Grilled chicken and soba salad 焼き鶏胸肉のそばサラダ

Did I tell you we had three chicken breasts I had to dispatch quickly? I already made two dishes in the past two days and had one more breast to go. I decided to make some kind of salad with grilled chicken breast.

I used one bone-less and skin-less chicken breast (for two servings). I butterflied the thickest potion to make it even in thickness. I, then, smeared soy sauce and grated ginger root on both sides of the meat and let it stand for 5 minutes while my Foreman's grill preheated. I cooked the breast for less than 2 minutes or until just done.

The rest of the salad components were whatever was available in the fridge. I julienned carrot (one medium) and cucumber (one American Mini-cucu). I also finely chopped scallion (two). I also happened to have leftover cooked soba noodles.

Assembly: I placed the soba on the bottom of the plate and piled the carrot, cucumber and scallion on the top. I cut the grilled chicken in 1/2 inch strips and placed it around the periphery of the plate. 

Sauce: I just mixed "mentsuyu (x2 concentrated)", sesame oil, and grated ginger and poured it (not too much) over the salad. I garnished it with Wasabi flavored "frikake" which also contains sesame seeds and nori strips.

We had this as a lunch but this could be a perfectly good "shime' 〆 dish. Obviously you could make many variations of this type of Japanified salads.

Chicken breast scaloppini 鶏胸肉のスカルピニ

For some reason, we had excess chicken breasts which needed to be cooked before going bad. On a whim, I quickly made this dish.

I used one bone-less and skin-less chicken breast. I cut it into thin (1/4 inch) bite sized pieces using a shaving cut or "sogigiri" 削ぎ切り technique. I then seasoned it with dried basil, marjoram, salt, and pepper, dredged it in flour and sauteed it in olive oil in a frying pan. I used a bit more oil than for sauteing.

I served this with a side of onion-cucumber salad. This salad is very white, so for color, I sprinkled Paprika. If I made a caper lemon butter sauce, this could have been called "chicken piccata" but I did not make any sauce. This is one of making-something-from-the-chicken breast dishes but this was a good solid effort by me. I cannot remember, but we were having a red wine with this.

Chicken breast karaage 鶏胸肉の唐揚げ

I had some extra chicken breasts which needed to be used before they went bad. So I decided to make kara-age 唐揚げ. The difference between kara-age and tastuta-age 竜田揚げ may be sometimes blurred and this one can be considered a type of tatsuta-age as well. I posted tatsuta-age using chicken thighs and marinade of soy sauce and mirin previously.

I used one bone-less and skin-less chicken breast for two small servings. I cut the chicken breast into small and flat bit size pieces using shaving cut or "sogi-giri" 削ぎ切り in which the knife blade is placed on a slant against the grain of the meat. I made about 12-13 pieces of 1/4 inch thickness.

I heated peanut oil in a frying pan (about 1/2 inch deep) to 340F or 170C on medium flame.

Just before frying, I put the chicken pieces in a small bowl and added enough soy sauce to coat (about 1 tbs) and grated ginger root (1/2 tsp, optional). I massaged or kneaded the chicken pieces so that soy sauce and ginger will evenly coat and somewhat penetrate the meat. Then, I dredged the pieces with potato starch or katakuriko 片栗粉 and fried it. Since these were rather thin pieces, they only needed to cook about 1 minute or less on each side.

I drained the oil and served the chicken pieces hot with my usual celery salad. Since the chicken was seasoned with soy sauce there was no need to salt. Compared to the thigh, this is much quicker to cook and also the taste and texture are different. Since I did not use mirin, it may be more suitable as a drinking accompaniment. Any drinks will go well with this dish but the best would be beer or cold sake.

Asazuke "Mizunasu" Water eggplant 水茄子の浅漬け

This is the second dish (rather preparation) of "mizunasu" 水茄子 I bought the other day. We enjoyed half of it eaten "raw' and made the other half into "Asazuke" 浅漬け.

Instead of my usual way of making asazuke, I used brine (salt water about 4%, slightly saltier than sea water, red pepper flakes, thinly sliced kelp, and chopped ginger). As in "raw" eggplant, I made thin wedges using combination of tearing by hand and cutting with knife. I placed them in the brine in a Japanese pickling pot, cranked down the pressure plate and left them in the refrigerator overnight. 

I served this with asazuke of daikon, cucumber and carrot which I made prior to making the eggplant asazuke. This was very refreshing and we like it. Somehow, the eggplant attained a very slight sliminess on the surface and became softer in texture than we expected. Although this dish was very good, both of us prefer eating "mizunasu" totally "raw". But who knows if or when we will be able to get fresh mizunasu again.

Raw "Mizunasu" eggplant 生の水茄子

I mentioned that the types of eggplant available in Japan are quite different from those available here. To my surprise, we found two kinds of Japanese eggplant in our Japanese grocery store; "Mizunasu" 水茄子 ("mizu" means water and "nasu" eggplant) and "Kamonasu" 加茂茄子. I assume these were imported from Japan. Although we saw several Kamonasu in the refrigerated case, only one mizunasu was remaining (left in the image below). Although it did not look particularly great (middle), I decided to get it. This is a type of eggplants which is so mild that it can be eaten "raw", although "asazuke" 浅漬けpreparation is the most popular way to serve it. I decided to make half of it in asazuke and serve the remaining half "raw".

Since the skin had some blemishes, I peeled the skin in a "zebra" pattern using a vegetable peeler. I removed the stem end and cut into the top portion of the eggplant for about one inch and then tore it in half by hand. I did this to make a more irregular cut surface (both to increase the exposed surface as well as for aesthetic reason). I repeated this several time to make thin wedges and soaked them in weak salted water (about the saltiness of a soup). This prevents the eggplant from discoloring. It also takes out some of the bitterness and seasons it lightly. I kept it soaking until I was ready to serve (for about 15 minutes, images above right).

After 15 minutes, the water became slightly brown. I patted the pieces dry with a paper towel and arranged them on a plate. The garnishes and sauce can be anything you like. Here, I garnished it with finely chopped scallion, perilla leaves, and dried bonito flakes. For sauce, I used "yuzu shouyu" 柚子醤油 sauce from the bottle. Alternatively, you could use soy sauce, mentsuyu, sesame sauce or even mayonnaise (straight or mixed with other seasonings).

You would be surprised how mild and slightly sweet this raw eggplant is. The only problem is that getting mizunasu is not easy or consistent. It was totally fortuitous that it was available this time.

Kumato, avocado, broccoli and cucumber salad with sesame dressing クマト、アボカド、ブロッコリー、キュウリの胡麻和え

I am a sucker for "new" food items at the market. I found a brown tomato called "Kumato", which was developed in Spain (I do not think this is the result of genetic engineering), and had to try it. I made a nice and healthy salad with sesame dressing.

Here is the kumato tomato (label on the left indicating this one is from Toronto, Canada. I did not know they produced tomato/kumato for export.). The right picture shows three kumatoes and a regular tomato for comparison. I skinned and then quartered the kumato for this salad. I also included blanched and still crunchy broccoli, a sliced quarter of avocado and cucumber sticks.

Sesame dressing: I first dry roasted white sesame (1 tsp) in a dry frying pan. Although the sesame has already been roasted re-roasting makes it much more fragrant). I coarsely ground the roasted sesame in a Japanese pestle and mortal or "suribachi" すり鉢 as you see in the pictures below. One small gadget you must have is this "suribachi" rake. This is a minuscule metal rake to remove all the ground material from the suribachi as you see in the middle picture below. Using this "rake" you can remove all the ground sesame from the groves of the suribachi (below right). This works well to remove items from Japanese graters especially such items as ginger or wasabi root. The more traditional form of this is made of bamboo.

I added white sesame paste or "Shiro neri goma" 白練り胡麻 (1 tbs), sugar (1/2 tsp) and soy sauce (2-3 tsp).

I served this salad with three small items; "mozuku" モズク in sweet black vinegar (in the back left), matsumae-zuke 松前漬 (center) and squid "bukkake" イカのぶっかけ, all came frozen. Kumato is a bit sweeter than regular tomatoes and has less acidity. One of our guests tried it and really liked it, although we are not too impressed.

Dried Pacific saury in mirin marinade 秋刀魚のみりん干し

No, I did not make this myself. I bought it sometime ago, frozen, and almost forgot that we had it. This is a preparation called "mirin boshi" みりん干し. Japanese love dried or semi-dried fish (This probably started out mainly as a way to preserve fish but the reduction of the water content in  the fish flesh does concentrate the flavors. So now it is eaten for its taste since there are other ways to preserve fish). On our last trip to Japan, we visited stores that specialized in dried fish at the Nishiki market 錦市場 in Kyoto (picture below).

The mirin-bosh I bought was labeled as having been made in Ibaragi prefecture 茨城県. This technique of marinading in a mirin and soy sauce mixture and drying can be applied to different types of fish, for example, species of mackerel such as aji 鯵, saba 鯖, or pafici saury 秋刀魚. I recall eating it in Izakaya while I lived in Japan but they were rather sweet and often dry or even crunchy (almost candied), especially small fish like aji. I am sure if you make it at home, it may be better.

I found a package with two "sanma" fish already prepared (bone-less) in the Japanese grocery store's freezer case. I bought it for the "sake" of nostalgia (it goes well with "sake" as well). This preparation is usually grilled and served hot but some are sold already grilled (in that case, it just has to briefly warmed before serving). The one I got was not pre-grilled. After I thawed it overnight in the refrigerator, I grilled it in a toaster oven. Because of the high sugar content with mirin, it burns very easily. I lined the bottom of a baking dish with aluminum foil and placed a metal grill over it then put the mirin-boshi fish on the grill. I set my toaster oven to "broil" and started cooking the meat surface first. I carefully watched the fish as it cooked. When it started bubbling and the edges started browning I flipped the fish and continued cooking. The skin side started bubbling up and browned much faster than the meat side.

I served this with cucumber with moromi miso and slices of tomatoes sprinkled with salt. This may not have been the best example of this kind of fish; it was rather on the sweet side and not as meaty or juicy as it could have been, but it was not far from what I remembered eating in a small Izakaya in Susukino 薄野. It was nostalgic and brought back memories of good times with friends. This went well with cold sake we were having.