Chicken Teriyaki

 10 February 2022

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, November 2021, recipe also available online.

While I have had meals in Japanese restaurants that I enjoyed, in general I am not fond of Japanese cuisine. One of the few things that I have made myself is Chicken Teriyaki, generally using a grill to cook the chicken. Seeing a recipe in Cook's Illustrated for this dish thus got my attention. It seemed simple enough to make, didn't require exotic ingredients, and I decided to try it.

Because you can't buy boneless, skin-on chicken thighs, four bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 1.6 pounds) were carefully deboned, trimmed, then cut into 1½-inch pieces, being careful to preserve the skin. These were combined with some sake and cornstarch and set aside. Soy sauce, sugar, and sake were combined in a small bowl and heated in the microwave to dissolve the sugar. About 1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger (much less than specified in the recipe) was placed in a fine mesh strainer and pressed to extract the juice into the soy mixture. The chicken was cooked in a skillet over medium-high heat, first skin-side down, then flipped over to finish cooking. After removing the chicken, the skillet was wiped clean with paper towels. The chicken was returned to the clean skillet, the soy mixture was added, and this was cooked for several minutes to thicken the glaze. Total preparation time was one hour.

The chicken was exceptionally tender and juicy. The nicely browned pieces of chicken, which seemed to promise some nice crispy skin, did not live up to this probably due to the final cooking with the sauce. I used much less ginger than in the recipe as we have had some overly spicy ginger dishes. The ingredient list is short and it only took an hour to prepare. Sake was the only ingredient that we didn't have and I was able to buy a small, 300 ml bottle. This dish is worth having again and with more ginger.

Apple-Blackberry Betty

 2 February 2022

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, September 2021; also available online

There are many rustic fruit desserts with interesting names. There are cobblers and sonkers and buckles, crisps and crumbles, grunts and slumps, pandowdies and betties. These vary primarily in the topping that is placed on, and sometimes under, the fruit. The recipe in this recent issue of Cook's Illustrated provided inspiration to try an apple betty. It promised to be easy to make but would it be good to eat?

Half a loaf of white sandwich bread (about 10 ounces, I used Japanese Milk Bread) was cut into 1-inch pieces and pulsed in a food processor until coarsely ground. Brown sugar and salt were added and pulsed to combine. Melted butter was added and this was also pulsed to combine. 2½ cups of the bread mixture were pressed into the bottom of an 8-inch square baking pan. Sliced apples (Golden Delicious and Granny Smith) were combined with vanilla extract, water, nutmeg, and brown sugar and placed on top of the bread mixture in the baking dish. Blackberries were sprinkled over the apples and covered with the remaining bread mixture. This was covered with aluminum foil and baked until the apples were tender. The foil was removed and the betty was baked until the bread crumbs were crisp and well browned. Total preparation time was 45 minutes followed by 85 minutes in the oven.

We were not fans of this dish. While it was easy to make, the combination of fruit and bread just didn't appeal to us. The topping and the seasonings did not accentuate the apples which should be the star of the dish. Even if you have leftover bread to use up, I can think of better ways to use it.

Pan-seared thick-cut pork chops

 26 January 2022

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, January 2022

A few months ago I tried a new technique for pan-seared beef steak. It turned out to be a game-changer and is now my go-to method for cooking steak. As a result we have steak much more often than before. Here the same technique has been applied to pork chops. Will it have the same effect for pork as it did for beef?

The recipe is for a 1½-inch thick "rib chop" and I was not sure if I would be able to find these. But, lo and behold, in the butcher case at Whole Foods were 1½-inch thick pork chops. They were labelled "loin chops" but I believe they are the same as "rib chops". The chop was seasoned with salt and rested in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. It was then placed in a cold, non-stick skillet. The burner was turned to high, the chop was cooked for 2 minutes then flipped over. After another 2 minutes the heat was reduced to medium. The pork chop was cooked and flipped every 2 minutes until reaching an internal temperature of 140° F.  Total cooking time was 15 minutes followed by a 5 minute rest before serving. 

The pork chop turned out very well indeed. It was well seared and cooked evenly from top to bottom. Despite what seemed like a lot of salt, 1½ teaspoons, it was nicely seasoned. Fortunately I was checking the temperate after each flip because it went from 120° to 150° in just 2 minutes. We only ate half of the 1-pound chop. When having it the second time it was heated in a 130° water batch sous vide which worked well though a lot of liquid was lost and the chop was a little dry. 

This is a cooking method worth using again. Instead of using a high setting for the first two flips it might be better, with our stove, to use a setting of 8 as there was some smoke generated and some scorching of the pork chop, though not so much to affect the flavor. The recipe suggests resting the chops after salting for 1 to 24 hours and this is worth trying as the meat was a little chewy with the 30-minutes rest that I afforded it this time.