Matsutake dobinmushi soup 松茸の土瓶蒸し

Although I posted a similar dish last year, there are a limited number of dishes you can make from fresh matsutake. This is one of the classic ways to enjoy this delicacy of the autumn. Dobin 土瓶 is a tea kettle made of china but I do not have an appropriate one. So I used this mini “testubin” 鉄瓶 teapot (cast iron teapot) for this dish.


Since I had fresh chestnuts I also used them in this dish. I could not get an appropriate fish (“hamo” 鱧 or Pike or Conger eel are the most appropriate for this dish), I just used shrimp as you can see in the picture below.

I also added boiled and peeled North American chestnut.
Here is the slice of Mastutake. As mentioned before, this years batch was not really good. Although I used a lot, It was not as aromatic as it should be.
Of course, you should start by pouring the broth into a small sake cup and enjoying the subtle aroma of mastutake.


Broth: I used “dashi pack” which is a mixture of kelp and bonito flakes. I seasoned it with light-colored soy sauce (“usukuchi” 薄口), mirin and salt. Other items beside thinly sliced fresh mastutake were shrimp, boiled chestnuts, and sliced scallion. If I had some available, I would have used “mitsuba”三つ葉 and some kind of mild tasting white meat fish. Since I did not have “sudachi” すだち, a Yuzu-like Japanese citrus, I used a wedge of lime.

This was good enough to evoke the sense that fall has arrived.

Chawan-mushi egg custard 茶碗蒸し

Chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し meaning "steamed in a tea bowl" is a quintessential Japanese dish and a perfect first dish to serve. It is subtle in flavor and delicate in texture.  Many Westerners may feel that this dish is rather bland and boring. As a result, only a few Japanese restaurants serve this dish in the U.S. One of our old friends who is originally from Japan but has been living in the U.S. for the past 50 some years adores this dish and I make it almost every time she comes to dinner at our home. We ordered sashimi items from Catalina Offshore Products for a dinner we had recently with my friend and her husband. We served an Izakaya style course dinner for them. The dishes were: 1. Chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し、2. Fatty tuna sashimi 大トロの刺身, 3. Scallop sashimi three ways ホタテの刺身三種類, 4. Potato gratin square and green asparagus sauteed in butter ジャガイモとサツマイモのグラタン、アスパラ添え, 5. Pork gyoza 餃子, 6. Rice, buta-jiru misosoup, and asazuke ご飯、豚汁、キュウリの浅漬. As a desert, my wife made small individual Pennsylvania dutch (Deutsch) chocolate cakes. Besides Chawan-mushi, I may be able to post some of these dishes in the near future.

When making chawan-mushi, the ratio of eggs to broth is very important. Too much eggs, it will come out too hard, too much broth it will not set. This is one of the rare occasions when I measure ingredients carefully. For the six small servings I measured three large eggs in a measuring cup (about 150ml if you use "large" eggs) and the final seasoned broth should be three times the amount of the eggs, i.e. 450ml in this example. I usually make Japanese dashi broth from kelp and dried Bonito flakes but a good quality commercial chiken broth also works (although the final product will be slightly different in flavor). I even made this dish using a commercial vegetable broth for our vegetarian friends with reasonably good results. I first measure about 400ml of broth and add 1-2 tsp of soy sauce (or light colored soy sauce or "usukuchi sho-yu" 薄口醤油 if you want the color of the end product to be light yellow), 2-3 tbs of mirin and 1/2 tsp of salt (you may omit the salt if you are using salted commercial broth) and top it off with the broth to make it to exactly 450ml or whatever is three time the volume of the eggs. Mix the eggs into the seasoned broth and set aside.

The garnish or items you could put into Chawa-mushi are quite numerous but my usual items include; thinly sliced bite size Chicken tenders, ginko nuts or "gin-nan" 銀杏 (you can buy them in a can in a Japanse grocery store) or prepared chestnuts preserved in simple syrup or "kuri no kanroni" 栗の甘露煮 (comes in a jar, also available in a Japanese grocery store), shiitake mushroom and/or nameko mushroom なめこ (small slimy mushroom, also available in a Japanese grocery store, comes in a can, wash to remove slimy coat), Kyoto-style small flower-shaped wheat gluten called "kyo-hana-bu" 京花麩 (re-hydrated), shrimp, some kind of greens such as snow peas or tips of asparagus, and thinly sliced scallion. If available, I prefer to use a Japanese herb/green called "mitusba" 三つ葉 instead of scallion. Other common items are prepared cooked eel 鰻の蒲焼き, tofu, Japanese omelet ("dashimaki tamago" 出し巻き卵、egg-in-egg works surprisingly well), Japanese noodles etc.

 I usually put ginko nuts and/or chestnuts, several small pieces of chicken in the bottom and, then, pour the egg mixture through a fine strainer (this is an important step, if you skip this, there will be white clumps of unpleasant hard pieces in the final products) to 70% of the depth of the bowl.  I set up my electric wok for steaming and place the filled bowls in the already steaming wok for 10-15 minutes (the steam should be steady but not too strong to prevent the custard from developing air holes). When the surface is just barely set, I add small whole shitake mushrooms (stem removed with decorative cuts if so desired), asparagus tips or snow peas, and kyo-hana-bu. Steam another 5-7 minutes and add shrimp and chopped scallion (or "mitsuba"). Additional 5-7 minutes will be sufficient to cook the shrimp. The reason for adding the garnish in stages is to distribute them throuhout the custard rather than have everything sink down to the bottom which would happen if you added everything at the begining. It also prevents the greens and the shrimp from overcooking.

 Ususally, this is served hot. If you have leftovers (as we usually do), keep in the refrigerator covered and serve cold the next day. It is a nice refreshing dish to eat especially in hot summer days. You could add a small amount of sauce (a cold sauce made of usual soy sauce, mirin and dashi) with a dab of wasabi on the surface of the chawan-mushi, since the taste diminishes when the egg is cold.

Japanese pumpkin potage with chestnut 栗入りカボチャのポタージュ

This is nothing really new. The other day, I got a Japanese pumpkin or kabocha カボチャ at the Japanese grocery store. As usual, I made simmered pumpkin or カボチャの煮物 (second picture below).  I also made chestnuts simmered in syrup 栗の甘露煮.  So, I just combined all three into one dish.



I prepared the kabocha as usual. I removed the skin and rounded off the sharp edges of each piece to prevent the edges from crumbling during the cooking process (called "nikuzure 煮崩れ). So, I used these scraps and the portion of kabocha which was too thin to be made into individual pieces to make the potage. I made the simmered pumpkin  exactly the same was as before seasoned with sugar, mirin, and soy sauce.



For the potage, I added finely diced onion sautéed in butter, small cubes of potato simmered in chicken broth (my usual Swanson no fat low sodium) with a few bay leaves for 20 minutes or until everything was cooked and soft. After removing the bay leaves, I pureed the pumpkin mixture using an immersion blender until all the solids were gone. (picture below).



I added cream, mixed, seasoned with salt and white pepper and warmed up before serving. Since I  made chestnuts simmered in syrup, I placed the simmered pumpkin and chestnut in the bowl and poured the potage and garnished with finely chopped parsley.



The potage was sweet and velvety. With the addition of the simmered pumpkin and chestnut, this is really the taste of autumn.

Castanaccio Pugliese (Chestnut Flour Cake) カスタナチオ

We like pancakes for breakfast sometimes. One of the unusual ones we like to make is chestnut flour pancake”. Since we are now in the chestnut season, we decided to have the chestnut flour pancake for breakfast one weekend. We keep all exotic and whole grain flours including the chestnut flour in a small freezer in the basement. When my wife got it out, she realized its BUB (best used by) was in 2015. It smelled ok. We went ahead and made the pancakes which were very good but even by our standards this flour was a bit too far past its BUB. We decided it is the time to buy a new batch. We got a couple of bags of chestnut flour and my wife looked for some new recipes to use it. She came across this recipe for chestnut flour cake on-line. Actually, she made a chestnut flour cake with the same Italian name “Castagnaccio” previously. But that cake was quite different from this one. It was very savory and did not use any leavening agent, or sugar but did use fresh rosemary which provided good flavor. Overall, however, we were not crazy about it because it was rather dry and crumbly. The new recipe she found must be a variation of an Italian generic cake called castagnaccio. In any case, the major differences are this cake uses a leavening agent, sugar and coco powder. Instead of herbs such as rosemary this used a combination of nuts and candied fruit. It is much thicker as well. This version is more suitable for breakfast or dessert than the previous version which was more savory and as the original recipe suggested “should be washed down with red wine”. The common thing is that both cakes are quite crumbly. (We ended up eating both of them as crumbs with a spoon.)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups chestnut flour
1/3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, plus more for dusting
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
2 tablespoons honey, plus more for serving
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup of Harry and David’s medley of candied fruit. (The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup dried cranberries, plumped in 1/4 cup warm water or wine - preferably Vin Santo).
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1/3 cup roughly chopped toasted walnuts (As added measure we added chopped chestnuts)
Confectioner's sugar for dusting

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Prepare a 9-inch cake pan (The original recipe suggested lightly greasing it with olive oil but we had trouble getting the cooked cake out of the pan. We suggest next time greasing the bottom of the pan and adding a layer of greased parchment paper.)
Toast the pine nuts and walnuts. In a large bowl, swift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the olive oil, honey, eggs and milk. Slowly pour the liquids into the dry ingredients, whisking very well to avoid lumps. The batter should be smooth and a bit liquid. Add the nuts and dried fruit. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 35 minutes, or until the cake begins to puff slightly and the middle is set. Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from pan.
Dust lightly with confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder and serve with some warm honey.

We found it was difficult to remove the cake from the pan. A portion of it stuck to the pan and crumbled. (See the picture below). (Next time, we will use buttered parchment paper on the bottom of the pan). Even the portion that came out in one piece was difficult to cut into wedges since it kept crumbling. The only good thing was that even the crumbs tasted good.

Although eaten in crumbs this cake was very good. The chestnut flour added a nuttiness to the overall chocolate flavor. The pine nuts, walnuts and dried fruit added little bursts of flavor and texture. The dried fruit was particularly nice because it added a burst of sweetness. Interestingly, over time the chestnuts we added became rock hard and we had to be careful to remove them from every mouthful. We liked this cake better than the previous version my wife made. It would just be nice if it did not disintegrate into crumbs.

Sushi Taro Osechi 2021 寿司太郎の御節 2021

We picked up our Sushi Taro Osechi box for 2021 on the last day of 2020. We opened it on the evening of January 1, 2021. I am doing this post just to remind us of all the wonderful items included in the box. Every year there are some changes although many "must-have" items remained the same. The SushiTaro osechi has been the highlight of our New Year celebrations since 2012. Before that I used to make osechi in a 3 layered juubako 重箱.  I had to spend almost the entire week before New Year cooking and the results were no comparison to the Sushi Taro box. In 2010 and 2011, (I apparently had excuses) I only made a few New Year items. On one other occasion, we tried frozen osechi from Kyoto, Japan. It was very expensive and just terrible. So, Sushitaro Osechi is indeed a God-send. Now I only make a few nostalgic items that I ate on New Year as a child. 

This picture is an overview of the upper layer of the Sushi Taro box.

 

The following pictures enumerate the contents of the box. Noteworthy is #1 smoked oyster in olive oil 牡蠣燻製. Large succulent oysters with smoky flavor are excellent and new this year. #2 is a sophisticated version of “daikon namasu” 錦なます. #3 is Kuro-mame  black beans in syrup 黒豆. #4 is grilled small "tai" red snapper 祝鯛姿焼き, #5 steamed sea urchin 蒸し雲丹.  #6 Kazunoko "herring" roe marinaded in miso 数の子味噌漬け.  #7 roasted A5 Wagyu (A5 is the top level wagyu) 和牛ローストビーフwhich is also new this year. Nicely marbled and tender.  #8 Cod roe rolled in kelp 鱈の子昆布巻.  I forgot to put the number but between the wagyu and the tail of snapper are chestnuts "shibukawa-ni" 栗渋皮煮, #9 is smoked salmon rolled in pickled radish スモークサーモン砧巻. #10 is our favorite "karasumi" botarga or sun-dried mullet roe 唐墨.  #11 is small ice fish simmered with sansho pepper 雑魚の有馬煮 (in plastic container) and #12 lily bulb dumpling 百合根まんじゅう which is new this year. Under #5 is red and white "kamaboko" fishcake 紅白蒲鉾,  under the roast beef is soy-marinated egg yolk with walnuts and truffle flavor which is also our favorite 黄身胡桃.  Somewhere under the tai fish is "gobo" burdock root with sesame dressing 叩き牛蒡. One more good dish wrapped in cellophane is hidden under the fish which is “Koji pickled Boston mackerel” 鯖麹漬. This may be also new this year. This reminded me of a Hokkaido dish called “iizushi” 飯寿司 which was made during cold winter fermented using koji/rice, dried herring, and vegetables. This version is using mackerel with crunchy daikon or kabu radish. We both really like it. 

And this is lower box.

#1 is Monkfish liver terrine 鮟肝豆腐, again our favorite, #2 pickled flower-shaped "renkon" lotus root 花輪蓮根、#3 is red and white shrimp dumpling 海老真蒸, #4 cured Spanish mackerel 鰆喜寿し, this is new and great, it is cured (with salt and vinegar, I suppose) but almost taste-like sashimi, no fishy taste and absolutely fantastic. #5 glazed duck 鴨照り煮, #6 caramelized crispy small shrimp 小海老甘露煮, #7 sake-steamed prawn 長寿海老, #8 Yellowtail sushi wrapped with pickled turnip 鰤かぶら寿し, #9 New Year's stewed vegetables (satoimo, carrot, bamboo shoot, shiitake, hana-fu,  snow peas, and "konnyaku", all individually delicately seasoned and cut into decorative shapes), #10 simmered "ayu" sweet fish with roe 子持ちあゆ甘露煮, #11 "Date-maki" New year's omelet 伊達巻 and #12 Burdock root, squid ink coated and stuffed with mustard からし牛蒡. Hiding underneath #1 and #2 is "kurikinton" mushed sweet potato with chestnuts 栗きんとん and underneath #5 is grilled yellowtail marinated in sake lee 鰤酒粕焼き.

　

Everything was carefully prepared and packed. All possible superlative adjectives can not begin to describe how wonderful each dish was.  I do not know how many orders they prepare but I got some glimpse of how much work this is from Chef Kitayama's instagram "chefmasayakitayama" and "togimax". Our only task now is to enjoy all these delicacies, something we are very good at.

Special Kaiseki box from Sushi Taro v2 寿司太郎特別会席弁当二回目

We had the second take-out special kaiseki  box from Sushi Taro. Again, this was amazing. We just wanted to record what we enjoyed.

Sardine with uni-mustard sauce イワシのぬた. The accompanying gelee (“nikogori” 煮凝り) was not to be missed

Sashimi,  wild snapper 天然鯛, tuna 鮪. Nice decorative touch. The carrot cut into “momiji” maple leaf にんじんの紅葉 and circular cut daikon stalk “karakuls a-girl” 大根の唐草切り shown on top of the maple leaf carrot, another example to attention to detail.

Pacific saury sashimi さんまの刺身. This was really good.

Fried sea eel collar and chestnuts, matsutake いが栗揚げ, fried lotus root, matsutake 揚げレンコン、matsutake 松茸、fried “anago” sea eel collar 穴子のかま揚げ. This is a really autumnal dish.  Tatsuta-age style anago collar, with a small fin attached, was new to us and was very good. We had the chestnut  dish at Omakase counter before but only a pro can do this type of dish imitating a real chestnuts peeking though the outer thorny shell. The shell was made of ground white fish meat with dried “somen” and deep fried. The chestnut was cooked in “Shibukawa-ni” so that inner brow skin is can be eaten without puckering taste. The matsutake with slices of yuzu were the essence of autumn.

Beef tongue stew with quail eggs and octopus 牛タンのシチュウ、うずらの卵、たこ. This is a really great dish. My wife loves stewed beef tongue. The tongue was very tender and perfectly seasoned (later we learned that this was from "Wagyu" 和牛). The surprise was the octopus leg which was a nice texture contrast. A perfect combination. It also had quail eggs which are always a favorite. 

Kamo-nasu eggplant 賀茂茄子, "anago" sea eel 穴子, sato-imo 里芋, shishi-togarashi しし唐辛子, “Kyo-bu” decorative gluten cake 京麩 simmered in broth (shishito was deep dried first, I think). Interestingly the flavor of the shishito subtly infused the fish and broth adding a deliciously different element. 

Grilled "sawara" (king mackerel) miso-fuan and turnip さわらの味噌祐庵焼きとかぶ. YUM. 

The following line-up of dishes was just a succession of exquisite mouthfuls of different taste profiles, and textures. Each one a special treat. There are not enough superlatives to describe them all. From left top clock wise: Aji (horse mackerel tataki with perilla seeds 鯵のタタキ紫蘇の種, grilled "mana-gatsuo" (Japanese pompano) 焼きマナガツオ、"Hamo" gonger eel liver ハモの肝 (exquisite), blue crab, crab mustard uni カニの蟹味噌ウニ和え.

Shirako "soft roe" ponzu 白子のポン酢あえ、goma-tofu with uni ウニと胡麻豆腐, "Ikura" salmon roe いくら, goma-tofu with uni ウニと胡麻豆腐. I have not tasted “shira-ko” for sometime and this was a special treat.

"Ankimo" monkfish liver 鮟肝 with vegetable, "Mizuna" Japanese green and quail egg yolk 水菜のお浸しとウズラの黄身,  "Wagyu" beef with kelp 和牛昆布締 (a very nice addition we have not had before). Of course “ankimo” is our favorite.

Sushi; salmon 鮭, ??, chu-toro 鮪中トロ, kohada 小肌, tai 鯛

Omelete 卵焼き, ama-ebi shrimp 甘海老,  cutlass fish 太刀魚?, hamachi はまち yellow tail, and “uni” 雲丹 sea urchin.

This is a lot of extremely exquisite food. This brings a bright ray of sunshine during this covid period. We are so fortunate we can have this and enjoy everything at home.

We keep forgetting but dessert is included. Roasted tea "houji-cha" 焙じ茶 flavored pudding/panna cotta. A perfect finale. 

New Year's day 3 lunch 正月３日のランチ

We had "Ozoni" as a New Year's day lunch and Chef Kitayama's "toshikoshi" soba 年越し蕎麦 as a lunch on the 2nd day instead of New Year's eve (I did not take pictures). We made grilled cheese "mochi" for the 3rd day's lunch with some goodies from what I made and from the Sushi-taro osechi box.

Sushi-taro osechi box included  traditional New Year's dish "Kuri-kinton" 栗きんとん (mashed sweet potato with chestnuts).  Since it is a bit sweet, I served it as a desert along with chestnut "shibukawa-ni" 栗渋皮煮.

"Kuri-kinton" included chunks of chestnuts.

To go with these Japanese sweets, we had an interesting green tea which was given to me by a friend last year when we were in Japan. This tea came from "Sakurai baicha research center" or 櫻井焙茶研究所 in Aoyama, Tokyo 青山、東京. This one is a very interesting blend of spearmint from Aomori prefecture and green tea from Shizuoka.

Besides green tea leaves, dried spearmint leaves floated up when pouring hot water with whiff of spearmint.

We initially thought spearmint flavor would overwhelm the green tea but the spearmint flavor is very delicate. It is definitely there but not too overwhelming. We really liked this green tea. It went really well with this desert.

"Hamnase" with asparagus アスパラのハムネーズかけ

While I was looking for something to watch on YouTube, I came across a channel called ”Iron Chef's Kitchen" 鉄人の台所 in which the original Japanese iron chef "Michiba Rokusaburo" 道場六三郎 (who is now 90) shares his cooking/recipes. One of the episodes was about "Hamnaise" ハムネーズ in which he mixes "ham" and "mayonnaise" to make a sauce for asparagus. It looked interesting. I did not have "ham" but I did have prosciutto. So I made "prosciuttonaise" and put it over asparagus (left upper). The dishes shown below are the line-up of dishes for our “home Izakaya” one evening. Clock-wise starting from upper left is "asparagus with prosciuttonaise" アスパラガスのハムネーズ和え, "Udon-noodle salad with peanut butter dressing" うどんのピーナッツバター和え, "Chicken tenderloin with sesame dressing" 笹身の胡麻和え, "Rapini in Japanese broth" 菜の花のお浸しand "Chicken kara-age" 鳥の唐揚げ and "chicken and chestnuts stew" 鶏肉と栗の煮物. All these dishes except for the "prosciuttonaise" have been previously posted.

Among these six, the asparagus dish is sort of new. I used prosciutto which may have worked better than ham because of the saltiness. I added chopped parsley which was not part of the original Iron Chef recipe and it added a fresh taste. This prosciuttonaise was very nice and certainly made this a good dish.

Ingredients:
For prosciuttonaise dressing.
2 slices of ham or prosciutto, cut into small pieces
2 tbs mayonnaise
2 tsp white (sweet) miso
2 skinned campari tomato, seeds removed and cut into small squares
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley (my addition)

For asparagus.
10 fresh green asparagus, bottom woody part removed and bottom 1/3 peeled
1 tsp butter
2 tbs salted water

Directions:
Mix the ham and parsley together.
Cook the asparagus (like cooking "gyoza" as the Iron chef said) by first sautéing in melted butter. Then adding salted water just covering the bottom of the frying pan. Place on the lid and steam for 1 minute or until the asparagus are cooked but still crunchy.
Cut the asparagus into the desired length and top it with "prosciuttonaise".

For the next dish I could have used peanut butter instead of "nerigoma" ねりごま sesame paste. Using either one, the resulting dressing has a very similar taste. But in this dish, I used sesame paste and also freshly roasted (in a dry frying pan) sesame which I ground using a Japanese "suribachi" mortar. This gave a very fresh and strong sesame flavor.

For this dish I used peanut butter and topped it with crushed peanuts. 

The chicken, gobo, daikon, carrot all went well with sweet chestnuts.

This is a imitation of "Nano-hana" using "buds" of rapini or broccoli rabe. Instead of my ususal mustered soysauce or "karashi-jouyu"　芥子醤油, I made this "ohitashi" お浸し using a mixtire of Japanese broth with concentrated Japanese noodle sauce and topped it with "katusobushi" 鰹節 bonito flakes.

Finally, chicken kara-age 鳥の唐揚げ. This time I made this dish by deep frying (double frying). I just heated the previously cooked kara-age in the toaster oven but the crispy outside came back and it was almost as good as when it was just made.

We had these dishes with a glass of red wine. (Our choice of house reds currently includes "Pessimist" from Daou). Everything went well with the wine and although each dish was small there were many of them so after finishing them all we were quite full.

Chicken patty with dried fig and Gorgonzola いちじくとブルーチーズの松風焼き

Matsukaze-yaki 松風焼きis one of the classic new year's osechi dishes 御節料理. It is usually seasoned with miso and includes pine nuts 松の実 (the name of this dish means "pine breeze grill").  It is essentially ground chicken loaf/patty and many variations are possible. We tried replacing the pine nuts with walnuts, which gave it a very different flavor and color (gets darker) and we liked this variation. This year, I added one more variation which I saw on line, which is making it with dried fig and gorgonzola cheese.

The combination of blue cheese and sweet dried figs is indeed great and makes it more "Western" in flavor. I served by it by itself with red wine which was a good combination.

Another time I served it with Champagne. It was one of many other items on the plate including stuffed fish cake (one with cod roe and shiso leaves and the other with thin slices of radish and guacamole), boiled octopus, herring roe, shibukawa-ni chestnuts, datemaki Japanese omelet, kumquat in syrup. (these items came from the Sushi taro osechi box combined with the dishes I made for New Year).

I also made kimisu 黄身酢 and dressed the octopus.

We had Champagne Lemile Leclerc a Mardeuil Brut Reserve NV with this. The champagne had a nice deep straw color and  was a bit assertive with a nice acidity and minerals with some fruity flavor (green apple etc) and quite good and went perfectly with all these assorted snacks.

Ingredients:

Ground chicken: About 400grams.

Dried figs: We used dried mini mission fig. The amount was arbitrary but as fa as I can tell, the more the better.

Gorgonzola cheese: we tried American made from goat cheese (mild) and one from whole cow's milk (stronger). Both worked fine but we liked the stronger one, crumbled the amount arbitrary.

Egg: two large

Olive oil: 2 tsp.

Directions: Using a silicon spatula, I mixed the ground chicken, gorgonzola cheese, dried figs, and eggs and olive oil. I oiled the bottom of a small rectangular baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I spread the mixture to make about half an inch thick layer (see below).

I baked it in a toaster oven (in convection oven mode) preheated at 350F for 20 minutes or until done.*

Because of the parchment paper lining, it came out easily in one sheet. I cut it into  rectangles.  This is a totally new flavor for this dish. Sweet nutty dried figs and salty and a bit sharp Gorgonzola is indeed nice flavor combination and made this dish more Western than Japanese. It goes well with wine or Champagne.

*This was the second try. I made this in a rectangular frying pan covered with aluminum foil as the original recipe suggested. It became sort of steam/baked and produced a large amount of liquid and when I opened the lid, it was floating in the liquid. All the cheese appeared to have leached out and it was dry and did not taste good. My toaster over baking method worked much better. If I am going with a frying pan method, I will not cover it while it is cooking.