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.

Scallops with Ginger and Shallots

This is a simple scallop dish that we have been working on for a few years. It seems to be pretty stable and brings out what we like best about scallops - the sweetness, the texture, the way they can bring out and harmonize contrasting flavours.

We most recently cooked this on Friday April 25 when we had some friends from Monitor over for a small party (given the size of our place in the South End of Boston it is hard to have anything other than a small party!).

• Large and very fresh scallops
• Ginger, minced
• Shallots, minced
• Green onions (negi), the whites thin sliced, the part between the white and the darker green julienned into strips about 3 cm long, the dark green part thin sliced
• Chives
• Salt
• Lemon
• Lemon zest
• White wine
• A bit of grape seed oil

Dry the scallops on paper towel, sprinkling with a bit of sea salt. Drying makes it much easier to cook the scallops.

Mince the ginger and shallots, thin slice the white of the green onion. Cook gently in a bit of grape seed oil for about twenty minutes letting them blend. Bring up the heat to low medium, add a good splash of white wine and reduce.

Cook the scallops in a medium hot pan with as little oil as possible. Get a nice golden crisp on the outside. The inside should still be raw (this is important).

Remove the scallops to a warm serving dish. Put the ginger-shallot mixture into the pan that the scallops were cooked in and scrape the bits of scallop off the bottom and into the sauce. Add a bit more wine, the julienned parts of the green onion and cook for about three minutes. Add some lemon juice and adjust the seasoning (add a bit more salt, some black pepper if you like).

Pour the sauce over the scallops. Scatter on the thin-sliced dark green end of the green onion and/or some chives. Add a bit of lemon zest and a few drops of olive oil (just a very few drops).

Done.

Some variations,

• Sprinkle with deep fried shallots or deep fried garlic
• Sprinkle with bacon bits (in this case put a very small amount of the bacon fat into the sauce)
• Add small shrimp to the sauce
• Sprinkle on some edible flowers

On Friday we had this with a bottle of 2006 Christine et Stephanie Delarze from Aigle in Switzerland. A small winery on the upper Loire just inside the Swiss Alps.

Three Simple Eggplant Dishes Japanese Style

When I was a child I refused to eat eggplant because I did not like eggs! It was not until I was in third year university, when Rob Woodbury taught me how to make eggplant parmesan, that I began to like the vegetable, and not until I went to Japan that I fell in love with it.

The undulating purple of a fresh Japanese eggplant (nasu), almost black in places, then shining up to accents of light green, is one of my favourite palates. It is like the sky in the west just before dusk finally fades. And cooked simply or pickled Japanese style it is a wonderful food.

Once back in 1980, just before Yoshie went off to Copenhagen, we spent a weekend on a farm up past Maebashi. One of their main crops was eggplant and the we prepared it very simply, sliced in half, then grilled on an open fire, and served with soy sauce and some ginger. It was at that farm I was told that the sweetest most tender part of the eggplant is found under the cap (stem) and that you should never just cut the end off an eggplant, but peel back the covering and eat it.

The following three dishes are to remember that weekend so long ago, when Yoshie and I had just met, and were discovering the world together (something we are still doing).

Grilled Eggplant

This is as simple and as good as it gets.

• Japanese eggplant
• Mirin
• Salt
• Fresh ginger
• Soy sauce or other dipping sauce, ponzu shoyu is always good with this

Slice eggplant in half. Score the skin side in a crisscross pattern. Soak in brine (very salty water) for about half an hour to remove the bitterness. Dry and press out some of the moisture. Grill or cook at medium heat on a dry frying pan (add a little oil if the pan tends to stick) skin down until there is a first charring, test for tenderness with a fork of thin knife. Flip, increase the heat a bit, and add a splash of mirin. As soon as the flesh is nice and brown take off the heat and transfer to a serving plate.

Serve with fresh grated ginger and soy sauce of ponzu sauce.

Baked Eggplant with Miso

• Japanese eggplant
• Mirin
• Salt
• Fresh ginger
• Miso paste
• Soy sauce
• A sugar, brown sugar or a hint of honey (optional)

Slice eggplant in half. Score the flesh side in a criss cross pattern (note the difference, you score the flesh for this recipe not the skin). Soak in brine (very salty water) for about half an hour to remove the bitterness. Dry and press out some of the moisture.

Prepare a paste of miso, a bit of mirin, mix in some grated ginger (just a teaspoon) and if you like a bit of brown sugar or honey (Yoshie prefers not to do this).

Smear the pate over the flesh side of the eggplant and put in a baking dish with a bit less than a finger's width of water on the bottom. Bake for about forty minutes at 300 degrees until the flesh is tender and the miso paste is forming a light crust.

Serve with some more fresh ginger, ginger shoots if you can find them fresh.

Eggplant Caps Simmered in Stock

• Eggplant caps (use the rest of the eggplant in one of the other recipies)
• Dashi (Japanese stock)
• Mirin
• Salt
• Fresh ginger
• Soy sauce or other dipping sauce, ponzu shoyu is also good with this

Cut off the caps of the eggplant just where the covering ends. Peel off the covering and stem and discard. Soak in brine (very salty water) for about half an hour to remove the bitterness. Dry and press out some of the moisture.

In a sauce pan mix 3/4 dashi with 1/4 mirin and a splash of soy sauce, enough to cover the eggplant caps. Simmer with the lid on over a gentle heat for about 45 minutes, until the caps are very tender, just before they are mushy. Serve in small bowls with the remaining stock from the pan. Put a small cove of grated fresh ginger on top. We sometimes garnish this with a tiny amount of cucumber pickled Japanese style, or even eggplant pickled Japanese style (nukazuke pickled nasu). This adds both colour and a contrast in textures and tastes.