Spontaneous Chicken Dish

For me, the holy grail of Japanese cooking boils down this: The ability to look in the fridge, see what I've got and cook something fabulous with it. I've witnessed this two-step over and over in Japanese homes, watching slack-jawed with admiration as home cooks knocked out great dishes on the spot. This versatility, spontaneity and creativity is what Japanese cooking is all about, on any level. Since I don't have this awesome culinary knowledge wired into my DNA, of course, I've been trying to figure out a way to break it down and explain it in some kind of coherent -- and replicable - fashion (the journalist in me). It's a work in progress...

I thought about all this as I watched my friend and houseguest prepare us dinner last night. He's a young chef who cooked at the incredible Ryugin in Tokyo, where I had the privilege last year of working beside him for a month. We were both hungry, so we checked the fridge. There was precious little inside: a thinly pounded fillet of chicken breast, still frozen, an onion and a half a bunch of asparagus. (Yeah, time to go shopping!) "How about pizza," I mused. My friend just smiled. "I can make something with this," he said, and went to town. Ah yes, that irrepressible Japanese cooking spontaneity in action! I tried to capture what he did as best as possible in the following recipe. Stay tuned as I work out how to explain the underlying ideas behind it. Here's the dish:

1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon sake
1 tablespoon salt
4 stalks of asparagus cut into bite-sized pieces on an angle
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 pound chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces (in our case, after defrosting, of course)
1 small onion, sliced into 6 wedges
Black pepper to taste
Sansho to taste

Add the mirin to a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. When it boils, add the soy sauce and boil for 30 seconds more. Add the sugar and boil until it dissolves, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat. Pour in the sake, and gently mix. Set aside.

In another small saucepan bring water to a boil. Add salt and mix until it dissolves. Add the asparagus and poach until they turn bright green are just cooked through. Taste one to check. Don't overcook. When they're ready, cool the asparagus under cold running water. Set aside.

Add the oil to a skillet and place over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the chicken, cooking and stirring just until the chicken turns golden. Transfer the chicken to a plate. In the same hot skillet, add the onions. Grind some fresh pepper over it. Sautee for 1 to 2 minutes, until the onions soften. Return the chicken to the skillet. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes more, stirring constantly. Add half of the mirin-soy sauce-sugar-sake liquid. Cook, stirring, until the liquid almost completely evaporates. Add the asparagus and the remaining liquid. Cook, stirring, until about 1/2 the liquid remains. Turn off the heat. Sprinkle a little bit of sansho. Serve hot.

NOTES: My friend says you can cook this dish with any vegetable, and use dark meat chicken, too. I would say use 2 or 3 vegetables, but no more than that -- this is Japanese food, not a stir fry. Finally, the sansho, with its intensely citrusy fragrance, adds such a nice dimension to this dish. Amazing how a simple home-cooked meal can have so many layers of flavor going on.

Posted by Harris Salat in Chicken | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email | Print

Comments (6)

Harris: I think the process of “impromptu’ Japanese cooking will come to you when: 1) you have made sufficient dishes so pieces of each float around in your subconscious; 2) you achieve a broad understanding of Japanese ingredients and their interactions; and 3) (most importantly) you relax into it. I suspect you've already accomplished numbers 1 and 2, but 3 may be elusive. I know when I try to be spontaneous in any of the styles I'm familiar with—French, Chinese, and Japanese—I have to first relax and just let it happen. I have to trust that my experience in the cuisine will carry me through.

Peter Hertzmann | Posted 16:07 25 January 2010

Thanks, Peter, working on all of the above. Appreciate your thoughts, Harris

Harris Salat | Posted 17:49 25 January 2010

When I had sansho in Japan it was the full seed and somewhat soft and dark brown. I have only seen it here dried, like peppercorns. Do you know of a supplier? It is admirable the way your friend washed the rice and the chicken dish sounds great. Simple and perfect!

Lin Golden | Posted 19:03 26 January 2010

Thanks for your comment, Lin, a lovely dish. The sansho you had in Japan was a likely a kind of tsukudani, that is a sweet-savory preserve. It's used widely in powder form, which you can find at a Japanese market. In the US, it's sold under the House and S&B brands, possibly others.

Harris Salat | Posted 21:17 26 January 2010

I don't think you'll find fresh sansho seeds or leaves of the variety used in Japan. You can find dried sansho leaves from House/S&B, and a variety of sansho seeds are available from China (sichuan peppercorns) if they are treated before export. Import of sansho is restricted in the US because it's a variety of citrus, and can carry a disease (citrus canker?) that could potentially damage US citrus crops.

Jason Truesdell | Posted 14:11 30 January 2010

Thank you Harris and Jason, I will check out both...I knew about S&B but not House and I am very excited to see I can get dried sansho leaves which decorated and flavored some BBQ Eel sashimi I had recently. I can easily get sichuan peppercorns but didn't think they were a form of sansho! Harris you are probably right about the tsukudani, I don't know...I did bring a small packet home from one of the fish, vegetables and meat markets somewhere in Kyoto. I am in Canada and no where near citrus growers!

Linda Golden | Posted 17:19 05 February 2010

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