Survival Sunday 14

So, I have to apologize, guys. I made a really tasty Okonomiyaki (Hiroshima-style) from our latest Umai Crate (again, not sponsored) and...

I forgot to take pictures of the process.

So I'm going to toss up a pic of what we wound up with and tell you to absolutely try it some time. It's pretty simple.

You basically get some store-bought yakisoba noodles (with sauce! The sauce is important! It makes the noodles taste really good!) and prepare that.

Then you take some onions, carrots, and bacon (1/4 onion, 1/2 carrot, and 3 strips bacon [diced]) and stir-fry those for 4 minutes.

After those 4 minutes are up, add your prepared yakisoba to the stir-fry and continue stir-frying for another 4 minutes. I missed this step because I get over-excited in the kitchen and always forget something. It was still delicious.

When you get done with that, set it aside. You're going to make a pancake. It's going to be about 6 inches in diameter. Before the top starts bubbling, you want to add your seasoning (we added ramen pepper [hachi?], sea salt, and a generous sprinkling of furikake).

I'm not 100% sure if you're supposed to flip it at this point. I did, but only for a second. Then I turned off the heat and flipped it back over so the seasoned side of the pancake was up again. Then I put all the noodles & veggies & bacon on top of the pancake and... I think you're supposed to flip it onto the plate but I wasn't deft enough. So I shoveled it onto the plate with a really nice metal spatula. Like... really nice.

Once it was out, Z was left in charge of assembly and put a mountain of freshly-snipped green onion on top, then drizzled it with an embarrassment of riches in the form of a homemade tonkatsu sauce (which I made) and a really nice sriracha mayo that Z had picked up expressly for this purpose.

The tonkatsu sauce was made with 1Tbsp ketchup to 2 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce to I think maybe 1 1/4 tsp sugar? (I multiplied by 3). Then I just kinda went crazy adding stuff because I realized that I didn't have the mirin the recipe I was using called for. I used a splash of rice wine vinegar, a dash of dried mustard, a dash of dried ginger, and I kept tasting the sauce to get it to a point where it tasted good to me. The recipe called for the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, mirin, and I'm pretty sure Dijon mustard. Just look up a recipe for yourself and go nuts. Make it taste good to you.

In the end, even with having skipped the second stir-fry step, it was so good that we probably scared the corgis while we were eating it.

Photo courtesy of Z. Those round things are carrots, not shrimp. And it was amazing.

But that's not your usual photo-heavy recipe!

You deserve a photo-heavy recipe!

Ah, my friends. We don't usually make things this... uh... incredibly bad-for-you. I promise we don't! It's just that we had most of the bacon and 3/4 of an onion left, and we didn't know what else to make, so... we kinda... threw something together and called it MDK. This week's real recipe for you is M(urder)D(eath)K(ill):

Your first step will be to prepare your ingredients. I forgot to photograph most of this. Oops.

We chopped up the last 3/4 of the onion and took out the rest of the bacon and Z had some $1 hotdogs he'd picked up.

Z took this picture too.

Hey, wait! Where are you going?! Come back! I promise, this budget-friendly dish is actually really tasty!

Anyway, next you take out a small frying pan and put some oil in it. You don't want any of the onions to stick, after all. You want to get the oil hot and shimmery. When I stir-fried for the okonomiyaki, I used the tip of a wooden chopstick to test the oil. When you dip the tip of the chopstick in and it immediately bubbles, your oil is ready for frying!

Put your onions in the pan with the oil and start. moving. them.

Never stop moving your ingredients when you're stir-frying.

I was kinda fumbling with the phone to take this photo. Sorry!
Still, it's really easy to stir-fry with chopsticks!

Once your onions are nice and somewhere between translucent and caramelized, dump them on the plate you're going to eat from. We had some vague delusion that we'd save some of the onions for later ramen recipes. That didn't happen. Neither of us knew how hungry we were!

You may think your pan needs more oil. If that's really what your heart declares, then do it. Just take it off of the heat before you do!

The next step is to cook up those hotdogs.

Yes, I know. Ew. Hotdogs. But come on - fried hotdogs are kind of a New England necessity, and since that's where I grew up (and ate fried hotdogs at least once a month because they're cheap), that's what I did.

You cannot use chopsticks for this part. Unlike a sausage, hotdogs are too soft-textured and floppy to pick up with chopsticks. They'll break apart. Honestly, if I ever did this again, I'd cut the hotdogs and bacon up and just fry them together with the onions. That'd probably be really good too...

I used a fork to turn the hotdogs until they were browned/blistered on all sides. Unfortunately, I have no image of this... oops.

Finally, you fry your bacon. Again, if you feel the desperate need for more oil, take it off the heat first, and don't do it near your stove. Really, though, depending on your bacon, it's kinda self-lubricating. Bacon fat is a beautiful thing in cooking.

Our bacon, you may have noticed, is pre-cooked. That doesn't mean you can't fry it some more to get it extra-crispy!

By this point, the kitchen was a madhouse of delicious scents.

Now, at this point, you may be wondering: why haven't you seasoned anything? That's because we forgot. Also, we topped the whole thing with one big seasoning, as you'll see in a moment!

For you vegans/vegetarians out there - fear not! Whatever you usually use for a meat substitute can be used here! I'm sure this would be great made with just the onions and some veggie-sausage or tofu dogs and some fake bacon! It wouldn't be nearly as cheap then, but that's just because the vegetarian stuff can cost more (being specialty... for now). I love me some fake bacon, guys. It's really good in sandwiches, and seitan is a miracle!

As for the final product, I maybe should have kept a closer eye on Z's garnishing of the MDK...

That's not Velveeta, guys.

Z may have used a full quarter of the bottle of sriracha mayo here.

Mayo? on hotdogs, bacon, and onions? Isn't that... heavy?

The sriracha cuts the heaviness of the mayo, I promise!

Also, it's stupid good.

So if you're on a budget and have some food laying around, this is absolutely an option for you! If you're in your first apartment and you don't have much space, you can make this in one pan on one burner really easily. It's one of the simplest hot dinners I've ever had. And yeah, it was something my arteries truly regretted, but if it's going to be your heaviest meal (I'd go for oatmeal the next morning, guys, this could destroy you if you had a big breakfast right afterwards), then it may as well taste good.

This week's spice of the week is:

I'm sorry.

So. Old Bay Seasoning is kinda divisive. If you've ever had "crab" chips from Utz, you've had this seasoning. It's off-putting at first, but when used with a decisive hand (read - "a little dab will do ya"), it can really bring some life to your cooking. I hate crab and most shellfish. I actually get a little nauseous eating shellfish. But Old Bay is pretty good on/in turkey and other poultry stuffings. You don't need to go HAM with this stuff - it's pretty darn strong. 

If you've got some Marylander in you, though, you've probably got a craving you can't understand, this might be what you're missing.

That'll do it for me, today. Thanks for sticking around for the MDK (I call it that because that's what it does to your arteries).

Tune in next week for... I dunno, salad?! :P

Go Enjoy Something!

FC