Japanese-style meat balls 日本風ミートボール

This was not a real dish but I made this from extra gyouza stuffing. As usual, when I trim pork tenderloins, the trimming needs to be used some other way. One of the most common is to make it  into hand chopped ground pork to use in various dishes. This time, I made gyouza stuffing but after making more than 2 dozen gyouza I still had stuffing left. My wife suggested to make it into meat balls.



Gyouza stuffing: This time I added chopped cabbage, blanched and chopped stalks of broccolini, finely chopped onion, grated garlic, and ginger (amounts are arbitrary as I make it). I seasoned it with salt, black pepper, soy sauce, and dark sesame oil.

Using a small ice cream scoop, I made about 6 small meat balls. I placed them on a small cookie sheet and placed it in the toaster oven  (convection mode at 350F) for 20 minutes.

I was afraid the meat balls might unravel since I didn't use any binder but they kept their shape well. Since we had a lot of gyouza to eat, I just put the meat balls in the refrigerator for later use.

The following weekday evening, I decide to serve the meat balls. My wife suggested I serve them Italian style with marinara sauce. Since they had already been seasoned in Japanese style, I decided adding an Italian element would be an ethnic taste confusion I'd rather not contemplate.  I decided to go with a teriyaki-style sauce.

I first put the meat balls in a frying pan on low flame and added a small amount of sake and put on the lid so that the meat ball would steam a bit. When the sake almost evaporated, I added mirin and soy sauce (about 1:1 ratio, 2 tbs) and started shaking the pan until the the liquid almost evaporated and the sauce coated the meat balls (see below).

I served three each with sansho or Szechuan pepper powder 粉山椒.  For impromptu meat balls, this was not bad at all--I'm glad I went with the teriyaki sauce. 

Pickles Japanese style 日本風ピクルス

To preserve vegetables, Japanese usually salt them (with or without fermentation) called "Tsukemono" 漬け物. Although Japanese use vinegar and rice vinegar is the best kind of vinegar I can think of, "true" pickling appears not to be traditionally done. More recently, however, quick pickles appear to have gained popularity. Since I had leftover Japanese cucumber and daikon, I decide to make a quick pickle. Also since my wife mentioned that she liked "pickled" boiled eggs,  I also threw in some boiled quail eggs (from a can). (Pickled eggs are a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy that my wife ate frequently as a child. They are hen eggs pickled and usually dyed red with the addition of beet juice to the pickling medium),



For color, I also added thin slices of carrot.



Recipe is rather simple. For the pickling liquid I used a Japanese sweet vinegar.

Sweet vinegar 甘酢:
Rice vinegar 300ml
Sugar 50g - 70g
Salt 1/2 tsp - 2 tsp

I placed the above ingredients in a small sauce pan, stirred to make sure the sugar and salt dissolved and let it come to gentle simmer for a few minutes. I let it cool down and kept it in the refrigerator. It lasts a long time (forever???). Depending on your taste, sugar and salt may need to be adjusted. In general, in hot summer, less sugar more salt and cold winter more sugar and less salt.

I added a few spices--thinly sliced dried Japanese whole red pepper (one, after hydrating to keep it from shattering when sliced), whole black pepper corns (4-6) and bay leaves (2)  to make a pickling liquid. I did not add any water because liquid exudes from the vegetables and eventually dilutes the sweet vinegar anyway. I cut the Japanese cucumber into small bite sized chunks ("rangiri" 乱切; cut obliquely as you rotate the cucumber in about 1 inch length), daikon in half inch cubes, and carrot thinly sliced and, boiled quail eggs from a can.

After a few hours in the refrigerator, it was ready. It was nicely refreshing and crunchy. Perfect for hot summer. We ate this as a starter with sake. My wife particularly raved about the quail eggs. They were nice little bites with creamy yolks lightly vinegar in flavor.

P.S. Later I made this using American mini-cucumber. Although, the Japanese cucumber stayed crunchy even after several days in the vinegar, the American cucumber became a bit mushy. I may have to try this with an American pickling cucumber if I can find one.

Sparkling Sake スパークリング清酒

We have tried a few sparkling sakes in the past. We were not particularly fond of these sparkling sakes. Since we have not tried more recent versions of sparkling sake and saw one in the nearby liquor store, I decided to try it.

This is called "Zipang" from Gekkeikan 月桂冠 (imported from Japan). My understanding is that, "Zipang" is one of the oldest names referring to Japan which was supposedly mentioned by Marco Polo as a country of pearls and gold. This particular sake came in a 250ml bottle. The alcohol content is low at 7%. According to the website of "Gekkeikan sake" 月桂冠酒 (In Japanese), the carbonation is from the secondary fermentation in a tank in low temperature (with sugar, I assume like the beer/ale I used to make) rather than injected carbon dioxide.  The carbonation pressure is between beer and champagne using the innovative technique of filtering out spent yeast without losing the carbonation. It appears to be especially aimed at the American market and started exporting to US in 2005.

When poured, it is clear with a rather gentle effervescence. No particular aroma can be detected. The taste is very subtle, clean with very slight sweetness but not much else. I am sure, as their web site states, this will be very acceptable to the Western palate and, if you were not told this is sparkling sake, you certainly could not tell this is sake. It almost tastes like Sprite without the citrus flavor and less sweetness. It is food neutral as are other sparkling wines and is refreshing especially in warm weather but we were not sure this is anything we would like to try again. It should have some more taste/favor to distinguish this as a type of sake. I have to admit, though, this is much better than sparkling turbid sake we tried many years ago in a Japanese restaurant in Napa.

We had this sparkling sake with cold simmered vegetables (this time instead of daikon 大根, I used nagaimo 長芋) in addition to carrot and blanched broccolini (left).  I also served Japanese cucumber sunomono with semi-dried scallop 胡瓜と貝柱の酢の物, daikon namasu 大根ナマス garnished with salmon roe and few slices of octopus leg. This time, I used sweet vinegar I made few days ago as a dressing.



Like sake, this sparkling wine did not complete with the vinegar in these dishes. However, we would rather have regular sparkling wine and/or champagne.

Baked Curry flavored wings カレー味手羽のオーブン焼き

Although this is the most common way we cook chicken wings, I was surprised to find that I never posted this particular dish. This is my answer to Buffalo wings. It is baked instead of deep fried and seasoned with curry powder instead of hot sauce. My secrets are:  1) the use of a high temperature convection oven (most of the time we use our trusty toaster oven in convection mode at 450F), 2) the addition of flour to the seasoning and 3) the thorough coating of the wings with the seasoning.

Here is today's batch. This is not one of my best efforts but it is good enough with crispy skin and juicy meat.



We especially like wings as oppose to drumetts.



Ingredients:

Chicken wings: I used 6 wings, wing tips removed and wing and drumetts separated.
Dry rub*: This is a mixture of flour (AP) 1/2 cup, curry powder 1 tbs (this one is called "sweet" curry powder from Whole Foods, you can add more or use spicier curry powder), salt (1 tsp) and black pepper (1 tsp). I mixed the spices and placed the mixture in a Ziploc bag large enough to hold the wings. I then placed the wings and drumetts in the bag to coat them well (my version of "shake-and-bake").



* I usually just "eye ball" the ingredients for the spice mixture and place them directly in the Ziploc bag.

I placed these seasoned wings and drumetts on a baking sheet. (I cover the sheet with aluminum foil and either olive oil or Pam spray to prevent sticking). I placed it in a preheated 450F (highest setting) toaster oven in convection mode for 30 minutes turning after 15 minutes. The idea here is that the wings oven fry in their own fat. The flour helps make a nice crust on the surface. The only caution is that the smell of curry powder may permeate the house. My wife insists that I move the toaster oven under the hood vent for the stove while we cook this dish.

The result is very satisfactory. We eat it like Buffalo wings with a blue cheese dip made of blue cheese dressing and greek yogurt. This evening we had this with potato salad and coleslaw that I had made the previous weekend. We definitely like this better than the ones I made using sous vide. The results are very similar but this is much more simple to prepare.

Sous Vide Buffalo wings スービィ バッファローウイング

Buffalo wings must be the quintessential American bar food. I have posted my (a bit anemic) baked version in the past. We love chicken wings and cook them many different ways. When I saw a recipe for sous vide Buffalo wings, I felt I owed it to myself  to try it (at least once). The idea is instead of par-frying in low temperature and then re-frying it in high temperature, the wings are first first sous vide and then deep fried at a high temperature. They can also be made by first sous vide and then baked. I tried both methods as an experiment.

My sous vide and deep fried version is shown here.



The sous vide then broiled-in-toaster-oven version is shown here (I only did two wings and two drumets as a trial). These were not as good as the deep dried ones (not surprising).



First of all, I got an addition to my sous vide apparatus. I bought my Anova sous vide circulator through Amazon and they have an uncanny way (via cookie, I am sure) to show other items which may be of interest to you based on your previous purchases.  This plastic storage container (for restaurants) was one of them. (I ended up not buying from Amazon since I found a much better price even with additional shipping cost) elsewhere. As you can see you can also get a clear plastic lid with a sliding door and my Anova fits (on the longer end not the shorter end). Of course you can not close the door all the way but the gap can be easily covered by aluminum foil.



When the Anova is installed, the bottom of the machine is about 2 inches off the bottom of the container. When I first tested it, the water level was between the min and max marks of the Anova, it made noise and bubbles came out of the circulator. For the circulator to work properly, I had to fill the container to just a few inches from the upper rim or close to the max mark on the Anova. The container holds up to 4 and 3/4 gallons which is within the capacity of Anova (22 litters or 5.8 gallons). With the container almost full, my Anova had no difficulty circulating water and maintaining  temperature. The advantage of having this container is its larger capacity, the better water evaporation control (for long sous vide cooking), and easier insulation (cover it in a blanket or towel). You can also see your submerged vacuum sealed bags while cooking since the the container is clear. I will be using either my deep pot or this container depending on what and how much I am cooking.



Back to sous vide Buffalo wings;

Wings preparation: I used whole wings. I removed and discarded the wings tips and separated the wings and drumets, seasoned them with salt and pepper and vacuum sealed in two separate pouches (see upper images below).

Sous vide: I cooked at 160F for about 6 hours (The aforementioned recipe calls for 170F but I determined 160F is high enough. My guess of cooking time is a minimum of  2 hours and up to 6-7 hours.)  I could have removed the chicken sooner but I held it until we were ready to eat it in the evening. The lower left images show when both packages were submerged in the water which you can see well from the side wall of the clear plastic container. After 6 hours, I removed the chicken wings and blotted them dry on a paper towel. The bags contained a small amount of liquid which congealed as it cooled (indicating lots of collagen melted and came out into the liquid).



I decide to experiment and I deep fried most of them at 400F (hot!) peanuts oil for few minutes until skin was  golden and crispy (about 2 minutes turning once). Since the chicken was fully cooked, the only thing needed was to crisp up the skin (below). Despite my carefully blotting of excess moisture, it spitted and splattered quite a bit.



I broiled two each of wings and drumets in my toaster oven for few minutes until the skin browned for comparison.

My wife made a mixture of melted butter and hot sauce ( She used Sriracha) and tossed the fried and broiled wings in a bowl. My wife also made mixture of blue cheese dressing (from the bottle) and Greek yogurt as a cool dipping sauce.

Verdict: We are not sure it is worthwhile to sous vide and deep dry wings. Do not take us wrong, they were good. The meat was tender and came off the bone so easily and the skin was crispy. The broiled ones were not as good since the skin did not get uniformly crispy (which was expected). But even my baked Buffalo wings are pretty good and they take a fraction of the time and effort to get a similar result. I also realized that I have not posted our favorite baked wings with curry flavor. We will stick to our "baked" wings (to be posted soon).

Chicken and Greek yogurt egg rolls 鶏肉とヨーグルトソースの春巻き

When we barbecue chicken on weekends, we usually cook two chickens at a time in our Weber grill—not because we eat a chicken each but to assure we have leftovers to use in other dishes. The leftovers are always very good to have for the following week. The wings can be just heated up in a toaster oven for a quick snack, the breast meat is used to make salads, sandwiches and other dishes. The dark meat including some of the skin is used in chicken noodle or Minestrone-style  soup. The barbecued flavors make these dishes better than using raw chicken meat.  This time, I had a portion of breast meat left after one week and needed to finish it before it went bad. I saw an unusual recipe for a spring roll using yogurt and chicken breast (the original recipe calls for chicken tenderloin). I decide to try it in one weekday evening.

This was the second small dish we had that evening. I should have rolled them a bit tighter but it tasted very good. I served it with spicy mayonnaise.



The original recipe calls for green pea sprouts "tou-myou" 豆苗 but they are not available here (among the many sprouts we can get here, I have never seen green pea sprouts. The closest we can come may be pea shoots unless you grow green pea sprouts yourself).  I substituted this with water cress (just because I had an open bag).

Water cress: I just used a a big hand full but I could have used more. I cut into short segments and quickly sautéed it in olive oil until wilted ( a few minutes). I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I set it aside to cool in a metal bowl.

Chicken: The original recipe calls for chicken tenderloins but I used  chicken breast meat left over from the previous weekend’s barbecue. I hand shredded it along the grain of the meat (I probably had 1/4 of a whole breast).

Perilla: Perilla is going strong in our herb garden. I cut it into thin strips (4 medium leaves).

I mixed everything with mustard (1tsp), mayonnaise (2 tbs) and greek yogurt (2 tsp). I seasoned with salt and pepper.



Using a paste of flour as a glue, I assembled 6 small egg rolls (I should have rolled them more tightly).



Instead of deep frying, I shallow fried them in 1/4 inch of peanut oil turning once until the skin became brown and crispy.



This is a bit unusual spring roll but it tasted good. As long as it is encased in crispy egg roll skin anything can be made into egg rolls, it seems.

Sous vide Halibut スービィオヒョウ

This is another sous vide dish. In our regular grocery store, I spotted halibut which looked good and I bought about 1 1/3 lb fillet. I usually do not bother with halibut since it is a rather boring white meat fish but this time I wanted to cook it sous vide.

I served sous vide halibut with salsa I made the day before and shiitake asparagus risotto.



I removed the skin and cooked crisp and brown separately and served it on the top.



Halibut: From the 1 1/3 lb fillet, I removed the skin and made two equal sized portions. I seasoned them with salt and pepper, zest of lemon (micro-graded) and finely chopped fresh dill (we now have a forest of dill plants in our herb garden and have to use it).

I placed two thin pats of cold butter (unsalted) on either side of the fillets and vacuum sealed (left upper in the picture below). An appropriate sous vide temperature is a bit difficult to determine but I wanted to be safe and chose 135F which is above the pasteurization temperature (130F). In retrospect, I could have gone a bit lower (may be 132F). I cooked sous vide for 30 minutes. You could see that the butter has melted and the meat has become opaque just over 10 minutes into cooking (left lower). After 30 minutes were up the fish meat was totally opaque (Please compare the semitransparent appearance in the left upper picture)



When I took the fish out of the pouch, the surface had a thin smooth shiny layer of congealed protein and the markings of the vacuum sealed plastic bag on it. This looked like it was made out of plastic and didn’t make it look particularly appetizing; one of the problems of sous vide cooked fish. So, I decided to quickly sear both sides so that the congealed protein would melt during the searing (I was not aiming to make it brown or crispy).

Skin: I removed the skin and cooked it separately.  I patted try dry and salted it. I placed it in a non-stick frying pan with a small amount of olive oil on low flame, skin side down. I covered it by nesting an identical frying pan with its bottom covered with an aluminum foil to prevent the skin to curl up and also splattering. After 7-10 minutes, I flipped the skin over and cooked another 5 minutes and placed it on a paper towel lined plate. I cut it into two strips and served them over each of the fillets of cooked halibut.

Salsa: I skinned and cut  two small tomatoes into small cubes. I finely chopped Vidalia onion (1/2 medium), jalapeño pepper (1, seeded and veined) and mixed in. Since I did not have fresh cilantro, I used dried (1/2 tsp). I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I then added lemon juice (from one lemon) and olive oil (1 tbs). I mixed and let it stand (at least for several hours).

Risotto: This was an quick risotto from previously cooked and frozen rice (1/2 cup). I used another half of Vidalia onion from making salsa, (1/2 medium, finely chopped) and fresh shiitake mushrooms (4-5, stem removed and finely chopped) and green asparagus (4 stalks, peeled and blanched) with stalk finely chopped and the spear heads set aside. I did mise en place and my wife cooked the risotto.

She first sautéed the onion, mushroom and asparagus (except for the spear heads), seasoned with salt and pepper. After few minutes, she added the defrosted rice and kept stirring until the rice kernels were well coated. She added Japanese sake (or white wine, 5 tbs) and let it evaporate as you stir to almost all incorporated. She then added chicken broth (low-salt, non-fat Swanson chicken broth) in increments as she stirred until it attained creamy consistency (3-4 increments, probably close to 1 cup total). When no more free fluid was present, she added a few pats of butter. After the butter incorporated, she added grated Parmesan cheese and the spear heads of asparagus.

The halibut was nicely flakey and completely cooked. Although the fish itself is rather boring, the dill and lemon scented butter flavors came through and the texture was very nice. The addition of the salsa (this one came out rather spicy due to the jalapeño I used) spiked up the flavor. Of course, you cannot go wrong with crispy skin which we picked up with our fingers and enjoyed. The risotto was, of course,  not al-dente (actually we do not like undercooked risotto) but very creamy with nice flavors (I garnished with thin strips of fresh basil).

Compared to salmon, halibut does not have a strong flavor or oily texture. It does have a nice subtle flavor which can be enhanced by other seasonings and flakey texture. This was probably the best halibut we ever tasted. Compared to oily fish like salmon, I could go with a slightly lower temperature to make it a bit less dry. I’ll try that next time.