Friday, August 29, 2008

Pan-Fried Chicken Patties

I'm seriously in love with Just Bento. Aside from the fact that Maki is a great blogger with amazing pictures and good ideas for packing a healthier lunch, there's a bevy of amazing recipes to use. Reading through, looking for things that are easily premade and frozen, I stumbled on a delicious recipe for pan-fried chicken burgers, or tsukune. If you want to see some awesome pictures, you can click the link and check them out, but I've got some cell-quality pics below.

Here's the recipe I followed, taken from Just Bento:
- 1 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
- 4 tbsp grated carrot
- 1/2 tbsp grated fresh ginger
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 egg yolk + 1/2 egg white (just spoon a bit off)
- 2 tbsp cornstarch

Throw the chicken into the Cuisinart, and pulse until coarsely ground. Add everything else and process until all smooth, pausing to scrape down the Cuisinart when needed. Form into patties using two spoons, pan-fry in a nonstick pan over medium heat until golden and crispy on each side. Sauce with teriyaki or oyster sauce and cook for another minute or so until glazed. That's all! They come out nothing like I'd expected - light and airy and gingery. Absolutely delicious, for little to no prep time required.

Here's what the chicken looked like after processing. It should be a nice orange-pink color.


The size of each of the mini-burgers was about the size of a chicken nugget.


Some thoughts on cooking:
- I had asked Stephanie if we had carrots in the house, to which she replied "yes". In my mind, I was asking about full-size regular carrots. In Stephanie's mind, I was asking about baby carrots. Needless to say, I ended up grating baby carrots for what seemed like eternity, thanks to that error in communication.
- I'm going to try to make bigger portions next time, depending on how well 3 or 4 of the little guys satisfy Steph and I as a lunch portion. I'm looking forward to using my new fish sauce squeeze bottles to store some teriyaki sauce for these tasty treats.
- Steph suggested slicing up some scallions to put into the next batch. What a great idea!

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