Sybaritic Diversions

Moving out!

Hi, everyone.

Seeing how Friendster Blogs has been on the fritz of late, I've moved Sybaritic Diversions to a new home on Bloxster. 

The new address is http://www.bloxster.net/sybdive. 

Hope to see you all there!

Music for Space Cowboys

Taking a break from food right now on account of a number of things that are keeping me from my kitchen.  (Darned!  I'll say it again: darned!)  But, then again, music is also a sybaritic diversion.

My iTunes player is stuffed to the gills with practically everything from pop-classical to urban rock to anime soundtracks.  Of late, my tunes of choice have been from the iconic anime series Cowboy Bebop: the bluesy, folksy rhythms of Japanese composer femme Yoko Kanno, the Seatbelts, and a host of other singers who can do everything from banjo-busting country-and-western to tres Francais chansons.  The music suits the wacky-noir tale of a raggle-tag band of space bounty hunters rather well.  Definitely not anime music for kids.

Personal faves now are the blues-flavored Ask DNA (album cover shown above left) and the playful Cats on Mars.  With these, I think I can hang on till I can get back to cooking. ^_^ 

Till then, see y'all later, space cowboys.

**SybDive's What the Effin' Heck?!? Alert of the Week**   These, watashi no tomodachitachi, are black vinegar candies (su no kuro-ame) from the Japanese confectionary firm Meisan.  Whilst I have no qualms against sour candies (sour gummies are, as a matter of fact, a real delight), I draw the line at anything that will smack my tongue with the sharpness of balsamic vinegar.  Balsamic vinegar on salads (and just about everything else) = good.  Balsamic vinegar in a jawbreaker = gods on high, what were you thinking?!?

DIY: Okonomiyaki

Now, for those of you who found yesterday's post interesting, let me share one of the earliest recipes I found for okonomiyaki on the web:

Okonomiyaki (Osaka-style)

1 8 x 7-inch sheet nori
 
Sauce: 
1/4 cup catsup 
1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce 
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard 
2 tbsp sake/red wine 
1 tsp tamari soy sauce
 
Okonomiyaki: 
2 eggs 
1 cup all-purpose flour 
1 cup water 
2 tbsp  sake/vodka/white wine 
2 cups shredded cabbage (1 1/2 inch strips) 
4 spring onions, cut in half lengthwise and into 1 inch strips
1/4 cup cooking oil 
1/2 cup your choice of filling (crabsticks, shrimp, lean pork, bacon, octopus, various fish, strips of steak, mushrooms, etc.)

Toast the nori by waving it over a flame until it stiffens slightly, but be careful - it burns easily. Crumble into little pieces and set aside.

Combine all the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the flour and water and continue beating until you have a batter the consistency of pancake batter. Add the sake. Fold in the cabbage, and scallions. Be sure to mix the batter and vegetables together evenly. Each okonomiyaki will use 1/4 of this mixture.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a standard 10-inch skillet. Spoon 1/4 of the batter onto the hot skillet (like a pancake) making sure the vegetables are evenly distributed. Then sprinkle 1/2 of the shrimp, crabmeat, or seitan on top. Cook each side on medium heat for 2 minutes, until lightly browned. Reduce the heat to low and cook, covered for another 5 minutes, occasionally turning and gently pressing the okonomiyaki with a spatula. prepare three more okonomiyaki as above. Keep the finished pancakes warm in a low oven while making the rest, or use two skillets and make two okonomiyaki at a time.

Ukyou's Delight: Okonomiyaki

Fans of Takahashi Rumiko's Ranma 1/2 series will probably find the word okonomiyaki familiar as it's the specialty of spatula-bearing femme fatale Kuonji Ukyou.

Okonomiyaki is one of those somewhat obscure delights of Japanese cuisine.  A specialty from the Kansai Region, this omelette-like dish from Osaka is often referred to as "Japanese pizza" because of its shape and the fact that you can practically have everything on it.  Students, in particular, scarf it down like mad as it is relatively inexpensive. 

Along with takoyaki (octopus dumplings cooked in a special griddle) and dorayaki (known among Philippine urbanites as Japanese cakes, griddle cakes stuffed with an or peanut butter or even custard), it's a lovely example of yakimono that can be used as a good way to indoctrinate a love for Japanese food into the squeamish.  I also recommend it for weaning the unadventurous from the usual sukiyaki-sushi-tempura-tonkatsu offerings of generic oriental joints.

Unfortunately for us here in the Philippines, relatively few Japanese restaurants actually serve okonomiyaki.  While dorayaki (again: Japanese cake) and takoyaki stalls are a common fixture in supermarkets, tiangges, food courts, and bus terminals, I've only seen one mall stall (on the third floor of the Makati Cinema Square, to be exact) that served up honest-to-goodness okonomiyaki.  As for restaurants, I've only encountered two: Fukuya and JiPan.

The okonomiyaki at JiPan is more of the traditional Osaka-type: a dense omelette - more of a frittata, actually -  stuffed to the gills with pork, squid, shrimp, and cabbage and topped with Kewpie mayonnaise (the delightful stuff that adds flavor to your California maki) and katsuoboshi (dried bonito shavings).  Lovely and filling, really.

But, in my opinion, the ultimate okonomiyaki experience may be had at Fukuya where you can choose to have your omelette done either Osaka-style or Hiroshima-style.  My personal preference is for the Hiroshima; it is the bomb (tasteless pun intended).  What sets it apart from the Osaka is the fact that it has noodles (sometimes soba, but it's udon most of the time) thrown in with everything else.  Fukuya's offering has shredded cabbage, noodles, shrimp, squid, and pork sandwiched between two virtually paper-thin egg-and-flour crepes.  As seen in the picture above left, the whole shebang is spread with Otafuku's signature okonomiyaki sauce, drizzled with Kewpie mayo, and sprinkled with aonori (pulverized nori).  Spice it up with some togarashi (Japanese red pepper mix) and you're good to go.

Fukuya @ Festival Supermall - 3rd Level - Festival Supermall, Alabang, Muntinlupa

JiPan @Glorietta - 2nd Level - Glorietta IV, Ayala Center, Makati

Chocolates for Grownups

Chocolate is one of the few things that a person can actually bring along straight on into maturity.  Indeed, a person's love of chocolate grows along with him/her over the passage of time.  It makes the transition from a love of everything sweet to a hankering for chunky additions like crisped rice and nuts to a craving for more intense, deeper, darker flavor experiences. 

I'd like to think of this concept as going through a sequence that can be phrased as: Choc-Nut => Butterfinger => Hershey bars => Cadbury bars => Godiva => Valrhona.  Of course, some people grow up without ever losing their love of Choc-Nut.  Some will eventually grow up with specific favorites. 

Cases in point: my sister and I are mad for darker chocolates, the ones that are more bitter than sweet.  Mom will go for anything with nuts and Dad has a pronounced fondness for raisins in his confections.  Nicquee, one of my younger colleagues, has a hankering for white chocolate every once so often.  Jenny, the JICA officemate who used to raid my candy jar, sticks to sweet milk chocs; we even had another collegue who was a real monster but turned into a regular lamb when offered Hershey's Kisses.  Takafumi can pretty much subsist on KitKat bars alone, but hand him a stick of bittersweet chocolate (specifically: Valrhona Caraibe) and you can see the faint blush in his cheeks and sheer bliss in his sleepy eyes.  And there are people - like my brother and my friends Cristina, Nix, and Peaches - who will demand chocolate in virtually any edible form.

There are some chocolates, however, that are more appreciated by adults than by children.  Chocolate liqueurs, for instance.  Valrhona Guanaja - 70% cocoa solids - and Baci di Perugina (so rich, it has to be evil) fall into the same category. 

Then, there are the utterly superb chocolate-covered dried fruits purveyed by Dilettante, a family-owned corporation run by the descendants of the confectioners commissioned by the czars of Imperial Russia.  Definitely rich, definitely sublime, and definitely not for children.  You're not supposed to suck the chocolate off the morsels of their amazing Fruit Medley (shown above left) ; you're supposed to bite into each succulent dragee.  You don't scarf them by the scad - you savor them bite by bite, morsel by delectable morsel.  Apricots, blueberries, cherries, and strawberries in dark chocolate and dipped into color-coordinated white couverture are all there to be savored slowly, lingeringly.

Now, if only I could find a store that sells these chocolate baubles here in the Philippines, then I should be in a state of sheer bliss...