Konichiwa dear people o’ the Internet.
Today we are exploring the first part of a two-part series taken from the pages of Vogue Entertaining October / November 1989 with a gorgeous Japanese snack plate.
On the plate today we have Japanese Fried Chicken, Prawn Canapé’s, Radish Canapés, edamame beans, wasabi and mayo! This is so pretty, perfect for a Spring brunch!
The magazine comes from a time when ingenious recipes and inventive ideas may have involved giving your guests a bowl of roses to munch on. Yummy!
Roses aside, we are putting some Spring flavours in full bloom on today’s Japanese snack plate. Just as an aside though, guess which day the J key on my laptop decided to break, meaning it had to be hit about four times harder than all the other keys. The sound track for the writing of this post was tap, tap, tap THUMP tap, tap, tap THUMP.
Minor typing difficulties aside, lets turn our attention to some hors d’œuvres for our Japanese snack plate.
Japanese Stuffed Radishes
Could not be simpler and the crunchy peppery radish is delicious with the salty punch of the caviar. Simply slice your radish down the middle of the stem, then scoop out a small hollow in your radish and fill with caviar. I think nowadays if you were making this you would use tobiko instead of normal caviar but maybe that was readily available in 1989. Come to think of it, I have no idea if it is readily available now!
Stuffed Prawns
Pardon me for having two things stuffed with caviar in this post but seeing as I had to buy it specially, I wanted to get some bang for my buck. Also, if it was good enough for Vogue Entertaining in 1989 its good enough for me!
This is also very tasty with this time a contrast between the sweet prawn meat and the salty caviar. Add a dob of pungent wasabi and some creamy mayo and you have perfection! The original recipe had the prawn heads left on. I took mine off. I just think it is easier to eat with head and shells gone.
It is important to skewer the prawns so they stay straight.
To make these you will need:
- 12 medium green king prawns
- 2 tsp salt
- 25g black caviar
Place a satay stick through the body of each prawn to keep it straight. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Drop the prawns in and cook for 3-5 minutes. Remove from the water and leave to cool.
Remove the satay sticks and remove the heads and shells, leaving the tail. Split the prawns down the back with a sharp knife and remove the digestive tracts. Fill the tract cavity with a little caviar. Repeat.
Soy and Ginger Edamame (loosely adapted from A Moveable Feast by Katy Holder)
These are not from Vogue Entertaining Oct /November 1989 but make a tasty and colourful addition to the snack plate.
- 200g edamame in pods
- 1/2 tbsp Japanese rice vinegar
- 1/2 tbsp light olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp mirin
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp grated ginger
- pinch of sugar
Cook the edamame in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and refresh under cold water. Pop the beans from their pods. Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl, stirring well to dissolve the sugar. Pour over the edamame and sit for at least an hour to let the flavours absorb. Strain and add to the plate.
Japanese Fried Chicken
I did not make this for the snack plate. We had it for dinner the night before but I made extra so we could have it on the plate. This is so good. Huh…it’s fried chicken, like it was ever going to be bad! This was great hot from the fryer in the evening and also super eaten cold the next day – it was not too greasy like a lot of fried chicken as leftovers and still quite crispy, although it is not a thick southern style coating.
Here’s the recipe!
Japanese Fried Chicken
A delicious Japanese take on fried chicken
Ingredients
- 500g chicken breast meat, skin on
- 3 tsp freshly grated ginger
- 1 clove garlic, chopped finely
- 1 spring onion chopped finely
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp Japanese soy sauce
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tsp wasabi paste
- 1 small dried chilli, chopped
- pinch of black pepper
- 1 egg white, lightly beaten
- 2/3 cup cornflour
- vegetable oil for deep frying
- Mayonnaise, wasabi to serve
Instructions
- Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.
- Make a marinade of the ginger, garlic, spring onion, sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, pepper and chilli.
- Marinate the chicken for at least 1 1/2 hours.
- Mix eggwhite and cornflour well.
- Add the chicken and marinate.
- Heat the oil.
- Deep-fry spoonfuls of the chicken mixture until golden brown.
- Drain onto crushed kitchen paper and keep hot whilst the rest of the mixture is cooked.
- To serve, spread on platter with dobs of mayo and wasabi
That’s it from me, have a great week!
