TAMAGO

ok! you guys. i am cold when i go outside. you are cold when you go outside. australians are hot when they go outside. we are all experiencing a weather situation, so here are some things that aren't about the weather but are equally (more?!) exciting!

(say it, don't spray it, i want the news, not the weather. 10 points and infinite emoji to the first person who names that tune.)

-roomful of teeth nailed their grammy performance and won a grammy and then cyndi lauper called them teethful of awesome. omgomgomgomg. 

-yotam ottolenghi. can i be yotam when i grow up? maybe at least just for halloween? because jerusalem and plenty are the greatest things to happen to my spice drawer since salt. 

-chinese new year! i feel like such a turd face for not throwing a party this year. but you should, and here are two recipes to make: donny's chicken buns and my potstickers that were posted on betty crocker today (complete with eggboy's hands as props).

-we are on an adult volleyball team. it is the most amount of fun i've had in a gym since parachute day. my contribution to the team is a rad underhand serve and loud cheers. eggboy's is game face and more game face.

-my mini cakes did not convince tema to move to fargo. but we had such a fun time at her concert and afterwards, at mezzaluna, drinking too many cocktails and eating their amazing fabulous delicious tasty bruschetta. 

-our mrs. meyer's iowa pine hand soap has run out, which means it is officially the end of the holiday season, which means we need to take the christmas tree down already, which means mrs. meyer's basil hand soap has swooped in for the win. so much win.

ok i'm done with exciting things, i'm gonna go eat a cucumber. 

oh but first, a word about tamago: it is tied with a million other things as my favorite way to eat an egg. it is sweet and salty and comforting and you simply have not had it at its best until you've had it freshly made, warm out of the pan. speaking of the pan, there are people in this world that will tell you to get a fancy rectangular pan for it. i don't have one, i just use a regular circular pan, and then it equals more fun for me when i get to trim the edges and eat the scraps. yum.

you can cut it into slices and make sushi out of it, or you can eat it hot like an omelette, or you can keep it in the fridge for a quick little snackee.

tamago

makes two servings

ingredients

4 large eggs

1 tb each: sugar, soy sauce or tamari, mirin

flavorless oil, for the pan

clues

beat together the eggs, sugar, soy sauce, and mirin. 

heat a pan over medium low heat and coat the bottom of it with oil. pour in just enough of the egg mixture to coat the bottom of the pan. once most of it has firmed up, start at one end of the pan and use a spatula or two to help you carefully fold over 1-inch of the egg. fold that over again, and continue folding until you get to the other side of the pan. (the reason you don't want it to be fully firmed up on top is because the moisture will help keep the folds stuck together.)

with the roll at one end of the pan, brush the open part of the pan with a bit more oil, and then pour in more egg mixture to coat the pan. gently lift the egg roll so that the mixture can get underneath it. once this new mixture is mostly firm, fold over the egg roll and continue to fold it over this new layer until you get back over to the other side of the pan. 

repeat with any remaining egg.

enjoy immediately or wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for later!

-yeh!

RECIPE: HONEY + BACON ONIGIRI

i miss new york's asian culture.

i miss red bean popsicles and taro soft serve. i miss the cotton candy machine outside of kenka (and all the food inside kenka)... i miss ktown karaoke and even ollie's delivery... i miss those lazy days when you have nothing to do but day drink and stand in the totto ramen line. i miss that there is a place where you can sit on the floor, eat manta ray fin, and enjoy your bottle of sake leftover from the last time you were there. i miss dim sum and xi'an famous and i really miss being called other other june by the percussionists (hi june! hi other june!). 

i even miss the occasional accidental barfing up of all of my ktown barbecue.

save for my town's little pad thai place, there is very little asianness here. there is an asian grocery and a few, like, fusion things. but i just googled "north dakota izakaya" and it was a sad sea of emptiness. 

this weekend, my new york asian missings pointed to onigiri, those comforting little rice balls that are the subject of not one, but two emoji. so i made some, but first i tapped my life's resident onigiri expert, chris, for a few words to describe the perfect onigiri:

savory

crunchy (the seaweed)

toothsome (the rice)

mysterious (the filling)

cute

additionally, a perfect onigiri must be salty enough. there is no excuse for an under-salted onigiri, says chris.

an onigiri is typically salted by salting your hands or dipping your hands in salt water when you mold them, but i have not had too much luck when molding onigiri in the past, so i tracked down this handy guide on how to form onigiri. my favorite method, as seen in the above gif, is the cookie cutter method. after forming them, i sprinkled salt all around the outside. 

i also found that adding a bit more water when using brown rice helps the onigiri to keep its shape. the rice will indeed be a bit more mushy, but i like mushy things!

these little guys make the perfect quick snack because they can be stored in the fridge and eaten immediately. i bet eggboy is the only farmer in the midwest to have brought onigiri for lunch yesterday. kekekeke.

honey + bacon onigiri 

makes 4 onigiri 

ingredients 

1/2 batch of this sushi rice* at room temperature

1 tsp soy sauce or tamari

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp honey

1 stalk green onions, finely chopped

2 slices cooked bacon, finely chopped

a pinch of chili flakes

kosher salt

sesame seeds  

4 strips of seaweed  

*if you're using brown rice, i'd recommend adding a bit more water so that it's easier to mold (i added 1/2 cup... this might be too mushy for some people's tastes, so start with 1/4 cup and add more if necessary)

clues 

to make the filling, mix together the soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, green onion, bacon, and chili flakes. 

to mold the onigiri, refer to this handy guide

sprinkle with salt and sesame seeds

if you are eating them immediately, wrap in seaweed and enjoy! if you are saving some for later, wrap them in plastic wrap and store in the fridge. add the seaweed right before consumption so it is crunchy!

enjoy! and also tweet about it using the onigiri emoji :-) :-) 

-yeh!