Rectified?!?! Damn near…waitaminut, that joke won’t work at all.  Oh well, look kids, GOJIRA!!!!!

I took this yesterday while at Senso-ji in Asakusa, Tokyo.

(Please note I have not had time to do any post processing or cleanup on this image.)

After what feels like the travel day from Hell I am settled at my hotel, the Grand Prince Asakasa for those of you who are wondering, and about to head to bed. Before that I thought I would share this:

The view from my hotel window.

After getting settled, showered and changing clothes I decided to acquaint myself with the neighborhood. I can’t remember where I read it, and am too lazy to consult the Google machine, but whoever said the best way to get to know a city is to get lost in a city is absolutely right. I LOVE going for walks in strange cities, particularly at night when the streets are alive with people leaving work or going on dates. I like to wander aimlessly through the streets and just get a sense of the crowds.

Tonight I did that for a bit before I stopped at a convenience store and picked up dinner:

Yummy! Now it is time for bed so I can take advantage of the not shitty weather tomorrow. I plan on hitting Hakone for the day.

…life is good.

First I would like to know who, exactly, demanded this?  It is all kinds of awesome and I may have to try and track some down during my upcoming trip to Tokyo.  Second I would like to know how it tastes?  Is to good wine?  Regardless I think I have found a Christmas gift for a couple of you who may or may not be reading this.

If you need more Hello Kitty in your life then I suggest you check out the internet’s number one source for Hello Kitty ephemera, and tattoos, Hello Kitty Hell.  I will leave you with this image which makes me happy to no end:

Sorry about that, we’re here to talk about food so let us get on with that, shall we?

Since I live alone and do not mind eating the same leftovers for a week I am a big fan of the single-pot meal so when I found this recipe I knew I would have to give it a spin.

• 8 pieces of chicken (I use drumsticks and thighs)
• 4 medium potatoes
• 2 onions
• 1 carrot
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 tbsp gochujang (hot pepper paste)
• 2 tbsp gochukaru (red pepper flakes)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 cups of water

The recipe also called for 1 or 2 jalapenos, some green onions for garnish and some ginger.  I forgot about the green onions and ginger and decided to skip the jalapenos as they say Tex-Mex to me and I wanted to keep this dish as Korean as possible.  Also I figured the gochujang and gochukaru would provide more than enough heat.  Turns out I was right.

• The first thing I did was peel the potatoes and carrot, cutting them in to rather large pieces.
• I did the same with the onion
• I then combined all of the ingredients in the pot, starting with the chicken on the bottom and tossing the vegetables in on top.
• I followed up with the garlic, sugar, soy sauce, gochujang, gochukaru and then the water to wash all of this down through the vegetables and over the chicken.
• Cook over a medium flame for 30 to 40 minutes.  While the recipe did not call for it, I stirred the pot a few times to get some of the vegetables down into the water and the chicken off the bottom of the pot.  I was not happy with where things stood at this point so I let things cook for another 10 minutes or so.

Some of the recipes I have seen suggest serving this with rice however I think the potatoes provide more than enough starch for this meal so I skipped it this time.  If I was feeding more people, like I will be on Monday night, I would have served it over rice.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and then consume!

I was REALLY pleased with this dish.  It turned out pretty much exactly the way I expected with the potatoes absorbing most of the flavor from the gochujang/gochukaru.  There is definitely heat to this dish however it is an burn on the front end rather than a lingering burn.

In the future I want to work on adapting this recipe to work in a slow cooker as I was a little disappointed with the fact that the chicken did not absorb much, if any, of the flavors in the stew.  A longer cook should fix that.

Add a pinch of salt. Bring water to a boil. For one serve of EDAMAME use 3-4 times the amount of water.  Cook uncovered for 3-4 minutes. Stir occasionally. Drain well. Sprinkle with salt and remove a pod to eat.

Since the serving size is 1/2 cup and I was preparing about 2 cups, I grabbed my medium sauce pan and filled it about 2/3rds full with water.  From there I followed the directions and am VERY happy with the results!  About the only thing I would change is to use salt that has a heftier grain to it and drain the edamame a bit better before salting and consuming them.

When cooking with rice my first step is to ALWAYS clean the rice.  To do this I pour a little more rice than is called for into a bowl and add enough cold water to cover the rice with an inch or two to spare.  I then agitate the rice with my fingers for a bit.  The water will become milky.  I pour off the water and repeat until the water remains mostly clear.  I then leave a little water in the bowl with the rice and allow it to soak until I am ready to use the rice.  I have found using washed and soaked rice results in a cleaner taste and allows my crappy little rice cooker to do a MUCH better job of cooking the rice.

On the left is a picture of the water at the beginning of the washing, on the right is a picture of the final result.

Once the rice is cleaned and soaking it is time to move on to the chicken itself.  I washed the bird thoroughly inside and out, discarding the giblets.  Some of the recipes I read suggested you lightly salt the bird at this point however the recipe I was following made no mention of this so I skipped it.  When the bird was clean I returned my attention to the rice, draining it and mixing the garlic cloves and jujubes to the rice.  I pinched the rootlets off of the ginseng roots and set them aside.  The ginseng roots went into the chicken first followed by the rice combination.  At this point I was a little concerned since the rice mixture filled the cavity pretty well and I knew the rice would expand as it cooked.  With visions of an exploded chicken in my head I decided to leave a bit of the rice out to allow some space for expansion.  As it turns out I did not leave enough room and there were some escapees during the cooking.  Rather than sew the cavity shut I tacked it shut with some toothpicks, which will go right through chicken and my finger thank you very much.  I placed the stuffed chicken in my pot and poured the requisite 9 cups of water over the bird.  The chicken wanted to float a little so I went ahead and added another cup or so of water and then tossed the ginseng rootlets in the pot, covered everything up and turned on the heat.

I checked the bird at about 10 minutes and ladled some of the fat and schmutz off the top of the water.  At 30 minutes I checked again, removing more of the goop from the top of the water.  At this point I was a little concerned about how well my cooking was going.  In C(h)ristine’s recipe she notes that after 30 minutes the broth should have reduced by half however mine had barely reduced by a quarter.  At this point I was torn between the “need” to have the broth reduce and the worry about over-cooking the bird.  I decided to leave the heat where it was for another 15 minutes or so and then reduce the heat and let the bird simmer for another 45 minutes.  Here are the before and after pictures:

All in all I am pleased with this first attempt however I was shocked at how bland the dish ended up being.  In the future I think I will try the following:

• Massage a little salt in to the bird right after cleaning
• Score and cut up the ginseng root a bit more to expose more surface area
• Have the heat at a higher setting for the first 30 minutes of cooking to properly reduce the broth

As I was writing this culinary adventure I discovered there is a local Korean place which serves this dish so I am going to go and check it out to see, perhaps I did everything right and the dish is just a bit bland.