Yakitori... redux

Yakitori the other night was so good, I had to make it at home. My friend Rice-eating-lanscaper-guy complained several times that he was bored, so I invited him over for a little "dinner party" after dropping puppy-white-boy off at Metro to get to Virgin Grain High End Food Emporium.

Side note: I live in the Atwater Village/Silverlake area and have found that Super King (real name) supermarket on San Fernando just past the 2 Freeway is an excellent market. Got lots of ethnic things, a huge deli counter, and a butcher that has a lot of fresh things. To top that off, it's CHEAP!!!

Armed with a 5-lb whole chicken ($4.58) I get home and start dismembering it for parts. Breast... Breast... Skin... Thigh... Thigh (not THAI like the girl spelled it at Kokekokko on the sold out board).. Drum Stick... Drum Stick... Wing... Wing... Carcass. Whew! That was some work. Next time, just get pre-dismembered chicken and proceed directly to skewering.

Basically, the means here are simple. Cut up chicken into small parts and thread onto skewers.

I ended up this time making the following out of my whole dismembered chicken.

2 x Skin
4 X Breast
2 X Breast Tenders
4 X Thigh
2 X Negima (thigh and Japanese onion)
2 X Wings
2 X Thin Sliced Breast wrapped around Okra (stole that one from Kokekokko)
5 X Tsukune (chicken meat balls: Take 2 knives and chop the hell out of a chicken breast until it's "ground" Mix in one egg, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, salt, pepper, dried yuzu peel, 5-6 shiso leaves julienned and chopped, and mix with hands until it comes together -- put on skewer)

Not too bad for a single chicken. I didn't bother with the drum sticks today, so those went in the fridge for me to use for dinner another day.

The rest is simple... cook the skewers over charcoal until done. Better yet, put charcoal into a table-top grill (Konro -- look at pics, or MacGyver one out of a small terracotta pot and some wire mesh or a metal cooling rack or something) so you don't have to get your lazy ass up and you can be a host. Do them a few (of the same) at a time and enjoy a beer with friends. Place just a teensy bit of a condiment or two (my list below) just before serving and keep your guest(s) dazzled with your ability to put flavors together. Continue for several hours until all the chicken runs out.



Where's the recipe for my sauce, you ask? I took a page from the grill master at Kokekokko, and did a purely salt based menu. All you have to have is some good sea salt ready to pinch or grind over the chicken while it's cooking. The rest is in the condiments. I had:

Lemon
Pepper
Sansho Pepper
Shichimi Pepper
Yuzu Peel Powder
Grated Garlic
Grated Ginger
Wasabi
Yuzu Kosho
Butter

Most of these go on alone.

Lemon with sansho is one of my favorites. The acid blends well with the numbing flowery-ness of the sansho. The wings got a Lemon-shichimi combo which works well too.

Although not very "Japanese," a combo that really worked was Grated garlic, pepper (I used a 5-pepper blend here, but regular black would work fine), and butter. Sinful I tell ya, sinful!

Rillettes, anyone?

Rillettes
[ree-YEHT, rih-LEHTS]
Meat, usually pork but also rabbit, goose, poultry, fish, etc., that is slowly cooked in seasoned fat and then pounded or pulverized (along with some of the fat) into a paste. This mixture is then packed in small pots, RAMEKINS or other containers and covered with a thin layer of fat. Rillettes can be stored for several weeks in the refrigerator providing the fatty seal is not broken. This mixture, resembling a smooth PÂTÉ, is served cold, usually as an appetizer spread on toast or bread.

~ © Copyright Barron's Educational Services, Inc. 1995 based on THE FOOD LOVER'S COMPANION, 2nd edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst.

Rillettes, lovely and homey, and always reminiscent of a picnic in the French countryside. Although I live in a neighborhood (Silverlake) of a city (Los Angeles) where there are plenty of gourmet purveyors out there that carry rillettes (let's see, Say Cheese, Silverlake Cheese, The Gourmet Market at the Alcove Cafe, among others), I decided that as a self-proclaimed foodie, I had to make them myself. Come on, it's not like I don't have half a dozen cookbooks that have them listed in them.

Well, my take was to look at a couple (Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, and Brian Polcyn and Michel Ruhlman's Charcuterie) and to compose one for myself.

Right off the bat, I hit a snag... the recipes call for pork belly. Puppy-white-boy , my long-term house guest just got a job as a butcher at Virgin Grain High-End Food Emporium so I thought I'd drop him off for work and pick up a couple pounds.
Apparently, gourmet market or not, it's not likely I'm getting pork belly here. Fine, if that's not going to work, I'll Plan-B it.

Off to Glorious Filipino Mart that popped up in the basement of Eagle Rock Shopping Center a little while back. I know I can get it there, and for cheap at that. Sure enough, I walk in, and there's the pork belly staring right up at me. And at $1 per pound, I'm not about to complain. I pick up a pork shoulder roast for good measure, and off we go.


Rillettes:

Makes quite a bit, so have a lot of ramekins or containers to put them in!

2 lb Pork Belly
1 lb Pork Shoulder
4 Cups Water

Herbs (I made my bouquet garni out of thyme, oregano, sage, and bay leaf along with a handful of peppercorns)

Salt and Pepper to taste
1 TblS Veal Demi-Glace
Pork Fat, cut thin


Cube up the pork. Line the bottom of your slowcooker/Dutch oven with the pork. Cover with water. Add the herbs.

Cook on low for 6 hours.

Remove pork from the slow cooker and place in a large bowl. Carefully shred the meat with forks until no chunks remain. Salt and Pepper to taste. Add in demi-glace and some of the cooking liquid and mix until it holds together.

Separate out pork into ramekins, top with fat, cover with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for 3 days.

If you've made a lot, you can freeze the extras. According to most all sources, rillettes will keep for about a month in the fridge as long as the fat covering is intact.

When you're ready, just bring the rillettes up to room temperature, and smear it on some bread and munch on. Add some cornichons and we're definitely in business!

As Anthony Bourdain put it in his cookbook:

Jesus, this dish is easy. Don't tell your friends. Let them think you're a genius, a master charcutier, while they're busy cooing and gaping.

Happy Cooking!

Craving Udon

Ok, food craving time again. This time it's udon. Although I tend to keep dried udon noodles as a pantry item in my house (it's not like it goes bad), I thought of trying something different and actually making my own noodles. I mean, how hard can combining FLOUR, SALT, and WATER be?

Well, this isn't difficult, but it is somewhat time-consuming. It's worth it though, since the end product has much more body than a dried out commercial one does.

Udon Noodles:

Serves 8-10

1 KG AP flour
450 g water
50 g salt

potato or corn starch for kneading

Equipment:

Large bowl
scale
plastic bag
large knife


Mix salt into water and stir until completely dissolved.

In a bowl combine water with flour. Mix thoroughly with hands and place the mixture in a sturdy plastic bag. remove as much air as possible from the bag and seal.

Step on the dough slowly using both feet (and entire body weight) in a circular manner (go around the dough clockwise or counter-clockwise slowly) until you have a disc that is about 1/8 inch thick.

Remove the dough from the bag, and fold as many times as possible, return to the bad and repeat the stepping process.

Collect the dough into a ball, and leave in the plastic bag to rest (1 hour in summer, 2-3 in winter)

Throw starch on a board and roll the dough with a rolling pin into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick (adjust the thickness to taste). Throw starch on the dough and then fold the dough loosely twice lengthwise to a third and then cut thin and EVEN slices.

With hands that are starched, separate the individual noodles before cooking to prevent sticking. At this point, noodles can be saved for later use.


To cook:

Bring a large pot of water to boil, and boil the udon for 10-13 minutes depending on the thickness of the noodles. Rinse the noodles under cold water to remove the starch from the surface and then drain well.

Serve in a hot tsuyu-broth, cold with sesame sauce, or however you like it.

Happy Cooking!