I heart skewers

Mini yakitori lunch with skewers of chicken hearts. But let’s start with veggies :

Red sweet pepper.

Summer kabocha.

Chilled cream :
I put in the blender boiled kabocha, a raw red pepper, a few steamed shimeji mushrooms, a little miso and 2 tbs of roast sesame.
Served very cold with freshly ground black pepper on top.
It’s sweet, feeling and refreshing.

Chicken hearts and green sweet pepper skewers. To grill in the oven-toaster.

I’ve painted a few times the hearts with this so-su ( Worscester-style sauce).

Konnyaku noodles and sweet chili sauce.

Pizza heart

That’s very simple tonight : a pizza.

Crust : half whole-wheat bread flour
Veggies : steamed aubergine, green bell peppers, black olives
Meat : chicken hearts
Cheezy sauce : miso, sake kasu, olive oil
As it’s too hot for the big oven, I baked it in the oven toaster. The shape is weird as the dough ran away, but that was yummy.

Mitsuba mushroom kimchi ramen

A quick lunch, using as usual season produce. It’s just a stir-fry of chuka soba (Chinese noodles).

With konnyaku (cut in cubes), chicken liver, stalks and leaves of mitsuba, kimchi, white mushrooms…

That makes an interesting mi of flavors, textures, rawness, cooked feeling, spiciness.

banbanji and green soy

A variation around banbanji, the Chinese cold chicken dish. I’m using a bean not so common, even here in Japan :

緑大豆midori daizu. Green soy beans. Also called 青大豆 ao daizu. Blue soy beans.
They are dry soy beans that are green/blue, while the regular ones are white, and sometimes black :

They are not edamame, the fresh (not dry) soy beans.

Edamame. See this post about preparing them.

Cooked. The process is the same as for other beans, soaking, boiling…

The base of banbanji is chicken slowly boiled in water with ginger and leek, then let cool in the broth. Later the meat is very tender. Then mungo bean sprouts, maitake mushrooms, red bell pepper, grated ginger…all are raw.
Plus the green soy beans.

Soaked, and boiled.

The sauce is goma dare (sesame, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, a little sugar).

Yakitori tsukune

Tonight yakitori !
But the photos are… night photos. Sorry.

You’ll see nicer in this post with 2 more versions of this basic skewer. And a mini-compil :

other yakitori

Soft tsukune recipe :
-For about 150g of meat (not too lean ground chicken), I’ve added a 1 tbs of ginger (minced), 1 tbs of leek (minced), 1 ts of soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, 2 tbs of sake, 1 tbs of sesame oil, plus a little more salt. After adding the previous ingredients and kneading, I’ve mixed in 2 big tbs of potato starch and about 1/2 cup of water. I let it rest 2 hours so flavors can mix.
-Then the balls are formed and boiled. Bring a pot of water to ebullition, pass on medium heat and throw in freshly made balls. When they are done, they are white all around and they come afloat. Take them away. They can be cooled and stored for a later meal, or used immediately.
-Put balls on skewers, oil, salt and grill. It’s the simple “salt grilled style”.