A different Saturday morning

June 22, 2008

Originally posted on June 21 in Pinaynewyorker.com

I’m typing away again giving myself a 15 minute break before I go back to the kitchen.  I woke up reasonably early because the little tyke woke up at past 7am.  (What a relief!)  Perhaps it was force of habit but I did what I do every morning.  I walked to my blackberry which was connected to the charger and checked for messages.  I quickly scan the new mail and I basically look for two things: mail from the boss and mail from home.

Just junk mail.  Good.  I am fortunate that the boss who’s mindful of the fact that if she e-mails me at an unholy hour and I’m up, I will respond.  So she tries to keep that in mind but she’s in Europe and I’m just worried our arrangements for her might not have worked out.  She is, after all, 6 hours ahead, and she has been there almost 8 hours now.  If anything went wrong, I would’ve heard about it already.  Or on the otherhand, she would’ve handled it.  Sigh of relief.

And I always watch out for e-mails from home — and since they’re 12 hours ahead of me, most e-mails come either during the time I’m asleep if not towards my noon.  Nothing for now.

The boys have both had their breakfast, and I’ve washed most of the dishes.  I made my stop at the bathroom and cleaned the throne (not the tub yet, though), and I’m gearing up to cook some negamaki for a pot luck lunch we’re going to which is also supposed to be sort of a baby shower for one of Alan’s officemates.

I’m looking forward to that one because I am good friends with some of Alan’s officemates.  It’s good to mix with the people he works with day in and day out in a social setting.  We’ve been to picnics, dinners, parties, weddings together.

We’re not really looking towards staying there the whole time.  We want to be able to make up for the time Alan was away for business from Sunday to Thursday.  But it’s always nice to be with friends.

Time to hit the kitchen and get cooking.  I’m giving myself thirty minutes prep time and around the same amount of time to cook.  It’s a little tedious to prepare because it means wrapping bits of thinly sliced beef on scallions.  The fact that I’m preparing double my usual serving will add to the prep time.

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My favorite low sodium Teriyaki sauce. A shortcut marinade that saves me a lot of trouble from making teriyaki sauce from scratch
Grab a pound of sukiyaki beef from the Chinese grocery.
Green onions which are cut to 1 inch long
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
Pour enough of the teriyaki marinade into the bowl to cover all the beef. Let the beef marinate for around 30 minutes.
Allow excess marinade to drip from the sukiyaki beef by placing the meat on a strainer. Make sure to catch the drippings in a bowl for use later.
Lay out a strip of beef on a flat surface then put some scallions on one end.
Roll the beef firmly. I usually prefer to start with the short end so the wider end is the one on the outside of the roll
Your roll should look something like this.
Set aside each roll in a separate container.
Fry the negamaki in batches, making sure the meat is thoroughly cooked.
Set aside the beef as it gets cooked.
Fix the negamaki rolls on your serving platter and boil the marinade to cook. Adjust seasoning at this point if necessary, water down the marinade if too strong, the spoon over the negamaki.height=
Toast the sesame seeds and then sprinkle over the negamaki.
Add sliced green onions as garnishing and serve.
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