Chicken Patties with Ginger and Sesame Seeds with Korean Dipping Sauce {and a cookbook winner}!!

Over at I Heart Cooking Clubs we are welcoming in Madhur Jaffrey.  For the next six months we will be cooking and sharing one of her recipes each week.   We are a very flexible cooking group so if you feel like jumping in once or twice, or more often, feel free to join us.  Jaffrey has a huge selection to chose from!

If this first recipe is any indication of how great Jaffrey's recipes are then I'm off to a great start!  These little Chicken Patties with Ginger and Sesame Seeds are from Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking book.  While Jaffrey is widely known for her Indian cooking books, the Step-by-Step book is focused mainly on recipes from the Far East (Indonesian, Thai, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese).  When I page through my copy of this book I literally want to make everything, however, it was this recipe for these chicken patties that caught my attention the most.  And I'm so glad they did!

These patties are delightfully seasoned with garlic, scallion, ginger, roasted sesame seeds, sesame oil and soy sauce.  The best part....they are so juicy!  Of course, you cannot make these without pairing them with the Korean Dipping Sauce.  I could literally drink that sauce.  These little chicken patties disappeared in no time flat.  We wished there were more of them!

Jaffrey says these can be served up as an appetizer, alongside rice with the sauce drizzled on top as a main course, or as a hamburger on a bun with the sauce drizzled on top.  Any way you serve them they are delicious.

Chicken Patties with Ginger and Sesame Seeds

Tak Kogi Sopsanjok

Makes 6 patties

1 scallion

1 large garlic clove

1-inch cube fresh ginger

1 pound ground chicken

1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds*

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce or shoyu

freshly ground black pepper

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Korean dipping sauce *

1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

fresh cilantro sprigs, for garnish 

Cut the scallion crosswise into very fine rounds along its entire length, including the green section.  Peel and mince the garlic.  Peel and finely grate the ginger.  Put the chicken in a bowl.  Add the scallion, garlic, ginger, roasted sesame seeds, sesame oil, soy sauce, black pepper, and chili powder.  Mix thoroughly. 

Shape the mixture into 6 patties, each about 3-1/2 inches in diameter.  Put them in a single layer on a plate and cover with plastic wrap.  Set the patties aside until you are ready to eat.  Prepare the Korean Dipping Sauce (recipe below).

Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with the oil and set over a medium-high heat.  When hot, add the patties and cook for 1- 1-1/2 minutes or until golden brown underneath.  Turn the patties over and cook the other side for the same time.  Turn the heat to medium and cook the patties for another minute or longer on each side, until browned and cooked through.  To test, pierce the center with the point of a sharp knife - if meat is no longer pink inside, the patties are cooked.  Serve hot, garnished with sprigs of cilantro if you like. 

Korean Dipping Sauce

Yang Nyum Jang

Serves 4

1 small garlic clove

1 scallion

4 tablespoons soy sauce, preferably Japanese shoyu

2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds*

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

Peel and mince the garlic.  Cut the scallion into very thin rounds.  Combine the garlic, 1 tablespoon sliced scallion, the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, sesame seeds, and chili powder in a small serving bowl and mix well.

*To roast sesame seeds: Set a small cast-iron frying pan over a medium-low heat.  When hot, add 1 to 3 tablespoons sesame seeds.  Stir them until they turn a shade darker and give out a wonderful roasted aroma.  You could turn down the heat slightly when they do this, or cover the pan loosely.  Remove the seeds from the pan as soon as they are done.  You may roast sesame seeds in advance, cool, then store in a screw-topped jar for 2 to 3 weeks, though they are best freshly roasted.
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And now for winner of the Muy Bueno Cookbook!!

Congratulations to Teresa from A Blog About Food!  I'm so happy you won!!
 I will send you an email for your information and the publisher will send you a copy of the book.
*I used the random number generator to decide the winner and the random number was number 8.     

Theme: Welcome Madhur Jaffrey