Okonomiyaki

When I was in Osaka, Japan, I remember some pretty delightful street food (and food in general).  The Okonomiyaki was unforgettable.   Here I try to recreate one of the delights I found there.  

   

 Fertile eggs from the garden.

 Konbu dashi stock and some water. 6-8 ounces.

 3 Scallions.

Small chop.

1/2 head of small cabbage.

Finely sliced into sticks.

Tenkasu, About 1 cup.

1/2 shallot. Small dice.

Mix flour with konbu dashi and mix until ther are no lumps. Add onions, shallot, cabbage, tenkasu and eggs. Other veggies may be added as well.

Some pickled ginger.

Mix thoroughly.

Render fat from bacon. Octopus or Shrimp may also be used, in which case skip the rendering step.

Heat skillet to high and add cabbage mixture in round slabs 3/4" thick. Add bonito and strips of bacon on top of this mixture.

When it browns like a pancake, flip. 

Cover and steam for a few minutes.Flip again to make the bacon is cooked.

Garnish with Okonomiyaki sauce and Japanese Mayonnaise.  You can make your own Okonomiyaki sauce.  Combine 1 ½ T. sugar, 2 T. oyster sauce, 4 T. ketchup, and 3 T. Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl.

Okanomiyaki!

Kung Pao Chicken with Fried Cabbage and Rice

 Mostly I followed a recipe found in Anna Kao's Classic Chinese Cooking. Marinade 2 breasts of chicken with 1:2 ratio of cornstarch to soy sauce.

 2 T. soy sauce, 1 T. wine, 1/2 T. cider vinegar, 1/2 t. sugar, 1 t. cornstarch 1 t. sesame oil, 1 T. water. I added roughly 6 Sichuan hot peppers to the sauce. I'll remove these later to fry them with the rest of the goods.   

 1/2 diced sweet brown onion.

 4 Green onion with tops.

 Copious garlic and ginger.

 Some peanuts for topping.

 Rice.

 Oil and pepper in a pan.  Hot fire. Brown the chicken.

 Reserve.

 Saute garlic, onions, ginger, and about a cup of bamboo shoots for a few minutes and add the chicken and sauce to reduce. 

 Caramelize a bit of cabbage in a separate pan by putting a pinch or two of sugar into the pan ... this might take a few minutes.

Make a stack of the whole hot mess, rice, then cabbage, then the Kung Pao chicken. 

Mac and Cheese

 

 Pasta as Giada does it ... macaroni ... go figure.

  

Onions.

 

 Flour. 2 T.

 Butter.

 

Cook the flour and the butter a bit.

 

Garlic.

 

Mustard.

 

Cheddar. 

 Romano.

Combine everything, loosen up with some cream. 

Chicken Tikka Masala

 

3 cardamom, 3 clove, 2 T coriander seeds.  Heat in oil. 

 White onion complete, generous garlic and fresh ginger.

 

Chicken ... or Salmon.  

 

Whole yougurt to coat. 

 

Spice generously, 1 t. each.

 

Boom.

 

Serrano peppers, jalapeno, canned tomatoes, chicken stock. 

 

You should roast or grill the chicken, but I just sauteed it. 

 

Puree the sauce. 

 

Combine all of it and add some cream. 

 

Make some rice. 

 

Mangez!  Chicken Tikka Masala.  

Yakisoba

 

 Pork sliced, garlic, ginger, shallot. 

 

Carrot, onion, cabbage. 

 

Rinse noodles.

 Shitake mushrooms.

 

  Yakisoba sauce.

Yakisoba!

Fairplay

Prospecting at Scales.

RIP Rich Coleman. We dropped part of Richard's Ashes in above these falls. I told stories and showed one of my friends around a bit.

I spent more than a few nights camped with Richard in the hydraulic mine at Fairplay, including one particularly memorable one in about 1983 that included about a 4 hour thunderstorm.

If you want to try to find this place on a map, give it a shot. It took us more than a few hours and I *knew* where I was going. If you need to go there and spread some flowers, or motorcycle parts, let me know, maybe I can find it again.

I hope there's a lot of things to fix where you're headed Richard.