Chicken and Egg

Cold winter nights call for warm comforting food, savoury flavours, a deep richness. Being a fan of all things fried, crumbed, dredged and satisfying in their unctuousness, schnitzel makes quite a showing over the colder days, not that there seem to be many this winter, pork is always one of my favourites, especially with lashing of nose tingling hot mustard, chicken is a close second, a breast butterflied and crumbed is probably the best use for that piece of meat, it’s cooked quickly and stays juicy even though thin, thighs work just as well but are a little bit more work.

There’s not a whole to the flavour of chicken, so it’s best to use it as foil to build on, in this case I was really going for an umami bomb. The chicken is dredged in seasoned flour, then dipped in an egg wash laced with shiro miso, and coated in seasoned panko. I like to keep the oil I fry in quite neutral, butter just messes up the flavour, I did contemplate it though, so grape-seed was used, a good half inch deep, don’t skimp, it prevents burning and having enough oil ensures you can keep a good temp and stop the coating soaking it up due to temp drops. The chicken should only take a couple of minutes each side, when golden remove to a rack.

While the chicken rests to the side heat up a skillet with a knob of butter and spoon of shiro miso, when the bubbling subsides give the pan a swirl and slide a cracked egg in. cook until the whites are set and yolk runny. Place the cooked chicken on a plate and slide the egg, miso buttery pan juices and all, on top and finish with a grate of some aged sharp salty cheese.

Potatoes baked with cream

I haven’t abandoned the blog, it’s been awhile since my last decent sized post, but not a whole heap of cooking or experimenting has been going on recently, time and other commitments keeping me occupied, and to top it all off, I fractured a tiny bone in my wrist which has ended up with my arm in a brace and the simple tasks of slicing or even lifting the smallest weights is painful and impossible. It certainly makes me appreciate the ease I normally have with even the simplest of tasks, like being able to successfully use a knife and not be menace with it, not knowing which way it’s going to slip because I can’t apply the right pressure. Thank goodness for the Mandoline I say! At least with this great little kitchen gadget I can still whip up one of my favourite comfort dishes, layers of thin potato and onion smothered in thyme infused cream and baked to a golden cheesy goodness.

There’s not too much to this, butter to coat the dish, floury potatoes, garlic (if you wish), onions, cream and thyme, with it being so simple I find taking the little bit extra effort carefully layering everything quite rewarding in the end result, a compact slice of cheesy potatoes rather than a sloppy mess.


Get some cream in a pot with the thyme and garlic and bring it up to the boil, remove from the heat and let the herbs infuse. Slice the potatoes and onions on the thinnest setting of the mandoline. Not too hard. Now carefully place a layer of potatoes in the bottom of a greased dish, having each slice slightly overlapping, next a thin layer of onions, and then season with salt and pepper. Repeat this until the dish is full or you have run out, make sure to end on a potato layer. Pour over the cream, it should cover the potatoes when pushed down. Cook in a 180°C oven for 45-60 minutes, cranking up the heat near the end to get a nice golden crust. Rest on the bench for at least 10 minutes before serving.


The miso egg yolk finally made it’s way out of the cure, and is dehydrating slowly in the fridge, I have a few plans for this amber gem, so do expect a post on that in the coming weeks. Also we’re heading up to the big little city for a long weekend, avoiding the easter crush though, and am looking forward to eating far too much, and quite excited to finally get to a few places I've been champing at the bit to try.

Miso cured egg

I've certainly posted my fair share of egg related posts, cured in salt, brined, cooked under pressure, slow cooked and this one is no different. I've been curious about using miso to cure food for a while but have never taken that next step beyond curiosity, in fact the idea for the whole thing had been sitting in my head for a good two years, ever since reading a post on one of my favourite blogs, Playing with Fire and Water, the author had written about Egg yolk cheese, the idea was intriguing and promptly filed to the dark recesses of my brain never to be heard from again, well until recently and then there was some rather frantic googling and trying to figure out where I saw the method.



The egg yolk is still encased in miso, sitting in my fridge just waiting to be released from it's fermented tomb, the egg was first cooked at 65°C for about an hour then placed in an ice bath until cool and the yolk carefully separated from the albumen. So I don't know yet what it's going to taste like, but my experience with salt cured yolks (which was cured raw) tells me it's likely to be pretty damn delicious, and miso really only makes things better, well most things anyway. So another week in the miso, and probably a few more weeks hanging in the fridge to dry out, I'm sure another post will pop up, I just need to figure out what I'm going to have with it.

Dr Pepper-Miso Marinated Short Ribs

I wish I had got a better photo of these ribs, they were sweet, salty, savoury awesomeness, and devoured too quickly for the pause of a good photo, but hey what are looks, it’s all about the taste right?

Dr Pepper is a guilty pleasure, it’s a excellent cure for a night of overindulgence, which I probably do more than is better for me, but I hadn’t thought to use it as an ingredient in my cooking until the seemingly odd combination of miso and the soda popped into my head. Salty umami laden miso combined with fruity sweet soda paired with some slow cooked rich red meat, it seemed kind of wrong but I couldn’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work.

1 Rack of short ribs
1 Can of Dr Pepper (reduced to 125 ml)
2 tsp Miso paste (shiro)
½ tsp Chilli flakes
1 tsp Cider vinegar
Splash, dash or glug of oil

Slice the rack part way down the meat between the ribs (or whatever serving size you choose) to allow the marinade to work in a bit deeper.

Combine all the ingredients and check the seasoning, adjusting either with more miso or a dash of salt. Marinade the beef for up to 24 hours.


Slice a red onion, and dice a couple of carrots and place in an oven-proof dish, lay the marinaded beef on top and pour over the remaining marinade. Cover with tinfoil and cook at 140–150°C for 3 hours.

When cooked carefully remove the ribs and set aside, get a heavy baking sheet in the oven and crank up the heat to 220°C, when up to temp place the ribs on the heated pan and cook for 10–15 minutes to give a nice crust, but be careful not to dry out the meat.

While the beef cooks pass the cooked vegetables and any juices through mouli adjust the seasoning and use it as a sauce for the ribs.

Dashi with Miso noodles and Hamine egg

Sometimes an idea stays dormant in my head for quite awhile, in fact this one has managed to stick around since august last year. I came across Hamine eggs on a post about hacking electric pressure cookers Dave Arnold had written for Cooking Issues, it was a small part of the whole article but something about those light brown eggs drew me in, I knew I had to try them. The idea got locked away into the ‘will try it eventually’ part of my brain, waiting for something to bring it to the forefront again.

We had a long drive to do a little (as possible) work on a farm in the weekend, I took along Ideas in Food to read on the way up. Flicking my way through, reading what caught my eye, I came across a recipe for miso noodles, they sounded delicious, and then the thought popped into my head, I could make a cool miso soup, where the miso is noodles, I had a bit of Kombu in the pantry to make Dashi with, and had just bought some blond miso. But noodles and Dashi weren’t enough for me, so I was thinking what else to have with it, do I want to take hours cooking pork, or some shredded chicken or fish, I could speed up the pork with the pressure cooker, or eggs! Hamine eggs would be perfect to try with the noodle broth.


Hamine Eggs
Boil eggs for 5 minutes and then cook on high pressure for 50 minutes
Let the pressure drop naturally, otherwise the eggs may explode. They can be done traditionally too, but take 24 hours or so.


Shitake Dashi
2 Litres Water
25 gram Kombu
20 grams Shitake
1 bunch of spring onion

• Bring the water up to 65°C and steep the Kombu for 1 hour, holding the temperature at 65°C
• Pulverise the Shitake into a powder with food processor.
• Simmer the Shitake powder and spring onion (whites and roots, reserve the green part) for 60 minutes.
• Strain, season with fish sauce and light soy sauce.

Miso Pasta (Ideas in Food)
1 egg
55 grams miso (blond)
225 grams flour
75 grams water

• Mix the egg, water and miso in a bowl.
• Pour the flour into another bowl, make a well in the centre and pour the liquid in.
• Mix together, forming a dough, tip out onto the bench and knead for about 5 minutes.
• Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
• Divide the dough in two.
• Roll out one half using a machine, or by hand.
  
• Run through a pasta cutter.
• Set noodles aside and work on the other half of the dough.

Cook the noodles for a couple of minutes and transfer to a serving bowl, top with a egg cut in half and sliced greens of the spring onion, ladle over the Dashi.