Adapted for Sous Vide: Butter Shoyu Chicken

When I want to make something, but I'm not sure what, I often find myself back at Just One Cookbook. I find Namiko Hirasawa Chen (aka Nami)'s writing style to be friendly and laid back, and I find the recipes easy to follow and they don't tend towards needing special equipment (Yes, I know, this entry is full of special equipment. the irony is not lost on me).

Butter-Shoyu Chicken caught my eye because I don't tend to think about butter or much dairy at all when it comes to Japanese foods and the taste combination intrigued me. Another factor: I had everything in the fridge, freezer, or pantry.

Well, almost. I had two boneless chicken breasts and no thighs, and they were skinless to boot, so I was not going to get the rich deep poultry flavors I wanted from the recipe as written. However...

I've been playing with the immersion circulator long enough that I was comfortable enough to try adapting so I could. Same ingredients for the sauce went into a glass measuring cup (a bowl works too if that's what you'd rather. Or a small jar for that matter where you can cap it and shake. Whatever's easiest for you in your kitchen):

• 2.5 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons sake
• 1 Tablespoon mirin
• 1 Tablespoon sugar

I stirred it well, using a swizzle stick a friend had given me for my bar. (thanks Gina!), put it aside and looked at the recipe again. 

I didn't need the oil for sous vide, so that could be eliminated. So could the additional Tablespoons of sake because I wasn't steaming the chicken with it. I made my bags with my vacuum sealer (Note: if this is too fiddly for you, there are other options I'll talk about below), stirred the sauce again and opened the chicken.

When I work with raw chicken, I touch it as little as possible, using tongs (links to different types here on The Accessible Chef). The chicken will start out either on a plate, in one of those handy not-quite-Tupperware containers you can get at the grocery store for your leftovers, or a decent-sized bowl. I sprinkled each side of the chicken with kosher salt and ground black pepper and put a breast in each bag, stopping occasionally to stir the sauce again to get that sugar dissolved.  

To each bag I added .5 Tablespoon of butter, which I cut in half and put one on each side of the bagged breast, and then 2 Tablespoons of salt. From there, I sealed the bags and put in the ridge, then started up the rice cooker. I was going for brown rice, which my Toshiba says takes an hour and twenty minutes.

I filled the sous vide container with water and heated it up to 147 F, which is 63.88 C (and 337 K, if you care 😃). Once things were set to cook, I had I did some minor cleanup and watched an episode of Death in Paradise on Britbox. It has been remarked upon that I might be addicted to crime shows, especially British ones.

One murder later, I put the rest of the sauce in a small pan on the stove, and set the heat to medium. I also filled a small pot with water, set that burner to high, and washed some snow peas. Those would get tossed into the water once it boiled, just long enough for them to turn bright green.

While waiting for the water to boil, I opened the sous vide bags and drained the juices into the pan with the sauce and turned the heat up to medium-high until I started seeing small bubbles. then I reduced it down to low, giving it a bit of time to reduce. 

If I'd been having company, I likely would have seared the chicken in a grill pan to have those nice marks on it, plated it over the rice, and scattered the snow peas in an artful circule. That wasn't quite what happened. I put the rice in my favorite bowl, pre-cut the chicken so it would be easy to grab with chopsticks, added the chicken, the snow peas, and spooned the sauce over the chicken and threw a few green onions on top. Absolutely delicious.  

I forgot to get a picture, to my embarrassment. I was pretty hungry by that poin.

Regarding sous vide bags. They can be a big pain in the ass to make. While vacuum sealers aren't hard to use, they can be heavy and awkward, and they take up a lot of storage space. I haven't tried this, but some people swear by this water displacement method, with a standard zipper bag. A few vendors out there also make silicone re-useable bags. I have a few of these, but haven't tried yet. I do find them easier to close than standard zipper bags because the seal mechanism is larger.  I have plenty of leftovers, so I may try reheating the chicken sous vide with one of them. It's about time I tested that out.

Scallops and some noodling

A nice thing about cooking for one is some things suddenly become a lot more affordable. Like some seafood.

I was able to score some sea scallops (the big ones) last weekend, and what I can pay for 5 or 6 scallops is at least $10 less than having them cooked for me in a restaurant, so there's a major win right there

Scallops are easy to cook. Medium heat until the butter or oil (I usually use olive oil). I find that 90 seconds a side will give me a nice sear, but still leave the inside deliciously tender. The short cooking time is also helpful for people who can't stand too long. Which leads me into the noodling.

I really should have been, and I am very sorry I did not, over the last decade plus of this blog, taken accessibility in the kitchen into consideration as a default mode. This came to my attention when a friend posted this article (shared with her from Terri Lynne Hudson) on social media and I ask that you please read and share it. Minced Words looks like it's going to be a regular column and I will be signal boosting and referencing.

Many people love Alton Brown and one of his fans' favorite things to quote is his strong dislike of the unitaskers in the kitchen, unless it's a fire extinguisher. He has a point, if you're able-bodied. Nobody should be shamed for using something that makes it possible for you to do something that you couldn't otherwise. So the hell with that nonsense. 

Think about this: how many things do you use in your kitchen that you take for granted that can be helpful to a disabled person? Things to open jars comes to mind first--things that help you grip are a life saver for someone with arthritis. Silicone rings on your mixing bowls to keep them from slipping. 

Most recipes out there don't take such things into consideration as what you might be able to lift, how long you can stand, what you can grip. Bad on all of us recipe bloggers out there. We can do better. 

We also need to stop shaming people for buying ingredients that might be pre-peeled or pre-cut or in jars. Using those things doesn't make anyone less of a cook. 

I need to do some more research regarding where I can do better here. I will try to mention what tools I'm using and what might be helpful for someone with disabilities and limitations. If you have ideas, comments are welcome.

......................

Back to the scallops, if that isn't too jarring a segue, because I did want to share this with you.

The plan was scallops over a bed of arugula with a sauce of white wine, butter, and lemon. Side of quinoa with Parmesan and pepper. For the sauce:

• 1 Tablespoon of salted butter
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon, which is about 2 Tablespoons
• 1 Cup of white wine, this was sauvignon blanc, which I've been drinking a lot of lately. Actually, I'm drinking white wine spritzers. The 1980's are coming back to haunt me. 
• A few grinds of black pepper (or shakes, depending on what you have)
• 1 Tablespoon of capers, drained and rinsed. I use a teacup that came with its own mesh strainer to drain and rinse capers. 

I melted the butter on low heat, then slowly stirred in the wine and the lemon, letting it simmer while I made some quinoa (half a Cup, dry) in the rice cooker, which is my current favorite convenience tool. When the quinoa was almost ready, I brought the heat up to medium high until it boiled, then dropped the heat to low so I could reduce it some more. It tasted nicely tart.

For serving, I put a handful of arugula on a plate, then when the quinoa was finished I stirred in some a Tablespoon of butter, 3/4 of a cup of Parmesan. It stayed warm in the rice cooker's bowl while I zapped the scallops. 

Once I plated the scallops, I put the capers in the sauce and added it. It didn't quite reduce as much as I wanted. It was a bit too tart at first, but as it ran all over the plate and into the quinoa, something interesting happened. The saltiness from the cheese seeped into the sauce and about halfway through the meal, everything together on the fork was a perfect mouthful.

Maybe a little less lemon next time anyway.