Fried squash is one of those dishes that takes me back to my childhood. I can remember both my mom and great grandmother making fried squash, carefully flipping over each circular slice in the pan, getting an even golden brown on each piece. Back then, it was the only way I would eat squash — probably because it was the only way I had known squash! Fast forward a few years, and we’ve simplified the recipe a bit so you don’t have to tend it so closely. (more…)

Filed under:
Appetizers, Dairy free, Gluten free, In the Garden, Quick and Easy, Side Dish, Southern, Vegan, Vegetarian by Courtney

Yesterday while wondering around Osaka, we noticed this place with a line out the door. While we had been thinking sushi, my husband and I decided if there were this many people waiting, surely it was good. So we joined the queue.

Once seated inside, we were given implicit instructions on how to eat the kushi katsu we were about to order. Vegetables and meats were skewered, battered, and fried, then you were to dip them into a soy-based sauce, but NO DOUBLE DIPPING!! There was also a bowl of fresh cabbage that you could dip and eat to cleanse the palate (I assume) in between courses or after a really rich piece, such as the chicken gizzards, which was on of my favorites. My husband loved the okra and the red ginger, and along with the chicken gizzard,I loved the oysters and the squid tentacles. We both enjoyed the quail egg, and I’m still trying to figure out how the yolk was so light and fluffy. It was like they scooped it out and whipped it, then injected it back in the white. Soooo amazing!

After a couple of rounds of food and beer, we waddled out, in search of a palce to walk off a bad case of the food sleepies.

I’ll be taking a bit of a hiatus from updating Madd Hatter’s Kitchen, but you can follow my travels and the foods I discover along the way on the Daily Nosh.

Filed under:
Japanese, World traveller by Courtney