Chicken nanban is fried chicken that's been briefly marinated in a sweet-sour-salty and slightly spicy sauce or dressing called nanban sauce. The recipe for basic, make-ahead-and-stock nanban sauce is over on Just Hungry. Normally chicken nanban is deep-fried, but my bento friendly versions are either shallow-fried or simply panfried, cutting down a bit on the fat as well as avoiding the Fear of Frying that many people have. Quite a lot of popular Japanese bentos have deep fried items in them, but I usually to re-interpret the recipes so that they can be pan-fried or shallow-fried. (The chicken karaage that I have in the book for example is shallow-fried in a frying pan.)
Chicken nanban is often served smothered with tartare sauce. I don't think that's appropriate for bentos, but you can pack a little container of mayo with a few dill pickle slices or small cornichons with your chicken nanban, to have the flavors of tartare sauce in deconstructed form so to speak.. Tabasco is an interesting addition if you like things spicy.
The photo below shows the lower-fat pan-fried chicken nanban on the left, and the shallow fried chicken nanban on the right. They both taste great, though the shallow fried chicken nanban is closer to the original. (After the photo shoot this ended up being my lunch as-is, with a bit of nanban sauce drizzled on the lettuce as a dressing. It was terrific.)
Japanese, chicken, bento-friendly A panfried version of a popular Japanese chicken dish that us normally deep fried. The sour-sweet-salty nanban sauce is the key. This still has the nanban flavors, but leaves out the batter coating.
chicken, japanese, bento-friendly This version of chicken nanban is shallow-fried in a frying pan. It has the thin egg-batter coating that is characteristic of the deep friedchicken nanban you get in restaurants.
I've been craving sour flavors recently for some reason (and no I'm not pregnant ^_^;), which means that I've been making nanban foods quite a bit. The word _nanban_ uses the kanji characters for 'south' and 'savage', meaning savages who come from the south. It was originally used to refer to the Portuguese, the first non-Asian foreigners to land on Japanese soil. Later it came to refer all foreigners except for long-time neighbors China and Korea - or in other words, the Europeans. I guess to the Japanese of the 16th century or so, those white people looked like otherworldly savages! In any case, it seems that the Portuguese had some kind of dish that had sour flavors (I haven't been able to pin down what that dish might have been - if anyone has a clue let me know), and so the term 'nanban' came to be used for any dish had a combination of sweet/sour/salty and often spicy-hot flavors.
Nanban sauce or vinegar is most commonly used for nanban dishes. For instance Chicken nanban is a dish that originated at a popular restaurant in Miyazaki prefecture in the southern island of Kyuushuu back in the 1950s, and is basically battered deep fried chicken that's been doused in this sauce and served with a ton of of tartare sauce. It was popular in Kyuushuu for decades, but only became well known nationwide in the last decade or so when it became a popular item on _famiresu_ (family restaurant) menus, as well as in convenience store bentos. _Wakasaki no nanban zuke_ is another popular dish, consisting of small, whole ice fish (which are a bit like little sardines) that are deep fried and doused in nanban sauce with lots of shredded vegetables. Nanban sauce can also be used on noodles, or with either cooked or raw vegetables. It makes an unusual salad dressing.
I'll have specific recipes that use nanban sauce later on, but I wanted to write down the basic recipes so I can point to them instead of repeating them over and over. There are almost as many nanban sauce recipes as there are households and restaurants that make nanban dishes, but here I have three variations. Just pick the one that looks the most appealing to you. Any one of them can be kept for at least week or two in the refrigerator.
An alcohol-free (no mirin) version of a versatile Japanese vinegar based sauce that can be used as a marinade, dipping sauce, dressing and more (Since classic nanban sauce is not cooked for a long time, it still has some alcohol in it, which may be a concern if you're going to use it as a dipping sauce or dressing.) The honey in this adds an interesting dimension. See Recipe no. 1 for ingredient descriptions.
Try out this non-recipe: Heat up some leftover fried chicken until hot in the oven. Even KFC will do. Douse the hot chicken in some nanban sauce, and let cool again. This is really nice for bentos and picnics.
Hi Maki--Thank you so much for your recipes! You economical japanese cooking has got us through some hard times. We had an idea to marinate chicken in nanban before giving it the karaage treatment. This is because we're out of soy sauce/sake and we're moving house soon so the nanban has got to go. Houw would would marinating chicken in nanban before deep frying turn out?
If you think that this sounds a lot like escabeche, you'd be right. The Portuguese brought Peixe Frito de Escabeche to Japan in the mid 17th century along with other fried dishes such as Peixinhos Da Horta (better known as Tempura). The term "nanban" was originally used to refer to these European traders and missionaries, so nanbanzuké simply means "soaked European-style"
JuJust as the Portuguese dish evolved after arriving in Japan, Chicken Nanban has seen its share of changes as it spread back around the globe. Most recipes today have you prepare a flour or starch-coated Karaage, which is then soaked in sweet and sour nanban sauce. While it's hard to go wrong with marinated fried chicken, the original recipe is simpler, yet the crisp, fluffy tendrils of egg coating the chicken are what make the dish so magical. Like a meringue, the egg makes an incredibly light batter that's both adept at soaking up the Nanban sauce while disappearing into a pool of flavor as the strands of egg dissolve in your mouth. Topped with a chunky lemon tartar sauce, the contrast of tastes and textures is sublime.
Wow! I had chicken nanban for the very first time on Friday and I was very interested in knowing where this recipe originated. It's actually quite a westernized dish at first sight. Thanks for the history lesson! I have to try this at home. By the way, can I use mirin in the nanban sauce in replace of the sake?
During the latter half of the sixteenth century, the image of Portuguese arriving in Japanese ports is strong, but from the above it can be seen that among the lords of Kyushu, trade was becoming popular with Southeast Asian mainland countries such as Siam and Cambodia. At the same time, the nanban trade with the Portuguese based in Macao was also beginning, and to entice Portuguese vessels, it became necessary to allow missionary activities in their domains and to protect the missionaries, even though they may not have converted to Christianity themselves (Elison 1998).
For someone engaged in trade and commerce in Nagasaki, for example, to gain greater profits, it would have been necessary to become close to the missionaries, which is to say to become a Christian. It is worth noting the fact that Kōzen had already achieved a good relationship with the Jesuits as early as 1565. When he participated in the nanban trade begun by the Jesuits for their financial support, he served as a trade agent for distributing goods within Japan, possibly expanding his financial power and network.
Their birthdates and backgrounds were all unclear in the Japanese records, but their ages in 1601 are given in Spanish materials kept at the Mexican General National Archive (De Sousa 2015). According to that source, Gotō Sōin (baptismal name Thomé) was 44, Takagi Ryōka (baptismal name Luís) was 47 and Machida Sōka (baptismal name João) was 45. There is no information given for Takashima Shirobei Ryōetsu (baptismal name Jeronimo). In the same records Machida Sōka (known in Portuguese and Spanish materials as Moro João) was a sea captain from the 1580s sailing between Macao and Nagasaki and also owned a house in Macao. It is unclear if Sōka captained a Japanese ship or a ship within a Portuguese fleet, but at that time many of the Portuguese nanban ships sailing between Macao and Nagasaki had numerous Japanese among their crews, and Sōka is thought to have been in charge of those Japanese sailors (De Sousa 2010).
To summarize, in the early period of early modern Nagasaki, nearly all of the raw silk brought by vessels led by the Capitão Mor from Macao passed through the hands of the Jesuits to be distributed among Japanese merchants. Following the above passage is a description of how Japanese merchants, administrators and senior officials all consigned their capital to Portuguese ships through the Jesuit friars in order to buy the goods they sought. In other words, the core of the nanban trade was a system in which goods from Portuguese ships and Japanese capital were exchanged though the brokerage of the Jesuits (Oka 2010b).
The primary momentum for the nanban trade was the need for importing military matériel in the Age of Civil Wars. Japanese history merged with the great trends of world history, probably leading to many social changes. In this period, Japan and Southeast Asia were linked by many routes through many intermediaries, and the trade between Macao and Japan was probably one of them.
The opening of the port of Nagasaki provided the opportunity for linking Japan with the world beyond Southeast Asia, and the imprints of the activities of those traders deeply remain in modern Japan in the form of nanban culture, with resonances in food, clothing, art and so on.
Various sword and spear blades are known with inscriptions of them being made of nanban tetsu. Swordsmiths like Hizen Tadayoshi, Kunikiyo, and Yasutsugu and were known to use this steel for their swords and inscribe it on the tangs. See for example a Yasutsugu auctioned at Christie's.
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