Inside-out cheeseburgers

I like cheese. I like hamburger (Japanese style at least). Combine the two and happiness ensues! I think I had scotch eggs in mind as well as stuffing and cheeseburgers. So I thought I should try stuffing stuffing with cheese, a classic stuffer (of both people and other foods). My basic hamburger recipe includes ground beef, slice of bread, an egg, garlic, onion, pepper, tomato paste (A BIT! not a whole can like my koibito. he tries. a lot), soy sauce and some mixed herbs or something. Occasionally I want them a little spicy so I finely chop a fresh chilli or sprinkle some curry powder into the mix. Combine well (hands work best!) and shape into patties. To stuff them I formed a small handful into a half sphere with an indent and placed the cheese in the middle of it, then plonked a bit more meat mix on top and rounded it off and shaped it as normal. I fried these and finished them with the teriyaki sauce used in spam musubi and placed them on a bed of rice with some cooked spinach on the side. Cheap and easy, like Nancy. I don't think the cheese I used was strong enough so the cheesy flavour was a tad on the mild side. But it was a good meal. Filling. I suppose you can use it the patty in a hamburger but I love my rice ;) hashidetabechatta! gochisou!

It's roast beef dinner jelly time

Every semester at the dorm of the skinny mushroom there were at least 2 parties which involved these special dinners. The chef would prepare a few special dishes and order boxes of sushi, both of which made me very happy. A popular creation was this roast beef platter with roasted potatoes, carrots and green beans. What amused me most about this dish were the little amber cubes of jelly that were piled up on the slices of beef. No they were not sweet, I'm guessing they were consomme in a more solid form. They were very cute and jiggly and I liked how they were solid soup pieces that melted in your mouth. The plate tended to be a bit on the dry side but drown it all in gravy for a little while and you are good to go. There always seemed to be a tendency, with all of the chefs that cooked for us, to really try hard with creating foreign dishes, mostly western with the exception of the chuukaryourisenmon no cooksan (specialised in Japanese-Chinese cooking) who made Ebi Chilli (I was so happy and scraping up the leftovers that night, so not much different from any night!). I think this was at one of the Christmas Parties. Lots of food and drinks is a recipe for a good time.

I want to eat a spam musubi

...so I made some! ah spam, the poor man's meat. But considered a gourmet delicacy in Japan! 'Tis where I learnt of the fantastic wonders of teriyaki glaze from my tabedachi, who has taught me so many things and shared in many cooking adventures. It was there, in the dorms of the skinny mushroom that I first encountered the Spam Musubi. Imagine giant nigiri sushi. Although if you know what nigiri sushi is there's a good chance you already know what musubi is...oh well! Teriyaki sauce is so simple! Sugar, water and a good Japanese soy sauce (I used thai soy sauce once and it didn't taste quite right, not bad though) in equal portions. The amount of sugar looks a bit scary when you first put it in but it really is the catalyst for the teriyaki flavour. Plate licking finger sucking goodness. Pour it over your fried slices of spam and cook it into the meat until the liquid has slightly reduced and starts to coat the spam with a nice glaze. Mould some rice into a block using a mould or your hands, lay the spam on top then wrap the whole thing in seaweed and presto! The magical mystical musubi of spam is born! Great for a snack or a really satisfying meal if you have a few. Excellent picnic food as they are pretty sturdy and compact and can last for a while in you bag as long as you don't sit on them.

Not so French toast

Eggy bread or french toast or I don't know what you want to call it. I like this stuff. I grew up eating it but never made it myself until now. I've been buying stoneground wholemeal bread so it is quite heavy and not incredibly absorbent. I wanted some form of baked dessert or sweet carbohydrate food and pancakes or crepes seemed like too much effort. So I beat an egg with milk, sugar and cinnamon. Put my bread slices in the toaster for a bit cuz they just came out of the freezer, then let them soak in the mixture. I only had four slices of bread but I dont think I had enough egg mix because I had to rub the last two against the dish to sponge up the remnants. Dropped some butter in a an and fried them up then layered them on a plate with icing sugar straight out of the box (who needs to dust when you can enjoy the little lumps of powdered sugar as they explode in your mouth?). It hit the spot. Sweet and moist, although I think I could have youse more liquids and gave the last two a better soaking. This is one variation of fried bread that I do enjoy very much. The other is karepan :) and donuts.

No milk is tondemonai

FujiQ is an awesome amusement park with some really great rides and bizarre things to see. Dodonpa gives me a heart attack every single time and who can get sick of Fujiyama? Ok, maybe if you go on it 8 times when there is no line then you don't feel too genki on the 2 hour bus ride home. Food is interesting there too. They have this hybrid of Japanese and American park food with a few familliar chains lurking in dark corners. American dogs (corn dogs) and takoyaki, pizza and yakisoba :3 The Tondemina is a giant ring that swings from a huge pendulum while rotating. Fun but vicious if it is raining. Those droplets sting like gravel. The ride is sponsored by a pizza company called Pizza-La which has a restaurant directly opposite. We ate there this one time a bunch of us went. I remember it being a little on the pricey side; I want to say around 400 yen for a slice but I could be completely mistaken. Tasty though, and quick, which is always good when trying to beat the never ending lines. Admittedly, FujiQ lines can be extremely short, probably because we go on weekdays and it is a little further out being on the foothills of Mount Fuji.

So, while we were eating I started craving for milk. They didn't have anything milky on the drink menu and ice cream was not really nearby. Solution? Creamer pots! I think there was some doubt as to whether or not I would dare pull something like that, so I got a paper cup and grabber as many creamer pots from the tray as I could, even asked tabedachi to grab a couple more handfuls, and sat back down at our table. Opened all the pots and emptied them out into the cup and voila! Cup of mystery goo! It was a decent amount. I didn't mind it that much but some people really couldn't stomach it at all. I did need some water to wash it down but it was strangely satisfying :)

Pasta can pan cakes

More memories of beloved Tokyo and great friends. Okonomiyaki is the student saver when it comes to food. Buy a bag of flour and a head of cabbage and you can feed yourself for a week. Of course it helps to have some mayonaise and brown sauce available and idealy an egg and any other toppings you want or can afford. I think this was a kimchi okonomiyaki with cheese and various other sauces dribbled generously on top. My family came to visit so my friends came to meet them at Sunshine City (whee there it is again!) in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. We decided to have dinner in the basement area where there are a bunch of restaurants. The place was called Pasutakan Okonomiyaki , I'm not entirely sure what the name means o_o I don't think they are referring to the elusive pasta can. Oh well. Good service, good food, friendly environment and alll the toppings you can pile on (if you wanted a sauce, nori and mayonaise tabehoudai). Its always fun to cook your own food. Generous portions for a decent price, my kinda place. Also, if you're not comfortable flipping piping hot food with steel spatulas on a sizzling oil covered hot plate, the waiters/waitresses offer to do it for you. Little sand hour glass timers are on every table to help you time your cooking if you go solo. It's fun and a lot wasier than you think ;) Okonomiyaki power!

Sticky business

Below: Sticky Lemon Chicken

Below: Iced Lemon Cake

So my koibito realised that we forgot our anniversary four days after the fact. Hmm, well just goes to show we havent changed over the years. He is the one obsessed with Gordon Ramsey and sends me off to youtube to watch videos of him in all his glory. Was pointed in the direction of a sticky lemon chicken recipe after telling of my half cooked drumstick problem so I thought I'd give it a go. Only vaguely followed the chef's recipe as I was just working with whatever was within grabbing distance in the kitchen. Oh wait, but I did buy lemons. Walking is always good for building up an appetite (not that I've ever had a problem doing that :D) Needed to clear out freezer so I just used all (or so I thought) the drumsticks I had. After defrosting them, I put them in a hot pan with a lil sesame oil (the only kind I have left) to brown them a bit while I was juicing the lemons. I used two, which I think was overkill. One is plenty, I just felt greedy. Drizzled in some soy sauce, then juice, then water and let it all cook up. When the liquid was reduced and starting to coat the meat I squeezed honey generously over each of the drumsticks (Squeezy Honey: THE BEST INVENTION EVER!) and let everything get to know each other a lil better before taking it off the heat and letting them cool down. The sauce got a lot stickier after I let it stand for a bit so I twirled the sticks to give them an extra glossy coat. Piled them on a bed of rocket salad (the plant kind, not the spaceship...) and sat down to watch The Dark Crystal. Very good, probably should have put a lil more effort into seasoning but it was surprisingly tasty just as it was. I think I would add some ginger and black pepper and maybe some garlic and herby stuffs. Highly recommended recipe for people looking for an easy, tasty chicken dish.

I guess I was feeling in a very lemony mood that day because I also bought an iced lemon cake. Very moist yet crumbly. Or maybe it was jsut for me cuz I was digging at it with my fingers. But in any case very pleasant, so thank you Waitrose! I like lemon! You will come to understand that I am easily influenced by things, so it wasn't surprising that I did that after watching Mama Beagle in Duck Tales make all those iced cakes with crowbars and chainsaws and Mr. Ramsey slice up those juicy looking lemons. Now I want sticky lemon chicken...and cake ...I don't even like cake, but I love lemons...and my darling sweetiepie for telling me about drumstick magic.

Poke in the park

Eating raw tuna and shoyu is an incredible experience so who would have thought taking it one step further was possible. Thank you Hawaiian Japanese cooks for creating this utterly fantabulous dish that has made my taste buds seize up in tantric orgasms on many an occasion. The poke pictured here was homemade in London, thus the recipe (as most are) was somewhat improvised. I've made it before with just tuna, garlic and the dressing, which still tastes excellent but lacks the oceanic depth of flavour created by the additional ingredients. The simple combination of succulent cubes of raw tuna, wakame and spring onions tossed in minced garlic, shoyu, sesame oil and a dash of hot curry powder creates a wonderfully refreshing salad like dish that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

So many fond memories of this dish whilst in Japan. Watching as my tabedachi (tabemono tomodachi) demonstrated culinary alchemy. Picnics in Kiba park, sitting under the shade of a low tree, scooping helpings of fresh poke into paper cups and observing our fellow park goers. Model plane jiichans losing planes in trees and asking baseball playing guys to climb trees and throw balls at the little crafts wedged high up in the branches. Young couples taking time out in thier weekend to relax in the great outdoors beneath a great blue cloud speckled sky, laying side by side on the grass playing their respective NDSs. Hard working salary men spending time with their families by sleeping in a near comatose state on a bench only to wake and find only the right side of thier face roasted pink from the overhead sun. Good times.

Drinkable cheesecakes

Namja Town in Sunshine City, Ikebukuro (Tokyo, Japan) is one place that will pop up many times in my memories of dessert in Japan. I'll refrain from repeating myself so I shall avoid leaking any spoilers about some of the "special surprises" that can be found through the magical gates of Namja. There are seasonal specials in the main store of the Choux Cream Forrest. My colleague and I went during one of the cheesecake seasons. Very wide selection of cheese-related desserts. Example: "drinkable cheesecake" (nomuchiizukeeki) pictured in the lower right corner (if you still can't find it here;s another hint: the one in the bottle with the straws stuck to it :D) This caused many eyebrows to raise, but we were pleasantly surprised. Very smooth light fluffy texture with a creamy weight to it that was not too rich, a characteristic that was greatly appreaciated by yours truly who confesses to not liking cheesecake (alas, both cheesecakes were purchased by my tabemono tomodachi). The slice of cheesecake was apparently made by a famous bakery somewhere in Japan (somewhere in Hokkaido ...kana?) and it cost 600yen! But it was very rich and velvety and I can see why (if I really really stretch it) it cost as much as it did. I had the strawberry chiffon and the creme brulee, both of which are highly recommended. The chiffon was incredibly delicate, in the best way possible. The fresh flavour of real strawberries and lightness of the cake fused together perfectly. The creme brulee is only finished when you order it so the caramelised sugar crust is still warm and crunchy when you break though to the milky, creamy goodness within. Perfection in a ramekin? I dare say so. I think I had that creme brulee everytime I went to Namja Town. Yes, that good.

It's a small world after all

Over the years I have come to realise that I have a slight obsession with food, if that is, any obsession can be described as slight. Everybody eats. Food is life, expressing anything from cultural uniqueness and diversity to the international synethesis we are beginning to witness at an increasing rate in the globalised urban societies of the contemporary world. Yay! Essentially, I have a lot of food pictures and my intent is to share some of the gastronomic delights I have come across as a nagaremono of kono chicchai na sekai ;) and maybe a few non sequiturs for good measure. ENJOY?!

The Lobster Quadrille

"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind up and he's treading on my tail."
See how easily the lobsters and the turtles all advance,
They are waiting on the shingle, will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

You can really have no notion how delightful it will be,
When they take us up and throuw us, with the lobsters, out to sea,
But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance,
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance,
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance,
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied,
"There is a nother shore, you know, upon the other side,
The further off from England, the nearer is to France,
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, and come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

-Lewis Carroll