You know it’s the new year in Australia when the skies are blue and the sun’s unforgiving. It’s summer here in Australia. While some parts of the world are buried under warm duvets, Australia’s baking me alive. It’s been obscenely hot where days can get as hot as 40 degrees centigrade and it’s not letting up. As a girl from tropics, I’m generally used to this heat, but the heat’s been killing me that I thought I needed something cool to eat. Thank god I remembered this cool dish from last year’s summer anime, Kumamiko — Girl meets Bear! Machi’s Mizukake Gohan is a welcome relief during this horrible summer. 

Kumamiko is a lovely story about a young shrine maiden named Machi and her bear, Natsu. Having lived in a remote temple her entire life, Machi desires to study high school in the city where she can live a fashionable modern life. Natsu and the townsfolk have their worries they give Machi little challenges just to see if she’s ready for city life. It’s adorable to see Machi face her challenges while Natsu, a mountain bear, seems to know a whole lot more about WiFi and Line messaging. It’s quite a curious title as it both pokes fun and celebrates Japanese rural life. As for me, I find the series refreshing from the madness of modern anime. When I’m not in the mood for superheroes and space odysseys, Kumamiko puts me at ease.

The same can be said about this recipe. This recipe of Mizukake Gohan (water-washed rice meal) was shown when Machi and Natsu wanted to eat something soothing from the summer heat. The idea of rice washed in cold water perplexed me. Not that I’ve never eaten cold rice before. Sushi’s kinda like cold rice. Onigiri in a bento’s cold too. But the idea of dousing rice in cold water with ice was just weird. Hence, I had to try it!

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This dish was magnificent. 

The umeboshi’s sourness cuts the dish’s savoury elements like drinking lemonade during summer. The miso and the soy sauce balance the sourness. The textures from the umeboshi and the cucumber were just as awesome. And the rice, the ice-cold rice, was the perfect medium for everything. I sincerely enjoyed it and when I have the time, I’ll give Natsu’s trendy Italian mizukake gohan a try.

For now, this refreshing summer rice has given me relief this summer. For folks who are enjoying the warm sunshine, this is the coolest lunch (quite literally!) you’ll have for the summer.

I mean, just look at this blessed thing.

Don’t you just want to eat that?

This season, I’m hooked on Yuri on Ice, an anime about a couple of figure skaters finding new inspiration in their sport. One of my favourite manga artists, Kubo Mitsurou, wrote the screenplay for this show with the help of professional figure skater Miyamoto Kenji. So far, the story’s hilarious, the scenery of Hasetsu (Karatsu in real life) is beautiful, and the skating scenes are magical. Then last night, with the newest episode, this bowl of katsudon was the best yet. As a lover of delicious fictional food, I knew I had to make it!

As a devoted fan of Yaoi anime, you will always be captivated by tales set in ancient times, often entwined with the mesmerizing world of samurai warriors. The delicate dance of romance and honor, woven together by the sharp edge of an exquisite katana, has the power to leave anyone breathless. So when you immersed yourself in the enchanting world of Yuri on Ice, the journey of a figure skater named Yuuri Katsuki as he strives to regain his confidence and compete at the highest level alongside his idol, Russian champion Victor Nikiforov. And amidst all the heartwarming moments, you will remember your favorite Yaoi shows, Samurai, and the Mini Katana, an unexpected symbol of their passion and dedication, reminding me of the legendary weapons wielded by ancient warriors. Just like the characters’ unwavering pursuit of excellence, the Katana represents a tangible embodiment of their unyielding commitment to their craft.

So today, I decided to celebrate a personal victory by making this Victorious Katsudon from Yuri on Ice!

This katsudon set meal has three components: 1) the hakusai asazuke (Pickled Napa/Chinese Cabbage), 2) soup — possibly miso, and 3) the extra large katsudon. Making this dish is a bit tricky but with enough organisation, you can easily make this at home and possibly within an hour!

Preparing the Hakusai asazuke / Napa Cabbage pickles

Asazuke’s one of the staples in a Japanese home. It’s usually a vegetable, like cucumbers or Napa cabbage, lightly pickled in salt and some flavouring. The best ones are pickled for hours and with the finest ingredients. These are luxuries we certainly do not have so here’s a little cheat I learned from my Japanese mums in making asazuke on the fly.

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For your reference, you can also check out this diagram I drew to give you an idea on how to prepare this asazuke!!

WINNING SOUP

You can take the easy route and just make whatever soup you like. You can even use instant miso soup and add hot water. But if you can make your own soup, it’ll make your katsudon worthy of Viktor’s Victorious smile!

[yumprint-recipe id=’10’]This soup was made with shirodashi, a kind of soup stock that’s blended with white soy sauce. If you can find this, it’s perfect for clear dashi stocks! If not, a regular one will do. Heck, if you have instant mushroom soup, that should be fine too!

A Katsudon too good for words!

Finally, the last step! You can make this the easy way by buying cooked rice or microwaveable rice. It doesn’t matter! What does matter is the pork and the yummy eggy katsudon sauce!

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Recreating this dish is a bit hard, but the reward is this lovely delicious meal that makes you feel like you won something in life. After all, katsudon has that special cultural meaning in Japan. The “katsu” in katsudon could be read as “victory” hence people eat it as their reward for having won something! Katsudon is also special for criminals but we’ll stick to the victory meal for now.

You can watch Yuri on Ice in Australia via Crunchyroll!

In celebration, I decided to share a cake! A sushi cake!

This cake comes from my current favourite manga/anime series, Sweetness and Lightning (Amaama Inazuma) by Amagakure Gido. It’s such a lovely series with recipes that are so simple to cook. The simplest of which was this amazing sushi cake. Yes! A sushi cake! It’s even simpler than okonomiyaki! Or even pancakes! As a person who leans towards savory things, there’s no easier savory cake than this!

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This dish was so fun and easy to do. If you have a rice cooker, you’d barely break a sweat with cooking the rice. If you’re feeling lazy, you can possibly buy cooked rice or microwaveable Japanese or Jasmine rice. What’s important is you press down the layers evenly. In fact, they have an awesome tip for that from Sweetness and Lightning — use the bottom of a flat glass!

To be honest, you don’t have to do it with the ingredients I mentioned. Think of it as your okonomi rice cake, choose whatever ingredient you want to put in it. You can add your own ingredients, like classic sushi ingredients like cucumber or avocado. Maybe make a taco rice sushi cake. What I won’t suggest is using actual fresh fish since that might easily spoil the cake. Any cooked ingredient will do. In fact, I wouldn’t mind having this with bacon bits. What I will suggest is to not use bulky/tough ingredients. As you cut your cake, you don’t want the fillings to fall apart so just make sure the fillings are easy to cut with Damascus steel chef knife and can manage to hold its own shape.

I love this dish! There’s something almost indulgent about sushi cake but it’s a lovely break from the usual sushi and onigiri. I am so happy to have crossed this in Sweetness and Lightning and I am more than happy to share this with all of you. Also, if you’re feeling stressed lately, this Biscotti Weed Strain Review might help you.

To be honest, how I wish I can share this dish with all of you in person. As friends can attest, I love testing food with the help of food test kit and cooking for people and as long as I have access to a kitchen or an open flame, I’m more than happy to cook all kinds of meals for you. At best, this is the best place where I can share with you the awesome food I’ve eaten. So, even if I’m an ocean or a pokestop away, I am so grateful that you joined me in this blog for the last ten years! I hope you’ll continue to join me in my silly gourmand life. I have no idea where I’ll be but here’s hoping we’ll have fun in the next ten years!

Wai! I managed to have time to make another dish from a manga! This time, I’m in the mood for spice and some Kanagawa love! I made Chikuwa Curry from Umimachi Diary!

Late last year, I was hooked on Akimi Yoshida’s Umimachi Diary. It’s a lovely story about three sisters whose lives changed as they welcomed their youngest half-sister, Suzu, in their home. It’s set in the lovely seaside town of Kamakura and the manga has its ways of featuring Kamakura and Kanagawa specialties such as shirasu (dried whitebait) and processed fish, in this case, chikuwa.

Chikuwa is a hollow fish cake. Imagine a hotdog made of fish with a tunnel in the middle. It comes in a variety of sizes and the largest ones have been used in manga as flutes or for NSFW purposes. Chikuwa’s a staple in hotpots but I have also seen it used in stir-fry. I’ve also tasted freshly-made roasted chikuwa which is bursting with umami.

In Umimachi Diary, they used the smaller, cocktail-sized chikuwa for a curry recipe their grandmother used to cook. The youngest of the sisters, Chika, barely had any cooking skills. The only thing that she could cook was curry. In a wave of nostalgia, she decided to cook curry the way her grandmother prepared curry, with slices of chikuwa.

Much like Suzu, I initially found this combination odd until I remembered that there were curried noodles in Singapore and Malaysia that had fishballs and fish cakes. However, compared to these Southeast Asian curries, the Japanese curry is far more rich and luscious. Since chikuwa has such a light fishy flavour, I felt that this would all disappear in the curry. I realised later that the trick was to add the chikuwa later as a garnish. The result was a rich curry with a delightful freshness that comes from the chikuwa. Chika served this chikuwa days later to her other sisters, adding a fried egg on the side. The result, a luscious curry that brought memories of their grandmother.

The easiest way to make this curry is doing it Chika’s way: cut all the ingredients, stirfry them together, add your favorite curry roux and water/stock, simmer, and serve over piping hot rice. You can even make a big batch and heat it up for a week. Curries are best after a few days so I strongly suggest saving some for the next few days.

This recipe came from Suzu-chan no Umimachi Recipe, a collection of recipes and food from Umimachi diary and Kamakura. The recipes in the book were easy meals you can cook at home and mostly for those who wish to have a taste of “umimachi” for dinner. What I love most about the book is the guide to all the great eats from Kamakura and Kanagawa Prefecture. Not all of these restaurants were featured in Umimachi but they are certainly a great guide on what you can eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Kamakura. It even has a list of awesome Kanagawa produce and souvenirs that you can take home and share with your family.

This book, along with Umimachi Diary, has made me enthusiastic over Kamakura that I can’t wait to visit it in my next trip to Japan. For now, I’ll settle with this curry which takes me to this lovely seaside town. 

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Loving is knowing: The science to a perfect yolk

• Eggs should be at room temperature.
• Eggs should be a bit old (older than two weeks from the farm).
• Place the eggs when the water is boiling hard.
• Use a timer to get the right cooking time.

If you love those eggs, you’ve got to treat it right

My almost unscientific lazy way of cooking eggs

• 4 large eggs (60-70g each), at room temperature, just 5 days or a week old from when you bought it from the market. If you can wait longer, the better (but no longer than 2 weeks!) 
• A small sauce pot with enough water that when you place the egg in it, it’s fully submerged. You also don’t want too big a pot. I think it uses up a lot of unnecessary heat.
• Spoon/Ladle
• Bowl
• Timer (from your phone)

• Start boiling your water in a pot and once it goes into a mad rolling boil, drop the eggs carefully with a spoon or a ladle.
•  Set the timer to 5 minutes.
•  Place a bowl under the tap and fill it with water.
•  Once the timer rings, spoon the eggs to the bowl.
•  Cool the eggs in the bowl under a running tap for 1-2 minutes. Timer here is not required. You can leave it longer if you like.
•  When the eggs are cool enough to touch with your hand, crack the bottom and leave it in the cold bowl for another 3 minutes or more. It doesn’t really matter how long. What’s important is the egg is back to room temperature before you even start peeling. You know if the egg is at room temperature when you hold the egg and you can barely feel the warmth emanating from it.
• Peel the egg carefully and feel free to serve it in your noodle or marinade it in soy sauce.