What I ate this week

We joke that the reason why this generation is fucked up is because of chicken nuggets. The conspiracy theory is that the chicken where nuggets come from are so full of hormones and other secret drugs that it’s to blame for young people’s anxiety, depression, eczema etc. It has to be right?? And not really because their grand-parents (yup, look past us GenXers!) fucked up the world as we know it today!

I only bought a bag of Tegel nuggets because it was half-price, I was needing some protein pick-me-up and it cooks in all of 10 minutes in the air-fryer.

Too much of a good thing
I put my Wonky Box subscription on hold because it wasn’t long before I was drowning in a glut of vegetables. Thanks to TikTok, I saw a good way of preparing cauliflower. By boiling it first, you cut down the cooking process when you either roast or grill it. But don’t overcook it and make sure that it’s absolutely dry when you take the next step. I literally drowned it in olive oil and melted butter before putting it in the oven. Serve it like I do with my special sauce (mayo, mustard and hot sauce) and bagel seasoning.

Didn’t realise how simple it is to make fudge. I love fudge; I don’t have a sweet tooth but when I do crave for something sweet, I go for a packet of fudge because it’s like the supernova of sweet things - all that sugary sweetness concentrated in a bar no bigger than your thumb. This is peanut-butter fudge, recipe from the NY Times.

We’re Christmas-cake connoisseurs.
This year, we ordered a total of four kilos of the stuff from our favourite supplier. Every now and then, Berta supplies us with exotics; last year, it was Jamaican black-cake, and this year, a more traditional one albeit boozed up with 75 year old bourbon whisky.

Sunday baking

I had about $6 worth of carrots and apples that are about to go off so I decided to put them into a cake that costs five times as much - so much for trying to be frugal 😂.

I had to Google carrot and apple cake and this one seemed promising; however I couldn’t find the specific Whittaker’s flavour in the recipe so I got what was available at the dairy which was a Fijian Ginger and Kerikeri Mandarin dark chocolate bar.

Baking notes:
By the 50th minute, the top was dark and a skewer inserted into the middle came out clean, but when I was trying to cut the cake across so I could put some frosting in between, the middle was very soft. Either my oven was too hot and the cake needed more time, or I should’ve waited until it was completely cool and firmed up.

With only a cup and a half of sugar in it, it wasn’t too sweet, but I feel that it needed a bit more sweetness.

Tuesday

I had a consult today with my GP.

The horror stories you normally hear about the health-care system in New Zealand isn’t about insurance (the NZ government pays for health-care services) or lawsuits, but about a lack of doctors and long waiting lists. So you try (and pray) your damn hardest not to get sick, and that if you did, knock on wood that it’s just the common cold.

I went for a different matter - I’m fine by the way - and I was surprised that there was an immediate opening. My current doctor is old, like senior citizen old, just like my previous GP who I think, got sick on the job and was now probably and definitely retired (I hope) and enjoying sunny Brighton (in England) where he’s originally from. But old doctors are the best. They have a relaxed and cheerful demeanour even when they’re desperately trying to find you a good systolic reading using a manual blood pressure monitor.

Jaqueline - my current GP - is a tall and statuesque lady who occasionally lapses into citing current studies that she’s read about, or diagramming on paper, the relationship between enzymes and bodily organs. She also patiently listens to my attempt at self-diagnoses and neither contradicts nor reproaches me (I wasn’t wrong anyway, just saying).

She saw me at 9:50 when our appointment was at 9:30 and we wrapped up at 10:45, but I didn’t complain; the whole session was worth the $50 it cost (in New Zealand, this is relatively very high).

For dinner, I thought, why not a salad? And no - it had nothing to do with my doctor’s appointment - I was still having flashbacks of that salad I had at Brewd Hawt, and the realisation that we have been doing our dressings wrong.

I didn't have iceberg lettuce - and it’s really the ideal type of lettuce for this - but use whatever you have because the point is, you need to eat those goddamned salad leaves before they go off. I had curly lettuce which I washed, dried and roughly chopped up. For the dressing, it was mayo, hot sauce, mustard and miso with some EVOO.

Drizzled that over the lettuce, did a generous sprinkling of that bagel seasoning and just because I was feeling extra, grated some parmigiana reggiano on top. YUM.

PS: my cholesterol levels were amazing the doctor said and the figure did make me gasp (a 2.2). To think that for the last 6 months, I’ve been eating butter as if it were cheese. See? There are some small miracles there…

I ate

So we took a break from eating modestly. I don’t think one can call it a diet, when you’ve been doing it for years. No breakfast except about four espressos, an office cookie at morning tea, a light lunch if I was working out later in the day, and for dinner, a protein shake after that aforementioned work-out.

But there’s a ton of work lately, so we thought, why not? Live a little and eat a little bit more than usual.

  1. Thursday’s chicken tenders from Charcoalchicken which is just 10 minutes away at our local Woolworth’s. Generously sized and cooked in fresh oil, it’s perfect with their perfectly made Kabas rice.

  2. Friday’s Mochi. Just starting to discover how versatile glutinous rice flour is and the possibilities are endless. But did a repeat of Hawaiian Butter Mochi because it’s the easiest one to do.

  3. Saturday’s chicken at Brew’d Hawt. Auckland is in the golden-era of chicken; there are chicken places everywhere you look. But it’s a small market, and sadly, when saturation sets in and everyone is like, ‘fuck this, I’ll just go back to KFC’, where will your chicken-joint end up? Which is a shame, because every single chicken-place we’ve been to is good. Ironically, the star dish isn’t always the chicken (which in spite of its batter or glaze or whatever, somehow needs a tad more seasoning) and at Brew’d Hawt, the iceberg-lettuce wedges and the fried pickles were stellar.

  4. Sunday’s Katsubi. You pick from three sizes- and I always pick Large which means salad/rice and three meat options- and they try to cram all these into a paper bowl. You also pick your sauce (I always go for Garlic Aioli and Miso Sesame). It looks intimidatingly huge when you dump everything into a plate at home for easier eating, but since opting out of having rice and just the vegetables, you don’t feel as full. Perfect as a pre-workout food.

My Saturday

I think I’ve mentioned before that Saturday is my only true ‘free day’; so it’s all about me and about relaxing a little bit. Catch up on reading, streaming and a nice lazy dinner (and snacks = a tub of ice-cream).

Yes, sometimes I eat bread

I have to admit that I had my ‘gluten intolerant’ moment. With bread/wheat as the culprit, I imagined that I was bloated and crampy. We have to blame social media for that hysteria which thankfully, got clarified by the experts but not before spawning a whole new restaurant menu sub-set that never fails to make you roll your eyes.

And now I’m back to my processed-food moment so bread rarely ever makes it to our pantry.

But facetiousness aside, I’ve never been a big bread-eater anyway. I don’t know if it’s changed but growing up in the Philippines, the quality of the bread wasn’t as good (and so were the cakes), and if it was there, I ate some but I wouldn’t even give it a second thought if it disappeared from the face of the earth.

I could count with the fingers of both my hands, the number of dishes where bread was necessary: 1) beef stew (which was one of our dad’s signature dishes); 2) pansit sotanghon (you made a pansit sandwich and used the thinnest, softest white bread); 3) spaghetti (before garlic bread became commercially available, we made our own slathered with Star margarine and dosed up with Italian seasoning); 4) Christmas ham (with cold slices of salty Majestic ham, mayo and tomatoes).

I had my usual grocery delivery yesterday and sourdough was on sale so I thought, why not?

The slices are too big for a conventional toaster so toasting is done on a pan with olive oil and butter. Two fried eggs, one sliced tomato and a whole lot of seasoning and breakfast is done (coz I need the energy).

Friday purchases

Costco is full of great and useless things. It’s also a fantasy world where inflation doesn’t exist and those huge bags of Lay’s potato chips that you bought are actually made of air and have zero calories.

But sometimes you do need a reprieve from everything that’s happening even if it’s just a couple of hours.

When I was in college, my cousins teased me for having oily skin and I’ve been trying to turn that around ever since. But as it turns out after an analysis at a dermatologist’s clinic, my skin was actually very dehydrated, and it only looked oily from the outside from all the stuff I put on it.

So I started drinking more - even if I hate the taste of water - just for that.

And lately, I’ve discovered oils and how I could get away with slathering it on and people describing it as a glow. I’ve started off with Sunday Riley and Emma Lewisham but after several expensive bottles, you’d think, let me find some cheaper ones and as it turns out, there is a whole universe of oils.

This one is local (Miabelle) and they also have body oils which I want to try out; not particularly happy with normal drugstore/supermarket body lotions like Aveeno and Jergens.

Christmas wish-list

Ahhhh when money is no object…

A very loud wedding

Three times I got an alert from my Apple Watch saying that the sound in the hall exceeded 95 decibels (just FYI, anything above 70 is harmful).

But Pasifika weddings have never been small affairs; literally everything is big, the venue, the participants, the food, the tears and the unabashed show of affection and love.

You go home full, albeit with a slight ringing in your ears.

Chicken Karaage

Before there was Korean fried chicken, there was Japanese chicken karaage.

There are times when I just get sick and tired of KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) and its million and one variants, and all I crave really, is the simple taste of chicken and that hint of ginger and soy.

No cheese, butter laced gochujang, bbq sauce (the worst) or ranch. And no bones!

I’ve had so many versions over the years and I’m glad that Eric Kim of NYTimes Cooking has laid to rest that question of ‘what is the definitive recipe for chicken karate?’ (watch his video). The answer being, is that there isn’t one.

There was a time when I literally had something deep-fried every week, mostly on weekends, but I’ve been pacing that now but when I do, it’s karaage.

My recipe is almost identical to Eric’s but with one difference- I use an equal part of tapioca starch in my batter with regular flour. You could do the starch exclusively, but flour mixed in gives it a crunch that’s firm, but not too crunchy which is my preference.

Ingredients:
1pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 2-inch pieces
1(2-inch) piece ginger, peeled and finely grated (2 teaspoons)
2tablespoons soy sauce
2tablespoons sake
½teaspoon granulated sugar
½teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1large egg
1/2 cup tapioca starch mixed with 1/2 cup regular flour.
About 1 quart canola or vegetable oil, for frying

Step 1
To a medium bowl, add the chicken, ginger, soy sauce, sake, sugar and salt. Toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour.

Step 2
Place a wire rack over a large, paper towel-lined sheet pan. Crack the egg into a small bowl and whisk. To a large bowl, add the starches. One by one, dip the chicken into the egg, then into the batter mixture until evenly coated. Set the coated chicken pieces on the left side of the wire rack.

Step 3
To a medium saucepan, add enough oil to fill a third of the way up. Heat the oil over medium-high to 320 degrees. Turn your hood vent on, if you’ve got one, and open a nearby window, if possible. Working in batches, fry the chicken until crunchy and light brown, adjusting the heat so the oil temperature stays between 300 and 320 degrees, 4 to 6 minutes per batch. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer the fried chicken to the right side of the wire rack, away from the portion that was exposed to the raw chicken, to rest slightly.

Step 4
Serve with the optional (but very delicious) lemon wedges and mayonnaise dusted with togarashi.