Please Keep Trying!

Living four blocks from an Asian grocery store can be good and bad. Good in that I don’t need to go far to pick up some satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) or dashi (fish and seaweed broth). Bad because I find myself buying stuff I may or may not use. Case in point: arrowroot powder.

Over Christmas break, I spent my free time translating Japanese wagashi recipes off the .jp. One recipe called for kuzu (kudzu to Americans) powder. Kuzu ko is really tough to get in the Midwest, but arrowroot powder is a fantastic substitute for it, if you can find it. Keep in mind I didn’t have much interest in actually making this particular wagashi, I just had a great time translating the recipe. But one day, while I was at the Asian grocery store, lo and behold, there’s a shiny bag of arrowroot powder for only $2.50!! OMG! Must buy! And it’s been on my shelf ever since, unopened and unused.

Sometimes, though, I find something at the Asian grocery which changes the way I look at food forever. That’s what happened last week when I reached into the freezer at Jay’s for some kamaboko and saw a giant bag of chicken wings. These weren’t any ordinary chicken wings. These chicken wings were from the manufacturer, VegeUSA, of my favorite fake meat products. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing were fake chicken drumsticks (they looked more like wings). Everything about them looked pretty authentic. They even had a frick’n bone in the way of a dowel rod! I then experienced the same MUST BUY urge I usually get when I’m about to purchase something I have no use for. Fighting the urge, I was about to stuff the “wings” back into their icy abode when the price jumped off the freezer shelf: $6.95. Holy crap! $6.95 for three pounds of “meat”?!! OMG!! MUST BUY!!!!

Driving home and feeling a mixture of shame and curiosity over my MBP (must buy purchase), I vowed to make a fitting meal with the lil’ buggers. I used a bulgogi recipe as a base for a Korean style barbecue sauce and grilled the drumsticks/wings in the oven at 430 degrees. First, I cooked them till the “skin” was crispy, then I simply treated them like any other barbecued meat and brushed them with a generous helping of sauce. All I have to say is, they were sooooo wrong but soooo right. The meat has a fantastic texture, right down to the crispy skin. The dowel rod gives the illusion of a bone, but is thankfully, not too realistic. It was one of the best meals I’ve had in a while, and the drumsticks are filling at only 90 calories a piece. Now that’s a bargain!

The next time I used the chicken, I made hot wings. Yes, hot wings. And they were so tasty and so sinful (not really, I used soy butter, so nah, nah, not a sin!) I wanted to share my ficken (fake chicken) experience with you because I still can’t believe VegeUSA makes frick’n chicken legs/ wings/ whatever. If I wanted to (and I do) I can make Japanese recipes which call for chicken. I haven’t posted any niku (meat) recipes, besides those containing fish, on The Anime Blog. Chikin sukiyaki and yakitori here I come!