Innie or Outie

This recipe is almost like a smooth tuna pate. It can be used as a dip or spread. It even makes a great snack or light entree when used as a topping over rice.

Sea Chicken Spread

1 can of tuna – more commonly called “sea chicken” on Okinawa Finely diced white onion – use as much as suits your taste, but make sure it is very finely sliced
1/2 teaspoon garlic paste
1 teaspoon soysauce
2 tablespoons dill pickle juice – dill pickles on Okinawa are still limited to very few grocery stores, so I found that the juice is a good substitute if a smooth final consistency is desired.
1 tablespoon dried parsley

Mix all the ingredients together with enough Japanese mayonnaise to obtain a smooth but firm consistency – the flavor of Japanese mayonnaise is very different from regular mayonnaise. If you can’t find Japanese mayonnaise, you might want to try adding a little lemon juice and regular mayonnaise.

Taki comes from a time on Okinawa, post WWII, when food supplies for the general population were limited and the coping mechanism was to throw whatever was available together.  This became known as chanpuru, a mixture of seemingly non-compatible ingredients.  The most commonly known is goya chanpuru.

I, on the other hand, was given a complete set of Good Housekeeping cookbooks as a wedding gift from my mother. (Since I possessed very limited cooking skills, she had hoped to spare Taki’s stomach.)  Although the gesture was well intended, the reality of the situation thirty years ago, when Taki and I were married, was that there was a very limited selection of Western- style food products available to the local market, in fact it was almost nonexistent. Instead, I learned to try and substitute various items.  And although the food line has improved greatly, there still is a lack of most of the main products in local supermarkets.

Over the years, this chanpuru-style of cooking has sparked some interesting recipes.  We decided it might be fun to share some of these “throw- together” home concoctions with other people who enjoy the art of creating new edibles. Every once in a while I will post one of our Chanpuru-No Rules-Cooking Recipes.  This is the first:

Guacamole

 1      over-ripe avocado
65   grams Old El Paso Taco Sauce
 3     teaspoons sour cream

Mix all the ingredients until smooth, then enjoy as a topping or dip.

During my research for holiday food art, I ran across several sites that had various levels of video cooking instructions. Many of the videos contain techniques that can be a blessing for anyone who has ever fallen into the “cooking challenged” category.

(Last Updated 24 Jun 2007)

azcentral.com – Recipes Section

Better Homes and Gardens – Food Videos

Cooking.com – Techniques

Cuisine at Home – Videos Section

ENJoy – Cooking with Phil

Epicurious – How To

FoodNetwork

Kraft Foods – Cooking School

Land O’ Lakes – Baking Demonstrations

PBS – Julia Child Series

Pepperidge Farm – Puff Pastry Videos

The Daily Pork – Demonstration Videos

The Pulse-Journal – Look Who’s Cooking – Home Videos

The Taunton Press – Fine Cooking Section

A list of various online cooking videos.

Hi and welcome to my new foodie blog. I hope to have this up and running as soon as possible. Until then, you can check my latest food posts here.