My Dinner

Tonight at the Liberty Kitchen we served up a traditional Japanese country fare. We began with some crispy deep fried garlic flavored chips made with tapioca flour. These crispy jems pack a punch of garlic. You roll out the tapioca flour with just enough water to make the flour workable. I dampen my hands & roll, then dampen them again until just right. There is no way to overdo it with the water in this fashion. You then cover generously with garlic powder & let them dry completely. Heat enough oil in a wok to cover them by a few centimeters. I mix my oils to gain flavor. I use part olive, part hot chili, part sesame, and some vegetable. You then drop them in with enough space to grow they will plump up reminiscent of pork rinds, but are much lighter, crispier, & in my view, tastier.

Our next menu item was the cold soba noodles, served over ice in a strainer to let the melting ice drip away. These sweet noodles go perfect with a Japanese soba dipping sauce you can pick up in any asian style food store. Garnish with some Japanese style pickled vegetables & a quail egg & you have a perfect light appetizer before them meal.

For our main course we have sukiyaki beef cooked in a broth of ponzu sauce, which is a citrus vinegar, with some hot chili oil added in. Over this sprinkle some Japanese red pepper. Then pound sesame seeds into a fine liquid & add a little more sesame oil to thin it out. This is your dipping sauce for the thinly sliced beef. Heat this slightly in a pan, just to warm then place in a dipping bowl. Serve this with more Japanese pickles, I prefer the pickled eggplant with some ginger & beefsteak plant for flavor.