Some time ago I had an ahi appetizer at Saucebox, a local restaurant and bar in downtown Portland. The tuna was coated with furikake and seared over high heat, creating an interesting texture that I rather enjoyed. The app was accompanied with a creamy sauce that I don’t quite remember (possibly a kewpie base with chili sauce) — it was certainly fine, but I generally prefer lighter dressing for my fish.

As it was $14 for about 2 ounces of fish (if that), I decided to replicate it at home using an ahi filet from the local sashimi-grade fishmongerer.

Furikake Ahi

1. Furikake. From Wikipedia:

Furikake (振り掛け or ふりかけ) is any dry Japanese condiment meant to be sprinkled on top of rice. It typically consists of a mixture of dried and ground fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate. Other flavorful ingredients such as katsuobushi (sometimes indicated on the package as bonito), salmon, shiso, egg, vegetables, etc. are often added to the mix.

Uwajimaya carries a few brands, some with more than half a dozen varietals that are all variation upon a theme.

2. Shichimi-Togarashi

Japanese red pepper blend. I had a friend in high school/college who worked in her Mom’s sushi restaurant (she’d open the place to us after hours), and she swore to me that marijuana seeds were an integral component to togarashi. Seeing as we were eating drunkenly-rolled maki (”Go back there,” she would say, gesturing to the sushi bar, “and help yourself”), swilling Kirins and cutting into her mom’s profit margins, I was inclined to believe her.

3. Salt.

Use your judgement and create a thin coating layer on a plate or cutting board.

Coat the flesh with a nice layer of furikake and seasonings. Heat a stainless steel pan over high heat until smoking, add a bit of peanut oil (should smoke immediately). Sear ahi one minute per side.

Remove from plate.

Slice, and top with your favorite sauce, which for me is ponzu.

Ponzu

• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1/8 cup rice vinegar
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• Pinch of bonito flakes
• Juice of one lemon
• Lemon zest

Combine everything, bring to a boil. Remove from heat and strain.

Monday, June 9th | 1 comment

Here’s a secret.

I use the packet.

Yep.

The ingredients list of a representative packet, which you can pick up at any Asian store for anywhere from $.69 to $1.19. Reputable brands include Noh and Mama Sita. What’s not to like? Anti-caking agent…yum.

Here’s the deal. This marinade is pretty standard, and you can forego the packet, but I eat with my eyes. I need the red. I get off on the red. Eating something red really indulges a fetish I can’t fully explain.

And if that means I eat a bit of food coloring, I’m ok with that. Isn’t this molecular gastronomy? And it is “natural”. It’s a derivation of anatto/achiote. And probably cochineal beetle.

Char Sui Pork

• 2 pounds pork of various sort, preferably a fatty cut like country style ribs (if I’m using something like a pork shoulder, I like to trim fat and tie it back up with butcher twine )
• 1/2 packet commercial char sui seasoning. I prefer Noh brand, which is plenty RED
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons rice wine
• Couple squirts chili oil (more RED!) or sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder

Combine all ingredients except for the meat, and mix well to create a nice slurry, sludgey liquid. Pour over meat and use your hands to really get the marinade in there. The meat should be red. If it’s not sufficiently red enough, I would add more of the char sui seasoning or perhaps slit your jugular and allow the contents to spill all over the pork.

Allow to marinade for at leat 4 hours, more if you are like me and like flavor.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the pork on a sheet pan or wire rack, reserving marinade, and roast for 20-25 minutes. “Lacquer” marinade with a brush every 10 minutes, three times (an additional 30 minutes or so).

Remove, allow to cool, and slice up.

This marinade is equally delicious with spare ribs. The marinade is equivalent to the brining that I usually do when I cook ribs, though I would tent the ribs with foil in a 250 degree oven and steam/roast/bake for 90 minutes before finishing off/lacquering on an open flame grill.

Often, at Asian markets you can find individually sliced ribs for the purpose of making individual, cha sui ribs. Here’s those ribs marinating with a loin or two. Acknowledge the red.

And the pork all cooked up.

Now that you have a lot of char sui pork on hand, you can use it in stir fries, banh mi sandwiches, salad rolls, and, my favorite…

…as a topping for noodle soups.

Thursday, February 28th | 1 comment

Now that the NFL is entering crunch time, college football is about to sharpen its muddled bowl picture, and Tom Brady is busy girding his loins to inseminate another supermodel or actress, it’s definitely wing season. And it’s about time to bust out an alt-wing recipe to mix things up a bit. Think of this recipe as the Devin Hester of wings — explosive, and even though you kinda expect what’s coming, you can never really prepare for it and you’re caught flat-footed when it arrives. That is probably the lamest thing I have ever written.

This is a simple recipe for some delicious wings. There are only five ingredients, but one of the most important ingredients isn’t even an ingredient at all—it’s actually the grilling. It’s essential to grill these wings outdoors over a charcoal flame. It really rounds out the flavor. If you decide not to grill over a charcoal flame, I will assume no liability.

Here are the ingredients. There’s a Loation store on North Killingsworth that sells frozen lemongrass that’s finely minced. It’s a real timesaver, as lemongrass freezes real well. Also, whenever my Mom visits, she insists on buying a couple heads of lemongrass and mincing them with steady knifework, and packages it up for freezing, so it always seems I have ready-to-use lemongrass on hand. Just make sure you get as fine, fine, fine as possible. You’ll also see here that I’m using my own pickled bird chilies. Use fresh ones, or make your own pickles…or freeze them, as they also freeze well. I find it impossilbe to use an entire package of bird chilies that I buy at the store before they go bad (and they are difficult to find loose by the pound), which is why I often freeze or pickle half of them immediately.

Grilled Fish Sauce Wings

• 2 dozen wings
• 4 or 5 tablespoons finely minced lemongrass
• 9 or 10 thai bird chilies, finely minced
• 6 cloves of garlic, forced through a garlic press
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 6 tablespoons fish sauce

Mix everything together, and set aside to marinade at least 2-3 hours, longer if, like me, you like tasting stuff with more taste.

Grill them up. I’m not going to tell you how to grill. If you don’t know how to grill, just give up already and get a MySpace page or something.

Now root for Matt Shaub and the Houston Texans this Sunday because I used my two of my top 3 picks for LaDanian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates and those fuckers don’t seem to score at the same time this season. The third pick was Mark Bulger and he’s decided to be a total pussy this year.

Thursday, November 29th | 3 comments

Caramel Sauce

• 2 or 3 tablespoons palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons or so water

Make caramel sauce by melting palm sugar in small saucepan (preferably stainless steel). Add water and stir until consistency is reached.

Chicken

Get an entire chicken and cleaver it into logical small pieces, “breaking” the bones of the main cuts.

Other Ingredients

• 1 knob (3 inches) of ginger
• 3 or 4 garlic cloves
• 4 or 5 small bird (thai) chilies
• Black pepper
• 1/2 white onion, slivered
• 2 or more tablespoons of fish sauce
• Water
• Salt if you want
• Half a package of green onions, chopped

Peel the large knob of ginger. Cut it into very thin “sheets”. Cut half of the sheets into fine julienne, and set aside. Combine the remaining ginger in mortar with garlic and chilies. Pound.

In a dutch oven or large sautee pan, add just a touch of peanut oil, and pounded aromatics, slivered ginger, sautee for a minute or so, then follow with the chicken pieces. Stir fry for a few minutes until the chicken is lightly browned.

Add caramel sauce, fish sauce, onions, and enough water to cover the chicken pieces. Stir and bring to a boil, then reduce to very low simmer, stir, and hit with black pepper. Partially cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

Turn off heat. Garnish with chopped green onions and let sit for half an hour. You may need to salt/add more fish sauce at this point to your preference. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.

Saturday, November 3rd | 1 comment

King crab with lime butter spiked with insane amounts of sea salt and coarse ground tellicherry pepper.

Friday, November 2nd | 1 comment

A 45-minute drive from Cannon Beach, in Bay City, Oregon, is a place called Pacific Seafood that processes oysters from the sea.

Bay City is on a bay. Here’s the proof. That’s the bay. Presumably, that’s a source for the oysters themselves. The sea provides us humans with a delicious bounty.

Pacific Oyster itself is located at “150 Oyster Drive” in Bay City, which to me seems a bit over the top, as the “drive” in this case is a parking lot/pier. And the “150″ makes no sense at all, because it’s the only building on Oyster Drive. This made me mad for a short time.

This is where all the oyster processing happens. In the processing plant.

Oyster products, packaged and branded (those are smoked oysters up top). You can buy these products here, at the plant, and you’ll also find them at area grocery stores and purveyors of fine foodstuffs.

Spent oyster shells being shot into a collection bin. That’s one huge pile of oysters.

The shells are collected in bags and stacked at the far end of the pier. I’m not sure what is done with the shells at this point. Presumably a freighter comes along and picks up the load and carts it off to a faraway land where oyster shells are prized and used as currency. Some place like The Phillipines or Hawaii.

I know what you’re saying. So what? Why are you taking us to a sea snot factory? What next, the inside of a fucking dairy? Well, consider yourself lucky that you’ve read this far, because…

Pacific Seafood sells oysters to eat on the premises! Its actually a restaurant, that, in addition to the raw oysters you see above, serves sandwiches and other fare. But this is an oyster post, so on to the oysters. They were out of kumamotos, which pissed me off goddamnit, because that’s why I basically drove 45 minutes to Bay City, OR, braving Highway 101…

…to endure crappy scenery like this. The Oregon coast really is a shithole. Nature’s taint.

So after cursing my bad luck, I composed myself and ordered a dozen Pacific Oysters — a half dozen xtra-smalls and another half dozen smalls.

The xtra-smalls.

The “smalls”. Jesus, these were big. As a point of reference, that’s a normal-sized lemon wedge. I love how they gave you plenty of lemons. I hate when you order a dozen oysters and you get only one wedge. Life is too short to deprive yourself of citrus (and the specter of scurvy always lurks).

I had a hard time choking these down. The first 6 xtra-smalls slid down no problem, but by the third “small” I was starting to fatigue. I had to leave the last oyster on the ice. If, like me, you have a hard time choking down large raw oysters, I would stick to the xtra-smalls (or the kumamotos of course). The “small” would make a good frying or grilling oyster, though. I can only wonder what the mediums are like. Probably similar in size to a pork chop or a chihuahua.

Pacific Seafood

150 Oyster Dr.
Bay City, OR 97053
503-377-2323

Further Reading

Pacific Oyster @Roadfood.com

“Pacific Seafood - Bay City, Lunch on the Coast” (thread @Portlandfood.org)

Friday, August 31st | 1 comment