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Japanese-Style Fried Chicken

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.

September 18, 2011

Nagoya Cochin Chicken

Back in Japan now and just rolled into the lovely city of Nagoya. First order of business: Nagoya Cochin chicken.

May 27, 2010

Sake-Steamed Whole Chicken

Here's a simple method my pal and coauthor Chef Tadashi Ono of Matsuri mentioned to me last week: Steaming a whole chicken with sake. It couldn't be easier.

February 8, 2010

Nagoya Cochin Chicken

While varieties of Japanese <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagyu">wagyu</a> beef are now familiar in America (Kobe being the best known), traveling through Japan I've been surprised to learn about the different breeds of jidori -- heirloom "local chicken" raised across the country.

November 24, 2008

Video: Boning and Grilling Chicken Legs

One of the most useful skills I've been perfecting this fall working in the En Japanese Brasserie kitchen is boning chicken legs and thighs. I've boned dozens of these suckers so far and I can tell you that knowing how to do so is extremely practical and useful at home, too.

November 26, 2009

Chicken sautéed with garlic chives

Simple, so delicious and versatile. I cooked it in ten minutes last night with dark meat chicken, garlic chives (nira) and slivers of carrot. Here's what you do:

February 22, 2012

Udon-Chicken-Clam Hot Pot

So I was talking to a Japanese chef friend named Rio Irie about clams, and he brought up something interesting. Cooking clams together with chicken in a liquid, Rio told me, creates a broth with a remarkable mouthwatering flavor synergy...

January 26, 2012

Hakata Chicken Hot Pot: Thinking About Quantities

Here we explain how to think about quantities when preparing hot pot, using one of our favorite dishes, Hakata Chicken Hot Pot, as an example.

August 28, 2009

Chicken Mizutaki Hot Pot Video -- More Details

In this video we got explain more details about cooking one of our favorite hot pots, Chicken Mizutaki. Check it out -- technique we go over here apply to all the hot pots in our book!

September 21, 2009

Grilling Videos: Steak, Scallops, Chicken and Veggies

Here are more videos Tadashi and I shot for last week's Japan Society presentation of our book, The Japanese Grill. Check out how to turn out amazing steaks, scallops, chicken, veggies, using marinades and rubs with garlic-soy sauce, miso, yuzu kosho, sansho and more... So don't delay: Fire up the Weber and get grilling right away!

June 21, 2011

kyushu style fried chicken

Takako Kuratani is a prodigious chef who designs menus for Japanese restaurants around the world, styles food for Japanese movies and TV commercials, develops recipes, teaches Japanese cuisine -- and never stops cooking and experimenting. I was fortunate to meet her last year at her test kitchen in Tokyo where she and her team treated me to a fantastic dinner. (Ah, the joys of writing... :)) Besides being incredibly talented, Takako is utterly gracious and kind, and thorough emails has been teaching me about Japanese ingredients and cooking. She just visited New York and one of the things she brought with her was a slender red notebook -- her own personal cookbook, where she records her recipes and cooking inspiration. While she was here, Takako planted herself in a kitchen, cracked opened that little red book and prepared a wonderful homey dinner for a bunch of friends. Her theme: the down-home cooking of Kyushu, Japan's own Deep South.

May 5, 2008

Steamed Chicken with Cucumber and Wakame

My new favorite cookbook is a Japanese-English paperback called (at least in English) "Traditional Japanese Recipe Book with English Translation." Not the most evocative title, for sure, but the book's packed with great recipes, techniques and useful information.

November 25, 2009

sabrina's chicken shack

May 22, 2005

Mizutaki Chicken Hot Pot

Mizutaki hot pot is about as simple as it gets: Pile a bunch of ingredients into a hot pot. Pour in water. Turn on the heat and cook.

February 6, 2012

Simmered Kabocha Pumpkin and Chicken

In my last post I made dashi with Chef Isao Yamada, who I cooked with recently. So now that we had some beautiful dashi, the fundamental stock of Japanese cuisine, what to do with it? Yamada-san didn't waste any time cooking a slew of fantastic dash-based dishes, including this one.

February 25, 2010

Chicken Nanban with Japanese-Style Tartar Sauce

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.

October 31, 2011

Simmered Chicken and Vegetables

First, a little theory: Nimono, or simmering, is a primary Japanese cooking technique, and a vast one. Nimono dishes are considered one of the classic kaiseki courses, as well as a mainstay of home cooking.

September 22, 2010

Chicken Sukiyaki

With the publication of Tadashi Ono's and my cookbook, Japanese Hot Pots, coming up on September 22nd (soon!), I've naturally been thinking a lot about these irresistable one pot meals.

August 19, 2009

Oyakodon: Chicken and Eggs Over Rice

Here is Chef Isao Yamada's incredibly tasty version of a Japanese comfort food classic...

April 13, 2010

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.

January 25, 2010

Chicken Soba Hot Pot

My wife and I and a houseguest visiting from Japan cooked this dish on New Year's Eve from a recipe dug up in a Japanese newspaper. God, it was good.

February 1, 2010

Video: Cooking Chicken Mizutaki Hot Pot

This gorgeous hot pot, Mizutaki is one of my favorites, a rustic dish that hails from Hakata, an old section of the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka. It's simple, down-to-earth and a snap to prepare (like all hot pots!).

September 1, 2009

Hakata Chicken Hot Pot: Step By Step

This gorgeous hot pot, Mizutaki is one of my favorites, a rustic dish that hails from Hakata, an old section of the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka. It's simple, down-to-earth and a snap to prepare (like all hot pots!).

September 8, 2009

Videos: Breaking a Chicken, Yakitori, and Yaki Onigiri

Last night my coauthor Tadashi and I gave a talk and demo on Japanese grilling at the Japan Society in New York. But how do you demo grilling in auditorium where you can't grill? With videos, of course!

June 17, 2011

Chicken Simmered with Carrots and Daikon

I've talked about simmering before, so you know it's one of my favorite cooking techniques in Japanese cuisine. It's a simple and fast way to infuse amazing flavor into ingredients. The secret is the traditional seasonings:

January 16, 2011

Original Teriyaki

Okay, time for teriyaki, but I mean the real thing, not the ho-hum dish we typically see here in America, the one with a gummy, starch-thickened sauce that drowns chicken or fish.

August 16, 2010

freestyle hotpot

After I wrote about nabe, or home-style hotpot cooking, last month, I asked a friend in Japan to research the many regional varieties of this social and comforting soul food. She just sent me a list of twenty styles of nabe, dishes prepared with salmon, tuna, octopus, pork, chicken, root vegetables, even wild boar and snapping turtle. These hotpots all reflect local foods, customs and geography, and their histories and lore are absolutely fascinating: One traces back to the cooking of Japanese pirates, another originated with bear hunters. There's a nabe invented by sake makers living inside breweries during production season and one that's supposed to be eaten in the dark (yikes!). There's even a nabe invented in 2005 to commemorate the merger of three cities. Like I said, fascinating.

January 28, 2008

Jinenbo Nakagawa's Pottery

I heard from a few readers curious about the beautiful piece of pottery in the picture of my post on simmering kabocha and chicken. This stunning vessel is the work of the esteemed Karatsu potter Jinenbo Nakagawa, who I met years ago and wrote about in a story for the late, great Gourmet in 2005.

February 26, 2010

Simmering: More Thoughts on Seasoning

In my post on simmering kabocha and chicken, I got into some of the underlying ideas behind nimono, or Japanese simmering technique, that Chef Isao Yamada explained to me. I wanted to touch on a few more of Yamada-san's thoughts about nimono.

February 27, 2010

Baby Gen's Japanese Dinner Party

Too bad baby Gen can only eat mashed rice: The chefs of the fabulous Kajitsu and their wives came over to our place in Brooklyn the other night for an impromptu Japanese dinner party, and I wish Gen could have tasted the amazing spread.

August 17, 2011