Made Japanese bar-food tonight!

[htuttle]

Chicken yakitori, mixed vegetable tempura, marinated carrot and daikon salad and some jasmine rice.

With a few beers... :beer:

Burp...I'm as stuffed as a sarariman and ready for karaoki!

(recipes on request, but it's all pretty simple)

[hippywife]

1. I love vegetable tempura!

I had a really great basket of it at a restaurant in the artsy fartsy Short North/Victorian Village area of Columbus, OH called Haiku last October when I went home for a visit. They were all delicious!

What's in the yakitori? I'm a complete Japanese food novice. And I refuse to even try sushi so that's probably why I've not experienced other Japanese cuisine.

Glad you enjoyed your meal. :hi:

[htuttle]

2. Basic Yakitori

Chicken thighs: without bone and skin (I keep the skin and spear that up too!)
(Traditionally, ALL the parts of a chicken are fair game for yakitori -- even the ugly greasy bits...)
Japanese leek (negi), leek, or green onion (I use leeks)

Marinade:
Soya sauce
Mirin or sake
Sugar, Honey or maple syrup
NOTE: You can use store-bought teryaki sauce instead if you want.

Small wooden spears

1. Mix together 4 tablespoons of soya sauce, 3 tablespoons of sugar, a little bit of honey or maple syrup, a little bit of mirin and water, and heat it up until it's homogenous.
2. Cut the chicken thighs into about 3x2x2cm large pieces.
3. Put the chicken pieces into the already prepared sauce, and let it stand for a while.
4. Cut the leek or green onions in about 3 cm long pieces.
5. Spear three or four pieces of chicken and some leek on each wooden stick. (alternating)
6. Grill them, or use the oven at 200 degrees celsius. (You may want to wrap the wooden sticks with aluminium foil; otherwise, they may burn off.)
I use a 400F oven for about 25 - 30 minutes, basting with more marinade halfway through.

on edit:
Forgot to add: I mix in a few pinches of arrowroot powder with the marinade to help it stick to the skewered goodies.

[hippywife]

3. That sounds delicious!

I just may try that out one day. DUers have some of the best recipes! Thanx so much!

[nam78_two]

4. How do you make the vegetable tempura?

I have recently become interested in Japanese cuisine, but I don't want to buy a lot of kitchenware specifically for one type of cuisine :-|.
I remember from a cook-book I once had and a few abortive attempts at making sushi that a lot of accessories seemed needed for a lot of it.

[htuttle]

5. I make it with beer

Batter:
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 12 ounce can of cold beer (can substitute ice cold water)

Mix the dry ingredients together, then the wet ingredients together, then incorporate the too. Don't over mix! It should be like thick pancake batter. Add a little more flour if it seems too thin.

Keep the batter bowl in a larger bowl of ice, or put back in the fridge while frying. It is vital that the batter be kept as cold as possible to help prevent it from soaking up too much oil while frying.

Cut up an assortment of vegetables. The other night I used baby bell peppers cut into rings, parboiled potato slices, mushrooms, daikon spears, thin carrot spears and slices of shallots. You can use about anything reasonably dry (ie., no cukes). You can also use thin chicken strips or shrimp.

Pat the vegetables in flour one at at time, dip into batter to coat and fry in 350F oil until light golden brown.

Drain well.

Serve with a dipping sauce of roughly 3 parts soy sauce, 2 parts mirin or sake and a 1 part rice vinegar.

Eat.

[Mind_your_head]

6. That sounds really good (and simple)

as does the Yakitori.

I bought some tempura batter mix, but I'm waiting till the weather gets warmer to use it (I do my frying either in my deep fryer or in a pan on a burner out in the garage. When I have fried food in the kitchen it seems to smell up the house for days! I mustn't have a very good exhaust fan or something)

Thanks for sharing the recipes I'll definitely give these a try.

[Mind_your_head]

7. I've been dabbling with making Japanese cooking lately

You really don't need as much special equipment as you might think. Here are some videos that I have found to be very clear and simple that show you how to make miso soup, sushi rice, and two kinds of sushi rolls using the specially prepared sushi rice.

To make the items below, the only thing you really NEED to buy that you probably don't already have (besides the ingredients) is the bamboo rolling mat (sudare) - which costs about $1.50-2.00 either online or at an asian specialty store. You can use any type of bowl to mix the sushi rice in (I used my wooden salad bowl, but even a glass mixing bowl would work) and use a wooden spoon instead of the shamoji/rice paddle. You can use anything to fan the rice, you've most likely already have knives, a tea towel, a colander, a chopping board, etc. You can use ramekins or other small bowls you already have for the dipping sauces (or they have some really cute melamine asian sauce bowls at Target for $0.99 - so that won't break the bank).

There are some sushi kits available online that have all the ingredients (except the seafood & vegetables) for $20-$25.00, but if you go to an asian specialty store you can get everything you need (and larger quantities) for the same price.

I've been having fun with my "adventures in sushi". It's not as hard or as expensive as you would think. I hope you consider giving it a try!

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-miso-soup

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-sushi-rice

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-cucumber-maki

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-a-california-roll-uramaki