Tag Archives: viking.USA

Viking Five: Chicken

28 Feb

On account that I find it fun and easy to compile lists of things, I am starting a new feature on my blog: Viking Five. These will be lists of what I consider to be exemplars of any given category. In most cases, I don’t have the experience or knowledge to create what might be called definitive “top five” lists, so these are simply five personal recommendations. Please add to the lists by leaving comments!

I’m starting the feature with a food that is often overlooked – but when it’s good, damn is it good. Chicken is so frequently bland and dry, a rather pointless thing to eat when prepared or processed witlessly, but if it’s prepared well, then there is almost no meat I’d rather eat.

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Zankou Chicken
Los Angeles, California

Taco trucks aside, there may be no LA food institution so cherished as Zankou Chicken. The darling of streetsmart food critics like Jonathan Gold, Zankou is beloved among all strata of Los Angeles society, including the loyal Armenians that invented it. It’s so good that Beck name checks it in a song about having a threesome on Midnite Vultures. I must say, there is something very nearly sexual about the buttery, delicately spiced skin and the voluptuously tender and juicy meat of a spit-roasted Zankou Chicken. And that garlic sauce is a wicked aphrodisiac.

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Yangon Restaurant’s Hot and Sour Deep-Fried Chicken
Bagan, Myanmar

All of the chicken I ate in Burma was really good, which I suspect has a lot to do with the fact that there aren’t any industrial chicken farms there. “Free range” isn’t even a meaningful category there, because the chickens just roam free around people’s houses. Our drivers had to hit the brakes a lot to dodge them – along with cows and lots of dogs. The Burmese chicken that stands out in my memory was a searingly spicy, addictively tangy dish of crispy and succulent fried chicken, perfumed with an immoderate amount of garlic and green onions.

Jitokko Sumibiyaki
Miyazaki, Japan

One thing I miss about Japan is the thrill of discovering new meibutsu. The Japanese present their unique regional cuisines to the rest of the nation with an enthusiastic pride, and the rest of the nation eats it up. Food and drink, along with flowers, temples, and hot springs, really seem to be what drives domestic tourism in Japan. For salmon, go to Hokkaido; for soba, go to Nagano; and for chicken, go to Miyazaki. There are at least two very famous Japanese chicken dishes originating in Miyazaki: the tartar saucy chicken nanban, and my favorite, jitokko sumibiyaki: literally, charcoal-grilled local chicken. It’s as simple as it sounds, and so very good. Miyazaki chicken has a firm texture and a fantastically buttery quality that sings beautifully with the smoky, blackened flavor of charcoal grilling.

Chicken Truck
Kitakyushu, Japan

One more for Japan – they do chicken right. At one of the schools where I taught, I used to walk to a nearby supermarket pretty much every day for lunch. I usually got some fruit and onigiri, maybe a pastry. But on certain days, there was this truck there. I think the truck was an outpost of a local restaurant, but I can’t remember the name of it. At any rate, this truck sold chicken – really good chicken. You could get the chicken wraps, or you could just go for a huge chunk of chicken, simply grilled with salt and pepper and probably MSG. I think it was the back quarter of the bird, neatly boned and flattened, full of fatty skin, just about as juicy and flavorful as chicken gets. It never failed to brighten my boring days as a human tape recorder.

Homemade Roast Chicken with Sausage and Chestnut Stuffing
Wherever you live

There’s nothin’ like a chicken you roast yourself – expecially when you rub it up with butter and herbs and serve it with a rich, moist sausage and chestnut stuffing. I’m not really much of a roasting guy (I’m more of a sautéing guy), so this week I took it upon myself to try something new. The result was a lovely, exceedingly juicy chicken with a delicate skin and deep flavor. Together with the stuffing, it is a rather rich dinner, so I served it with a palate cleansing salad of arugula and pea shoots with a lemon dressing.

The Chicken

1 4.5 pound chicken (get the free range kind, you cheapskate)
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
a few bunches of fresh herbs (try rosemary, lemon thyme, oregano, thyme, and flat leaf parsley)
3 bay leaves
1 onion
1 lemon or orange
paprika
salt
pepper

  1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF (205ºC).
  2. Clean the giblets out of the chicken, if they’re in there.
  3. Rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water, then dry thoroughly with paper towel. The bird should be very, very dry on the outside especially to help crisp the skin.
  4. Finely mince the herbs and mash them together with the butter and a pinch of salt.
  5. Quarter the onion and lemon or orange and stuff them into the cavity, along with the bay leaves and anything else you have to flavor the chicken: celery greens, additional herbs, apple peels, and garlic cloves work well. Pin the skin together to close the cavity with a toothpick.
  6. Rub the herb butter all over the bird, then season well with salt, pepper, and paprika.
  7. Put the bird on a rack and place in the oven. Roast for 10-15 minutes at 400º, then decrease heat to 375º (190ºC) and roast for another hour and a half (basically, you should cook the bird for 20 minutes per pound, plus the initial 10-15 minutes at a higher heat to crisp the skin).
  8. Remove the chicken from the oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes before carving.
  9. Thicken the drippings and add a spritz of lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce to make a gravy. Add a bit of chicken stock and/or cider or beer if there aren’t enough drippings.

The Stuffing

500 grams sausage meat
250 grams cooked, peeled chestnuts, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 apple, cored, peeled, and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 pound (about six cups) stale bread, lightly toasted and cubed
about 1 1/2 cups medium-dry cider and/or chicken stock
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
about 1/2 cup fresh sage leaves, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

  1. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook until browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain the grease.
  2. Add the butter to the pan. Sauté the onion, celery, and fennel seeds along with salt and pepper until the onions are translucent.
  3. Add the chestnuts, apple, and sage and sauté for another few minutes.
  4. Add the bread cubes and sauté until they have absorbed almost all the butter.
  5. Add the cooked sausage, then the cider or stock a bit at a time, until the bread is quite soft but not mushy.
  6. Scoop the stuffing into a buttered baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until top has browned. Serve with gravy.

Snow Big Deal

10 Feb

It’s often said that Eskimos have 50, 100, or even 400 words for snow, compared to English’s one, but this is not so. In the first place, there is more than one English word for snow in various states (ice, slush, crust, sleet, hail, snowflakes, powder, etc.). Second, it seems that out of all the languages of Eskimo groups, there are no more than four root-words for snow altogehter…. The number of basic word stems is relatively small but the number of ways of qualifying them is virtually unlimited. Inuit has more than 400 affixes, but only one prefix. Thus, it has many ‘derived words’ as in the English ‘anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism.’

John Lloyd, The Book of General Ignorance

snowscape

Last Sunday evening, it began to snow. It snowed all through the night, a thick but gentle blizzard, and in the morning Orpington was covered in an eight-inch-thick duvet of heavy white flakes. Apparently, even though English winters are cold and wet, this is rare; it hadn’t snowed this much in greater London in two decades. And since it doesn’t happen very often, the powers that be were unprepared and under-equipped to melt the slush fast enough to keep the city running. Motorists shied away from slippery roads, and buses and trains across the southeast were canceled; no big deal for jobless me, but Laura got to take a snow day.

I was up till three in the morning the previous night watching the Super Bowl, so I slept in, while Laura wasted no time to frolic and snap photos.

spatula

When I finally rolled out of bed, I went down to lend a hand shoveling the driveway. In lieu of show shovels (which most people in England don’t own), we had to resort to badminton rackets, brooms, garden shovels, and spatulas to clear a path for the car. I hadn’t shovelled snow in probably seven years, but it came back to me like riding a bike; I don’t mean to boast, but I shovelled that snow like a champ. I knew that it was easier to push the snow than to toss it, and I knew to scrape up the stuck bits so they don’t turn to ice later on. I basked in the admiration of my English family, feeling as though I possessed a sort of mystical knowledge passed down from Wisconsinite to Wisconsinite.

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Once the driveway was clear (for the time being, anyway – the snow continued to fall until that night), Laura and I went around back to make a snowman. The snow wasn’t wet enough to roll a proper snowball for the base, so we had to pile it up and then pack it down in an arduous process that made our snowman’s body look a bit like a fat parsnip. But when we got the head on and decked him out in a hat, scarf, shallot eyes, sage eyebrows, and the traditional carrot nose, I felt a deep sense of accomplishment and affection towards our snowy friend. The occasion called for hot chocolate.

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We were out of hot chocolate, but a bowl of soup served as a fine surrogate. The whole day was quite nostalgic, and it made me realize that snow is just as much a cultural thing as it is a meteorological thing.

sunrise

P.S.: Don’t you like my clever snow pun in the title? I was debating between that, “There’s Snow Business Like Snow Business,” and “Snow Buttons on Your Underwear.”

NRS14: Duck and Brazil Nut Risotto 鴨とブラジルナッツのリゾット

17 Sep

It is said that the soul of a risotto is its stock. I have to confess, I don’t really heed the advice implied in this little adage, usually opting for bouillon cubes or concentrated dashi rather than homemade stock. I mean, can you blame me? Stock takes time to make from scratch, and besides, rarely do I have the requisite carcasses tucked away in the icebox.

But yesterday I cooked a duck. I smoked it; tea-smoked it, to be precise. It was rather nice, but it wasn’t perfect and the recipe wasn’t an original, so I’m not going to post it. Anyway, at the end of the meal I was left with a duck carcass, still heavy with delicious meat and fat (because I sucked at carving it), so I decided to make a stock. And what better use of stock is there than possessing a risotto? None. There is no better use.

I have to say, the risotto was not noticeably better or more savory than other risottos I’ve made with store-bought stocks, and it wasn’t even particularly ducky. It was very good, though; on a whim, I threw in some pickled ginger that really sung a lovely, sweet-and-sour harmony with the rich tones of duck and Pleasant Ridge Reserve (quite possibly my favorite cheese). The Brazil nuts were a nice touch as well, lending a firm crunch and a mellow coconutty flavor.

Duck and Brazil Nut Risotto

For the stock:

1 duck carcass, roughly chopped
1 onion, halved
1/2 cup red wine
1 inch ginger
2 cloves garlic
about 1 gallon water
salt
pepper

  1. Put everything in a large stockpot and boil over medium-high heat for about 3 and a half hours, or until stock is dark brown and flavorful.
  2. Strain and refrigerate until ready to use.

1/2 shallot, diced
1/4 red onion, diced
about 2 tablespoons beni shoga (red pickled ginger)
8-10 Brazil nuts, chopped
1 cup Arborio rice
1 cup red wine
about 6 cups duck stock (substitute a mix of beef and chicken stock)
3/4 stalk celery, sliced
about 1 cup duck meat, chopped or pulled (I used the bits stuck to the bones after I pulled them from the stock)
1/2 cup Gruyere or similar cheese
olive oil
salt
pepper

  1. Bring stock to a simmer.
  2. Heat olive oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Sauté onions with salt and pepper until translucent. Add shallots, beni shoga, and Brazils and sauté until shallots are translucent.
  3. Add rice and stir well to coat with oil. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast grains.
  4. When rice turns opaque, add half the wine, then reduce heat back to medium-high.
  5. Add a ladleful of stock and cook, stirring often. When most of the liquid has evaporated or been absorbed, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has nearly finished cooking.
  6. After about 10-15 minutes, add celery.
  7. Once rice is al dente, add duck meat and a small amount of stock and fold into risotto.
  8. Add cheese and remaining wine. Stir to melt cheese evenly and cook away remaining liquid.

Horchata de Almendras y Arroz アーモンドと米のオルチャッタ

11 Sep

Horchata is so nice. It is so sweet and milky yet light and refreshing on the palate, it has the flavor of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and it makes me doubly happy because I associate it so strongly with Los Angeles. My recent trip there was not complete until I had a cupful of homemade horchata from Huarache Azteca in Highland Park. Mmm.

In Spain, horchata is traditionally made from chufas, a small, nutty, oily tuber that really sounds quite nice, but I have never seen any horchata de chufa in America (and I have looked). Horchata can also be made from barley or oats, and in Mexico and Los Angeles it is almost always made from rice – and often blandly translated as “rice milk.” It is so much more.

The horchata I had in LA only made me crave it more, but as far as I know, it doesn’t exist in Racine. So I decided to make it myself. I got this recipe of the internet and tweaked it a bit – I wanted to make almond horchata, because I hear it approximates the taste of horchata de chufa – and it was a great success. ¡Viva horchata!

Horchata de Almendras y Arroz (Almond and Rice Horchata)

1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds
5 cups water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup milk or half-and-half

  1. Pulse the rice and almonds in a blender until they are well pulverized, but not powdered.
  2. Pour in water and vanilla and let sit for at least three hours, stirring occasionally.
  3. Strain liquid through a cheesecloth or nylon. Return liquid to blender after rinsing it out thoroughly.
  4. Add all other ingredients and blend until homogeneous. Pour into a pitcher and chill. Stir before serving.

NRS 13: Buckwheat and Smoked Salmon Risotto そばの実とスモークサーモンのリゾット

8 Sep

After a long hiatus, New Risotto Sunday returns! It has been a while since I have had the free time, not to mention the inclination to make a new risotto, but as I am currently unemployed and residing with my parents, I really have little better to do.

Today’s risotto was based on a package of buckwheat seeds that I bought at an omiyage stand in Oita two months ago. Along with a tin of saffron and a jar of yuzu-kosho, it was one of few foodstuffs I actually salvaged during my massive apartment cleanout in Japan. And I’m glad I did; the buckwheat was very nice in the risotto, lending a springy texture and mild nuttiness. Inspired by some buckwheat blinis with lox and creme fraiche I saw on TV, I rounded out the dish with salty flakes of smoked salmon and a dollop of tangy chevre.

Buckwheat and Smoked Salmon Risotto

1 cup whole buckwheat seeds
1/2 cup Arborio rice
about 6 cups chicken, seafood, or vegetable stock
about 10 cherry tomatoes
1/4 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
juice of 1 lemon
about 1 cup smoked salmon, flaked (don’t use lox, it’s too soft)
1 pinch saffron, crumbled (optional)
about 12 chives, chopped
about 1/4 cup chevre
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
olive oil, for sauteing
salt and pepper, to taste

  1. Roast tomatoes, whole, using your preferred method of roasting. Remove and discard skin and reserve juice.
  2. Bring stock to a simmer.
  3. Heat about two tablespoons olive oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Sauté garlic and onions with salt and white pepper until onions are just translucent. Add rice and buckwheat to the pan and stir well to coat with oil. Increase heat and keep stirring to toast grains.
  4. When rice turns opaque, add saffron and half the lemon juice, then reduce heat back to medium.
  5. Add a ladleful of stock and cook, stirring often. When most of the liquid has evaporated or been absorbed, add more stock and continue stirring. Repeat this step several times until rice has nearly finished cooking.
  6. Add roasted tomatoes, chives, and remaining lemon juice, and cook until liquid is mostly gone.
  7. Add cheese, salmon, and a small amount of stock. Stir to melt cheese evenly. Garnish with pine nuts and chives and serve immediately.
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