Posts Tagged chicken

Jerusalem artichoke stew

December 7, 2011 at 6:33 am · Filed under stew ·Tagged , ,

Yusuke said that this stew tasted was reminiscent of にくじゃが　(nikujaga), which is a meat and potato stew. (Sometimes, shirataki “noodles” are also included.)

First, Yusuke sauteed chicken and white onions. Oil could be added, but he chose not to. Next, he added chopped (unpeeled) Jerusalem artichokes. He then added water to the pot, along with cut carrots and let everything cook until it was soft.

Finally, he added the foundational Japanese seasoning mix: dashi, sugar (a pinch), soy sauce, and mirin, all to taste.

These ingredients were added in order to highlight the vegetables’ own taste rather than cover it. In other words, it brought out the taste of the earth. This is why our summer and autumn food baskets were so great: REAL TASTE. Store-bought food, in contrast, is often tasteless. This particular dish was even tastier the next day, becoming sweeter when the flavours came together and really soaked in.

I would like to comment again that Jerusalem artichokes are awesome. The little knobby things look like ginger, and evidently the chemical compound that is released when you eat it works similarly to insulin. Yusuke was interested to find lots of recipes with them in Japanese (キクイモ – kikuimo). The texture is similar to potatoes, but more liquidy and sweeter.

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New Year’s Soba

January 1, 2011 at 5:06 pm · Filed under pasta & noodles ·Tagged , , , , , ,

We had a nice, quiet family New Year’s Eve, made special by traditional New Year’s soba (thin buckwheat noodles).

Yusuke put together his usual soba sauce:

  • soy sauce
  • mirin
  • sake
  • sugar
  • dashi
  • water

The “toppings” were boiled daikon, spinach, and carrots, along with raw white mushrooms. We also had some leftover teriyaki chicken that my mom had prepared. Finally, we had fortuitously procured a nagaimo from a nifty Japanese grocery store in Denver.

“Nagaimo” is literally translated as “thin potato.” I watched a video once about how they are grown; their long shape and tendency to grow straight down makes them quite labour-intensive to harvest. It’s very rare to come across them in Montreal, and they’re usually from China. But we’ve found Japanese-grown specimens a few times in Colorado. Nagaimo is frequently eaten raw. When grated, it becomes incredibly sticky (ネバネバ !) and can be poured over or mixed with noodles or rice. In this state, it’s called tororo. It can also be eaten with things like tuna (check out a description mid-way down this page) or veggies.

The soba-eating procedure is to pour broth in a bowl, add noodles, pile in veggies, mix everything up, and slurp.

Apparently the long, thin shape of soba is lucky for long life, and of course, a happy new year.

Bonne Année, あけましておめでとうございます, Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhuit.

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Thai broccoli stir fry

August 8, 2010 at 2:43 pm · Filed under stir fry ·Tagged , ,

Having acquired some nam pla (fish sauce), Yusuke put together this lovely Thai-ish stir fry.

He began by chopping and boiling fresh broccoli. He noted that it could also be steamed to retain crunchiness, but since his poor mouth was sore from a trip to the dentist, he opted for softer veggies.

Next, he moved to a frying pan and heated minced garlic and tons of ginger. Adding a bit of oil, he sautéed pieces of chicken. After these were cooked, he added the drained broccoli to the pan. After this simmered for a while, he dumped in halved cherry tomatoes.

Finally came the sauce: 1.5 or 2 tbsp of nam pla and a splash of lime juice.

Nam pla is essentially anchovy extract, salt, and sugar. It smelled a bit stinky in the bottle, but it tasted quite nice in the stir fry.

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Leftover combo

April 21, 2010 at 6:39 am · Filed under general veggie dish, stir fry ·Tagged , , , ,

This is an old post that I hadn’t written up…leftovers indeed.

This meal was composed of sundry items that had accumulated in our fridge, mainly bean sprout-related.

One item was onsen tamago (hot springs eggs). The eggs were served over a bed of boiled and chopped cabbage, tasty on its own with a naturally sweet flavour. I seasoned mine with soy sauce; Yusuke used mayonnaise and oyster sauce.

Next was a bean sprout dish. They were just boiled with dashi powder and salt, nicely arranged in mounds and topped with green onions. It was so flavourful that I had a hard time believing that was all there was to it. Yusuke said that he took the idea from the Korean dish namuru (as it’s called in Japan), which is bean sprouts cooked with garlic and sesame oil.

The final item was the remainder of the spicy bean sprout / green bean stir fry that I wrote up here.

We also had plain rice and miso soup with bean sprouts and green onions.

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Soba

March 26, 2010 at 6:57 am · Filed under pasta & noodles ·Tagged , , ,

I’ve written about soba before… à propos of nothing, here’s another.

Soba noodles—made of buckwheat—only take about 5 minutes to cook. Overcooked soba = disaster!

To eat the soba, we filled our bowls with soba sauce (soy sauce, sake, mirin, and dashi) and mixed in a selection of mushrooms, chopped okra, shrimp and chicken. This time we also mixed in crumbled nori (seaweed) and wasabi. To eat the soba, you grab a bunch of noodles, swirl it in the bowl, and slurp it up.

I put rather too much wasabi in my bowl, leading Yusuke to offer an important wasabi tip: when your eyes start to water, inhale. DON’T exhale!

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Broccoli-tofu-chicken bowl

March 22, 2010 at 5:44 am · Filed under general veggie dish, tofu ·Tagged , ,

This one’s not so exciting, but I think it still deserves a write-up. Because it has tofu.

Yusuke boiled cubes of tofu, sliced white onions, and chopped fresh broccoli in water with a bit of dashi. After the broccoli was cooked, he added chicken that had been sauteed earlier. The water was drained, and verything was dressed with an improvised ponzu sauce: rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and lime juice. Plus shichimi on top!

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Korean domburi

March 2, 2010 at 6:39 am · Filed under general veggie dish, stir fry ·Tagged , , , ,

Yusuke made this dish for himself one night when I had to work. He calls it a Korean-ish domburi.

Each of the items was prepared separately and then arranged over a big bowl full of rice. The meat is chicken, stir fried with salt and pepper.

The bean sprouts are Korean-style: boiled and then dressed with sesame oil, garlic, salt, and dashi.

The baby spinach is simply boiled until wilted.

In lieu of kimchi, Yusuke stir fried napa (Chinese cabbage) with spicy tobanjan sauce.

The centerpiece is a hot spring egg.

Everything was arranged for the picture, then mixed up to eat.

(To help with my search results: domburi is also transliterated as donburi. Easier: 丼 or どんぶり)

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