mangover

a couple of weeks ago, i suffered from a mild case of food poisoning. not much to report, but curiously, right afterwards, i craved tomato ketchup, and normally i loathe tomato ketchup. i wanted a bowl of ketchup with french fries on the side. a glass of ketchup with a small club sandwich on the side. a smidgen of ketchup with a dollop of ketchup on top of a vat of ketchup, please. curious.

curiouser still: on thursday, i met a ten foot tall giant. we went to a bar called fishbowl and had a couple of drinks and it was a very pleasant meeting. in the morning, i thought it might have been a hallucination, but i had a very real hangover (despite the gallon of water i drank before bed, natch), so maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. i woke up absolutely craving something--not ketchup, but mangoes this time. mango mania.

i searched the fridge, to no avail. i did, however, find some mango popsicles in the freezer, and they were nice--frozen fruit juice on the outside, and a tasty mango jelly center. mmmmm. cool and comforting, but not really sating me. since i had to mosey on over to work, i decided to make a quick detour to the shopping center near the office, and go to sol juice for a smoothie. of course i chose "mango madness", made from fresh mangoes, guava juice and lime. icey and delish.



yes, i know. i should really clean off my desk sometime. anyway, i sipped on this and water all morning, but i still had a throbbing ache in my head, and the smoothie wasn't mangolicious enough. i ran a few errands, and chanced upon a café near my bank, the brown bag café. it was here i picked up a mango salad, made with romaine salad, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, mangoes, dried cranberries, pecans, and a little goat cheese, with a raspberry vinaigrette.



the mangoes in the salad weren't quite ripe, but they were sweet and tender, and the greens were crisp and fresh. my body wasn't receptive to dairy products so i left off the cheese, and i didn't miss it, as the dried cranberries and vinaigrette added a zing i sorely needed that day.



i also had a chicken mango wrap, made with grilled chicken breast, cucumbers, bean sprouts, shredded lettuce and super-ripe mango, all wrapped in a sundried tomato tortilla. it was served with a wasabi-lime mayonnaise that lent a light zestiness to this tasty wrap. definitely hit the spot. hangover mostly gone, the mango madness had passed.


honest, he didn't look so blurry at the time

almost. i had more errands, so later that afternoon, i dropped in on the bestseller café, and planned on getting a mango tart, but unfortunately it wasn't available. norbert nicely suggested some tea might help, so i just went on my merry way, with a lovely cup of tropicana tea made with black tea, and flavoured with kiwi, passionfruit, lime, and yes, more mangoes!



fishbowl
acanta mall
pale san vitores road
tumon
671.649.1291

sol juice
gpo, upper concourse
tamuning

brown bag café
in the old dfs/shell offices, by guam greyhound park
tamuning
671.647.0188

bestseller café
inside bestseller bookstore
gpo
671.647.7233

the universal language of blog

i have to give a big thank you to all the food bloggers whose primary language is not english but who choose to blog in english anyway. i have learned more about various cuisines and food habits from your personal experience and recipes provided to me than any book or television program has taught me. i have to say, though, i have found a few blogs out there that are written in other languages and i'm completely intrigued.

most of the blogs i find are in japanese. dagnabbit. i could've started studying japanese in elementary school, but no. where was i? in señora matthews spanish/sex ed class. it just seemed so much more interesting than writing out the same kanji characters over and over. i have to say, sra. matthews' spanish classes were very helpful in a difficult situation involving a drunken but charming bullfighter in a disco in barcelona, but has it helped me in my food blog pursuits? pah! hasn't helped me in the least bit in translating vinrouge or ichizen, for example. luckily, the visual clues are helpful, and chika from she who eats provides an english translation for most of ichizen.

and CLEARLY school admin wasn't thinking ahead by not offering turkish nor german as second languages. teatime, a blog about all things teatime, is seriously taxing my self-taught german skills, riddling my brain with unfamiliar umlauts and completely. sexing. me. up over napkin folding instructions. napkin folding instructions. part of me longs for english translation, part of me enjoys the struggle and the universal language of photos and recipe formats. portakal ağacı, another turkish site, has an english-text page, but the turkish language site visually just seems more vibrant and appealing.

do you know of any food blogs written in other languages? let me know!

pastel de tres leches with a holiday twist

it's a holiday here, and i'm up to no good. it's not worth telling you about. and i would love to tell you i slaved, slaved, SLAVED over this cake, but i didn't.

pastel de tres leches, or "three milks" cake, is a dessert found in central america that many countries claim as their own, but most probably was just a promotional recipe on the back of a can of evaporated milk. yellow cake (sometimes pound cake, sometimes sponge) is soaked in a mixture of milks and topped with either whipping cream or meringue. reid at ono kine grindz has a lovely cuban-based recipe here, but if you are lucky to live somewhere where bakeries make beautiful sponge cakes akin to giant mamon like they do here on island, just buy one of those and soak it in a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk, and cream, then top with more whipped cream.

i happened to have some eggnog about, so i decided to make this cake with a twist by substituting the heavy cream with the holiday libation. i heated 2 parts egg nog, 1 part condensed milk, and 1 part evaporated milk just to a boil, then added a healthy dash of nutmeg and rum (optional). i poured the warm mixture over the pre-bought sponge cake until it was mostly absorbed, poured a bit more, and stuck the whole thing in the refrigerator to absorb the excess overnight. i then topped it with a bit of whipped cream.

if you are from guam and remember the classic fiesta dessert latiya(lah-tí-jah), which is a sponge cake topped with a vanilla pastry cream, this cake is like a richer, tastier version of that. waaaay better tasting, imo. hey, maybe we should make like latin america and claim it as our own.

eating my way through aki matsuri

queeck, someone give me a drink! sashimi cutting demo

last night, we celebrated aki matsuri, or autumn festival, at ypao beach park in tumon. i go every year, despite the rains and crowds. it's not just because of the food. okay, it's probably 75% because of the food. besides the usual festivities, there are booths that line the grounds filled with toys, games, and dozens of food concessions. you buy tickets at a ticket booth, and then you trade the tickets for whatever you please--yakitori, okonomiyaki, edamame, takoyaki...an almost endless array. even bratwurst. i guess it goes well with cheap asahi beer and even cheaper sake.




i'd like to tell you i didn't indulge but of course you know i did.




i think we must've tried everything there: octopus balls grilled and dipped in sauce, grilled squid rings, fried squid rings, whole barbecued squid, futomaki, inari sushi, coffee jelly, almond jelly, mochi, barbecued ribs, yakitori, shumai, fried crab claws, mangoes, mandarin oranges, radish, shave ice--gaaaaaaaaah.

can't say i had a favourite. although kudos to the mandarin orange guy who gave me five extra bags for my leftover tickets, and the okonomiyaki guys for the made-to-order order!



update: more photos on guambat!

dairy bread

i'm back to baking. never mind the batch of meringues i forgot in the oven before i left (shhhhhhh! bleah.) i brought back a favourite cookbook from my la collection, "the breakfast book" by marion cunningham, mainly because chika reminded me of its existence, and after flicking through it again, i realised there were quite a few recipes i was curious about. not necessarily about the taste, but from some quirky aspect or ingredient in them.

one of these recipes is a yeast bread recipe simply called dairy bread. it is basically a white bread loaf, only loaded with dairy products, including cottage cheese. the thing that piqued my interest was the addition of a scant 1/4 teaspoonful of ground ginger, which was believed to help the yeast work more effectively. hm. i can't say if it did or not--i suspect the teaspoon of sugar added to the proofing yeast had more efficacy. however, because the bread is so bland (it really tastes like baked milk--depending on your fondness for dairy products, this could be a good or bad thing), i found that tiny bit of ginger lent a peculiar bite to the crust. again, don't know if this is a good or bad thing. otherwise, the crumb was soft but springy and it makes a lovely toast.

i did have a little trouble with the directions--it says to add only enough flour to make it manageable, but later it says to knead it until it is smooth and elastic. to make it smooth and elastic, i had to add considerably more flour than it took to make it manageable (a whopping 2 cups more), but even with those two extra cups, the loaves were a little flooby. it was perhaps a mistake to read a novel with a character who laments the loss of her teenage cleavage while i was making these loaves. you only need to look at the final product to see why the only thing that came to mind was "support bra".

dairy bread (from "the breakfast book" by marion cunningham, pg. 7)

1/2 cup warm water
2 packets dry yeast
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cup milk, warmed
1 cup cottage cheese
2 tbsp butter, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp salt
6 cups all-purpose flour, approximately

put the wam water, yeast, ginger and 1 tsp sugar in a large mixing bowl. stir and let the mixture dissolve for 5 minutes. add the milk, cottage cheese, butter, the remaining 2 tbsp sugar, salt and 3 cups flour. beat until smooth. add only enough additional flour to make the dough manageable. turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 2 mminutes. let the dough rest for 10 minutes, resume kneading until smooth and elastic.
place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with cling film. let the dough double in bulk, about 1 hour. punch down and divide in half. form two round loaves or place in two loaf pans, cover loosely and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour. sprinkle a little flour on top and cut a cross on the top of each loaf. place in an oven preheated to 375˚F, and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the bread is golden on top.

back to work bento

ah, back to work. it's not even christmas and already i am in debt up to my ears (and wondering about buying another camera--anyone have any opinions about panasonic DMC-FZ20? anyone? anyone?), so hi ho (no--not you), hiho, it's off to work i go. since it is oyster season in japan, it must be oyster season on guam :-) yay! oyster bento on offer for the next few weeks! this one is obviously panko-breaded and fried, and served with a tonkatsu sauce. juicy and delish.

back, jack

back on island. whoo. not. rainy and a little depressing, and my flat is covered in mold and...something. ah well. easily remedied. i shall continue blogging on both third and fairfax, along with this one, at least until the year's end, as there is so much i didn't get around to blogging. ah. stay tuned.

still in la, noodlepie plea.

i'm still in la, but noodlepie has a post for a good cause worth reading.

imported green bananas

hella folks, sorry for the delay. i'm in the land of la, lost angeles, lozenges, for an undetermined amount of time, so i'll be blogging from here for a little while. since it's hardly tropical at the moment (a foot and a half of snow in big bear! the first ski season before halloween in 40 years!), you can find my posts at third and fairfax, my local neighbourhood haunt. hope to see you there!

bfmp thank you!

ps--thanks to everyone for blogging for me, there were some great comments. for the record:
1. thanks claudine for the recipe!
2. the green thingies are camias
4. hangover drops, made by the fine folks who brought you garlic candy. you be the judge!
5. guyuria, pronounced goo-joo-rée-a, made like lili said. coconut milk, water, and sugar. hard as rocks, weird and bland but addictive.
6. licorice--yay!
7. dan is a butcher and a teppan-yaki chef who is into to rockabilly and lives on guam. send him treats and dates for he is a good guy.
8. smoo thanks you heartily for all the yummy treats.

bfmp 8: smoo in space

okay, last of the bfmps.

smoo's spacing out. create a cocktail or dessert with this theme.

bfmp 7: dan

this is dan. he's got mad skillz in the kitchen and actually has a job in the food service industry. what do you his specialty is? give me a mini-bio of dan the man.

bfmp 6: black licorice

yay or nay?

bfmp 5: guyuria

guyuria, a guam confection. how would you pronounce this word, and what do you think it's made of?

bfmp 4: hangover drops

hangover drops: cure or cause? when was the last time you really needed these?

bfmp 3: in a word: mushrooms.

give me a recipe that matches this photo.

bfmp 2: name that fruit!

A LOT of people come to this blog because they google this fruit. what is it?

bfmp 1: easing you in.

this is a popular filipino soup known as sinigang, which is boiled veggies and meat in a broth soured with either guavas, tamarind, or camias. if you have a recipe, post it or a link to it below!

bfmp: blog for me please!

i gotta step outta the kitchen, but i'll be back. in the meantime, i was wondering if anyone would be interested in blogging for me pleeeeeease! it's v. simple--i provide the photos, you provide the appropriate comments/recipes/instructions/insults. c'mon, it'll be fun. at least more fun than checking an un-updated blog for awhile....

oh, commenters, might be wise to space out your replies. don't know when the viking will let me return.

macadamia-coconut macaroons with mint tea

got this from a magazine--donna hay or olive or good food? i don't know, but now i can't find the recipe, the page, those magazines. man, i am losing my paper and my mind.

ukoy

ukoy, patties made from finely grated camote (sweet potato), papaya, and onions, topped with shrimp, and fried with a tempura-like mix of flour, cornstarch, and water. one of my favourite filipino dishes, mainly for the texture--you bite into the crispy, caramelized shell, and inside the veggies are meltingly soft and sweet.

self-saucing chocolate pudding

bill granger, again. kind of like those schmantzy lava cakes, but lighter, not so sweet, with a lovely, cocoa-ey ooze when you dig in. mmmm. recipe here.

grilled gravlax pizza

when i made the asian-style gravlax, i also cured a bit with peppercorns and lots and lots of dill. even though it's cured, it has to be eaten soon, and i keep forgetting to pass by the store to get some brown bread and capers to eat it in a traditional manner. so last night, i made a simple pizza dough base (3 cups of flour, 1 cup of water, glug of olive oil, salt, and a packet of yeast) in the bread maker, got a mani-pedi (aah), then slapped that dough on the grill with some olive oil, turned it over once, then added fontina cheese. once it got all grilly crisp on the bottom and gooey cheesy on top, i topped it with thinly sliced gravlax, sour cream mixed with dill, and some chives.

matcha meringue with mango

this sort of deconstructed pavlova is on the other end of the dessert spectrum from the ladyfinger sammich: matcha green tea meringue, with sliced mango, ginger-lime thingy, and a bit of mint. the matcha meringue was made with the four egg whites left from the custard i made for the frozen cream, 2/3rds of a cup of sugar, and a tablespoon of powdered green tea, beaten until stiff peaks form, then baked in a low heat oven until dry.

i am seriously bad at baking meringues, they always go brown on me, but it doesn't matter for this as the lovely celadon colour comes through anyway. i usually start with an oven preheated to 250˚f, and bake them for an hour, then drop the temp to 200˚f and bake them for another hour, then leave them in the oven overnight until they are dry. doesn't always do the trick, depending on the humidity, so i'll turn on the oven and try again. tricky things.

i don't make tiramisu

it's not that i don't like tiramisu, it's just that everytime i buy the savoiardo/ladyfinger biscuits for it, i end up eating them all. so very, very, good in a weird old-lady cookie sort of way--dry, not so sweet, not so rich.



since the ginger-lime cream i made was excessively rich, i decided to pair it with these biccies by sandwiching a couple spoonfuls in between them, then wrapping them up and bunging them in the freezer for lovely little frozen treats, ready at any time. mmm. there's that purple clingfilm again.

ginger-lime frozen cream

last week's impulse purchase had been taunting me prettily on the counter all weekend, so i finally decided to do something with it. of course, deciding to do something is often the biggest effort i'm willing to expend in a project. it would have been lovely to see this in a ginger-lime cheesecake, a slice, or a glaze for a roasted chicken, but that would require expending more energy than i was willing to in the kitchen. there was a beach/a bar/a friend/"shaun of the dead" beckoning.

since we're in the middle (beginning/end) of an endless summer, i went for the coolest option: freezing. i mixed one cup of milk, with one cup of heavy cream, and one cup of ginger-lime marmalade (any marmalade/jam/preserve would work) in a saucepan, and heated it on low heat until the marmalade melted and the mixture just came to the boil. i whisked four egg yolks in a separate bowl, took the cream-marmalade off the heat, and slowly added it to the yolks until well incorporated. i returned it to the heat, and cooked it on medium-low until a custard was formed. i waited for it to cool, threw it in a container, and into the freezer. every half hour for a couple of hours, i'd stir the mixture up, breaking down the ice crystals, so a smooth frozen cream would form. it did. yay.

supah-rich, this stuff is. nicely gingery and limey (next time i'll add lime zest and grated ginger before freezing), and like buttah, baby.

i used this as a component to a couple of different confections which i shall post about...next!

guam ♥s SPAM

a couple of months ago, reid at ono kine grindz posted a photo of the very fabulous limited edition hawaiian SPAM can. hawaii has the greatest SPAM consumption of the states (6 cans per person), but scarily, guam beats that by 45% more per person.



in honour of such a dubious distinction, not only does guam have its own limited edition can, but it also has it's own flavour, the hot and spicy SPAM. yeah, i know, there's hot and spicy in other places, but as shawn radford, museum curator (!) for the official SPAM museum puts it:

"We actually make (a) particular can just for Guam, that's called hot and spicy. We do have a hot and spicy can that's sold in the U.S. However, hot and spicy made for Guam is really hot and really spicy," says Radford.

oh yeah, shawn, work that description there (btw, guam also has the highest per capita consumption of tabasco, roughly 4oz of sauce for every man, woman, child, baby, dog and turtle). i honestly can't tell you how spicy it is, but dang, it is enough to be inedible to some. i am guessing that it would be the equivalent amount of heat in a 2 oz. bottle of the stuff. haaaaaaht.



on the back of the can is a recipe for fried rice from a popular local diner, shirley's. this incensed some of the other dining establishments so much, they refused to serve the processed meat loaf altogether (didn't last long, although they still don't serve the spicy version).



i bought this rather fetching SPAM purse during my recent shopping spree at the abc store. it contains one can of spicy, one of garlic, a commemorative one, and a bumper sticker to boot. i don't know if it's a popular gift with tourists, but locals love it. claire, who is back on holiday, is bringing one back for a mainland guammie who specifically asked for guam SPAM. is there a difference? maybe with the meat, but definitely with the can.



this limited edition can commemorates SPAM's role in guam's liberation from japanese forces during world war 2. hm. perhaps as...ammo? as you can see, not as cute as the hawaiian one, but there's a cute carabao on the can. *on*, not in.

perusing the aisles of abc.

talk about convenience

abc stores, a familiar fixture in waikiki in hawaii, and in tumon here on island (three in vegas too!). a tourist haven of convenience items, food, and cheapo cheapie souvenirs. yay! more photos here.


neon sushi


onigiri/omusubi

recipe: gravlax, asian stylee.

i had a fresh, hefty salmon fillet i didn't feel like eating right away, but i was afraid a couple days in the fridge would do it harm, so i decided make gravlax, or cured salmon. gravlax is a swedish word, coming from grava, which means "to bury" (from the original method of burying the cured fish in the ground) and lax, or "salmon". i wasn't planning on burying it, although if i had that kim chee refrigerator, i'd be stylin'.

i decided to change my normal method for curing, which is traditional and uses a lot of dill for flavour. i took my cues from chef roy yamaguchi, who has several restaurants around the pacific rim that specialize in what he calls hawaiian fusion cuisine. one of the appetizers i've tried in his restaurant on island is an oriental-style cured salmon, which was wonderfully scented with lemongrass and ginger.

to make gravlax, you must cut the salmon fillet into two equal portions, leaving the skin on, but making several slashes in the skin. rub a couple tablespoons of vodka or sake all over the fish, then follow with a little white miso paste. in a bowl, combine equal parts of kosher salt, white sugar, and brown sugar (a quarter cup of each should be enough if your fillet is less than a pound). massage this mixture well into the exposed salmon flesh. prepare a mix of the following:

minced ginger
minced garlic
chopped lemongrass
peppercorns
chopped cilantro

spread this onto the exposed sides of the fish, then lay sliced ginger and a good handful of cilantro onto one fillet (and star anise if you like the flavour) then place the second fillet on top of it with the exposed sides facing each other, like a sandwich. wrap this bundle tightly in foil or clingfilm, then in a resealable bag. keep in refrigerator, weighted down--a storage box of leftovers, a six pack of beer, a wheel of cheese, whatever. resist the urge to peek for 24 hours.

the next day, open up the packet. the salmon should start to get a little translucent and compact. flip the fillets so the skin sides are pressed together (keep the ginger, cilantro and star anise in the middle as well), rewrap, refrigerate and weight. and wait. for another 24 hours.

when it is done, the salmon should be sort of a cross between sashimi and lox, almost candied. slice thinly to serve.

i decided to serve mine on shiso (perilla) leaves. another hawaiian chef, alan wong, has an appetizer in his cookbook, new wave luau, of sizzled salmon belly and smoked salmon in chiso (shiso) leaves, which is where i got the idea.



mince the gravlax finely, with chopped cilantro, onion sprouts, and a squeeze of lemon and place on heaping mound on an individual shiso leaf. top with a mixture of sour cream, wasabi paste, and lemon.



simple, elegant, different.

baby, baye-baye bye....

truthfully, i am not sure what these little discs of mashed taro and coconut are called. i've been told they are baye-baye(báhyeh báhyeh), a particular delicacy from the negros oriental province in the philippines, but i thought those were made with coconut and pinipig, a sort of pounded rice flake. strangely addictive greyish discs of carb and coconut, these are. any ideas?

mussels in coconut milk

mussels, cooked in a broth of coconut milk, seasoned liberally with lemongrass, cilantro, ginger, garlic, lime zest, and green jalapeño chile pepper. as i was eating inhaling it, i thought it could be taken to another level if i had run all the herbies through a food processor or finely minced them so that the coconut broth would be a gorgeous shade of green and more intensely flavoured.

hm. next time.