I like to dabble in the kitchen and light weight have the ability to see flavors and taste things before they come together as a dish. I typically deal with savory foods because they are "easy" to play with and make something tasty even if it's not exactly what you intended to make, but I made rum balls (using my Grandmother's recipe) for a cookie exchange last week. Today, as I was walking through the isles of SEIYU, the Japan version of Walmart, I thought to myself... "I wonder what I could do if I used this recipe as inspiration for something along the same lines..."
I went to Japanese Walmart with the intention of making something savory for a potluck tomorrow BUT I was hit with the "F your expectations" spiel that you get when shopping abroad. Shopping for groceries, or anything really, outside the US is always an experience and not always a positive one! Here's a quick example to give you a glimpse of my first world problem! You go to the store to get something that you've purchased 3 times over the last 2 weeks, and just because you were excited to see it on the shelf you have a photo of the product! The problem is that now that you've created something that's a MC Hammer "can't touch this" level hit and need to make it again, you reach the store and the entire shelf is been remodeled like what you wanted never existed and the stock person at the store is looking at you with loony toon level confusion. All of this is happening while you stand their holding a phone with a picture of the product that was obviously taken at the store but the stock person just stares back at you like, you're speaking a foreign language! Well... I mean... I was speaking another language (English + google translate), but pictures say a thousand words and they are multi-lingual!
In lieu of consulting google translate again to look up how to say "cut the bullshit" in Japanese, I decided to figure out something else. Hence my experiment in sweet + alcohol! The initial recipe called for Nilla wafers, rum, nuts, corn syrup, coco and a couple of other random things! By the way I wasn't able to find 40% of what I needed to make the initial batch of cookies so I guess I'm just modifying a modification but what ever! This time I took it to a whole other level!
As I strolled the isles looking for things that might make an interesting cookie or alcohol ball I passed the chip isle! They had lemon lime, jalapeño chips and the first thing I thought was Tequila Balls! (giggle, giggle... he said balls!) So my mind starts to run down all the flavors that might go good with Tequila and lemon lime jalapeño chips plus copious amounts of sugar! I thought about a lot of things but I figured more lemon or lime and it would have to be in powder form since a cookie can't be too wet. In my isle searching I discovered SEIYU doesn't stock Kool-aid. Pre sweetened Kool-aid would have been perfect in this situation. After about 30 minutes of walking the isles looking for suitable substitutes (shaking packages to see if what was inside was liquid or not, because I can't read Japanese) I finally found something that's basically the equivalent to a really healthy version of country time lemonade! Healthy to the point where the stuff has 500x the daily serving of vitamin C in one serving! I figured it would have to do!
As I walked to the check out armed with a few Yen, 6 bags of chips that I assumed were lemon lime Jalapeño strictly based on the packaging, this bag of powdered lemon health cocaine, a box of the plainest cookies I could find and some cocktail nuts I figure I could create something worth eating and possibly worth sharing with people I don't really know that well!
The Recipe
4 1/2 bags of chips
2 tablespoons of lemon cocaine
1/2 boxes of plain cookies
1 cups of cocktail nuts
2 cups of sugar
untold amounts of honey
and more sugar (powdered this time)
I tossed most of the "raw materials" into a food processor just to make them easier to work with then introduced them to each other in a bowl. After a bit of stirring, I added the sugar and guesstimated the amount of honey needed to make the ingredients love each other enough to cling together. I started off with 2 tablespoons of honey but that quickly turned into bathing the concoction in honey. Playing the wet vs dry game ebbed and flowed from dry to too wet which prompted the need for more raw materials. After playing this game for a while the ingredients finally stuck together in a way where smaller balls could be made with out breaking into crumbs! BUT I realized I forgot the primary thing needed to make this work! The alcohol!!! Cue Adventure #2 for the day!
While I was at SEIYU I passed by the alcohol isle to see what type of tequila they had but the options were dive bar, well spirit level so I decided to take my chances at the Lawsons (7/11's little cousin) and the local liquor store (who mostly sell Sake). Well in the spirit of the day, guess what... Neither store sold tequila! Great so now I have all the ingredients sitting in a bowl to make Tequila balls but I can't find any tequila! Awesome! Then it hit me! You can drink everywhere in this country so... I wonder if the bar down the street would let me get 3 shots of tequila to go!
At this point I figure why not! So I hop back on the bike and ride over to the nearest bar. I walk into the empty bar and am greeted by a big middle aged balding Japanese man who kinda looks like Homer Simpson. I told him 3 shots of tequila to go! He smiled then went to pulling out the variety of mid level tequilas that he had in stock! In the spirit of Dubai I asked for some top shelf names hoping he had a personal stash... He didn't but he did have tequila so that was a win! Everything was going well until he discovered that he'd never done take out shots before and didn't have plastic cups! As any good CAU graduate know’s sometimes you have to find a way or make one. After miming I’ll be right back to the Japanese bartender (mind you the only words that were universal in our convo were to-go, the number 3 held up with fingers and tequila) I hopped back on the bike and went to look for a cup! Pull out the easy button folks! Went to the Lawsons bought a cup of ice, threw the ice in the trash and walked back into the bar cup in hand! The barkeep poured up 3 healthy shots of tequila and showed me the price on a calculator. As I was taking my money out to pay he went back to the calculator and said in the most broken English ever “To-Go 30% discount”. So I went to a bar on a bike, bought a cup from a convenient store, to buy 3 shots of tequila from a bar TO-GO and get a discount for my efforts! Man! STOP! You couldn’t script this!
Exiting the bar with my tequila in hand, I hop on the bike and rode back to the house! Everything aligned after that! The discounted to-go tequila must have tweaked the universe in my favor because the bowl of ingredients was just dry enough for me to splash the tequila into the bowl and stir and I had a perfect mound of dough ready to be made into tequila balls! As any good kitchen alchemist knows you gotta try your creation intermittently just to make sure it taste right’ish! I got to the end and… I’ll be damned I made something palatable, that was salty sweet and kinda good! Well I guess I just published my first recipe… If any of you are adventurous enough to try this let me know how yours turn out! The image above is what's left of the 24 tequila balls that were made earlier this evening!
In lieu of consulting google translate again to look up how to say "cut the bullshit" in Japanese, I decided to figure out something else. Hence my experiment in sweet + alcohol! The initial recipe called for Nilla wafers, rum, nuts, corn syrup, coco and a couple of other random things! By the way I wasn't able to find 40% of what I needed to make the initial batch of cookies so I guess I'm just modifying a modification but what ever! This time I took it to a whole other level!
As I strolled the isles looking for things that might make an interesting cookie or alcohol ball I passed the chip isle! They had lemon lime, jalapeño chips and the first thing I thought was Tequila Balls! (giggle, giggle... he said balls!) So my mind starts to run down all the flavors that might go good with Tequila and lemon lime jalapeño chips plus copious amounts of sugar! I thought about a lot of things but I figured more lemon or lime and it would have to be in powder form since a cookie can't be too wet. In my isle searching I discovered SEIYU doesn't stock Kool-aid. Pre sweetened Kool-aid would have been perfect in this situation. After about 30 minutes of walking the isles looking for suitable substitutes (shaking packages to see if what was inside was liquid or not, because I can't read Japanese) I finally found something that's basically the equivalent to a really healthy version of country time lemonade! Healthy to the point where the stuff has 500x the daily serving of vitamin C in one serving! I figured it would have to do!
As I walked to the check out armed with a few Yen, 6 bags of chips that I assumed were lemon lime Jalapeño strictly based on the packaging, this bag of powdered lemon health cocaine, a box of the plainest cookies I could find and some cocktail nuts I figure I could create something worth eating and possibly worth sharing with people I don't really know that well!
The Recipe
4 1/2 bags of chips
2 tablespoons of lemon cocaine
1/2 boxes of plain cookies
1 cups of cocktail nuts
2 cups of sugar
untold amounts of honey
and more sugar (powdered this time)
I tossed most of the "raw materials" into a food processor just to make them easier to work with then introduced them to each other in a bowl. After a bit of stirring, I added the sugar and guesstimated the amount of honey needed to make the ingredients love each other enough to cling together. I started off with 2 tablespoons of honey but that quickly turned into bathing the concoction in honey. Playing the wet vs dry game ebbed and flowed from dry to too wet which prompted the need for more raw materials. After playing this game for a while the ingredients finally stuck together in a way where smaller balls could be made with out breaking into crumbs! BUT I realized I forgot the primary thing needed to make this work! The alcohol!!! Cue Adventure #2 for the day!
While I was at SEIYU I passed by the alcohol isle to see what type of tequila they had but the options were dive bar, well spirit level so I decided to take my chances at the Lawsons (7/11's little cousin) and the local liquor store (who mostly sell Sake). Well in the spirit of the day, guess what... Neither store sold tequila! Great so now I have all the ingredients sitting in a bowl to make Tequila balls but I can't find any tequila! Awesome! Then it hit me! You can drink everywhere in this country so... I wonder if the bar down the street would let me get 3 shots of tequila to go!
At this point I figure why not! So I hop back on the bike and ride over to the nearest bar. I walk into the empty bar and am greeted by a big middle aged balding Japanese man who kinda looks like Homer Simpson. I told him 3 shots of tequila to go! He smiled then went to pulling out the variety of mid level tequilas that he had in stock! In the spirit of Dubai I asked for some top shelf names hoping he had a personal stash... He didn't but he did have tequila so that was a win! Everything was going well until he discovered that he'd never done take out shots before and didn't have plastic cups! As any good CAU graduate know’s sometimes you have to find a way or make one. After miming I’ll be right back to the Japanese bartender (mind you the only words that were universal in our convo were to-go, the number 3 held up with fingers and tequila) I hopped back on the bike and went to look for a cup! Pull out the easy button folks! Went to the Lawsons bought a cup of ice, threw the ice in the trash and walked back into the bar cup in hand! The barkeep poured up 3 healthy shots of tequila and showed me the price on a calculator. As I was taking my money out to pay he went back to the calculator and said in the most broken English ever “To-Go 30% discount”. So I went to a bar on a bike, bought a cup from a convenient store, to buy 3 shots of tequila from a bar TO-GO and get a discount for my efforts! Man! STOP! You couldn’t script this!
Exiting the bar with my tequila in hand, I hop on the bike and rode back to the house! Everything aligned after that! The discounted to-go tequila must have tweaked the universe in my favor because the bowl of ingredients was just dry enough for me to splash the tequila into the bowl and stir and I had a perfect mound of dough ready to be made into tequila balls! As any good kitchen alchemist knows you gotta try your creation intermittently just to make sure it taste right’ish! I got to the end and… I’ll be damned I made something palatable, that was salty sweet and kinda good! Well I guess I just published my first recipe… If any of you are adventurous enough to try this let me know how yours turn out! The image above is what's left of the 24 tequila balls that were made earlier this evening!
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