Deep Frying

So I was digging up research on Japanese-style tartar sauce for the new cookbook I'm working on with Tadashi, when I came across this dish.

Sorry Paula Dean, but nothing beats Japanese-style fried chicken. (To Mary in Austin and all my friends down south who make amazing fried chicken: Don't kill me! :) ). The secret is the marinade.

Kara-age is a technique for deep frying without a batter, to highlight the natural taste of an ingredient. Foods are simply dredged in flour or starch, to seal the surface, and plopped into a vat of bubbling oil (okay, not literally a vat -- a saucepan is fine!).

Located in Shitamachi, once the "town below" Edo Castle, where the craftsmen and fishermen lived, it's in my favorite part of Tokyo, one proud of its Edokko sensibility, and chock full of traditional shops and eateries. A hole-in-the-wall there I particularly loved was a tiny joint run by crusty husband and wife that specialized in just one thing -- tonkatsu, deep fried pork cutlet.

My friend and hero Elizabeth Andoh has just published her latest cookbook, Kansha. Make sure to pick up a copy! As I paged through the book, Elizabeth's recipe for age-dashi dofu, or crispy creamy tofu, as she describes it, caught my eye (p 178). I had to cook it, and it was delicious! Here's my adaption of her recipe, for 4 servings:

When my friend, and supremely talented young chef, Atsushi Nakahigashi visited New York last summer, he whipped up some terrific dishes for me. Now that he's visiting Gotham once again, I posed a challenge...

In this preparation, Chef Honma of En Japanese Brasserie demonstrates the Japanese cooking notion of contrasting a main ingredient with a supporting ingredient to highlight the main food's flavor.

When I told Chef Ono that I picked up a beautiful whole flounder at the Union Square Farmers Market, he asked what I was going to do with it. I thought to simmer it. "Do you have a wok?" he asked. Indeed. Then deep fry it, he urged me. "That's the taste of summer."