recipe

RECIPE: HONEY + BACON ONIGIRI

in

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! 

recipe: chickpea spätzle with shallots and collard greens

in

you're all in so much trouble for not telling me how good the carrie diaries is. (it is good, right?) since i finished season one of orange is the new black i've been swimming in bedtime story loneliness because there are only so many passable made-for-tv christmas movies. 

i have scotch eggs to make this week. and potstickers. the kinds of things that i can't have distractions for, so part of me wishes that i had saved my discovery of the carrie diaries until next week when i make the long ass trek home (!!!). 

in other equally as exciting news, i combed my dreadlocks out! actually eggboy did. on friday, i tried to curl my hair, and when i found myself wrapping one massive dread around the curler, i decided enough was enough. and it was good timing, now that i don't have to wear my hair up to work at the bakery every day.  

it was a swell way to spend our extra hour yesterday. (how did you spend your extra hour?) 

eggboy is good with that kind of stuff... combing out dreads, tolerating girlie tv shows, helping me with my dirty donut dishes even though he's probably never eaten a donut. his generosity makes me want to reciprocate with gluten-free goodness. i'll substitute all the all-purpose flour in the world for a few good dread-combing sessions. 

so today in gluten-free goodness: chickpea spätzle.

chickpea flour is one of my favorite gf flours. it's so versatile and it adds a great new depth of flavor. it's also very healthy!  

soon, i'll need to do a gf schnitzel to go with this. 

chickpea spätzle with shallots and collard greens 

makes 2-4 servings 

ingredients 

olive oil

2 large shallots, chopped

2 large leaves of collard greens, stemmed and cut into ribbons

1 1/2 c chickpea flour

salt and pepper, to taste

a pinch of nutmeg

1/2 c milk (i use almond milk) 

2 eggs 

chili flakes, to taste

clues 

in a large pan over medium low heat, heat a bit of olive oil and add the shallots. blanch the collard greens by placing them in a large pot of boiling water for 2-3 minutes. remove them with a slotted spoon and then add them to the pan with the shallots. keep the water boiling for the spätzle.

turn your attention to the spätzle, but keep an eye on the pan so that the shallots don't burn (turn the heat down to low if needed). 

in a medium bowl, whisk together the chickpea flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. in a separate bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs. whisk the milk mixture into the flour mixture.

using a rubber spatula, press the batter through a slotted spoon or a colander (or a spätzle maker if you real fancy) and straight into the boiling water. boil for 2-3 minutes, drain, and then add to the pan with the greens and shallots. 

toss with a bit more olive oil, add the pinch of chili flakes, and then more salt and pepper if needed. cook for a few minutes and then serve with schnitzel or all on its own.

-yeh!