Burdock root wrapped in prosciutto プロシュート巻きごぼうの照煮

This is a modification of a Japanese recipe. Japanese really like to wrap cylindrical vegetables in meat or ham. I read a recipe in which whole burdock root or gobo 牛蒡 was first simmered in seasoned broth and then wrapped in thinly sliced pork belly and cooked in "teriyaki" 照り焼きsauce. Since I bought a package of gobo which contained 2 good sized root stalks, I needed to come up with new way of serving it. So, inspired by the recipe I had read I made this wrapped gobo. Since I didn't have thinly sliced pork belly, I used prosciutto as the wrap. This was the first dish for one evening. It went fairly well with the red wine we were having.

I used whole gobo cooked skin on.

Since I also made my usual "Kinpira-gobo"金平ごぼう, I served it as well.

Ingredients (for 2 servings seen above):
Gobo, three 3 inch lengths, skin scrubbed with a vegetable brush but skin not removed.

For initial cooking:
3-400 ml of water
1 tbs rice vinegar

For final cooking
Japanese dash broth about 300 ml (I used my usual bonito flakes and kelp dash pack)
Soy sauce, 1 tbs
Mirin 1 tbs
Sake 1tbs

Prosciutto, three slices

For Teriyaki sauce
Soy sauce 2 tbs
Sugar 2 tsp (Optional, I did not use).
Mirin 2tbs
Sake 2 tbs

Directions:
1. Cook the pieces in water with vinegar (to prevent darkening) for 10 minutes on low flame.
2. Wash the pieces in cold running water and cook it in plain water for 10 minutes to remove the vinegar taste (water may turn dark).
3. Simmer in the seasoned dash broth for another 10 minutes (#1) and let it cool down in the broth.
4. Separate one thin slice of prosciutto (#2) and wrap the gobo (#3 and #4)

5. In a dry non-stick frying pan, brown the prosciutto starting with the seam side down (#5).
6 Add the teriyaki sauce and cook shaking and rolling the gobo rolls until the sauce thickened (#6).
7. Let it cool and cut each gobo roll into 4 pieces and serve.

Despite the rather long cooking the gobo maintains a nice crunch and the prosciutto added nice flavor as well as some saltiness. I could have used more prosciutto to make a thicker layer but this was just fine as it was. The original recipe used thinly sliced pork belly which may have been better but we really liked this version.