be cooked thoroughly, and you flip it over onto the noodles. At the same time you fry an egg to put on the top.
After it’s cooked a little longer it gets flipped back over and put on a plate, egg goes on top, and then some Okonomiyaki sauce, also kinda tastes like bbq sauce, before setting it down to enjoy. And YUMMY! I think I may like this one better than Osaka style. Mom and dad enjoyed it too so this has been added to the “Cook Again” list.
Call me Nissa, I'm a young gothic chick who has an ever-growing love for things from Japan. It started with Anime, jumped to food, now it's also culture and J-Rock. So join me as I learn and explore these worlds.
Here is a lil' about me, mind you this is just a little cause the internet is full of creepies. I'm Nissa, or Nissy if you really must. I do live with my parents yes, but hey it's cheap. I have two pets: Tux and Syren. Tuxadurby is my five year old, 15lbs, tuxedo cat... who suffers from stupidity. Syren is my 15 year old chestnut (red-head) Arabian horse who thinks she's the Queen of Shiba. My mother's two cats are Dorry and Luna-P (yes, yes, from Sailor Moon). Hm what else? My favorite color is red and my favorite drink is Dr. Pepper.
Yeah I think that will do-for now.
Anime may be my first love of things that are Japanese, but its followed very closely by Japanese Food! Oh my god I love their food! And not just sushi, terykaki, ramen, and pokey either. No, no, no. I'm in love with udon dishes, okonomiyaki, daifuku, yakisoba, and mochi.
Every Thursday night I make a Japanese Meal for dinner and sometimes I get real ambitious and pack bento (lunches) for my mom and dad too. During my first few weeks of this I've learned a few interesting things on Japanese food culture. Ever go to your fav search engine and typed in 'bento'? If not give it a try. It really is amazing what these people do with their lunches. The only thing I have yet to try is Sake, I'm of age to drink but I've never gone out to get any because I haven't the foggiest idea of where to start. The liquor stores here are small but they do have what looks like a good selection of sake.
Now that the pointless babbling is over, here are a few basics about the kitchen cabinet essentials: Mirin - it's a mix of sugar and sake Soy Sauce - you do know what this is, right? Dashi - A fish based stock, very fishy Rice - If you don't know what that is then slap yourself HARD Nori - Better known to us as seaweed and you usually find it dried All these make up the main parts of the different meals, what you add after that in the recipe you follow is really up to you.
