Cooking
Chan chan yaki takes three superb ingredients and adds sautéed veggies and a glug of sake for a fast, filling, salty-sweet dinner.
When I pitched this recipe for chan chan yaki — miso butter salmon — to Genevieve Ko, New York Times Cooking’s recipe wizard (and deputy editor), she lit up. “Three of my favorite things: miso, butter and salmon!” she said. And that’s how I feel, too, about this recipe that I adapted from one by Marc Matsumoto. (Marc’s a Tokyo-based food personality who, along with running his recipe blog, No Recipes, is a co-host of the charming “Bento Expo” show on NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster.) An easy dinner built on three flavorful, über-umami ingredients — what’s not to love?
What I really appreciate about this recipe, though, is how the vegetables are built in as a bed for your miso-buttered salmon. I tested the dish with cabbage, carrots, onion and enoki mushrooms, but I’ve also added slivered ginger and will try corn in my next go-round for summery flair. Everything cooks in one deep skillet, but I don’t really consider it a one-pot meal because I must have rice to soak up all that delicious sauce. I love this recipe — my first for New York Times Cooking! — and I’m thrilled to share it with you. If you cook it, please tag me in your Instagram photos (I’m @mcleimkuhler) so I can cheer on your chan chan yaki.
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Chan Chan Yaki
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With the miso and the sake, chan chan yaki nails that salty-sweet combination that makes so many dishes irresistible. It’s the same flavor profile that draws me to Rick Martínez’s grilled lemongrass pork and Nicole Taylor’s peach and molasses chicken. The pork is Rick’s take on thịt heo nướng xả, the aromatic grilled pork dish popular in many Vietnamese restaurants in the United States, and gets its lip-smackingness from a potent dipping sauce of lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, chile and garlic. The sauce for Nicole’s chicken balances peach jam and molasses with soy sauce and ground mustard. (Just throwing it out there that Steve, a reader, swapped in fresh peaches for the jam, which sounds superb.)
We can’t talk about salty-sweet without talking sweet summer produce and, well, salt. David Tanis’s marinated cherry tomatoes on toast is an excellent excuse to grab that beautiful basket of multicolored tomatoes and to swing by your favorite bakery for its crustiest loaf. There’s no salt needed for Naz Deravian’s beautiful, supremely refreshing agua frescas, but they are exactly what I want to be gulping down with something salty like elotes or a BLT.
Lastly, I don’t know if bland-spicy is a real flavor combination, but I certainly love it. Case in point: these cheesy potato breakfast tacos from Kristina Felix, which pump up bland potatoes and eggs with poblanos, cheese and a fantastic salsa negra (smoky garlic and walnut salsa). Kristina notes that as long as it’s refrigerated and the oil doesn’t go rancid, the salsa will keep indefinitely in the fridge, ready for quesadillas and nachos and avocado toasts and breakfast burritos.