142 recipes. Page 4 of 6
As an Amazon Associate, we may earn from qualifying purchases.
A traditional Korean confection made for Seollal and Chuseok, each one is twisted into a ribbon by pulling one end through a slit in the middle. Even under a coat of honey and rice syrup it shatters lightly, with only the syrup-soaked ends a little chewy. Ginger juice in the dough leaves a faint bite at the finish.
Pinch two corners of a square of wheat dough together and it takes the shape of a mi, a winnowing basket. In Jikkoku, in Fujikawa, Yamanashi, that shape is said to scoop up good fortune, which is why the soup appears on New Year's morning and at celebrations. The dough goes straight into the broth with the root vegetables instead of being boiled separately, and the flour on its surface gives the soup a light body.
Fresh oysters, at their best in winter, get a very light dusting of flour and a dip in egg before frying, with chopped garlic chives added at the end. Large ones can still be underdone in the middle after the outside turns golden, and the heat goes down while they stay in the pan a little longer.
Cubes of chicken breast, mushrooms and bell pepper finish together in a mild, creamy sauce made from milk and chicken stock. The chicken is seared only until opaque and pulled out early, then completes its cooking in the sauce, which keeps the breast meat moist.
Fine panko fries into a firm crust on a thick pork cutlet, and with soft white bread on either side, every bite has both crunch and give. The bread is spread with tonkatsu sauce, the shredded cabbage is tossed in mayonnaise, and the sandwich is wrapped tightly in plastic for a few minutes before it is cut.
Thin batter poured into a blazing cast-iron pan puffs up the sides into a tall, browned bowl while the middle stays soft and custardy. Lemon juice and powdered sugar are the classic finish for this German-American pancake; berries or cream turn it into a brunch main. A pan that is not hot enough is the usual reason the edges stay low.
Warm soy tare goes over the tempura the moment it lands on the rice, and the grains take the sauce while the tops of the shrimp, sweet potato and eggplant stay freshly crisp. Shallow cuts along each shrimp's belly let it lie straight across the bowl.
The usual way cheese sticks go wrong is the melted cheese breaking through the coating and running into the oil. That is why these get two coats of parsley breadcrumbs and a stint in the freezer before a short fry. Serve with tomato sauce for dipping.
A thin, crepe-like wheat wrapper folds around smooth red bean paste, and a salt-preserved Oshima cherry leaf, veined side out, wraps it again so its aroma reaches the wrapper and filling. The Tokyo style traces back to 1717, when Shinroku Yamamoto, a gatekeeper at Chomeiji by the Sumida River, salted fallen cherry leaves and used them to wrap sweets.
Several beef offal cuts with very different chews, such as small intestine and omasum, go into one pot of milky bone broth. Chili flakes and garlic make it spicy, and half a spoonful of doenjang mixed into the seasoning paste tamps down any remaining offal smell. It is a hot pot for the drinking table, alongside soju.
Meat patties (donggeurangttaeng), zucchini, shiitake and chilies share one platter on Seollal and Chuseok tables. They all wear the same flour and egg coat, but the prep differs: zucchini is salted and blotted, and shiitake lose their stems and get flour on the inside too. Only three or four pieces of one kind go into the pan at a time to keep it hot.
Crisp fried chicken thigh and a warm waffle share the plate, tied together with maple syrup so salty and sweet land in the same bite. Because the waffles are cooked first and held in a low oven, the chicken can go straight from the oil to the table.
Mashed potato mixed with sauteed ground beef and onion gets shaped into ovals, coated in panko, and fried until golden. The crust shatters while the inside stays fluffy and potato-forward, plainer and heartier than cream-filled croquettes. Worcestershire or tonkatsu sauce goes on top, and in Japan butcher shops and delis sell them freshly fried to eat on the go. Fillings vary widely, from curry to crab cream to kabocha squash.
French pastry shops usually fill eclairs with vanilla custard; this version uses whipped cream and tops the long choux shells with melted dark chocolate. With a plain cream filling, the bitter chocolate and the crisp shell come through more clearly. The eggs are beaten in one at a time, stopping once the paste looks glossy and drops slowly from the spatula.
Four steamed buns go onto each bamboo skewer and are grilled under a sweet red miso glaze until they shine dark with small charred edges. Gunma traces the snack to miso-zuke manju made by Harashima Ruizo in Maebashi at the end of the Edo period; the glaze turned sweeter once kuromitsu syrup arrived. The rice-koji starter ferments for a day or two and the glaze rests in the fridge for 2 days, so the work begins well before grilling day.
Korean zucchini sliced 0.5 cm thick and salted for five minutes gives up water and tastes sweeter for it. Fried yellow in its egg coat, it turns up on everyday dinner tables as well as on holiday ancestral-rite and guest spreads.
Pounded chicken breast rolled around ham and Emmental, breaded and pan-fried in butter and oil, shows a ring of melted cheese in every slice. Tucking in any exposed cheese keeps it from leaking into the pan.
Under a thick coat of coarse panko is a mix of ground pork and beef much like a hamburger steak, and cutting in lets out the juices the crust held. In Tokyo, neighborhood butchers have long fried them every day for the display case, and eating one hot from the paper bag on the street is an old habit.
Pancetta, garlic, and Parmigiano Reggiano season this savory Italian pie, whose filling is 600 g of chard blanched, squeezed hard, and packed between two thin sheets of dough. Water left in the chard soaks the thin bottom crust, so the leaves are wrung out thoroughly and the cooked filling is cooled before it is spread on the dough.
In Gyoda, Saitama, okara and skin-steamed potato are kneaded with carrot, onion, flour and egg, shaped into flat oval coins and fried with no breadcrumb coating. The jelly in the name has nothing to do with dessert; it is thought to have drifted from zeni fry, or coin fry, after the koban-like shape. A Gyoda teahouse owner who served in the Russo-Japanese War is said to have adapted it from a vegetable bun of northeastern China, and it was common by the late Meiji period. The hot fritters get a brief dip in a six-to-four blend of Worcestershire and chuno sauces.
Instead of breadcrumbs, these cutlets wear a soft coat of flour and beaten egg, and that coating soaks up the lemon butter sauce like a sponge. Italian-American in origin, the dish uses butterflied chicken breast cooked quickly so it stays moist. The coating should come out golden rather than dark brown before it goes back into the sauce to turn glossy.
A floury potato center, a thin crisp coat, and sweet-salty miso sauce come in that order with each bite of this Chichibu snack from Saitama, once eaten by farmers as kojuhan, a small bite between stretches of field work. The sauce is poured over rather than tossed so some crisp edges stay dry.
Rolled paper-thin from a dough with no yeast, the base ends up far thinner than pizza and is scattered lightly with creme fraiche, onion, and bacon. This Alsatian flatbread puts tangy creme fraiche where pizza would have tomato sauce and cheese. A very hot oven chars the edges in minutes, and it is cut and eaten while the crust still snaps.
In Gunma's wheat-loving farm villages, jiriyaki, a thick wheat pancake with green onion and sakura shrimp, was the snack eaten by hand at the work breaks at 10 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. It once cooked slowly over the ash heat of an irori hearth, and the name is said to echo the jiri-jiri sound of the batter sizzling.