Saturday, April 20, 2013

Super Izakaya Night...Fried Chicken Cartilage ("Nankotsu Karaage"), Handmade "Ju-wari" Soba, etc.


A friend of mine, who is a soba maker, just returned from Tokyo and came to our place for dinner. She showed up with a lot of gourmet foods from Japan, as well as her freshly-made "Ju-wari" soba noodles, made from freshly ground soba flour from Japan. "Ju-wari" means 100%, so this style of soba is made from 100% buckwheat.

So we did a fun izakaya night.

Yes, I made more "karaage"...and this time, I found Chicken "nankotsu" (cartilage between breast meats) cuts at a Japanese market. So, I was really excited and made a Chinese-style fried chicken.

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For the batter, I also used Chinese five spice and whole egg. Once they were fried, I served them simply with lemon wedges. They came out really good, with the thin crispy breading and nice crunchy texture. I love chicken "nankotsu" so much!

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I also fried her leftover end cut soba noodles. They make such a nice snack. We also had some special ikura (salmon roe) from Hokkaido, fava bean miso, natto kombu, etc.

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With a big tarako (salted cod roe) from Hokkaido, I quickly fixed a dish with avocado, Tokyo negi, and irizake. It was so nice with Junmai Ginjo "Tamajiman" from Oume, Tokyo, which she also brought back from Japan.

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Then, we had the special soba time. Her handmade "Ju-wari" soba was superb! We enjoyed with dipping sauce and some ground walnuts from Niigata, Japan.

Fantastic night.
Thank you, Sonoko-san.