A Little Aloha

Long ago and far away, i led a completely different life.

A life where i had standing weekly manicure and monthly pedicure appointments.

A life where i dressed in nice clothing every day, and accessories made the outfit.

A life that involved hairdos and makeup.

A life with sunny days in the sand, and swimming the pipeline with the old Japanese men in the early morning.

A life constantly surrounded by greenness and sweet smelling bright colors and singing birds.

And rainbows.

A little rain every day, and every day a rainbow.

Much, oh so much has changed.

Wouldn't be anywhere else but where i am today, but i surely did love that life while i lived it.

Just down from my apartment was this groovy little ohana style restaurant called, simply, Ono.

In this land of simplicity and frugality and doing with whatcha got, it was perfectly named, as ono translates to "delicious." And that it was.

Most of the time i had no idea what i was eating, and sometimes probably didn't want to know, but i don't remember ever having anything that turned my stomach. It was ono nui loa.

A couple of years ago, Susan Dear Susan shared this recipe with me. It is the traditional birthday meal for the boys in their house, and i had possession of one of her boys on his birthday. I was trying to make him feel at home, but wasn't doing it like momma does it. Twist off and i went round and round because he insisted that it absolutely had to be deep fried, and that by pan frying it i was ruining it.

In the end, it turns out that he was right, but i was doing the best i could at the time. The discourse did get him thrown out of my kitchen at the time. Who knew the little toot would go on to graduate from some high falutin' cooking school.

That weekend, i also had Magpie for a visit. She was the whole reason i wound up in Paradise, and she lived there at the same time.

I whooped up a batch of this chicken, and when we sat down to eat, took one bite, and both our eyes got wide and with full mouths, we both exclaimed, "ONO!!!"

This was the unknown chicken that Ono cafe put in one of their bento plates.

It has become a favorite in our house as well. It is a little time consuming to make, but makes a huge batch, and i have found that once it has done the initial marinade, meal sized portions can be tossed in baggies and frozen, and it still fries up just fine.

Mochiko Chicken

4 lbs of bite sized pieces of chicken

4T flour
4T cornstarch
4T sugar
5T soy sauce (i use low sodium)
5 cloves minced garlic
8T mochiko flour (found in the asian section)
4 stalks green onion, finely chopped
4 eggs
4T oyster sauce

Mix all the batter stuff together,

then throw in the chicken

and stir real well.

Put it in the fridge overnite, then give it a stir first thing in the morning.  Give it a stir every couple of hours until you cook it, then deep fry. 

For the record, this recipe calls for 4t salt, as well, but just reading about soy sauce and salt together almost gave me a coronary. Also, while the recipe calls for green onion, i don't make a special trip to get it, which you can tell from the picture above. Part of the culture is to be pake, or frugal, and use what you have. So a regular onion will do the trick as well, it just isn't as pretty. But i figure Auntie Lynn or Mrs. Yorita would approve of the substitution, and frown if i had run into town just for green onions.

Fry up a batch of mochiko chicken, serve it with some sticky rice, and perhaps a bit of grilled or broiled pineapple on the side, and you will become instantly bilingual, as you will immediately understand the term "ono."