04/20 Dinner: KFC

Tonight we ordered KFC for dinner. I was inspired by an entry from Obachan's Kitchen, a wonderful blog I frequent.

This is KFC's gozansho chicken, flavoured with sesame, sanshou (a spice similar to Szechuan pepper), and soy sauce. Each piece comes in a cute bag that lets you eat with your hands without getting greasy.

How does gozansho compare to the regular secret blend of eleven herbs and spices? Well, I haven't had KFC in years so maybe I just don't remember it, but I like gozansho way better. I knew I would- I think sanshou is great with chicken. Especially greasy chicken. When I eat kara-age (Japanese fried chicken) I always dip it in a blend of sansho and salt. If you've never had it that way, try it.

My husband also had a couple of little yaki-onigiri (grilled rice balls), one flavoured with matcha and the other with sesame. I didn't order any salad or coleslaw, figuring I could make one myself with what was in the fridge for a quarter of the price. And I was fully intending to do so, but the damn order arrived so fast that I didn't have time. As warned by Obachan in the link above, I didn't want the chicken to get cold, so I didn't bother with the salad.

And that was my dinner: a few pieces of fried chicken. Serves me right for being a cheapskate.

Comments

[obachan]

Hi Amy,
Thanks for visiting my site the other day and also mentioning about my KFC entory here. You know what I just noticed? In the matcha flavored onigiri that I had in Kochi, I found tiny bits that looked like roughly chopped edamame. But I don't see anything like that in your matcha onigiri... hmmmmm....local difference??

[Amy]

A local difference? I don't think so- our onigiri probably came from the same factory!
Anyway, the matcha one did have some green bits. We couldn't figure out what they were because they tasted of nothing. But they were a bit darker than edamame so I thought they might be green peas.

[queen t]

thanks for the link (to obachan). i have a interest in japanese food, but due to my eating habits (vegan), i don't have a chance to experience as much J-food as I would like. i will definitely keep coming back to see what i can mimic with substitute

[Amy]

Hi Queen T,

Being vegan in Japan must be a huge challenge. I used to be a vegetarian (hard to believe with all the meaty food I post about, but it's true) so I can sympathise somewhat.

Obachan is great. I have some more good food blogs listed in my links (bottom right of this page). Nothing directly related to veganism is Japan, but two worth checking out are:
Kimchi Jon's Exotica Blog, by an American vegetarian into Asian food http://www.kimchijon.blogspot.com/
101 Cookbooks, a vegetarian woman trying out her extensive cookbook collection http://www.101cookbooks.com/

Another great site is Yasuko-san's Home Cooking. She has plenty of traditional healthy Japanese recipes, and many of them can be made vegan simply by using dried shiitake stock instead of regular dashi (and she does have a recipe for shiitake stock. http://www.nsknet.or.jp/~chrkaji/yasuko/index_e.html

Happy cooking!