Air Fried Eggplant エアーフライ茄子

This is another example of us playing with our new toy; the air frier. This time the object of the fun is eggplant. I used “Japanese” eggplant; the light purple, long in length variety not the classic Japanese eggplant. Even though it is not the traditional Japanese eggplant variety, we like it better than the regular American variety. This turned out to be a great dish. It is better than the deep fried version since it is not cooked in oil so the eggplant does not absorb a lot of oil. (The only oil the eggplant comes in contact with is the small amount used to crisp up the panko coating.) The crust was light and crunchy and the eggplant itself was fairly soft but not oily at all. The air fried eggplant was a great success. The surface of the eggplant was crunchy and the center was soft and hot. Since the eggplant did not absorb a lot of oil, it was much lighter. I served it with air fried chicken.  The combination of air fried chicken wings and eggplant was a perfect dish (picture #1). I did not use any particular recipe but followed my instincts particularly on how to prepared the panko bread crumbs before breading the eggplant.

This is not a recipe per se but just a note to myself so that I can reproduce it.

Ingredients:
1 Japanese eggplant cut into 1 inch thick medallions (This one was fairly long and made 10 rounds about 1 inch thick)
Seasoned flour (1/4 cup AP flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, the amount of seasonings is to your liking)
1/2 cup panko
2 tbs olive oil
3 tbs grated parmesan cheese
1 egg beaten plus several tbs water

Directions:
Add 1 tbs olive oil in a frying pan on medium flame. Add the panko and stir until the panko is lightly browned. Let it cool. Add remaining olive oil and the parmesan cheese to the browned panko and mix well. Set aside.

Place the seasoned flour in a gallon Ziploc bag with the eggplant. Shake to coat all the eggplant surface with the seasoned flour. Shake off excess flour and dip each eggplant coin in the egg water to coat all sides and then bread it with the panko mixture, pressing both sides firmly. Place in the air frying basket with space between them (picture #2).

Air fry at 450F for 10-15 minutes. The panko breading further darkens to a nice golden brown (picture #3). No need to turn it over during the cooking.

This is the best way to prepare this style of eggplant. Not only does it taste like perfectly fried eggplant (sans the oil) but the left overs crisp up very nicely when re-air-fried for a few minutes.

Air Fried Chicken Wings エアーフライ手羽

This is another air frier episode. When we recently made the “teba gyoza 手羽餃子” variation with leftovers from the meatloaf my wife made, the skin browned unevenly. We wanted to try it again to see if we could make the browning of the skin on the wings more even. The package of chicken wings we got was labeled “cut pieces” and “contained both flats and drumettes”. We wrongly assumed the “flats” and “drumettes” were connected with only the wing tips cut off. But it turned out the flat and drumette pieces were cut apart. This makes stuffing the chicken wings unfeasible. In order to stuff the drumettes, it is necessary for the flats and drumettes to be connected because if they are cut apart both ends of the drumette are open and the stuffing will come out.  So, I just made unstuffed air fried chicken wings. I suppose I could have just air fried them but I decided to marinate them in a mixture of mayonnaise, ponzu shoyu and yuzu kosho which, somehow, came to my mind. I’ve used this combination, before as a dressing for “renkon” lotus root salad but this time, I used the concoction as a marinade. The marinade made the chicken meat very moist and tender. The surface layer of mayonnaise made the skin brown as if the wings were fried in oil (picture #1). The yuzu kosho added a slight spiciness and citrus flavor. As you can see both sections browned evenly. So we declare this an unqualified success, both because it browned evenly and tasted great!

Ingredients:

Chicken drumetts and flats (in our package, 4 each were included)

3 tbs mayonnaise

1 tbs ponzu soy sauce

1/2 tsp or more yuzu kosho

Directions:

In a Ziploc bag, add the chicken wings and the marinade ingredients. Massage well so that the marinade is well mixed and chicken parts are well coated. Remove the air as much as possible and close the bag. Let it marinade a few hours in the refrigerator.

I arranged the wings in the roasting pan that had a metal grate. I made sure the chicken parts were well spaced (picture #2). I air fried them at 450 F for 15 minutes. I then turned them over and cooked for another 5 minutes.

This was a great finger food. They went fast. We started with 2 pieces each but ended up eating everything.

Air Fried stuffed Chicken Wings エアーフライ手羽餃子

“Teba Gyoza 手羽餃子” is a quintessential Izakaya dish. “Teba” means “chicken wing” and “gyoza” means dumpling stuffed with vegetables and meat usually ground pork. This dish is a hybrid of grilled chicken wing (“yakitori” 焼き鳥) and gyoza. The bone (humerus) of the chicken wing drumette is removed leaving the skin intact. The resulting cavity is filled with gyoza stuffing. It is then grilled like any other “Yakitori”. Hence the combination of teba-yakitori and gyoza. It is reputed to have been invented by an izakaya in Hakata 博多, Fukuoka 福岡. Some years ago, I often made teba gyoza several different ways including cooked in the Weber grill and baked in the toaster oven.  We used to frequently make chicken wings because they were inexpensive and a fun way to eat chicken. Then, for a while they became very expensive and we got out of the habit of using chicken wings to make yakitori or “teba gyoza”.

We decided to make stuffed chicken wings again because our old toaster oven was not working well and we got a new one with an air fryer function. We thought one of the items we would like try was our old time favorite of chicken wings. I thought about making “teba gyoza” using gyoza stuffing but since my wife recently made a meat loaf I decided to stuff the wings with left over meatloaf instead of making gyoza stuffing, This was a qualified success. It was qualified because although the skin crisped up better than when the wings are just baked in a regular oven they browned unevenly.  Since the drumette part of the wing with the stuffing in it was thicker it was positioned closer to the heating element and got much darker than the rest of the wing. Although we used left over meat loaf  instead of the traditional gyoza stuffing it was still quite good. I served this with air-fried rounds of eggplant (subject of a future post) and sautéed oyster mushrooms (#1).

This a cross section view of the drumette showing the meat stuffing (picture #2). As mentioned, the skin over the drumette got a bit too high done (backened).

This shows the overall appearance of chicken wings (picture #3). Next time, I can remove the wing tips to make the stuffed part of the chicken wings lie a bit more evenly/flat to prevent uneven browning of the skin.

Ingredients:
Any number of chicken wings
meat filling either gyoza or meatloaf

Directions:
Remove the bone from the drumette leaving the skin intact. Stuff with the meat stuffing and close with a toothpick. (I did not add any oil or spices to the wings because they already have a large amount of natural fat to baste the meat while cooking.)

Cook in the air frier at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn over and cook an additional 5 minutes.

These were again the fun way to eat chicken. The skin was crispy. The meat was juicy and tender. The added stuffing, in this case the meatloaf, was very flavorful. Although the stuffed portion got a bit high done it was still very good. We will be bringing this old favorite back onto the menu.

Meatloaf ミートローフ

While my wife was looking through the trusty old cookbook “Joy of Cooking”, she found a yellow stick’m in her handwriting from many years ago posted on one of the pages. It was a recipe for meatloaf which was a regular in her culinary repertoire long ago . It appears that this recipe is different from any other meatloaf recipe in the book. In general, we are not big fans of meatloaf or hamburger, but since this was my wife’s special recipe, we decided to try it for old times sake. It calls for ground beef, so we got one pound of 20% fat (we thought a bit fatty meat may be better for meatloaf) ground beef from Whole Foods. This was a pretty good meatloaf (#1). It was moist and flavorful. When it just came out of the oven it did not keep it’s shape very well when sliced but after refrigeration it held together better.

I ask my wife to expand on her special recipe. I helped her by chopping up onions and shiitake mushrooms (since we had a few left). I sautéd  them in olive oil (left upper in picture #2).

Ingredients: (Shown in picture #2)
1 lb ground beef
1/½ cups onion, chopped (optional several stems and caps of fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped)
1 cup bread crumbs
2/3 cup ketchup,
1 tbs Dijon mustard
2/3 cup parsley
3 eggs
1 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper or cayenne
1 tbs horseradish (we used yuzukosho hot sauce)
3 tbs chopped garlic
1 cup Parmesan cheese
ketchup on top

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. (It doesn’t get any easier than that). Put in a loaf pan and top with catsup (#3). Cook in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes (until done).

This meatloaf was a colorful combination of flavors and textures.  The catsup topping caramelized and added a nice sweet/tart touch. This was a very nostalgic dish for my wife. We may have to add it back into the repertoire.

Three Eel Dishes うなぎの蒲焼料理3種類

Fresh water eel or “unagi 鰻” is a popular fish item in Japan and many restaurants specialize in eel dishes. At these specialized restaurants, eels are brought in live and prepared on site. “Kaba-yaki 蒲焼“ (eel grilled with sauce) is the most common dish with two variations of preparation and cooking* i.e., Kansai, Eastern Japan 関西 and Tokyo 東京 styles.  (Even in Japan, however, other types of restaurants may use previously prepared and frozen eel the majority of which comes from China (99 percent) and the rest from Taiwan.) Once eel kaba-yaki is prepared, two main ways of eating it is “Una-ju 鰻重” and “Una-don 鰻丼”. Both are eel kaba-yaki on rice but the former is served in a Ju-bako 重箱  (a square lacquered box) and the latter in a don-buri 丼bowl. Consequently, Una-ju is the more expensive and formal way of serving eel on rice. Una-don is the more informal way of serving eel.

In the U.S., although some eel is aqua-cultured in Maine and some restaurants may bring it in live and prepared it on site,  most of the eel is pre-packaged and frozen. The majority of this frozen eel comes from China, and Vietnam.

*For Tokyo style the filet of the eel comes from the eel’s back. It is then steamed, and grilled. For Kansai style the filet comes from the eel belly. It is then grilled without steaming. Please see here in more details.

We had a package of frozen eel kaba-yaki (11oz) in our freezer which came from Weee some time ago. We decided it was time to eat it. Since we are not big eaters and eel is quite rich, we ended up making three dishes over 3 days to finish the entire package. (Of course, we had some other small dishes along with the eel so we didn’t just eat eel for 3 days.)

The first dish I made (picture #1), is called “Wu-zaku 鰻ざく”. I posted a version of this some time ago. It is a combination of cold cucumber with julienned ginger and vinegar dressing and warmed slices of kaba-yaki eel. The cold cucumber slices counteract the rich flavor of the eel.

The next day, I made another standard or popular fail-proof eel dish called “wu-maki 鰻巻き” (picture #2). Again, I made and posted a version of this some years ago. I served this with sliced cucumber and grated daikon with soy sauce.

Finally, I made a mini una-ju ミニ鰻重 as a shime or ending dish the next evening (picture #3). I used a small square box which was a part of a larger ju-bako we used for Hanami. The traditional way of serving this is with white rice, some “unagi” sauce and the filet of kaba-yaki eel placed on top. My wife requested “sushi rice” so I used frozen rice we made some time ago when we cooked rice. After thawing and warming up the rice in a lidded silicon container in the microwave, I added some sushi vinegar (from the bottle). I mixed the vinegar into the rice and let it sit for a few minutes. Meanwhile I heated up the eel kabayaki in the toaster oven (on toast mode) until warm with the sauce bubbling. I added “sansho 山椒” Japanese  pepper powder on the top.

For us, this was the perfect ending to the meal. We spread the enjoyment of this eel over several days because too much eel is too much of a good thing. We were quite pleased with the  quality of this frozen eel kaba-yaki from China which we got from Weee.