GRILLED CHICKEN WITH EGGPLANT & LEEKS

It dawned on me the other day that I haven’t really made that much Japanese food as of late.  I lived in Japan for several years and during that time, I basically cooked Japanese dishes every day.  So I dusted off my Japanese cookbooks (they’re more like magazines) and started thumbing through the oil and soy sauce stained pages.  To be honest, I felt a bit nostalgic, seeing as I used to refer to these cookbooks on a daily basis many years ago.  The pictures are extremely well shot and very appetizing, so it didn’t take long to choose what I wanted to make.  Of course, I had to narrow down my choices because I’d chosen 5 dishes. Today I bring you Grilled Chicken with Eggplant and Leeks.

The Japanese use a lot of soy sauce, mirin (sweet cooking sake), regular cooking sake, vinegar and miso.  If you plan on making just one Japanese meal, it might be expensive to buy all of these ingredients to then let them sit in your fridge. Since I’ve reawakened my love of Japanese cooking, I hope the wallet draining trip I just took to Nijiya Market, to stock up on Japanese and Chinese goods, lasts me a while.  After the initial purchase, the other ingredients for each dish should be budget friendly.  And I will be bringing you many more recipes from the Far East…I’m ready to change things up a bit in the kitchen!

Chicken with Eggplant & Leeks
Serves 4

Ingredients
6 chicken thighs, fat trimmed
3 Japanese eggplant (1 if it’s a large American eggplant), cut into chunks
1 ½ Leeks (American leeks are larger and have a tougher, stringy skin, so Japanese leeks are preferred), sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 ½ Tbsp vegetable oil
dash of Shichimi Togarashisalt

Cooked brown or white rice

Sauce
3 Tbsp rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
3 Tbsp dashi broth (this fish stock can be purchased at an Asian specialty market)
3 Tbsp soy sauce (I don’t like Kikkoman, but instead use my favorite kelp-infused soy sauce, manufactured by Wadakan)
½ Tbsp mirin (sweet cooking sake)

Directions:
Trim the fat off the chicken.  Sprinkle a little salt over the chicken, then rub the garlic and a little oil and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes to allow the meat to marinate.  At this point, you may want to turn on the grill to medium heat.  Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise, then rough cut into bite sized chunks.

For the leeks, slice on an extreme angle, like this:

Heat a fry pan on medium heat.  When the pan is hot, add 1 ½ Tbsp oil and saute the eggplant. Remember, the eggplant will quickly soak up the oil, so use your own discretion when thinking you need to add more oil or not.  I had to add about 1 extra Tbsp.  You might find using tongs makes cooking eggplant easier in order to turn the eggplant so it gets color on all sides.  I, myself, use long chopsticks for cooking.

As the eggplant is cooking, you may want to throw  (or gently place!) the chicken on the grill, as it will take a total of about 8-10 minutes (4-5 minutes on each side) for the chicken to cook.  When the eggplant is cooked through, about 7 minutes on medium heat, and has a nice brown on it, you can go ahead and plate it.

After you plate it, you may want to flip the chicken on the grill, as the leeks (which you’ll sauté next) take but a few minutes to cook.  On medium heat, warm 1 ½ Tbsp of oil in the same fry pan used for the eggplant and sauté the leeks for about 3 minutes.  You don’t want the leeks to brown, so keep a constant watch on them.  Once they’re bright green and somewhat soft, add the soy sauce mixture to the pan.  It will sizzle at first, so be careful, then will settle to a constant boil.  Turn the heat to low and let the sake burn off.

Grab your chicken off the grill (it should be ready by now).  You’ll want to lay the leeks on top of the eggplant, then place the chicken thighs on top.  Spoon the soy sauce mixture from the leek pan, over your serving dish so the eggplant gets saturated with the soy mixture.

To finish off this dish, as with many other japanese dishes, I sprinkled over the top a very common spice in Japan, Shichimi Togarashi.  It translates to English as 7 spices: red pepper, roasted orange peel, yellow sesame seed, black sesame seed, Japanese pepper, seaweed, and ginger.  Gives a zing to any dish, without an overpowering spiciness.  You can use it in soups and any meat dish, really.

More recipes to come…

And the way to say “bon appetit” in Japanese is, “itadakimasu.”  Phonetically, it’s ee-tah-dah-ki-moss. Which sort of sounds like “eat-a-duck-if-you-must.”

M