chanto

The other night we tried a place called Chanto, an izakaya (bar/pub).

There were quite a number of groups having their Christmas parties there, so it was quite lively.

One thing we tried was their maguro avocado yukke-hoe, that yellow thing on top is supposed to be a runny egg yolk, but it was a bit overdone, so it didn't really match with the maguro and avocado.

We ended up leaving the egg yolk on the side and eating everything else.

The other thing we tried was this ball of kim chee.

It was filled with all sorts of seafood bits and some radish sprouts.

It is pretty impressive when it comes to the table, then the waitress takes kitchen shears and cuts it into fourths.

There were other items we tried and we thought the food here was nice but a bit overpriced.

And because it is a bar/pub, smoking is allowed, the group of men that were seated next to us decided to smoke before their meal arrived (which was in the midst of ours) and also decided to blow their smoke our way, well, until I gave them "the evil eye".

I really wish they would ban smoking in this country.

Anyway, we probably won't go back here (unless they lower their prices or do away with the smoking (and I don't think either will happen anytime soon)).

Chanto
Herbis Plaza B2
Phone: 06.6343.7116

mochiko chicken

The other day I was craving for mochiko chicken, whenever I went on a field trip for school, we had to bring our own lunch, and this is what I would ask for. My mom would marinate drummettes and fry them early in the morning, before she went to work and before we needed to get to school.

You can adjust the amount of chicken and cut the marinade in half, just make sure to marinate this overnight.

4 pounds chicken thighs
2 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons mochiko (rice flour)
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
4 tablespoons shoyu
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 eggs
1/4 cup green onion, sliced
2 tablespoons sesame seeds

NOTES: Mix all the ingredients together and put in your chicken. During the marinating period, every so often, mix the chicken up.

I used boneless thighs (which still had skins on them).

After marinating this overnight, fry in some oil until cooked, try not to make your heat too high, the sugar in the marinade will burn quickly, leaving the inside of the chicken uncooked.

Instead of deep frying, what I did was put about 3 tablespoons of oil into a non-stick pan and "fried" the chicken.

I served this with ninjinshirishiri, snow peas, haricot vert, spinach topped with this dressing, kinpira and rice with ume.

This really hit the spot!

What kind of foods did you bring on your school field trips?

kat's omiyage list

I changed the layout of my blog recently and now the pages that were at the top of my blog are now located on the right-hand side.

I've also included a new page called, Kat's Omiyage List. It is just a few of my favorites from the Kansai area (Hyogo, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto), oh and a tiny list of what I bring home from Hawaii/US.

If you have a chance to visit some of these areas, I hope you'll be able to try some of these things.

Enjoy!

things I'm liking

Wednesday night, the winds were crazy! I woke up in the middle of the night to take my plants off of the air conditioner (where they are) so they wouldn't get tossed about.

The weather dude says that the winds were caused by "bomb cyclones"?! WT?! Anyway, at least the plants are okay...

Today's post is on some things I'm liking at the moment...Baru's Chocolate chai latte & figurines...the tiny figurines are chocolate (alphabet letters, cupcakes, just to name a few)...just add some of this mix to some hot milk.

It is a bit on the sweet side if you follow the directions, so I usually add in some coffee, which makes it just right.

Raincoast Crisps, the one on the left is their fig-olive and the one on the right is their cranberry-hazelnut.

Both are delicious, but my favorite is the cranberry one.

You can eat it with cheese, meats or dips, but we like them just "as is".

Lotus' speculoos biscuits coated with chocolate...best of both worlds!

Found some boiled peanuts at Kaldi (a gourmet shop), they are slightly raw, just the way I like them.

These are boiled in some shoyu, the flavor is quite light.

Best part, they are already peeled!

Saw this in the market recently...chocolate condensed milk!

Had to try it with Vietnamese coffee...yummy!

What are you enjoying these days?

It's Friday here, hope you have a great weekend!

tsukiji no ra-yu

Back in October, I wrote about Takewaka.

I also wanted to tell you about their gu-iri ra-yu. As you know, I've also tried making gu-iri ra-yu from scratch, I should also tell you that it is also called "taberu ra-yu". "Taberu" means to eat.

I'm not so sure why they call it this, I mean, isn't all ra-yu edible?! I think it could be because it is "chunky" so you need to chew it...

The green label is a blend of maguro (tuna) and takana (Japanese mustard cabbage), the blue label is their "plain" and their red label is a blend with a lot of shoga (ginger).

The green label is perfect for fried rice.

Just saute your veggies and rice in some oil add a scrambled egg, then add the ra-yu to your liking.

The red label is nice on tofu, lots of ginger flavor. I think this may be nice on fish too.

We've had the blue label as a "mabo tofu" but I really like it on crispy gyoza.

None of these are really spicy, but they are all still very delicious.

karniyarik

It was my first time making karniyarik (stuffed eggplant), which is Turkish.

I loosely followed this recipe from Saveur

Canola oil, for frying 

6 Japanese eggplants (about 2 lbs.), ends trimmed 

4 tbsp. unsalted butter 

1 lb. ground lamb 

1 tbsp. tomato paste 

¹⁄₂ tsp. ground cinnamon 

6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 

1 small yellow onion, roughly chopped 

¹⁄₂ green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely chopped 

2 medium tomatoes, cored and finely chopped 

¹⁄₂ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley 

¹⁄₄ cup chopped mint leaves 

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

I first prepped all the veggies, spices and herbs and set everything on the side.

Then I cut the tops off of 2 eggplants and then split them in half lengthwise.

In a non-stick pan, I added 1 tablespoon of oil and "fried" them on medium heat, flesh side down.

When the eggplant had a little color, I flipped them over and added some water and "steamed" them so that they would cook through.

When the eggplant was cooked through, I removed them from the pan and set them aside on a paper towel.

Then I made the stuffing.

Since I used 180 grams of a minced pork & beef mixture, I didn't add any butter or extra oil.

When the meat was cooking, I also used two paper towels to soak up the oil that came out.

When the meat was browned, I added some chopped onions (1/4 of an onion), chopped bell pepper (2 small bell peppers) and 1 clove of garlic (grated).

When the onions were almost transparent, I added the 1 tablespoon tomato paste and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon.

For the tomatoes, I only used 4 cherry tomatoes and cooked them until the liquid evaporated.

Then I added the chopped mint and parsley (I just grabbed some from my lanai, didn't really measure this).

Instead of baking them in the oven for 5 minutes, I just topped the cooked eggplant with the meat mixture and served it warm.

NOTES: I think the type of eggplant that the author used was what the Japanese call "bei-nasu" (literally American eggplant) which is round and quite large.

When I went to the market I could only find long skinny eggplant, called "naga-nasu", so that is what I used.

This was my first time eating this as well as making this, but I really liked the flavors (Satoshi gave this a "thumbs up"). I think this meat mixture would be nice on warm baguette or with pita chips too.

I'm definitely making this one again.

on the lanai

The beets and swiss chard are doing pretty good on the lanai.

The cilantro and the italian parsley too.

The temps have really dropped so I cover these plants with a plastic sheet during the evenings and early mornings.

I hope I'll have beet "orbs" this time around.

What are you growing in your garden or on your lanai?