Spicy & Juicy Deep-fried Chicken (Kara-Age)

I made kara-age with chicken breast the other day, and it turned out beautiful.  Normally Japanese use chicken thigh meat for kara-age.  Not only for Kara-age, actually;  Japanese eat thigh meat very often.  Yakitoki (grilled chicken on skewers), stir-fry, steam board, yakiniku etc.. thigh meat is mainly used for all of them.  On the other hand people prefer breast meat in Australia.  My in-laws don’t even eat chicken thigh, they only eat breast meat.

The reason why Japanese prefer thigh is that it’s juicier and tastier.  When you cook same dish with thigh and breast, the one with breast has less taste and is more dry.  Although thigh meat contains higher calorie and cholesterol,  Japanese still prefer it.

So, when I cook something for in-laws I have to use breast meat.  (otherwise they can’t eat)   With this recipe, the meat stays juicy and is very tasty.  The key is to marinade just 30 mins ~ 1 hour before cooking.

<Spicy & Juicy Kara-Age>

• 300 g (1 fillet) chicken breast
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs sake (cooking wine)
• 1/2 tsp cajun spice
• plain flour to dust

Burger King in Japan

Burger King Japan cerebrates the release of new Microsoft OS “Windows 7″ with a limited burger – called “Windows 7 Whopper”.  As you can see on the photo above, 7 layers of 113g beef patty are stacked between a 13cm bun.  

This Windows 7 Whopper is available until 28th October at Burger King in Japan, and the first 30 customers on each day can get it for 777 yen.  (Windows “7“)  The normal price is 1450 yen.

I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to try this burger…  but it sure sounds tempting!

Wasabi and Green Tea

There is a newly opened shop in Victoria Park which sells some Japanese products.  The name of the shop is “Wasabi and Green Tea”…  very Japan-like.

Even though the size of the shop is not super big, the variety of the product is huge!  There are some stationary, kitchen ware, clothes, bags, and even food are available in this shop.

When I visited this shop the owner lady showed me some products, and explained what they are.  For example, the donabe (the first picture above) she sells is not really made of clay, but with aluminium.  Which means, it’s very light in weight and can be used for both gas stove and IH.  

The variety of tea is amazing.  Some of them are directly imported from Japan, and very rare.  Obviously they contain some kind of good vitamins or extracts, = good for your body

I really loved the small gadgets there, and they are pretty cheap!  (eg: small carry bag from Japan = $2.50)

She told me that this shop’s speciality will be Bagelier bagels!  

<Wasabi & Green Tea>

Shop 4, 9-12 Albany Hwy, East Victoria Park (next to a petrol station)

08 9470 5213

Open Monday to Saturday (6 Days)

Fun Experience at a Chinese Restaurant

The other day I went to Hon Kong BBQ in Northbridge with my friend for dinner.  I just wanted to have a chat with her as we hadn’t seen each other since I came back from holiday.  We had so much to talk about!

It was still early when we went in, so there’s just few customers inside.  We sat down, and had a look at their menu.  Then we noticed that the menu is written in 3 languages: English, Chinese, and Japanese.  Naturally we were browsing the Japanese words, and we both couldn’t stand but laugh…  We didn’t want to be rude, but the Japanese description was really funny.  I don’t know how they translated the menu into Japanese, but if they are thinking to remake menu books maybe I can help to write Japanese for them.  All the Japanese words on the menu does make sense, but are really funny…  It was a good laugh though, not trying to make fun of them!  

BTW, Japan also do the same thing to English.  We sometimes use English for sign boards, business cards, posters etc, but some of them are wrong-spelled or totally doesn’t make sense.  Like engrish.com, people make fun of it … and I agree, it’s funny!  

At Hong Kong BBQ we ordered braised beef with oyster sauce, and Chinese vegetable with mushrooms.

They’re delicious.  With just those two dishes and steamed rice, we stayed there for 2 hours!  Then we noticed some customers were waiting for the seat, so we left the restaurant.  

We still had 30 mins until my friend’s bus, so we looked for a place to have a quick coffee… Chutney Garden – an Indian restaurant.  Unfortunately they didn’t have any coffee menu, but they offered us Masala tea.  We didn’t really have time to move to another place, so we decided to have the tea.  The restaurant was filled with some kind of spice smell …  Indian Curry?  After few minutes very polite wait staff came to our table with 2 cups of Masala tea.  The spicy tea was fragrant, delicious, and warmed up our body.  It was really nice.

Japanese style Chili Tofu (Mabo Tofu)

Mabo Tofu is a typical Chinese food we eat in Japan.  Apparently it’s little different from the original dish, but we still call it “Mabo Tofu” and we enjoy it.  Some people add more chili to make it spicier, and that’s became one of “summer food” in Japan.  (In Japan we eat hot & spicy food in summer)

There is a dish called “Mabo Donburi”, it’s basically a rice served in a bowl, covered with mabo tofu.  You can find it even in convenience stores in Japan during summer.

Mabo Tofu (ma-bo dofu)

<Mabo Tofu>

• 50g pork mince
• 300g silken tofu
• 1tsp grated ginger
• 1tsp grated garlic
• 1tsp tobanjan
• 1tbs sesame oil
• 1tsp corn flour + 1tsp water