Sugar Margarine Snack (シュガーマーガリンスナック)

Late at night, my brother and I would wander the cities of Japan, peeking down alleys filled with laughter as the izakaya crowd were just warming up, strolling past stray cats and dark buildings with nothing but the eerily glowing vending machines in the distance to mark our path. We'd emerge on a major street, eat dinner or perhaps head to a konbini on the corner for a look around and a quick snack. Sometimes we had a destination in mind, but mostly we were just exploring.

During these explorations, I discovered my favorite konbini snack: Sugar Margarine Snack. Literally just a brick of untoasted thick-cut shokopan white bread with a smear of cold margarine, sprinkled with granulated sugar.

It's a snack that will horrify your mother and your dietician. But it's truly delicious and a testament to everything refined, bleached, and concocted by man.

I was in love.

I tried to find it in every city we visited, and sometimes was awarded with a slice of sweet sweet diabetes. Sometimes it would be something similar, sometimes they tried to fancy it up by toasting it, sometimes the price would be higher or lower. The cheapest I saw was ¥52, and the fanciest was ¥129, but my favorite was the original priced just under a dollar at ¥91. The others just tried too hard.

Tenjosajiki Cafe (天井桟敷)

After leaving Beppu, we drove up and down mountains to reach Yufuin. We stopped by Yufuin on our way back to Yawatahama for a quick visit so our relatives could show us more of Kyushu.

While in Yufuin, we stopped by Kamenoi Bessou (亀の井別荘) a ryokan (inn) that included hot springs, a wonderful souvenir shop, and a restaurant space upstairs that was a cafe during the day and a bar after 7pm, called Tenjosajiki Cafe and transforming into Yamaneko (山猫) at night.

The ume pound cake

We picked up some citrus jam from the ryokan shop and ate it with toast all throughout our trip. It was less like a kitschy American souvenir shop and more like a luxury specialty shop that focused exclusively on regional and seasonal items. I loved browsing through there!

And stepping outside to take in the greenery surrounding this ryokan was magical: the mists swirled around lush greenery, cherry blossoms, and leafy trees. For a Southern California resident used to nothing but drought, it was truly like being transported to a magical forest.

Onsen Tamago (温泉卵)

In Beppu, there is a whole cuisine of cooking using the hot steam that erupts from the earth. Called jigokumushi (地獄蒸し), it literally means "hell steaming" which is perhaps my favorite name for a style of cooking, ever. Baskets of food are lowered into the surprisingly powerful steam of the hot springs and a short time later you have fresh produce, thin cuts of meat, and eggs cooked in the steam. There is even a jigokumushi pudding, where a flan is steamed in the mineral-rich steam that jets out of the earth.

I obviously couldn't share a recipe with you on jigokumushi as I don't know about you, but I don't have any hot spring jet steam handy and I think my steamer at home wouldn't be a good substitute. So I am sharing something just as traditional to both Yufuin and Beppu: Onsen Tamago (温泉卵).

Onsen Tamago literally means "hot spring eggs," and as you might have guessed, is named because the eggs are traditionally cooked in hot springs and served at ryokans (inns). Rather than the steam jets of jigokumushi, the eggs still in their shells would be lowered in baskets or nets directly into the hot springs themselves.

Yuzu Kosho Bloody Mary

I love a good Blood Mary. The often spicy tomato juice, the inventive garnishes, the endless variations, the fact it's socially acceptable to drink one any time of the day: there's nothing about it I don't love.

The Bloody Mary in recent years is enjoying a lot of popularity due to the gastropub's love of garnishing it with insanity. These are cocktails meant for Instagram: garnished with burgers, pizza slices, pickles, peppers, cheese, onion rings, french fries, even a whole fried chicken at one establishment. Check out this one from Wisconsin that may be the craziest I've ever seen.

So with a storied history of people fucking around with it, I thought the Bloody Mary could stand if I decided to create my own Bloody Mary with a hapa twist!

Considering that Worcestershire sauce, lemon, and salt are three main ingredients of a classic Bloody Mary, the taste profile isn't too different but still distinctly Japanese American. In my version, the tonkatsu adds a subtle sweetness and twang, the yuzu kosho brings the citrus heat, and of course I had to have some insane garnishes.

In keeping with the hapa theme, I garnished this one with Japanese tsukemono pickles, a SPAM musubi, a chicken katsu musubi, a crab Rangoon, and a celery stick to keep everything healthy.

Taberu Rayu English Muffins

This is one of my infamous not-sure-if-it-even-counts recipes because there's really nothing to this recipe. It's more instructions of assembly than a true recipe, but that's the sort of thing I excel at. Some days even the microwave takes too long, you know?

It's no secret I've been in a funk lately. My nature tends towards introspection, analysis, and the esoteric on a good day. That's just the way I am. But sometimes my mind, which most people deem as a gift, lazily spirals into morbidity, melancholy, madness.

The most important thing for anyone to do is simply what they can do now, and not focus on what they could have done. You have to find happiness not tied to measurable things; happiness not tied to titles or success or how you stack up compared to other people. You have to just live.

So fuck it. Let's make some English muffins.

Quail Egg Spam Sliders

It's been pretty hectic since I came back from Japan. I started teaching (registered veterinary technician classes) and it's amazing how the weeks can slip away from you. I can't believe it's almost July.

Though I'm glad things have slowed down a bit, because I have a lot of backlogged recipes to share with you, and I'm especially excited to bring you recipes from my trip to Japan! Plus this summer I have tons of events to share with you, from the plethora of night markets that abound to dancing through Obon matsuri season!

This recipe, however, certainly didn't come back with me from Japan. This is something born out of my love for SPAM and King's Hawaiian sweet rolls. You've already heard about my obsession with SPAM in multiple posts, but King's Hawaiian sweet rolls are another favorite of mine. My Japanese American side of the family always serves them at Thanksgiving, and I love making sliders with some sweet rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry-orange relish at the dinner table.

No, I never grew out of playing with my food. Thanksgiving sweet roll sliders are amazing, though. Dunk them in gravy.

These sliders might be even better. Sunny-side-up quail eggs, crispy slices of SPAM, and gooey American cheese are sandwiched in a sweet roll and drizzled with raspberry sriracha sauce for an easy-to-make party dish that takes only one skillet to make. These puppies are sweet, salty, savory and spicy, all in one bite, with oozey egg yolk and crispy SPAM making for a great textural contrast.

These may sound crazy, or like they have too much going on, but take a leap of faith and try one.

The Donut Man

Shun (旬), or seasonality, is paramount to Japanese cuisine. Not just gourmands who are constantly in and out of kaiseki restaurants, but everyone knows when the first crop of rice will hit the supermarkets and will snap up bags. Now imagine if you went to your nearest Kroger supermarket and your Wonderbread advertised that it was made from the first wheat crop of the year. That's what it's like to live in Japan, seasonality is just a part of life.

The same goes for the Donut Man. If you live in the greater Los Angeles area, you probably already know about the Donut Man, originally established as a Foster's franchise location in 1972. But for those of you not familiar with the Donut Man, it's a pretty unassuming place. A stand-alone shack on a quiet stretch of the historic Route 66, it looks like every other shop peddling sugary dough in the wee hours of the morning.

Jim Nakano (photo from DM's FB)

Except the crowd around it... and it's open 24/7, so that crowd is present at 10 pm.

So you approach, and the giant hand painted signs on the windows let you know there's more to these donuts than glazed or jelly-filled. Depending on when you make your trek, you might be lucky to score a strawberry or peach-filled donut. These beauties don't resemble doughnuts so much as a treasure chests stuffed with fresh fruit; glazed donuts are sliced and propped open like a clamshell with glazed strawberries or peach slices.

The fervor surround these doughnuts are brought to a higher pitch because they are only available seasonally. Craving a strawberry doughnut in December? Tough luck. The Donut Man will only make these fruit creations during the fruit's peak season here in Southern California. Right now, they have pumpkin doughnuts and blueberry stuffed creme puffs as well as donuts sprinkled red and green for Christmas.

Of course, being a hapa Japanese American food blogger, it is a totally fair argument that my personal worldview biases me on this, but I believe that it's no coincidence that the man behind the Strawberry and Peach Donuts, Jim Nakano, happens to be a fellow Japanese American.

Karē Tamago Kake Gohan (卵かけご飯のカレー)

I promised you that I would have a curry tamago kake gohan variation this month! I've written many times about how much I love Japanese curry, known as karē, so it only make sense to make a TKG version.

Early this month, I introduced you to tamago kake gohan, which literally means "egg over rice": a very simple dish were a raw egg gets mixed into steaming hot rice for a quick tasty rice bowl. The raw egg cooks a little in the hot rice, for a creamy luscious sauce that coats the grains of rice. It may sound weird, but once you try it, you'll love it too.

As I mentioned last time, since this uses raw eggs, you need to be able to trust your egg source. After all, the heat from the rice does not cook it enough to kill anything creepy. If you don't have parents with heirloom breed chickens in their backyard whose husbandry you trust, there are pasteurized eggs available. However, if the idea of raw egg still makes you queasy even if they are pasteurized, consider how many times you have eaten raw cookie dough without a second thought to the origin of the eggs, or the last time you ordered sunny-side up at your local greasy spoon.

Modern Choctaw Cornsticks

None of the women in my family are pushovers. They are firebrands, fighters both feisty and ferocious. They are engineers, businesswomen, nurses. Above all: they are, without exception, beautiful and intelligent women who know what they want in life. Naysayers could try and call them headstrong, but no one ever doubts their strength.

It's a big legacy to live up to.

My paternal grandmother is no exception. She's half Choctaw and Caucasian and hails originally from Southeastern Oklahoma in the heart of the Choctaw Nation before moving to New Mexico. Her American Indian mother died when she was young, and when her father remarried she was sent away to Indian boarding school.

A normal little girl would have probably raised less hell, but you probably know where this story was going. I don't have an exact number for the amount of times she ran away from the Goodland Indian Orphanage, but enough that it became obvious she wasn't going to stay at a place if she didn't want to. She was going to carve her own existence the way she viewed it, even as a child.

Tamago Kake Gohan (卵かけご飯)

I love sharing recipes on my blog that aren't even really recipes, but more of an introduction to an idea. This dish can barely be called a recipe, but definitely will introduce you to a fabulous was to enjoy eggs and rice that is truly a snap to prepare.

Tamago Kake Gohan (卵かけご飯) literally means "egg over rice" and it may look strange to a western audience, but it is actually very popular in Japan for breakfast. The raw egg gets mixed into the steaming hot rice, emulsifying the egg into a rich creamy sauce that is amazing with the hot rice.

The best thing about tamago kake gohan (or TKG for short) is that there are limitless variations to employ. I think I could do a tamago kake gohan recipe every day this month and still just be getting started on all the tasty varieties. This classic version has shoyu and green onions, but feel free to try adding some furikake, wasabi, or even some canned tuna. Later next month I have a garlic and curry version to share with you!

Bruxie

Everyone who eats with me, chiefly Mr. Mochi and the Bro-chi, knows I am a bit obsessed with finding Hapa food. Nothing makes me happier than getting to try some hole-in-the-wall Hawaiian place, or trying the crazy Japanese curry hot dog at the food truck (review coming soon, it was totally delish). Sometimes silly, sometimes glorious, I'm totally there. It's my passion; I love seeing how cultures adapt cuisine into a giant melting pot of influences and flavors.

So when I heard about the Ogura Bruxie, I already had my flip-flops on and purse in hand.

I mean seriously, I had to try this! A Japanese ingredient, azuki bean paste, in a restaurant that serves patty melts on waffles?

Ogura Bruxie!!!

Bruxie is a small chain here in Southern California that offers sandwiches exclusively on waffles. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, there is a waffle sandwich for you. Not only do they offer unique waffle sandwich creations, waffle fries and salads, they also have some unique floats and shakes made with frozen custard.

They also are interesting because they are a chain that is focusing on using more organic ingredients, as well as things like compostable drink containers, real maple syrup, and sodas without high-frustose corn syrup.

I did indeed try the Ogura Bruxie ($4.95), but also was delighted that there were tons more tasty treats to be found.

Sake Ochazuke (鮭 お茶漬け)

Sometimes you just want to stay in and curl up with a good book and something tasty, preferably a hot comfort food.

Ochazuke (お茶漬け), or chazuke, is really quite simple; it is green tea poured over rice, like milk over cereal. What really brings this dish to life is the toppings that go along with it. Umeboshi (pickled plums), shiozake (salted salmon), wasabi, kakimochi (rice crackers), nori, and fresh herbs like mitsuba are all usual suspects. Some variants of ochazuke use dashi or plain water, but I like the flavor green tea adds.

There are commercial packets you can buy, and then all you need is rice and hot water. These are very convenient for a packed lunch for work, I can run out the door with a bowl of leftover rice and all I need is some hot water to make a nice lunch at work of hot ochazuke.

However, I have a recipe here for when you want a homemade ochazuke, and I think you will enjoy the hearty amount of salmon and the ability to salt to your taste since the commercial packets can be quite salty.

Yakimochi

Fresh mochi is best eaten the same day it's made. Never refrigerate or freeze it, unless you want a hard rock to gnaw on. Even tightly sealed in plastic wrap or tupperware, mochi dries out fast. The exception to this is ice cream filled mochi, which is made differently to keep it soft when frozen.

Sometimes though, I need my mochi cravings fulfilled without the trials of steaming some mochiko to make mochi dough. And even that is the lazy man's way: the traditional mochi-making process takes fresh steamed sweet rice and pounds the fuck out of it with a giant mallet until it turns into a smooth glutinous mass. Yes, I know, but that required both a cuss word and some hot bolding action. Traditional mochi making is a serious back breaking multiple-person event.

Thank goodness Miss Mochi lives in this century, where mochi is not reserved just for the rich and royal and doesn't require a team of beefy men to make it. You can get dried mochi cakes at any Japanese market for cheap, as well as delicious fresh wagashi (dessert mochi) both at the markets and at Japanese confectioneries.

Dried mochi

Well... it might actually be better for my waistline if some things weren't so plentiful and cheap, like McDonald's french fries. But that's another topic entirely.

Here's a recipe for yakimochi, or grilled mochi, that is drizzled in brown sugar and soy sauce. My mom would sometime serve this for a toasty breakfast treat! Fun fact: "yakimochi" also means "jealous" in Japanese, because of the way a person puffs up when they are jealous. I think it should be because anyone who doesn't have yakimochi would be super jealous!

Nutella Fudgesicle

I have a confession: I have never had Nutella before this popsicle. I blame my mom, she would have never let us kids have a chocolate spread as "part of a nutritious breakfast." After all, Nutella is made by Ferrero, which makes Ferrero Rocher chocolates. So I am sure, to my mother, Nutella was tantamount to slathering melted hershey kisses over toast.

Actually, now that I've tasted Nutella, it is just like that, only better.

We know that Nutella is basically a tub of spreadable candy bars, so rather than the breakfast table, let's make dessert with it!

I've seen Nutella fudge pops lurking around the web, and I wanted to make one myself. Most of the recipes called for chocolate milk and use a higher ratio of milk to Nutella, but I wanted tons of Nutella in mine, and I wasn't about to hunt down chocolate hazelnut milk. I think the more concentrated amount of Nutella made the popsicles nice and creamy. Mr. Mochi and my brother raved about the texture, which was very smooth unlike most popsicles which are icier.

Biscuits and Bacon Gravy

I've made tons of sausage gravy (and eaten even more) but when Mr. Mochi came home with a steal: beautiful thick-cut bacon for 40 cents a pound, I knew I wanted to try bacon gravy. Bacon gravy is made the same way as sausage gravy, with a few quirks.

Now, this recipe is just made for serving over piping hot biscuits! Unfortunately, my oven decided to die on me, so I was not able to make any fresh biscuits. I don't know whats wrong, but the oven just won't heat up, and my biscuits just sat there as I fiddled for over an hour with the dial, turning it on and off and waiting 10, then 20 minutes to see if the oven would ever heat up. Hurray for cheap apartment living?

Putting aside my oven's betrayal, let's focus on those quirks. The bacon will take longer to cook than the sausage, because you want it nice and crisp to stand up to the gravy. It will also release quite a bit more fat, so you either have to use less bacon, or drain away some of the fat.  It is also less seasoned than sausage, so you will add more pepper, but less salt since the bacon is cured.

Breakfast Grilled Cheese with Hash

I guess you could say I am a canned meat aficionado. I love spam, deviled ham, and canned corn beef hash.  Now I love deviled ham and hash made fresh, but canned hash is definitely a comfort food.  My mother first introduced me to hash when we were staying up in a cabin in Big Bear to go snowboarding.  Since it wasn't much of a kitchen in the cabin, she had canned hash and other such easy prep items for us on vacation. One chilly morning, she took a can of hash and fried it up until it was nice and crispy and a love affair was born. My eyes were like saucers as I proclaimed,

"Next time bring TWO cans!"

The way I said it, it sounded like toucans. Why I wanted a fruity cereal loving bird was beyond my family, but once I exclaimed, "Not toucans, two cans! More hash!" they got that I was just being a fatty.

Now I can't pick up a can of hash without going "heh... toucans."

It's funny how family memories work. Now my boyfriend has been introduced to hash (it's a gateway drug, people, now he loves spam too), and he requested a hash sandwich. He loves breakfast sandwiches, and I was more than happy to give it a try.

Oklahoma Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Since I grew up with my mother's cooking, as well as my grandmother from her side, I am definitely more influenced by my Japanese roots when it comes to cooking. However, my father could be called a comfort food connoisseur, and it is funny to realize that some of his favorite foods have roots in his heritage.  Introduced to me at an early age, biscuits and gravy definitely harken to his Oklahoma heritage, where a majority of the Choctaw Tribe (our tribe) was relocated to.

I definitely won't say that this is my healthiest recipe on here, but it is delicious! Plus, I think Southern food gets a bad rap-- this has less calories than stuffed french toast (over 400 per serving, per Mimi's), and more protein. Per livestrong.com, one biscuit with 2tbs. of gravy is only around 256 calories.  Plus, if its homemade gravy, you will drastically cut down the salt. Okay okay, this may just be me rationalizing my favorite "bad" food. BUT ITS SO GOOD!