In preparation for the breakfast I had to make for my IT team (+ the Superbowl) I’ve been playing with different types of flour and wondered what I could do with the rest of the mochiko in my cabinet. After I asked O what he’d think about mochi waffles, he looked at me incredulously (pfft, what? why? how?)
Well, hell – if there is a will, there is a way.
If there’s anything that’ll “bring me joy” …it’s WAFFLES. Not just any waffles – Belgian waffles. Liege waffles. (Sometimes…toasted homestyle Eggo waffles).
In making this recipe, I have a few confessions:
1) I cringe a little working with yeast. Thankfully, we live in a world of baking powder – the handy dandy replacement to act as the yeast substitute ingredient.
2) I don’t have that awesome liege waffle iron for deeper pockets. However, I did have Lars pearl sugar – which I cannot emphasize enough: is completely life-changing. Pearl sugar contains its crystalized form so that when you bite into the baked good, you not only enjoy the dough but also little instances of sweet, crunchy crystals. If you don’t have it or can’t find it at your local gourmet store, you can order it from Amazon.
I will use pearl sugar at any given opportunity for a baked pie or pastry.
My latest favorite type of waffle: crispy slightly sweet waffle with a sticky, stretchy texture filling inside. Best when served fresh out of mini waffle irons, but also great when re-toasted in the oven.
Oh – and another tip: don’t be afraid of adding more sugar / playing with different toppings. I mixed in 1/4 C semi sweet chocolate chips into my batter and some of my IT friends loved it.
Guys, NYC is getting quite cold. I got sick last week, and the only thing I could really put in my mouth were spoonfuls of my brother’s delicious hot chili, Oly’s hot pot, and …. my oatmeal. When I was a kid, my dad LOVED eating oatmeal and tried to convince me to try it. I thought oatmeal’s smudgy texture was like “old people’s food” because it didn’t really require any biting and didn’t look very appetizing. But hell, I love breakfast and the health benefits of oatmeal are quite impressive; it does magical wonders of providing antioxidants, provides making me feel full longer.
The other thing I love about oatmeal is that the add-in options for oatmeal are endless! I love altering between bananas, but if unavailable, apples or just dried cranberries are great. Nevertheless, adding any citrus-tang to it always helps energize me to get started through the day. Also, do note that there are a variety of ways to prepare oatmeal: Overnight (in a mason jar), over the stove top, and microwave. Although I’m a big fan of the overnight mason jar method, and I’m not a big fan of the microwave, I’ll opt for the microwave on colder days for a quick way to start the day warm. (Really don’t like washing dishes and slow cooking simple meals for myself)
Anyway, vwala. Citrus oatmeal with cranberries. If you don’t want to cook everything in a pot, feel free to microwave with minute intervals of stirring.
If you haven’t heard, I’ve been busy prepping the Chef Charette for my pecha kucha presentation at USC NEXT WEDNESDAY. A pecha kucha presentation is a format created by Japanese architects (who designed the infamous Tsutaya bookstore that I’d love spending time at) to keep presenters straight to the point and presentations flowing so the audience doesn’t get bored….(ingenious, right?) and requires everyone to present at 20 seconds for each slide.
But jeez, my presentation has been a REAL pain in the butt…. because all my vector drawings break and illustrator mis-converted all my lines… so some disappeared or smudged into each other (kill me-as if I haven’t spent enough time on my drawings) and I’m worried about my intricate lines being blurred on the GIANT screen and talking too much that the slide changes and I don’t finish storytelling. I think I’ve spent over 2 hours for days on this presentation for 5 minutes of attention while everyone’s doing dandy stuff like having a lively fun life (without Illustrator/Indesign crashing on them) I’m so relieved to get this finished and hope it pays off……. wish me luck, because presenting in front of a ton of people and being recoded for a video that’s uploaded on Youtube/possibly featured on some USC news article is really terrifying (good for my future? but still terrifying)… I deeply hated presenting at USC (literally right after charette/allnighters) so I’ve never really had positive experiences at USC presentations. THANK GOD I had this biscotti to keep me preoccupied on something else for a few hours.
Biscotti in Italian means “twice baked cookie” because you form this sticky dough into logs, bake them once, slice them into diagonals, flip them over, and bake them again at a lower temperature. I’ve been baking cranberry pistachio biscotti since I was in high school as Christmas cookies for my friends, but decided to try something different by using zingy citrusy Yuzu that I brought back from Japan. And dried blueberries. DRIED. Don’t use fresh blueberries or you’ll repeat my disaster of having sloppy biscotti because of how much juice comes out of fresh blueberries. (imagine a slimy monster on a baking sheet, literally with blueberries as eyes. I’m really embarrassed my Japanese friend baked with me and wasted time/experience such a disaster.)
Phew, I can’t believe I’ve overcame my fear of cooking shrimp. I was always hesitant to work with raw meat in general, but today I did it!! I decided to bake a savory dish since I have so many sweet recipes, and I read about migas in my Japanese tapas book from Tsutaya. And wow, I didn’t realize shrimp was so easy to cook. Try to get it already deveined shrimp, so all you have to do is wash them and cook them!
What’s Migas? “Migas” is the Spanish word for crumbs. and in Spain they typically use stale bread and other ingredients. In Texas, they use tortillas/corn chips and eggs. So I decided to incorporate all of this into my own version by using chopped up soft and sweet, Hawaiian rolls. You can also you bread rolls. My mom and I shared this for our brunch, and it was enough to fill us for several other lunches…. thanks friends for also trying my dish and giving me feedback!
Once upon a Saturday morning, I woke up craving eggs, bacon, and carbs. Obviously nobody in Tokyo would serve me the continental breakfast I yearned to devour. But I was too cold, too sluggish to stand and cook the eggs and bacon on a pan, toast bread, and wash everything in more miserably cold water. So how did I resolve this issue? I grabbed 6 mochi bread rolls from my pantry and pressed them into each hole of my muffin pan. Using the cutter end of my melon baller, I aimed at the center of the roll, carved out a 1/4″ diameter hole off center, cracked open an egg to drop an egg yolk over the hole, topped it all off with bacon bits, brushed it with some melted. shiny butter, and baked everything in my oven at 190C (350F) while I huddled back into my bed for another glorifying 25 minutes (until the timer went off). Of course the only thing that got me out of bed was to dash some fresh parsley and eat these plump fellas.
Breakfast bliss at everyone’s fingertips. And a week’s supply of on-the-go breakfast that can be easily reheated. Efficiency at it’s best. The end. Owari.
It’s that easy and simple, that magic of having everything you wanted at once, altogether in your mouth. Clean eating. No fork, nor plate needed. Just look at that damn section cut and watch the yolk drip. Even my housemates tried to steal a few was soon as I left the kitchen.
Chef’s note: Save leftovers in the refrigerator and reheat them in the oven for delicious magic. Raise it up another level by topping it off with cheese!
Side note: I’d also like to confirm the tragic news of having to put down my noble NikonD3100 in Los Angeles after about 8 years of companionship, yet I will continue to live on by shooting my adventures with its hefty, brother in law – NikonD700, starting with our first shots together with this recipe!