Zawazawa Kitchen

Chicken Cake Yoshie-Fu

Most winter's Yoshie cooks a simple cake made from ground chicken. She often does this with left over ground chicken from a Nabe or shumai. This is easy to make, delicious and keeps well. It also goes well with sake, a good winter drink.

• Ground chicken, about one kilogram (you can mix in ground pork as well)
• Ground tofu, about one-third the amount of chicken
• Corn starch, one tbsp
• One or two eggs 
• Ground ginger, about three centimeters
• Shredded carrots, one or two (or even beets!)
• Minced garlic, three cloves
• Minced green onions, two
• Sesame seeds, a good sprinkling
• Mirin or sake, two tbsps
• Roasted sesame oil, one tsp
• Salt and pepper to taste

Mix ground chicken and if you are using it ground pork and ground tofu with all the other ingredients. Heat frying pan to low heat and press the ground chicken mixture in. Leave at low heat until some of the moisture comes out (about five minutes) and then raise the heat to medium. Let the moisture steam off (cooking the chicken cake) and keep cooking untill the bottom is golden brown.

Serve sprinkled with sesame seed and scatter with the green part of the green onions. Cut in wedges.

Eat with a good sake like the artisan crafted ones from Granville Island.

Chicken Stock - Brown and White

Our approach to stocks has changed over the years, mainly under the influence of Susan, and perhaps from a better understanding of how to layer flavours and a desire for simpler, deeper tastes. The stock is like the undercoat of a painting, you don't often see it directly, but it binds the rest of the colours/flavours together.

Like making your own salad dressings, making stocks is easy and is one thing anyone can do to take their cooking to a new level. A little bit of stock added at the right point can add depth to almost any recipe. We like to add a bit to vegetables when we are braising, to a pan when we are roasting, in a pasta sauce, to the pan scrapings ... Lots of good things to do with a stock.

We try to keep two kinds of chicken stock around, brown and white. They are basically the same thing but for the brown stock the chicken parts are fried up first.

Simple rules for good stock,

• Use lots of water
• Use fresh chicken (if you wouldn't eat it don't put it into your stalk)
• Simmer the chicken by itself first, and skim, skim, skim, skim the impurities off
• Use some salt
• Do not use garlic, or oils with a lot of flavour, or pepper or herbs

In other words, keep it really simple and take your time.

• A chicken, whacked into about eight parts
• Mirepoix (sautéed for the brown stock, raw for the white stock)
• Salt

Mirepoix is one of the basics of French cooking. Our version is about half various types of onions, including leeks and shallots, one-quarter carrots and/or parsnips and one quarter celery (sometimes it is fun to add a bit of celeriac). All ingredients in the mirepoix should be minced fine.

White Stock

Put the chicken parts in the largest pot available. Fill with cold water. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Skim the impurities off as they come out. This can take as much as an hour. Skim every five minutes or so. This is a good time to do some reading, chat with friends and drink wine (but then almost any time is a good time to do these things). When the impurities are out add shot of salt and the mirepoix. Boil another hour or more. Let cool. Pass through a strainer then again through a cheese cloth. Let cool then put in small containers (even an ice cube tray) and freeze. Good for about three months.

Brown Stock

Heat some grapeseed oil or other neutral oil. Brown chicken turning pieces several times until they are a nice dark brown. While you are simmering the chicken and removing the impurities, sautée the mirepoix in a bit of butter with salt. Proceed as for white stock.

Use the white stock when you want a simple clean taste - good with vegetables and simple pasta sauces. Use the brown stock when you want a deeper layer of taste - in other chicken dishes or when deglazing a pan with stock (deglazing is when you put some liquid into a pan, scrape off of the good bits stuck to the pan's bottom, reduce and use as a sauce - we tend to deglaze with wine more often than stock).

Honmono no Keiko-mama Chicken

We are in Japan for Hiroko Ota's funeral. It is very sad to see such a vibrant, beautiful person die so young. The ceremonies were held at a Soto Zen temple Chokokuji, affiliated with Eiheiji near the Nezu Art Museum. Hiroko's grave will be at this temple. Nisei and Risa were a tremendous help to their mother (and father) in her last days, at no small cost to themselves. Yoshie was also able to spend a lot of time with Hiroko at the end, for which we are thankful.

We are staying at Yazaike, which among many other benefits means eating Keiko-mama's cooking. There are so many good things to eat here, this morning we had very good miso soup and abura-age (deep fried tofu skins, the one's used in kitsune soba) braised in soya sauce and mirin (I will try to get the recipie).

Apparently Kasumi called last week and asked for the recipe for Keiko-mama Chicken. So we can all have it, here it is.

• Chicken thighs (preferred) or breast
• Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
• Garlic
• Olive Oil
• White Wine Vinegar
• Parsley (or another herb)

Keiko recomends thighs rather than breast as they have a fuller flavour and are moister. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel off the skin, trim the yellow fat and remove any bones (you can add them to a stock if you are making stock). Season with salt and pepper and put in an oven proof pan. Grate garlic (lots of garlic) into the panko, mix and spread over the chicken. Splash on olive oil and sprinkle with parsley or another herb (Mommy like rosemary, I would try basil). Bake at 350 until crispy brown, dress with wine vinegar and serve. Keiko likes a bit of mustard with this.

Keiko recommends serving this with finely chopped cabbage. I watched her chop cabbage this morning. She takes a leaf and folds it into multiple layers, then cuts it very thin. It is good with any fried food (think of how sliced cabbage is served with tonkatsu). You can put on tonkatsu sauce, or sesame dressing, or just a bit of the vinegar.