Bat-shaped Meringues

I pulled off some old pics of my keitai and was reminded of some old adventures. This I know was one of the many occasions we (Steff and I) made meringues. I'm not sure if we needed the yolks for something else and we just turned the whites into meringues or if we just wanted meringues and we dumped the yolks. In any case, chalk it up to another egg based adventure for the retards.

So meringues are super easy and a hell lot easier if you've got a good oven. The dorm's oven was seriously from the 80's and not only did it cook unevenly due to uneven heat distribution, it was just a pain to work with in general since it was so small. No American-sized jumbo ovens here. Anyway, if you've ever got some egg whites lying around (from making egg wash or pudding or something), you can easily make meringues without an egg beater. We've done it many times. You just add some sugar and a pinch of cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat until stiff. You can then use a pastry bag to pipe, or if you haven't got a pastry bag, a plastic ziploc bag should do the trick. Just snip the corner off and pipe away onto a piece of parchment paper. The trick with meringues is that you can't cook them on too high heat or they'll burn on the outside and the inside will still be runny and uncooked. Basically, you just put it on low heat, a couple notches above the lowest setting your oven can do should be fine and just let them bake slowly for about 10-15 minutes. They should dry out and get little golden brown tinges when they're done. You just let them sit after you pull them out and voila. Meringues.

This is a particularly nice picture because it reminds me of Steff and the dorm. You can see the cheap white plastic coated dining tables and that mustard colored chairs. There's Steff's keitai in the background and Steff's food. How do I know it's Steff's food and not my food? Well, the salad. Steff always ate the iceberg lettuce--none of that purpley leaves--no dressing. And I always eat the cabbage drowned in goma dressing for my daily rabbit grass intake. So that would be Steff's plate. And well, you see the little bat shaped meringue hanging out on the rim of the mugicha (barley tea) that we have every night. Only Steff. This is why we are partners in crime.

Omuraisu (Omelette Rice)

Ahh, omuraisu (omelette rice). Basically this is in every family restaurant, and Japan actually has restuarants dedicated solely to the preparation of omuraisu. The best one I've tasted was in Ehime, when Steff and I went to go see L'Arc~en~Ciel in concert. They had sizes based on how many eggs they put in....something like 3 egg, 4, egg, or 6 egg omuraisu. How's that for puny Japanese sizes!

I don't think that there is really an exact science to getting that lovely chicken ketchup fried rice into a neat little mound and surrounding it with a perfectly cooked fluffy yellow exterior. It's pretty simple in composition. And well, while you can't really mess up omuraisu, some do taste better than others. Department store omuraisu, usually tastes like family restaurant omuraisu. Okay, probably a little bland, but not bad--a safe bet if you don't know anything else on the menu. I always thought of it as more of a children's and young people food, but it's very versatile, so even old people and women will indulge in it. I've seen it with everything from curry rice, extra onions, and pork to cheese and tonkatsu sauce. The version Steff and I used to make was the poor college student version--bare bones, but still very flavorful. The recipe for one person/serving is as follows:

1 pack of instant microwave rice (or about 1 scoop of leftover rice per serving)

1/4 round onion, chopped

2 eggs, lightly beaten with 2 T. milk

1/4 cup cooked chopped leftover chicken breast or 4-5 pre-cooked chicken nuggets

oil

salt & pepper

1 T. oyster sauce

1/4 c. ketchup

1. Saute the onions in a frying pan in a bit of oil.
2. When the onions turn transparent, throw in the chicken and saute until cooked. (about 2 minutes)
3. Dump the rice in and incorporate into chicken-onion saute.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste and about a tablespoon of oystersauce per serving.
5. Add the ketchup in and cook for about a minute more. This is a quick fried rice, no need to overdo the cooking.
6. Set the fried rice aside.
7. Take scrambled egg mixture and pour it into another heated greased skillet. Start loosening the sides slightly and when eggs are no longer runny (i.e. half cooked), place fried rice mixture in the middle and fold over sides to make an omelette.
8. Turn over onto plate with egg side up.
9. Drizzle or decorate with ketchup and you've got a meal in less than 15 minutes!

I love omuraisu. Steff and I have this and college student okonomiyaki down pat. Sure you can add all sorts of fancy things. I love cheese mixed in with the fried rice with my omuraisu, but it's sort of like tomato soup. Pairs with a lot of different things--very flexible when it comes to experimentation, but yummy just by itself.

Tanioka's Onion Poke

So here is my first entry. I'm just trying to test out the different possibilities for layouts here. Here's a pic of the divine onion poke from the famous fish market Tanioka's in Waipahu. It's a nice 5 minutes drive from my office, so sometimes when I come in on the weekends, I treat myself to a nice scoop of this shoyu ahi (maguro or tuna for all you non-Hawaii residents). Notice how red the fish is, shiny almost like little jewels....

Mmmm. This onion poke has a wonderful flavor, salty with a little kick...round onion slices, chopped green onion, minced garlic, shoyu....and of course what poke would be complete without a nice helping of sesame oil. I think that's what gives it that nice shiny finish and makes it perfect for photographing. Well, let's see how this looks with they layout.

[EDIT] Ooh, I like....I think this is okay for now. Anyway, for the adventurous who wants to attempt this dish....It's really simple. While it's not Tanioka's you can easily make poke at home.

1. Start with a nice cut of fresh ahi. Make sure it doesn't smell too fishy. You want it to be really red. And in case it's not immediately obvious, no bones. This is like cubed marinated sashimi. So clean, rinse, and cube the fish. I like them around the size of a soda bottle cap--like 3 cm cubes. Chuck those into a bowl--people tell me you shouldn't stick it in a metal bowl, so yeah. Listen to them...just in case.
2. Mince a couple of cloves of garlic and green onions and slice about a quarter to half of a round onion. Chuck those in there too.
3. Roughly chop up a handful of ogo/limu (type of seaweed). If you don't like harder types of seaweed, wakame works well too. If you get the dehydrated stuff, put it in some hot water to rehydrate, and roughly chop. Toss into mixing bowl.
4. Put in several tablespoons of sesame oil and about a quarter cup of shoyu (soy sauce). You can add red chili pepper flakes for a nice kick (a pinch or two should do it).
5. Toss lightly, cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until ready to serve. I usually leave it in there for at least 20 min, so that the onions can soak up some of that flavor.
6. Serve either as pupus (appetizer) or over some nice hot rice.

Keep refrigerated or on ice. Best consumed within 24 hours. (Though my dad sometimes cooks it the next day to salvage the leftovers)

Best part about this recipe, is that you can easily adjust it to your tastes. If you have strong Japanese soy sauce, you may want to put less, but local Aloha shoyu or American brands, you may want to add more. You do not need salt for this recipe. That's what you have the shoyu for. Though if you were somehow unable to get your hands on some good soy sauce, you could use a coarse salt like Hawaiian salt, sea salt, or kosher salt. Don't like seaweed or onions? Leave 'em out.

Tanioka's Spicy Ahi

This is the mini spicy ahi from Tanioka's. It's basically spicy maguro tataki with onions over a bed of furikake sushi rice. It is fantastic. This is the mini and it a good size--as Steff suggested, about the size of those Japanese instant microwave rice packs you can buy at the 100 yen shop or at the convenience store. It's slightly smaller than the length of a chopstick and the width is about one-third the length of a chopstick. It comes out to about $4 with the tax, but it is delicious. I would have to say easily one of the best recipes on the island. You cannot beat Tanioka's. It's always fresh and delicious. There are so many flavors going on when you take a bite of this mini bento. The sharp bite of the onions, the spicy kick of the sauce, the subtle saltiness of the fish melding with the large flakes of furikake, and the sweet and sourness of the sushi rice. I like comfort food, but I also appreciate the complex flavors of a simple dish like Spicy Ahi.

I think the Honolulu Star Bulletin ran a Spicy Ahi recipe awhile back, let's just google him and see....Found him:

So mix together:
1 c. mayonnaise
1/4 c. chile pepper sauce
1/4 c. Kochujan miso sauce
1 T. sesame oil
1 T. shoyu

My coworker also told me that her cousin adds tobiko and chili sesame oil (I think that is la yu...but don't hold me to it.) You can mix it with maguro tataki to get something like Tanioka's or take a carrot stick sized log and make a temaki out of him. Spicy ahi is similar, but not poke. Poke is usually cut into cubes, whereas spicy ahi is usually in tataki form. I suppose you could have cubes, but I think the tataki is better. I would say poke is usually more shoyu-salty, whereas spicy ahi, although it has the spicy kick, is more creamy and sweet in flavor--probably from the Kochujan sauce, which people tell me is the key to making good kim chee soup.

Now that I think about it, this may have been the sauce that I always drowned my ishiyaki bi bim bap (I just learned it is called dol sot bi bim bap, as I read it on the menu at the Korean restaurant down the hill from my house) in when the Hibun gang used to frequent the Nobune restaurant by Nihon Terebi in Ichigaya. Hmmm.... Steff, I think I may have found our mystery sauce!