Tuesday, November 16, 2010

松風 Chicken


松風 Chicken
Originally uploaded by CaptainShen
Japan has had a huge impact on my life. I have studied the language since I was 12 years old in 7th grade, and met a penpal that I have kept in touch with for at least a decade now. Japanese elements were always in my young life-- and I ended up getting a minor in the language.

Anyhow, if you've known me for a very long time, you might know that my experiments in cooking began, long ago, with teriyaki salmon. It was delicious, at the time, and probably about half sugar and the other half salt-- but my friends and family tended to love it. Even this blog began as a sort of 'bento' blog (I still do use my boxes), and yet, I've strayed far from Japanese style cooking. I began poking around, recently, at a blog called Tess's Japanese Kitchen, and upon finding the Matsu Kaze Chicken, I was completely re-inspired and went out and bought the things to make it. What a delicious sounding name-- Wind In The Pines!

So, with my own 'primal' adjustments (as well as a culinary one or two), I made this. Please check out that blog-- there are MANY exciting, amazing recipes (check out the Minty Carrot Tsukemono!) that I want to take inspiration from and make. For the most part, they are easily primalized.

Changes:

I omitted the sugar, used Coconut Shoyu (that is what I have come to call it-- it is Coconut Secret's Aminos) in place of Shoyu, and used only a teensy pinch of salt. My topping (where on earth do you find white poppyseed??) was a mixture of black poppyseeds and white toasted sesame, as well as an addition that I thought sounded delightful-- crushed Juniper Berries!

I also added to the chicken mixture white pepper. Oh yeah-- and as the original poster mentioned-- I was also generous with the ginger juice!

When I baked the chicken I left it covered for 15 minutes and uncovered it for the last 15, heeding the warning of 'dryness' found in that post's comments.

I served it on spinach and wakame tossed with the same topping tha the chicken got and green onion as well as a drizzle of sesame oil and coconut shoyu. On the side was thinly sliced sweet potatoes sauteed with green onion, onion, coconut shoyu, and cinnamon. This was very delicious and VERY filling. It'll be stellar on salad cold, I'm sure.

I used a bit too much egg white on top and it ended up looking like cooked egg, but was still delicious.

めっちゃおいしかった!