Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Marinated and Grilled Chicken Kabobs

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I had never considered making a marinade with tomato paste until I saw a recipe doing just that. The results were outstanding. This is one of those dishes with a great effort-to-deliciousness ratio.

Make sure to really pack the chicken onto the skewers so it doesn’t dry out as it cooks.

What you’ll need

  • 3 oz (0.33 cups) tomato paste
  • 2T vegetable oil
  • 2T fish sauce
  • 1T palm or brown sugar
  • 0.75t liquid smoke
  • 0.25t white pepper
  • 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into kabob-size pieces
  • Skewers (metal or bamboo—bamboo skewers need to be soaked at least an hour before use. You can cover the exposed ends with foil to prevent burning.)

What to do

Mix the tomato paste, oil, fish sauce, sugar, liquid smoke and white pepper in a bowl large enough to accommodate the chicken. Mix in the chicken, ensuring that each piece of chicken is well coated. Cover and refrigerate for up to 8 hours—the longer, the better.

When you’re ready to cook, fire up your grill or broiler to whatever settings you use for charring meat. If using a grill, clean and oil the grates. If using a broiler, put grill racks in a sheet pan covered with foil and spray the racks with cooking spray.

While your grill or broiler is heating, thread the chicken onto the skewers so there’s no space between the chicken pieces on the skewers.

Cook the chicken until browned and slightly charred on the heat side—about 8 or so minutes.  Carefully turn over each skewer with tongs and let them cook for about 8 more minutes, until the heat side is equally charred.

Serve hot.

Hiyashi Chuka (Cold Ramen) 冷やし中華

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It’s nice to have a cool meal that’s easy to make in the heat of the summer, and hiyashi chuka is just that: cold ramen with a cold sauce. Literally translated to “cold Chinese noodles,” it’s also sometimes referred to as Japanese cold ramen salad.

A Japanese restaurant reportedly developed it in 1937. Why? Most of Japan gets really hot and humid in the summer, causing sales of traditional ramen to drop during hot season. Enter, the cold ramen option, and sales begin to rise. Like just about everything, it’s all about the money.

There are a variety of toppings you can add to this dish. I’ll present some here, but if you look online, you can find a lot more options. For example, I used the traditional tomatoes and cucumbers but added non-traditional bacon, which goes well with the noodles and sauce. Other traditional options include egg, strips of ham, small shrimp or surimi. Foods with a variety of colors will deliver a nice presentation, such as green onions, strips of nori, beni shoga or even strips of yellow, red or green onions.

Some people bury the noodles under many toppings, and that’s up to individual tastes. I prefer the noodles and sauce to be the stars of the show, so I go lighter on the toppings. However you make it, I’m sure it will be delicious.

What you’ll need for the noodles

  • Per-serving: 4 oz dried ramen noodles or equivalent of fresh Asian wheat or ramen noodles, cooked and rinsed in cold water
  • Your chosen toppings, sliced and ready to use
  • A portion of the cold ramen sauce
  • Sesame seeds (optional topping)

What you’ll need for the sauce

  • 4T (0.25 cups) soy sauce
  • 3T unseasoned rice vinegar
  • 2T stock or broth (or substitute water)
  • 1.5T sugar
  • 1T water
  • 1T mirin or sake
  • 1t sesame oil (don’t omit, it’s key to the flavor)
  • 0.75t grated ginger
  • 0.5t ra-yu (Japanese hot oil) or another chili oil (optional)

What to do for the sauce

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, ensuring the sugar completely dissolves. Immediately put in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.

What to do for the noodles

Presuming you’ve cooked, drained and rinsed the noodles with cold water, add a serving of noodles to a shallow bowl or a small plate with edges. Arrange the toppings in sections over the noodles, then pour a portion of the sauce evenly across the noodles in a spiral motion. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using, and serve cold.

Gamja Salad (Korean Potato Salad)

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Korea, like Japan, has their own versions of potato salad, and they’re delicious. Today’s recipe is a different take on the mashed-style of gamja salad you may have had at Korean restaurants.

This version, besides not being mashed, uses sour cream as a dressing, to very good effect. It feels less heavy than a mayo version, and the bacon, English mustard and raw garlic give it a distinct flavor.

Gamja salad is easy to make, and it goes with anything traditional American potato salad does, including the stunningly delicious Korean meatloaf recipe I’ll be posting next week.

This recipe is based on one from the superb K Food cookbook.

What you’ll need

  • 2 lbs. new potatoes
  • 1T kosher salt
  • 4 slices bacon, finely chopped
  • 2 scallions, thinly sliced
  • 1 cup sour cream (in this case you could get away with using “lite” sour cream)
  • 1t English or another type of spicy mustard
  • A pinch of pepper
  • 2 small garlic cloves, minced

What to do

Prep the potatoes by cutting each in half, unless they’re really tiny. Bring a large saucepan of water to a rolling boil before adding the potatoes. Reduce the heat to a rapid simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. The potatoes are done when they can be easily pierced by a fork. Drain and rinse the cooked potatoes with cold water before letting them cool in a large bowl.

While the potatoes are cooking and cooling, cook the bacon bits in a frypan over medium heat until they’re slightly crispy and the fat is rendered. Remove from the heat when done and set aside.

Now for the final assembly: Add the bacon to the bowl of potatoes, including the rendered fat. If there’s a lot of fat, maybe include only half of it. Mix in the bacon and then add all the remaining ingredients thoroughly mixing them in, as well. Gamja salad is best served at room temperature.