Governor X's Kitchen: Marukai Mysteries (Saba Kabayaki)

With American Idol gone, we here at Skynet must turn our attention to new things. I'm going to refocus on eating strange food. I love fish, so what better section to start in than the fish section of Marukai Japanese market. I bought a variety of fresh fish items I can barely identify and this odd little can. I'll get back to the fresh fish later in the series, but tonight I needed a snack so this can found its way on my menu.


Mackerel comes in a can? Broiled? With sugar and soy sauce? Since I was raised by white folks, I was never exposed to such things.


The first thing you notice when you open the can is how strong the smell is. If fishy smells bother you, stay out of cheap Pahrump brothels and avoid this can. Pressing on, I discover the mackerel is quite solid. It comes out of the can in one big ass chunk.


I taste it...and shockingly enough, its not bad. Its teetering on being oddly good, but I can't really make that leap. It is far sweeter than I expected, like cheap mall teriyaki, but the fish itself is decent. I ended up eating about 3/4ths of the can.

Next on the Marukai Mystery Menu, kinki rockfish! Its red and white.

Governor X's Kitchen: Swedish Wok Vaguely Chinese Stir Fry

What's all this then? Governor X's Kitchen has returned? Oh yes, and we've bought a Swedish wok from Ikea. Clear a path!

First up in the wok was curry chicken...but it didn't turn out so well. We'll try that again later. Take two was a vaguely Chinese stir fry with fresh eggplant and bell pepper. It was superb. Here's what you'll need, in addition to the wok obviously. Those are $5.99 at Ikea, so you don't have an excuse anymore. Go buy one, then grab these ingredients:

3 oz steak
1 green bell pepper
3/4 cup eggplant (approximate)
1 large garlic clove
1 cup Trader Joe's stir fry vegetables
salt
3 tablespoons organic soy sauce (approximate)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Here's what you do with them...

1) Trim the fat off your steak and then cut it into bite size pieces. Sprinkle with a dash of salt and around one tablespoon of soy sauce. Set this aside.
2) Cut up the eggplant and bell pepper into bite size pieces. Prepare one cup of the stir fry mixed veg.
3) Finely chop the clove of garlic.
4) Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the wok and add the garlic. Saute the garlic until you get the aroma.
5) Add the steak and cook until both sides of the meat are no longer red.
6) Add the eggplant, bell pepper, and mixed vegetables. Add around 2 tablespoons of soy sauce to the wok.
7) Let the mixture cook, stirring occasionally until the eggplant is thoroughly cooked (8 minutes maybe?). You don't want raw eggplant, but conveniently enough when its cooked, the rest of the vegetables and meat will be ready too.
8) Plate & serve. You can obviously serve with rice, soup, or any other side that you chose to. I opted to just eat the stir fry.



New to Governor X's Kitchen - nutrition facts! Yeah, if you're on a low sodium diet, you should probably just move along...and never think about using soy sauce again.

Governor X's Kitchen: Frog's Legs

For reasons I will never fully understand, Stater Bros now stocks frog's legs in their meat section. Was there a sudden influx of Frenchmen that I wasn't aware of? Was this a one time thing because the usual shipment of frozen beaks and claws ended up in some fancy West L.A. bodega? Who knows. I couldn't pass this oddity up though, so I got two pair and took them home.

I had no idea how to make these, so I hit up the google for instructions. Generally it appears that you can sautee them or bread them and fry them. Easy enough. Based on what was in the kitchen, I opted for this simple recipe using garlic and parsley.

When they were done and ready to eat, I really didn't know what to expect. As you can see, they're pretty odd looking. I dug in and to my surprise, they were quite fishy, but also quite tough. The closest thing I can compare them to is shark, but with a much stronger flavor - and by stronger, I don't mean better. They were certainly edible, but I can't see myself picking up anymore at the local store. Two pairs had about a thimble full of meat between them. Perhaps one day if I find them on the menu of some restaurant with more experience cooking them, I'll have another go, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Governor X's Kitchen: Fried Rice

This week the Governor is back in the kitchen cooking up the perfect dish for any gaijin who wants to impress his little China Girl (just you shut your mouth...SHHHHHHHHHHH).

After the rousing success of tequila lime chicken, I'm going to try another favorite. Today's recipe is lazy man's fried rice. The inspirational chef for today's dish is none other than snuff porn aficionado and host of the original Iron Chef, Chairman Kaga. He is not, as the legends claim, dead from fugu poisoning.

To make this you are going to need 2 cups of rice, olive oil, 2 eggs, a shallot, a green onion, soy sauce and oyster sauce, so hop on the bike and battle off to Whole Foods to make sure you have everything.

Cook up a batch of plain white rice the night before. This is the perfect thing to do around midnight after two or three cans of Tecate. Your neighbors will probably think you're a stoner, but if you're reading this blog, you probably are. Rice can be deceptively hard to make, but do your best. Boil 3 cups of water and then stir in 2 cups of dry rice. Putting a drop of oil in the water helps keep the rice from sticking. Cover and simmer, stirring periodically, until the rice is moist and the water is gone. Fifteen minutes ought to be sufficient. This will yield generous amounts to use for the next day's fried rice. Refrigerate it and do whatever it is you do until dinner the next day. Me? I stayed up drinking more beer, passed out around 3, woke up around 10, and read a book about food rationing in Cuba.

The first thing you need to do is finely chop one green onion and grate 1/4th of the shallot. When that is done, beat the two eggs. Put a little oil in the pan and warm, pouring the eggs in when ready. Scramble them. This should take no more than 2-3 minutes. Don't let the egg get rubbery. When they're ready, remove the pan from the heat.

Recipes always say to use a wok, but I don't have one. A large non-stick pot worked just fine. Put a little oil in the bottom of the pan and warm. Dump your cooked rice in and start breaking it up. When its no longer clumpy, add about 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce and stir in. Then add soy sauce. I can't really be specific as to how much. I pour enough in to make the rice brown after I stirred it in, but you can certainly add more. Enjoy the high blood pressure though. Keep stirring the rice for a minute or so, then add the scrambled egg, green onion, and shallot. Stir it all together for a few minutes with the heat to thoroughly mix the flavors and you're ready to go.

You can add anything you want beyond this. Personally, I pick most of the shit they add like carrots out anyway, so I find it delicious like this. You can always pre-cook chicken, shrimp, or any other meat and mix that in as well. Its your call. Now fuck off...

Governor X's Kitchen: Tequila Lime Chicken

With boredom beginning to consume my life, I have recently decided to be somewhat productive and learn how to cook. This man here, Chef Gordon Ramsay, is my inspiration. I've grown absolutely addicted to his various shows on BBC America and his cursing is impressive and legendary. He is prone to making some strange dishes like pigeon salad and his love of scallops borders on sexual, so with rare exceptions, I'm not going to be trying his recipes right off the bat. For one, where the hell am I going to buy pigeon meat? Instead I will be focusing on my favorites, and to kick things off I had a go at tequila lime chicken, one of the finest dishes to be found on a Mexican menu.

I began the process by reviewing a variety of recipes online and taking bits from one or the other, based on my own tastes and what is available in the kitchen, to come up with a coherent plan. So after getting some chicken breasts and lime at the store, I was ready to start cooking. I was pretty excited, even if you aren't while reading this.

No one ever really tells you the nuts and bolts of cooking. How do you mix all this shit together? I remembered I had a food processor, which has literally never been used in the 8 years or so that I've owned it, so I opted to toss all of the following ingredients in there and hack it into a chunky salsa like liquid:

1/4 cup tequila
1 lime (interior only – no peel)
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 dash Mexican seasoning

I used 1800 Reserva Reposado because the bottle was full, but I doubt it matters much. Every recipe I saw called for lime juice, but I opted to use the entire lime. This made enough for about three chicken breasts. After marinading the chicken for a couple hours, I tossed them on the grill. To have with the chicken, I made some grilled squash using this Food Network recipe.

The chicken and squash turned out perfectly. Using the food processor and a real lime was a great decision because it gave the taste on the chicken a bit of texture. I'd never grilled squash either, but I can see it becoming a staple. This dinner was positively delicious. For my first hack, I'm exceedingly pleased with the results. So far, this is my signature dish. It is my only dish too I realize. Whatever. As Gordon would say, now fuck off...

I need to work on presentation, but the taste was superb.