It could be assumed from this blog that the majority of things that go in my mouth are laden with fat, salt and sugar. Not the majority, but definately the tastiest! This has been a season of celebration with my birthday and my partners in close succession, so we have been firing the stove and entertaining rather furiously. I say that like it isnt the constant state of play, but I think I am in some kind of food obsessive denial. Leave me here, i'm happy. 

Both my partner John and my good buddy Darren are pork belly devotees, so I often write them a meaty love letter to acknowledge their commitment to all things grunty. As part of a shared plates meal, I banged out a particularly lucious belly. There was a fair amount of prep and time involved, but if you are pottering in the kitchen it is relatively low maintenance. Up the road from my house is Hill St Grocer, a locavore haven full of treats and fresh local produce, and some fabulous imports. They stock one of my favourite Tasmanian butchers meat from Cygnet, a butcher who grows beautiful free range pork, and knows his way around a piece of bacon too. Armed with a decent wedge of belly pork, I sprinkled on some sea salt flakes and seared it top and bottom in some sesame oil till it was browned and the skin crackled. I submerged it then in master stock and put in the oven covered on 90 degrees for about 5 hours, checking for the stock level and turning so both sides were soaked and tender. The smell was unbelievable, so rich and tasty. I'll do a post on master stock another time, but there are lots of recipes around, and Kylie Kwong has a great one in her book 'It Tastes Better'. I left it overnight in the fridge, strained off the fat and then gently reheated. Before serving I cut into slices and grilled on the BBQ in some low coals, brushing with a palm sugar, tamari and mirin glaze till it was shiny. 

Once cut into bite size pieces it was paired with some fried beans with hoisin sauce, and a delicious salad of shredded radiccio with a sesame paste dressing - very bitter and clean against the unctuousness of the pork. Lordy. This photo looks rather porn and old school, which is probably the camera's way of feeling like we did about how good it was.

Daigaku Imo which translates as university potato or college potato is that heady combination of textures and flavours which are at once oppositional and compelling. The tension between sweet and savoury is unbearable, and as evidenced by those of us who were picking the leftover toffee off the serving plate, totally addictive. Daigaku Imo are fundamentally deep fried sweet potato that are then coated in a soy enhanced toffee - nothing concerning in that mix of sugar, salt and fat, but as per my comment re the nuts, because they are Japanese and not served in a bucket, they seem somehow sophistocated and more like a health food! The crunch of the toffee with the soft starchy potato goodness of the sweet potatoes marry perfectly, and served as part of a shared plates feast, they are a good accompaniment to a more savoury course. I paired them with a 680gm wagyu rib eye with mustard and soy as a playful take on steak and chips. 

To minimise frying time, cut the chips and soak in water to remove surface starch, then lightly steam until  partially cooked. I fried the par steamed potato in peanut oil until golden, while preparing the toffee using 1/4 cup caster sugar, a large spoonful of honey and about 2 tablespoons of shoyu. Once that had caramelised, I tossed the golden chips in the toffee on a tray lightly greased with sesame oil until they were  well coated with the toffee and it had begun to set. A light sprinkling of black sesame and they were are divine as anything I could get at the lower floor of Takashimaya. Do keep the individual chips separate though while covered in toffee or very clumpy things can happen.

Along with my izakaya love is the companion love of highly textured bar snacks. I've been trying to perfect a japanese spice coating for nuts that are super crunchy, sweet, salty and tasty, and cracked a near perfect version last night. This coating uses partially blended shredded nori, black sesame, toasted white sesame, ginger powder, salt, brown sugar and a touch of shoyu. I used peanuts, walnuts and cashews, but any selection of nuts would be fine.

To get the crisp and lightness on the coating, the white of an egg needs to be beaten till frothy, not peaky. Mix your nuts in with the egg white till they are well coated, then mix in th espice mix. For the spice mix, the predominant flavours are the sesame and nori, the sugar makes a toffee like coating, and the soy and salt a back palate balance. I haven't listed quantities as it will depend on your nut ratio, but you could start with 2T each sesame, 4T nori, 2T shoyu 8T brown sugar, 2T ginger, and mess with it until it is to your taste. Toragashi chilli pepper would be a great inclusion for a touch of heat. You could also use a generic rice seasoning with the sesame and nori, adding what you like to enhance the flavour profile. I think the key part is balance and the egg white for making the coating stick.

Line a baking sheet with baking paper, then spread the nuts out in one layer. Bake for about 20 minutes on fan forced 175C, checking with a stir for even browing at about 10mins. Cool , seperate if there are clumps or if the nuts have stuck, then airtight seal when done. Unbelievably delicious!

There's something so compelling about fried chicken, and none more so than the intensely flavourful crisp moist morsels that are karaage, liberally dressed with Kewpie mayonaisse and a tart squeeze of lemon.  I was first introduced to karaage by my  friend Chinatsu, who was one of my early interpreters into the delights of japanese food. Now I can't enter an Izakaya without ordering, and for some reason the mere fact that it is Japanese makes it different to any other well known fried chicken product in terms of its obvious health properties. For me, chicken has to be on the bone, or very recently removed from it. This meat is invariably tastier, more tender and succulent, and perfect for karaage.  Wings are perfect, as is a boned out thigh or leg, with the meat cut into bite size chunks.

I always use a rice flour as the base of my coating, just because I am in the habit of keeping my food as gluten free as possible for my GF friends, but also because the rice flour seems to have a crisping capacity far superior to all purpose flour. Cornflour is similarly good. If you are using chicken wings, trim off the tips and use the meaty joints. I keep the tips for stock or a sneaky dog treat. Joint the tip trimmed wings so you have two pieces, and use as many wings or  deboned chicken chunks as there are hungry mouths. Marinate the chicken in soy, sake, minced garlic, ginger juice, pepper, sesame oil and a splash of mirin for an hour or so, then toss the pieces in rice flour well seasoned with salt, and pepper - hot pepper if you want to spice it up. Shake off excess flour and deep fry in hot peanut oil until the wings are golden and crispy. Serve with kewpie mayo, lemon and so torgarashi pepper. Eat furiously without guilt alongside plenty of icy nama biru.

I deeply love grilled rice balls. There is nothing as satisfying and as comforting as crunching on through that crusty grilled rice with smoky savoury soy on the outside. A few years ago I bought a cedar onigiri mould at Tsjuki markets, thinking that this was the answer to the then mystery that was onigiri. But over the ensuing triangles, I have worked out that the only way is to do it by hand, and get into the swing of it up to my elbows and around the kitchen, messy but happy. Whilst the charcoal grill is a perfect medium for cooking, in the lean months when I had no BBQ, I successfully used the oven on a broil setting, and also dry fried them in a pan, so necessity is the mother of onigiri, and if you are desperate enough, you can make it happen.

I often use a nori based rice seasoning to sex up my rice balls, but at the moment have been keeping it old school with just beautiful plain rice, toasted sesame seeds and a dab of ume for the salty middle. For a long time I used to cook rice then cool it, thinking that it was some vigorous rolling that made the grains stick, working that gluten style. I now realise that der, it is better to do it hot, as it sticks naturally. So I cook my rice according to recipe 2 cups well washed rice, 3 cups water and some sea salt flakes, then turn it into a steel pan and keep my hands cool with a bowl of cold green tea to dip them in, giving the outside of the ball a slight tea flavour.  There are as many ways to season rice balls as there are condiments, and the joy of such a clean palate of plain rice is that they can be the star of the show, or a support actor, wrapped in nori, grilled, or bathing in a green tea broth. They are the heart of the meal however, and a perfect end to whatever sizzling sensation accompanies them.

Pub food always makes me want to drink, so unfortunately whenever friends swing by and a spread of tasty treats are on the table, bad things can happen. By bad things I mean hangovers. Okonomiyaki is the cause and the solution in many ways, as there is nothing better to soak up too much beer and sake and wine and umeshu than a carbo-loaded monster snack, dripping with flavoursome sauces and toppings. I always thought that Okonomiyaki came from Osaka, principally because that was the first place I ate them, there seemed to be an enormous amount of places that sold them along with the other Osaka gold, the Takoyaki. When I was recently in Ueno trying to order lunch from a menu written in Japanese sans pictures, a kind salaryman helped me out, and I offended him dreadfully by suggesting that Okonomiyaki was Osakan, he proudly told me how Tokyo-an they were, and I learned not to make assumptions about place of origin.

Okonomiyaki are easy to make. The name roughly translates as 'as you like it' and that pretty much sums up the level of creativity that can be brought to the ingredients. Cabbage is standard, as is grated taro (I use grated frozen cassava) although batter and finely grated potato would be OK too. Makiko Itoh has a great recipe on her blog 'Just Hungry' which walks you through the basics of how to make and what goes in. This is a great recipe for gluten free buddies as well as if you substitute a GF flour as a binder, no one goes hungry.