Food

They’re right. Great things can be bad for you.

| Khursten Santos

Hijiki

But who cares when it tastes really great, right?

Now matter how you look at it, you just can’t figure out what it is. Sure, the carrots are obvious, but to have the courage to eat those black stringy things is admirable. Heck, if it doesn’t smell funny and other people were eating it, just eat it. And so I did.

When I went to my Japanese friend’s place for a Friday night dinner, her mom, knowing my knack for eating anything (lol) served me this braised side dish. I may have seen different colors for food, but seeing something black that isn’t from squid ink totally made me curious. All the more when I asked what it was. Her mom answered that it was simply a seaweed that’s not nori. Just a seaweed. And so I ate it without thinking and found it to be quite delicious. Later on in the conversation, I discovered that it was this seaweed called Hijiki. It’s a food item quite native to the Japanese and can be bought at our local Japanese grocer. It’s usually consumed braised with some shouyu and sugar, maybe mirin and sake, if it’s to your taste. I loved it so much that I brought like a tub worth home and ate it the next day on hot rice and some riceballs.

What is interesting though was my discovery the other day when I thought of writing this very blog entry about Hijiki. As it turns out, this tasty hijiki, has traces of arsenic. Yup, that very poison we always see in medical dramas like House or Grey’s Anatomy. lol. The Wiki entry gave me quite a scare, but since there hasn’t been any reported Hijiki poisoning cases, it can’t be that bad. According to Wikipedia, Hijiki’s poisonous only if you consumed 4.7g per day. The regular japanese consumes around .9g.

Did I say that I ate the whole tub (like a large tupperware) the next day on hot rice and some riceballs? XDDD Yeah. I’m so happy nothing happened to me, then again, if ever I go poisoned eating hijiki, that would have been the happiest last moments of my life because it really tasted good!

Let’s see if it all works out…

| Khursten Santos

Kimchi in the works!

Yup. That’s my Kimchi a-brewing. I’m having a fermented item fit since last year and was inspired by David Lebovitz’s shot at Kimchi making. I’m not really a heavy Kimchi eater. Not a big fan of those bottled varieties available in the supermarket. However, a Singaporean family friend, Uncle Raymond, has proven to me the lengths of making ‘aptly’ spiced Kimchi.

Years ago, he gave us bottles upon bottles of Kimchi to eat at home. He made it with his wife, Auntie Potin, and it was awesome! It didn’t stink like the others. It had that nice clean smell that you can taste in the Singaporean Sweet Chilli Crab. I assume that he used the locally ground chili to make it. More so, his veggies were really crisp! So I took a shot at it. Varying the Lebovitz recipe for a bit adding sugar in the process. And for lack of chili, I also used shichimi (a Japanese 7-spice chili of sorts) and Malaysian dried chilis. I also dripped my cabbage and didn’t let it soak in brine. Now, it’s in day 2 of fermenting and by the weekend, it should be fine.

I realized that fermenting locally is a lot faster than in France. lol. That was stupid, it just made me more aware of the difference in temperatures around the world. Like, according to Lebovitz, it took him 3 days for his kimchi to bubble, while mine took overnight for it to bubble. It’s been cold here, but yeah, I guess a few degrees hotter makes the difference. From the preliminary taste of things, it tastes awesome. I hope it still does after fermentation. Kimchi bacterias, I hope you’re doing the right job!!

P.S. Just what is the bacteria involved in fermenting Kimchi!?
P.P.S. Not posting the recipe yet. lol. I don’t know if it actually turned out well. ^^;;

My shot at bento, moyashiben!

| Khursten Santos

Moyashibento!

Last month, a friend of mine came to me for help. Apparently, she made an impression unto some figure of note and now the person expected to see her entry for the National Bento Competition. Strangely so, this friend of mine is not much of a cook and asked for my help with the competition (not that I was any better but if we put it in cooking mama terms, she rarely saves my dishes for me. ^^;;). The entry was in my name but it’s an entry for their group, something of that sort. I’m not much of a bento cook because I’m little miss rustic, but hey, why not. Bento’s still all about food. And since I wasn’t the one who was spending for the ingredients, I agreed to do the job. To my chagrin, the job was not as easy as I had thought.

The path to bento was hard. It was all about matching and trying to make things look balanced and pretty. And the rules of the game made it hard. It’s not like I can use last night’s bento to seal the deal. ><;; So I had to think of something new. Something came into my head when I thought of this new bento trend called “キャラ弁 — charaben” which is Japanese for character bento, meaning you’re trying to make an image of your favorite character (usually anime and manga characters) on your bento. Oh, it was a hard ordeal, but once I got the inspiration from my favorite bacteria A. Oryzae from Moyashimon, I thought, maybe I can make a bento. 🙂

The idea was a Spanish Bento. The bento had potato fritata, asparagus and enoki wrapped in pork strips covered by a blanket of Spanish Sauce, tomato ensalada cup, saffron rice, and oranges. Cooking the bento was easy since there were tons of recipes online and ingredients were available. The problem was the contest had menial details like recipe, portions, and cost. TAT;; Things I barely even think of when I make my food. Sure, I think of the cost in total, but not per dish. Same goes for recipe wherein a dash for me could be a pinch to somebody else. It was hard in that manner, but in the long run, it was an experience I’d probably try without having to think of the technicalities of it.

I told Kao that this would probably be my last bento. Maybe the last bento for the competition, but for sure, I’d definitely be making far more relaxed bentos without *cough* the pressure of the competition. For me last night’s yummy dinner would be just as good as today’s bento. Sure, some person out there would think that I don’t have the love to prepare for bento, but between catching time to read my manga and making bento, I’d go with my mangas. They need some love.

You know what was so funny, when I completed the bento, I didn’t have the heart to eat it, even until the next day, I wouldn’t touch the bento because I was afraid to eat A. Oryzae. ^^;; But I ended up eating it to err… respect the good bento that I’ve done. :3

While everyone had set meals…

| Khursten Santos

I ate Jamaican Patties at home. There’s not a day that passed by with me regretting what I did not attend to because of some work I’m doing which I have not been paid for yet. ><;; Oh well, that afternoon was spent with a really lovely Cheesy Beefy Jamaican patty. :3 I guess I’m partially okay. I think.

I always wondered what’s inside these things. Seriously, it’s sludge. But it’s the tastiest sludge I’ve ever tasted. I can’t distinguish the beef from the chicken. All I know is Pinatubo is nice and spicy and Express is spicy enough for my mom to enjoy. For a moment I thought of recreating this Jamaican Patty at home but then I thought, there are some things that are best left unexplored. Jamaican Patties are all about the mystery filling, don’t you think?

Something’s Blooming

| Khursten Santos

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I wish you all good food and health for the new year. I mean, we’ve got to live longer to eat the food that we like, right? The new year started with a swamp of things hence I wasn’t really able to devote time to this blog. My bad. I swear, I’ll be more diligent this time. I do have a lot of backlog. I have eaten in wonderful places this year and tried a lot of dishes so I’ll try to put in more content. ^^v

To start things off, I was hoping to give an update on my dear plants! My bokchoy / native pechay is growing wonders. It’s truly amazing. They’ve grown to such a size that I thought you can harvest them, but when I saw my uncle’s pechay, my pechay is still small. So I’ll have to wait ’til then.

Seymour, my parsley!

What interests me though is my darling parsley, Seymour.

Yes, I’ve named my parsley…. ^^;; I can’t defend my decision on why naming it, more so giving it the name Seymour. It just so happened that one morning, I woke up, watered my plant, and instantaneously called it Seymour. I’m simple minded that way. ^^;;

Seymour was part of my parsley leftovers during Christmas. The trick is not to cut the parsley down to the root. Leave around 2 inches of allowance and then plant the root on healthy soil. The parsley should start growing after a few days. And just smack after a week, you’ll have buds growing, and a little longer, your parsley will flower. I suggest to keep on letting it grow until you have something of a parsley bush in your pot. Mine is still in its early stages so I’ll let it grow for a bit. Seymour would be stage 1 to my intended herb garden. I have parsley and oregano already on the works. I’ll just see if I can try basil again.

On other news… my tomatoes have started to grow! YAY!!

Tales of Agriculture

| Khursten Santos

And it starts with a seed. And then some leaves.

The last few weeks, our family was blessed with a relative who lived in the province. He was waiting for his papers back to Dubai and while he was waiting time in our house, he thought of doing a little gardening in our house. In fact, not just a little gardening but an entire vegetable garden plan that included importing exquisite teak adirondack chairs.

For the past few months my uncle has been plotting a vegetable garden plan for his own backyard. Now he has mustard greens and bokchoy beaming with life. In our home, our house has failed in maintaining decorative garden plants but we have had our luck in having chili (sili) shrubs and calamansi tree. These were random growths after randomly sprinkling seeds in our garden. We’ve also grown some ampalaya because of this method. My uncle has been advising us to push our vegetable luck by growing a garden. My cousin, having heard the idea decided to help us start our vegetable garden. He has now created patches for mustasa, pechay. We’ve also started our seedlings for our pechay. We’re also plotting for eggplants, tomatoes, some basil, maybe rosemary, onions, tomatoes, and maybe even some coriander.

It’s quite exciting really. I honestly don’t have a green thumb, but it’s a great idea. I’ve been playing this game called Harvest Moon wherein you can get a shot at farming. It’s quite interesting. A little meticulous (the farming isn’t meticulous, but the part wherein I have to chase a girl to wed -_-;;) nonetheless, the farming part is quite interesting. And to take care of your own vegetables, grow it, and then eat it is just amazing! Especially if you put a lot of love into it.

At home, our bokchoy seedlings are starting to grow and it’s quite exciting. I hope we could maintain it. My cousin really did a great job starting it, pray my luck it would grow and we could maintain it! I’ll be posting here my own ‘tales of agriculture’ as we try to grow our vegetable garden. *sigh* In between work, anime watching, manga reading, doll collecting, and model crafting, I hope I can devote my time for my gardening.

On the side, look, I have a Jikan Ga Nai (trans. I have no time!) icon at the side. Yup. Time remains rather elusive.

Discovering Umami in Kikufuji

| Khursten Santos

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine were talking about food and flavors. I was telling her how I find Asian food amazing, especially simple Japanese and Chinese dishes because they bring out this indescribable flavor, one that tastes so great but I just can’t figure our what it constitutes of. A kind of taste that, as the Iron Chef commentators put it, makes that ingredient honorable. My friend then tells me of this 5th flavor called Umami. I really didn’t get what it was, but a recent trip with my Japanese friend and her family really showed me what Umami was all about. The place. Kikufuji. The honorable dish. Sushi. For delicious food, Jimmy John’s Owner restaurant is the best.

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