busy busy

Like I said, last Saturday was beautiful weather, the sun was blazing and the humidity was thick.

The Mandolin club of Satoshi's university, Meiji University, was having a concert. Since it was our first time listening to the mandolin, we decided to check it out. (They apparently have a concert every year.)

Seeing the stage reminded me of my days in intermediate and high school, playing in the concert band.

Hours of practice...getting all dressed up in fancy dresses to perform in front of friends and family, giving graduating seniors flowers.

This particular concert ran two hours and the club played Japanese songs in the first half then American songs in the second half.

We had a nice time and then were treated to a delicious sushi dinner with several older alumni of Satoshi's university baseball team. (Thank you!)

Sorry no photos, but I will tell you about a char broiled unagi (eel) that topped some sushi rice. I am not a fan of unagi but this was really tender and delicious! Talk about melt in your mouth!

And as I said in my post before, Sunday was rainy...still, we had our weekly pupu (appetizer) party style dinner.

I re-did the p.i.t.a. = shrimp walnut recipe...using the cornstarch coating method sans the szechuan pepper from the szechuan salt and pepper shrimp recipe and the maple glazed walnut recipe from Ellie Krieger.

I followed the mayonnaise sauce from the original recipe. It came out tasting good and without all the stress.

We also had some Paulaner Original Munchner Hell, 500 ml, 4.9% alcohol, 498 yen (about US$4.98). According to Satoshi, Hell means light whereas Dunkel means dark.

This beer was easy to drink and had a little kick to it.

Have a great week!

hawaii cooks

Yesterday for dinner we had goya champuru. I've written up about this in the past. My mom got these teeny tiny goya (bittermelon) from a friend. They are supposedly wild...all I know it was a P.I.T.A (pain in the a**) to clean.

We added some portuguese sausage, tofu, onion and egg. Since my mom is watching her salt intake we didn't season it at all.

It was still quite flavorful from the sausage, but these goya slices sure packed a bitter punch!

What did you eat for dinner yesterday?

p.i.t.a. (a.k.a. honey glazed walnut shrimp)

Most times whenever I try a recipe, I try the ones that look easiest to me. The ones that don't need me to fuss over them and can usually get me in and out of the kitchen within 30 minutes to an hour.

But this recipe has been tempting me ever since I saw the photo of it. I've had this at Chinese restaurants, crispy shrimp coated with a mayonnaise sauce topped with crunchy glazed walnuts...mmm.

Looking at the recipe, it didn't "seem" so bad, but going through the steps...oh boy!

I started with blanching the walnuts then boiling them in sugar water then coating them with honey...then frying them...

Can I say, I have a phobia of frying things at home because of all those oil splatters on the wall, on me...then having to discard the used oil...

I put as little oil as possible in my pan (and I don't have a wok)...so the nuts took a little longer than if I fried them in a wok.

Then came the shrimp, deveined and cleaned that was the easy part...I forgot to coat them with flour after dipping them in beaten egg whites...so guess who needs to soak her pan?? and maybe need to buy a new one since it is supposed to be non-stick??

Needless to say, it was a p.i.t.a. (pain in the A) of a recipe but tasted similar to what I've eaten in the restaurants. It didn't have that crispy outside that it should have, but it was still delicious.

Will I make it again? Meh, not unless President Obama is coming for dinner. (Though if I find an easier way to make this, maybe omitting the frying somehow, I "may" make this again.) Otherwise, I tried it, it was delicious, let's put it on the "done" pile...

p.s. If you really want to try this one, email me and I'll email you back the recipe.

taegu

It is amazing how food photos on the internet can make you crave them. After seeing this musubi on Wowgrinds, I was craving taegu (tay-goo).

One thing about living away from the Islands is that whenever I crave something from home, most times I have to make it...from scratch.

After a little research, it seems that taegu is a local Korean food in Hawaii. (I've never seen the dish here in Japan, if you know what it is called in Japanese or Korean, please let me know.) Dried codfish is seasoned and eaten with rice as a side dish or as a beer chaser.

After some surfing, I found a recipe on this site.

The thing I was most worried about was finding codfish, or more specifically, dried codfish. I googled to see what it was called in Japanese and what it would look like. (for those interested, it is called tara (ta-la))

Then I went to the supermarket.

I looked in the pupu (Hawaiian for appetizer)/beer chaser section, nope. Then I went to the refrigerated fish section...bingo!

I actually wanted a smaller package, but bought the size they had. 480 yen (about US$4.80) for 150 grams.

The most P.I.T.A. (pain in the A**) part of this recipe was taking off the bones of the fish. As I shredded the dried fish, I sorted as best I could to get the bones out and only made half of the fish with half of the sauce.

There was no cooking involved, which was perfect. And all you need to do is let it sit overnight in the refrig.

Taegu from Recipe Cottage

2.5 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3 teaspoons sesame oil
1 package dried codfish (tara)
2 teaspoons sesame seed
1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Put all the ingredients together and let stand for 1 day.

Get yourself a bowl of hot rice and dig in!

NOTES: I wasn't sure how many ounces a package of codfish was, so I looked at another taegu recipe and saw that they used 6 ounces (170 grams). I used ground Japanese chili pepper instead of Western chili powder. I have a feeling that the chili powder in the recipe should be the Korean type and not the Western type. I am also wondering if I should try soaking the fish to get rid of some of the salt.

But as for the taste, it was delicious! A little spicy, a little sweet, too salty for me, but all in all delicious and close to the taegu that I know. I'm making more after we eat this batch up and I will try soaking the fish before making it, maybe it will make taking the bones out easier too...will let you know the results.