Chicken and Lotus Root Patties (Renkon Tsukune)

Method

1. 1Cut and soak the lotus root. Peel the lotus root. You need 150 g after peeling, so buy about 200 g. Cut half of it (75 g) into dice of 5 to 7 mm and chop the other half finely, to 2 to 3 mm. The dice stay crunchy in the patties and the fine pieces fill the spaces between them. Put both into a small bowl of cold water and leave them for 5 minutes, which stops the cut lotus root from turning brown.
2. 2Get the scallions, the ginger and the dip ready. While the lotus root soaks, thinly slice the 2 scallion stalks. You want about 2 tbsp. Finely grate the 5 g of ginger, which gives about 1 tsp. In a small dish, stir the 1 tbsp of soy sauce with the 2 tsp of rice vinegar for the dip and set it aside. When the 5 minutes are up, drain the lotus root in a sieve and leave it there to drip.
3. 3Chop the chicken. Use skinless, boneless chicken breast. On the cutting board, cut the 300 g of chicken breast into slices 1 cm thick, the slices into strips 1 cm wide and the strips across into 1 cm cubes. Now chop through the pile with the knife until about half of the chicken has turned into a coarse, sticky mince that smears on the board, and the rest is still in separate pieces of up to 1 cm. The mince helps the patties hold together, and the pieces keep them juicy and give them bite. Scrape the chicken into a medium mixing bowl. Then wash the board, the knife and your hands with soap before you touch the dip or anything else that will not be cooked.
4. 4Mix. Pat the drained lotus root dry with paper towels. The pieces should still be cream-white and the towel should come away only damp, because wet lotus root makes the mixture runny. Add the lotus root to the chicken with the scallions, the ginger, the 18 g of potato starch (2 level tbsp), the 1 tbsp of mayonnaise, the 1 tbsp of sake and the 2 g of salt (⅓ tsp). Mix with a spoon for about 1 minute. Stop when the mixture is sticky and you can see no dry starch. It will be loose, too soft to shape in your hands, and that is how it should be: the patties are shaped in the pan and hold together once the underside has set. The potato starch binds them, and the mayonnaise is there for a softer patty.
5. 5Shape the first 4 patties in the pan. Use a 26 cm nonstick frying pan with a lid. With the spoon, mark the mixture in the bowl into 3 equal parts. Each part makes 4 patties of about 43 g, 12 in all. Heat 1 tsp of the vegetable oil, a third of the 1 tbsp, in the pan over medium heat for 1 minute, until the oil runs thin when you tilt the pan. Take up a quarter of one part with a spoon, push it off into the pan with a second spoon and press it flat with the back of the spoon into a disc about 6 cm across and 1.5 cm thick. Do the same with 3 more, about 2 cm apart, so there is room to get a spatula under each one. Fry for 3 minutes over medium heat, without the lid and without moving them. They are ready to turn when the underside is golden brown and a patty slides when you nudge it with the spatula. Before that the top is still raw and a patty breaks if you lift it.
6. 6Turn, steam and check. Turn the 4 patties over with the spatula. Pour 1 tbsp of the water into the pan at the edge, not over the patties, put the lid on at once and turn the heat down to low. The water spits when it hits the hot pan, so have the lid ready in your other hand. Cook for 4 minutes. The steam cooks the centre through before the lean breast dries out. Take the lid off, turn the heat back up to medium and fry for 1 minute more, until no water is left in the pan, the patties sizzle again and there are no beads of moisture on top. Lift one with the spatula: the underside should be golden too. The centre of a patty must reach 74 °C. Without a thermometer, break one open: the chicken should be white and opaque right through, with no pink, and the juices should run clear. If the centre is still pink or under 74 °C, put the lid back on and cook over low heat for 1 to 2 minutes more, then check again. Move the patties to a plate lined with paper towels.
7. 7Fry the other 8 and serve. Fry the rest of the mixture in 2 more batches of 4, each with 1 tsp of the vegetable oil and 1 tbsp of the water: 3 minutes over medium heat without the lid, then 4 minutes over low heat under the lid with the water, then 1 minute over medium heat with the lid off. The pan is hotter now, so look at the underside after 2 minutes. Check one patty from each batch the same way, by thermometer or by breaking it open, and give the batch the extra 1 to 2 minutes under the lid if it needs them. Serve the patties when the last batch is done, 6 per person, with the dip on the side. The first ones will have cooled a little by then, which does them no harm.