Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
By Request
A truly great encounter with food can be a spiritual experience. Ask Lilinoe Andrews. Enraptured by
silken sauce"I am haunted by the butter ponzu sauce that L'Uraku restaurant makes," Andrews writes.
She goes on to describe a seared ahi dish she had at the restaurant, the fish wrapped in nori and a thin layer of portobello mushrooms. One taste of the sauce and, "my eyes rolled back in my head."
Chef Hiroshi Fukui of L'Uraku does have a masterful way with the sauces that complement his contemporary Japanese cuisine. He says he works to balance clean, striking flavors, so a sauce brightens and completes a dish without overpowering it.
This ponzu butter sauce is incredibly rich, sparked with the tartness of the citrus in the ponzu.The ahi dish he serves it with is not on the L'Uraku menu, but occasionally appears as a special. Fukui recalls creating the dish to pair with a particular wine -- Laurel Glen REDS -- and added mushrooms for an earthiness that completed the match.
Fukui's basic ponzu requires a number of specialty ingredients imported from Japan, so the recipe that follows calls for commercial ponzu. He suggests Mitsuken as a brand he'd buy off the shelf.
Ponzu, a blend of soy sauce and several citrus juices, is available at most supermarkets, but for a wide selection, go to an Asian market.
Blended with butter and cream, the sauce is very versatile, Fukui says, and would go well with seared scallops, grilled shrimp -- "you could even serve it with steak."
Panko'd Portobello-Wrapped Ahi with Ponzu Butter Sauce
1/2-pound block sashimi-grade ahi
Salt and pepper to taste
2 portobello mushroom caps
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 shiso leaves
2 sheets nori
1/4 cup flour
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup panko
Vegetable oil for frying
Ponzu Butter Sauce:
1 cup cream
1/2 cup prepared ponzu
3 ounces butter, cut in piecesSlice fish into 2 thick logs. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Brush mushrooms with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill or broil until soft. Cut in half across the cap, to yield two round slices.
Wrap each ahi log in a shiso leaf, then in portabello slices. Then wrap tightly in a sheet of nori, sushi-style.
Dip each log in flour, then egg, then panko. Deep fry in oil heated to 375 degrees until the outside is brown. The fish at the center of the log should remain raw.
To make sauce: Reduce cream over medium heat to 1/2 cup. Bring ponzu to a boil, then turn off the heat, leaving pot on the stove.
Stir cream into hot ponzu. Remove from stove and whisk in butter, piece by piece.
To serve: Slice ahi logs into bite-sized pieces. Place in dish and surround with a few tablespoons of sauce. Garnish with chopped chives, black sesame seeds and colorful sprouts, if desired. Serves 2.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving without salt to taste: 800 calories, 45 g total fat, 13 g saturated fat, 500 mg cholesterol, greater than 700 mg sodium.*
Fukui also provides a recipe for a more traditional Japanese dish, Chicken Karaage, for Lisa K. Larson. Larson has has yet to find a recipe with the perfect match of flavor and coating.
Karaage refers to a fried, bite-sized nugget of meat and can take the form of beef, fish, pork or chicken. A dark, gingery marinade lightly flavors the meat.
A few notes: This recipe calls for light soy sauce, which refers to the color, not to a low salt content. It is used mainly so that the chicken won't turn too dark when fried. Also to deal with that darkness problem, the temperature of the oil is lower than normal for deep-frying.
The marinade yields just enough marinade to coat the meat, so don't expect to get so much that the meat is completely covered. You lomi the meat, or rub the sauce into the flesh.
For a variation on the dish, instead of dusting the coated chicken in potato starch, add the starch to the marinade and roll the chicken, marinade and starch into little balls before frying. This is tastutaage, another traditional Japanese finger food.
Chicken Karaage
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 cup potato starch
3 cups vegetable oil, for frying
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons light-colored soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepperCut chicken into 3/4-inch cubes.
Combine marinade ingredients; taste and adjust salt and pepper. Add chicken, mixing by hand and gently massaging sauce into chicken. Let sit about 10 minutes.
Coat each piece of chicken in potato starch. Deep fry in oil heated to 325-250 degrees, until lightly brown. Remove pieces with tongs or chopsticks, tapping the side of the pot to remove excess oil. Drain on paper towels. Serve with lemon slices. Serves 6.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving: 420 calories, 24 g total fat, 3 g saturated fat, 130 mg cholesterol, greater than 550 mg sodium.*
Food Stuffs: Morsels
Send queries along with name and phone number to:
By Request, Honolulu Star-Bulletin Food Section,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Or send e-mail to bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com
Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the
Body & Soul section indicates calculations by
Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts,
a nutritional consulting firm.
