This recipe has so far been one of my husband’s favorites since I took out the dusty, old Asian cookbook he got me last year. The Teriyaki Chicken pictured in the cookbook looks darker than the photo above. I suppose that’s because the supermarket where I bought the chicken from only has skinless thigh fillets. I guess it’s better with the skin off, and healthier too!

Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs, skin on
2 tbsps oil
2 tbsps Japanese light soy sauce
2 tbsps sake
1 tbsp mirin
2 tsps sugar

Procedure:
Make cuts, 1 cm apart, through skin and partially into flesh of chicken thighs.
Heat oil in pan, fry chicken on each side until brown.
Add combined soy sauce, sake, mirin and sugar to pan, stir until chicken is tender and well-coated with sauce.
Using a sharp knife, cut through thighs completely.

Happy cooking!

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Teriyaki Chicken recipe

A fascinating and engaging look at one woman’s journey, through sushi academy and beyond. Interspersed between the paragraphs holding Kate Murray’s story are names, figures, facts. Trevor Corson covers most everything to do with sushi, and more besides: its history, techniques used, varieties of fish, etc.

Nothing is more interesting than reading about people — and Kate’s experiences and misadventures will hold your interest throughout. That one could find such a root-for character in the pages of a book that also talks about the sushi restaurant industry, its sexist leanings, the academy’s oftentimes brutal training methods and its casualties, is a delight. There are moments that disgust, and moments that make you want to clap with glee. An excerpt:

“Don’t leave your fish lying out, Katie.”
She hesitated.
“You’re not dying,” Zoran said. “I can see that. You haven’t cut a major artery, have you?”

At the end, Corson rounds it all out with “How to Eat Sushi” in the appendix, as well as a lengthy bibliography for anyone wanting to dig deeper into the world of sushi. You can read it for the story and the intrigue, you can read it to learn — or both. I have not found a more entertaining AND educational book on sushi, its far-reaching power and worldwide appeal, as The Zen of Fish, and would heartily recommend it to any sushi lover wanting to know more than just which part of sushi should be dipped in soy sauce.

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The Zen of Fish

Looking for recipes? Here are some for you to try:

Daifuku Cake Recipe at RecipeZaar.com
From Setsuko Yoshizuka at About.com
From Youkaimura.org
Obachan’s Mochi Project
Pumpkin Daifuku from TheAnimeBlog — this would be perfect for fall!
the eGullet thread, with lots of ideas!
from Monkeyfruit

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Making Daifuku

Tom already has a post here for chirashi zushi, which makes me very thankful since I don’t have to expound so much on what this is. At our house chirashi zushi is known as “lazyman’s sushi”, or the sushi that you’ll eat from a bowl, with chopsticks, instead of your hands, because Mom’s too lazy or too tired to wrap things up.

One such evening in the spring took me to the pages of

from Kikunoi’s Yoshihiro Murata, where I found this beautiful spring sushi, featuring such items as koya dofu and warabi (bracken fern).

This version, while not exactly the lazy person’s sushi (it calls for simmering all of the ingredients SEPARATELY), is still adaptable to suit your moods and tastes. Many of the cookbook’s recipes are quite challenging, not necessarily because of technique, but because of the sheer lengthiness of the ingredient lists, many of which include seafood and other items not readily available even in Asian markets here.

Tom also has several other suggestions of things to add to your chirashi zushi.

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Chirashi Zushi #2

Just EWWW.

To his credit, Chef Tatsuo Tanabe claims this is the first time he’s done this, and that it will be the last. Eat Tokyo has gotten good reviews the past year, and if you think about it the air inside a restaurant’s kitchen isn’t exactly sterile, but still….

Image

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Ewwww.

Here are instructions for rehydrating it properly.

What else to use it for?

Here’s an idea, Minced Chicken Balls and Koya-Dofu Simmered in Dashi, from Kikkoman.

From Cooking with Chopsticks, a recipe for Koya-dofu and Wakame Miso Soup.

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Ingredient Spotlight: Koya-Dofu

Use it in your sushi, or around it. Shred it and put it in your spring roll. Or sprinkle your salad with it. Pad Thai wouldn’t be complete without it.

What could be easier? Film your wok or skillet with oil. Beat an egg, season appropriately and cook for 3 seconds over high heat.

The seasonings you use determine its compatibility with the other components of your dish. Add dashi and a bit of sake in it and you can use it for sushi. Simply salted, it’s perfect to go with your spring roll filling. If you’re tired of tofu, use egg sheets instead to add some protein to our salad. And there’s nothing prettier than egg shreds tossed with pad thai.

Other ideas abound:

in Pork Ginger Egg Roll
in Pressed Meat Salad with Mustard Sauce
In Korean Shinsollo (hot pot)
in Caviar, Cream Cheese, Scallion and Egg Towers
Crab and Egg Maki with Tobiko
Assorted vegetables wrapped in sliced daikon radish

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Egg Sheets

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Natto Be Believed

Hmm.

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Sushi Magic — New Express Home Sushi Maker

Salmon Grilled in Cedar Sheets from Edward Lee of

Instructions on how to use it from Korin (pdf file)

More techniques and a recipe from Chef Josh DeChellis of Sumile

610 Magnolia, where Edward Lee is the chef.

Where to get these cedar sheets?

From Korin. But if you don’t think you’re going to need 100 sheets, Elizabeth Karmel (the Grilling Queen) has her product available here:

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Cedar Paper / Cedar Sheets