• My Foodie Experiments: Fried Chicken Karaage

    March 25, 2011 / 0 Comments
    I have been meaning to experiment on this food item ever since I tasted Tokyo Tokyo’s Sumo Remix with Fried Chicken Karaage so I finally got the chance to experiment on it. I was having a bit of a problem finding the potato starch and the sake which are key elements in the recipe. Luckily I was able to get the potato starch from the nearby Korean grocery store in our area which also sells some Japanese products although I got the sake from the mall. The potato starch can actually be substituted with cornstarch but I don’t like substitutes if I haven’t had the chance to try out the recipe first. I am OC that way. 🙂
    I got this recipe from one of the blogs that I follow constantly, this is from Makiko Itoh at JustHungry.com. Thanks for this recipe Makiko!
    Prep time: 10 min :: Cook time: 20 min :: Total time: 30 min
    Yield: 10 to 12 pieces
    Serving size: 3-4 pieces as part of a Japanese meal or in a bento
     
    Ingredients:
    ·         10 oz (300g) boneless chicken thighs
    ·         1 piece fresh ginger, (about the size of your thumb)
    ·         3 Tbs. soy sauce
    ·         1 Tbs. sake or dry sherry
    ·         about 1/2 cup Potato starch (katakuriko) or cornstarch, (enough to coat the chicken. Potato starch is better, but cornstarch will do)
    ·         peanut oil or other vegetable oil, (for deep frying)
    ·         a few drops sesame oil, (optional; add to the frying oil for extra flavor)
     
    Directions:
    Cut up the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces. You can take off the skin if you like, though it does make the chicken crispier.
    Peel and grate the piece of ginger. A microplane grater works great for this task.
     
    Put the chicken pieces in a bowl. Add the grated ginger, soy sauce and sake, and mix well. Let marinate for a minimum of 10 minutes. Around 30 minutes is ideal. If marinating for more than an hour (say, overnight), use 1 tablespoon soy sauce, then add the other 2 tablespoons just before you’re ready to cook them; this prevents the salt in the soy sauce from drawing out too much moisture from the chicken.
    Heat the oil; if using a temperature-controlled fryer or a thermometer, aim for 180°C / 355°F. If not, a test with a single piece of chicken or a small piece of skin. Toss enough potato or cornstarch into the marinated chicken (drain off a bit of the marinade if it’s too watery first) so that each piece is completely coated. Fry the chicken pieces a few at a time until a deep golden brown.
    Drain well – a wire rack is best for this, but paper towels work too.
    Serve with lemon wedges. Some people like to add a sprinkling of grated yuzu peel and/or sansho pepper.
    Ingredient notes:
    Potato starch flour, or katakuriko, is standard for karaage in Japan. It creates a wonderfully light, crispy, greaseless surface. It’s not that easy to get a hold of in many places though (look in a Japanese grocery store), so cornstarch is an acceptable substitute.
    My Personal Notes: 
     
    I had actually doubled the quantities so I doubled up on the ingredients here. I think the chicken would have tasted even more delicious with more time to let it marinade and will definitely make this again but this time will try to marinate it overnight and see if that changes anything. The chicken courtesy of the potato starch had a very crispy covering. Thin but crispy layer(which tasted like chicken skin chicharon) unlike when you dredge chicken in flour.This recipe just made me a potato starch convert. Also, letting the chicken hang to drip on a wire rack after it has fried to a golden brown is really advisable because if you don’t there is the tendency that the chicken comes out kind of oily. The ginger taste was dominant and made all the difference in taste while I think the sake also did contribute to the flavor as well as tenderizing the chicken more. It was juicy to eat as I bit into it and the refreshing taste of ginger filled my mouth somehow compensating for the heaviness of a fried dish. The sesame oil I added to the oil before frying also added another dimension to the chicken making it more authentic. These days one of my favorites in the kitchen is my bottle of sesame oil. 🙂
    P.S.  I am making my descriptions more graphic and complete as I got feedback from a reader that she wanted this so. Thanks Tza! 🙂
    Happy Cooking!
    XoXo
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  • My Binondo Foodie Adventures Part IV: Wai Ying Take 2

    March 14, 2011 / 0 Comments

    You’ll probably be thinking by now that this restaurant must be one of my favorites because this is actually my 2nd if not 3rd entry. It is one of my favorites because not only do they serve really good Chinese food, they are also not so heavy on the pocket and that is something else. Even if I have to travel from my house to Manila to eat, I don’t really mind as long as I know I am getting value for my money. And also because my mother loves going to Binondo and getting her fill as well.

     

    It was Chinese New Year and the streets were filled with merrymaking and dragon dances all over. Fireworks here and there made it so much noisier than the usual. Red was the predominant color of the day. This was my 2nd visit for February with the first one together with friend Bel who was in town for a convention. I will basically just summarize the new food items I had tried during the 2 visits since most of the time we still order the same items on their menu which are as I would like to dub them “staples” like the siomai’s, spareribs, hakao and etc.

    Before the Chinese New Year visit, I went there with Bel and we ordered the same things they usually offer but then there was this one food item which I have wanted to try out but never got the chance and Bel also wondered about it so we tried it out. It was actually named Chongfan and you can have it either shrimp or pork flavored. We had shrimp and it was good. It was drowned in sauce and it was a new thing altogether. Tasted good but nothing really remarkable and I finally satisfied my curiosity about it.

     
    CHONGFAN
    For the Chinese New Year I went there with mama, Z and Z and we ate brunch since I had to be home again before 1pm for work so we woke pretty much early and I had just a cup of coffee for breakfast which made me hungry for dimsum.
     
    Dragons everywhere and in all sizes and Chinatown was a sight to behold during the New Year festivities. We first bought some Eng Bee Tin staples – hopia in lots of flavors and of course the tikoy for when we get home. Mama usually prepares it by dipping it in egg and then frying it in the pan. So yummy! Nothing beats it. We also bought some siomai for later in the house also and other yummy stuff.

     When we got to Wai Ying, we ordered some fried rice, spareribs (which were as delicious as ever), siomai, hakao, raddish cake (in keeping with the Chinese New Year) and we tried out their noodle soups. We had pork noodle soup and I forgot the exact name already.

    We then ordered the raddish cake was super light. Same as taro cake but it had dried shrimps in it and the texture is a bit watery/soft. Personally I prefer the taro cake to this.
     

    The pork noodle soup was something else entirely. The broth was served separate from the noodles and pork slices. We had a big bowl of broth (which was really delicious), a plateful of noodles with the pork slices and it also had a kind of sweet and spicy sauce atop it. We didn’t know how to eat this one since it was a first so we just dumped the noodles little by little into the broth and then ate it from there. The single order was good for 3 people if I may say so myself and there were even some leftovers still. Whew, talk about a big bowl of soup. It was so very filling that I went away feeling that my breakfast and lunch were done.
     
     All in all a great Chinese New Year!!!
     
    XoXo
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  • My Foodie Experiments: Baked Chicken Fingers with Honey Mustard Dressing from Kaboose.com

    March 10, 2011 / 0 Comments
    Lately, I have been on a cooking spree mostly experimenting with Korean cuisine of which I have yet to document here in this blog. For today, I am going to be sharing this really easy and delicious chicken recipe which I found online at Kaboose.com.

    The recipe is fairly easy to follow and the ingredients are not hard to find and you can’t go wrong with crispy chicken eh. I did enjoy making the honey mustard sauce and I think it is good with some other fried stuff as well.

    Ingredients:

    4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
    2 tbsp. (30 mL) vegetable oil
    1 cup (250 mL) bread crumbs ( I substituted Panko bread crumbs since we had them already)
    2 tbsp. (15 mL) grated Parmesan cheese
    1 tsp. (5 mL) crumbled dried oregano
    1/2 tsp. (2 mL) salt
      1/4 tsp. (1 mL) black pepper
     
    Honey mustard dipping sauce:
     
    2 tbsp. (30 mL) honey
    2 tbsp. (30 mL) Dijon mustard (substituted the McCormick mustard)
    2 tbsp. (30 mL) vegetable oil

    Instructions:

    Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Spray a baking sheet with nonstick vegetable oil spray. Cut each of the chicken breasts into 4 or 5 lengthwise “fingers.” Place in a bowl. Add the vegetable oil and stir to coat everything evenly. In a bowl, stir together the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, oregano, salt and pepper. Transfer to a plastic bag (make sure there are no holes). Add the chicken strips, 3 or 4 at a time, and shake to coat with the crumb mixture. Arrange on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining chicken strips and crumb mixture. Bake for 10 minutes, turn the strips over and continue to bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, until nicely browned and cooked through. 
    Meanwhile, make the dipping sauce. Combine the honey, Dijon mustard and vegetable oil in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth and creamy. Serve chicken fingers hot or at room temperature with honey mustard dipping sauce. If putting in a lunch bag, pack the sauce separately in a small, tightly sealed plastic container.
     
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