Wednesday

I feel like I haven't posted in quite some time - I apologise for that. So i'll make this post nice and pretty with a few photos of the things i've been doing in art class and one food product that i made with Ryan.

Prepare yourselves!

So Ryan and I are both fond of Japanese food and occasionally we cook it together. In the weekend we made katsudon. Katsudon is basically fried pork cutlet (see previous entry) on rice. So I don't need to give you a recipe really but I will give you a visual indication of how awesome it was:


Seasoned with tonkatsu sauce and spring onion. Oh, and there's a mini omelette underneath the meat as well. It was quite literally deliciousness in a bowl :)

On Tuesday night we made hiroshima-yaki. This is something Ryan introduced to me as he had it in Japan. Basically, it's like okonomiyaki but hiroshima styled. Overall, I think it's quite different. It didn't look very pretty so I didn't take a picture. But here's a video of it being made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuVuFP3Somg

And here's an explanation I found:

Hiroshima-yaki, on the other hand, requires a progressive layering of ingredients. It begins with a small circle of batter on the grill, after which comes a heap of cabbage and fillings, proceeding to a fresh egg cracked on top of it all which is allowed to trickle down through the fillings and sort of glue them together.

What happens next depends on the chef, the style, and the fillings. But usually, after the cabbage has cooked down quite a bit, the chef drizzles on another thin layer of batter, and then flips it to cook on the other side.

The effect is to create sort of a stuffed pancake. And because the fillings and the egg are not mixed homogenously, the layered and varied textures of the pancake create an enjoyably interesting eating experience.

So it's kind of like okonomiyaki, but not mixed together with batter. Nevertheless, it's very messy to make but also very tasty!

And then I had another art class yesterday! This week it was all about textures. We were supposed to bring textured things but I didn't really have any. THey had a draw full of them there anyway, so I just had less control over what I was doing really.

First, here are some pictures of what I did last week. They're really bright and vibrant:



And the following two are what I did yesterday. As you can see, they're quite different from one another. And I decided to use the texture idea in a different way by inking up a board and then wiping away the colour and adding more to create really painterly pictures. I like using my hands and getting right into the paint like that.


So I had lots of fun :)

Oh, and here's another recipe I made last night for dinner. It's called 'yakisoba' which literally translates as fried noodles. Basically, you use yakisoba noodles which I found in the metro new world on willis street. It came with two packets and yakisoba sauce powder. Otherwise, you could use 3 minute noodles and for the sauce, the internet says 1/3 cup soy sauce, 1/3 cup sake and two tsp sugar OR one tsp honey. I don't know how authentic this recipe is though, I guess it sounds reasonable...? Basically, you just fry everything together. I'd recommend cabbage, onion, mushrooms and carrot and whatever meat you want, but you can add whatever floats your boat.

Really easy recipe if you have the right ingredients.