Nabemono 鍋物

Nabe 鍋 means "pot". Nabemono is an all inclusive term of any hot pot dish but often the dish itself is called "nabe". Any dish you cook (usually on the table) in a pot (most often earthenware) with broth is called "nabe" or "nabemono". Sukiyaki  すき焼き, shabu-shabu しゃぶしゃぶ and oden おでん may be considered types of nabe in a broad sense but I do not think it is appropriate to include them in "nabemono". Depending on the ingredients and seasoning of the broth, you have many variations and many names of "nabe". Whatever the name, in cold winter days, nabemono is one of the most comforting  and warming dishes. The types of broth seasonings could be;

1) Dashi without seasoning; When your broth is not seasoned, you use a dipping sauce such as ponzu. Tarachirinabe タラちり鍋. Mizutaki 鶏の水炊き, and Yudoufu 湯豆腐 are three such examples.

2) Dashi and soy sauce based; Yosebabe 寄せ鍋 is the best example.

3) Dashi and miso based; Chankonabe  ちゃんこ鍋, Ishikarinabe 石狩鍋, and Dotenabe 土手鍋 are three such examples.

Since other ingredients will impart lots of flavor to the broth, the starting broth is usually a simple kelp broth. In terms of the ingredients, you could limit them to only a few items (like yudoufu in which only tofu or tofu and nappa cabbage are usually used) or you could add anything including sea food, meat, vegetables, tofu, fish cake and more, as is done in chankonabe and yosenabe. There are no rules (although there are some guide lines). The name of the nabe changes based on the ingredients, locality, and types of broth.

Here is one example I made one evening in a small one person pot. I am not sure what I should call this. A type of yosenabe but I used mostly vegetables and at the very end decided to add shrimp. I first made dashi from kelp and a "dashi pack". This is like a tea bag but instead of tea, combination of pulverized bonito flakes, dried fish and kelp (there are several different kinds) are placed in the bag. It is much better than granulated instant dashi but still very convenient. I seasoned the broth with mirin, sake and soy sauce (to taste, since I did not measure). I started with the ingredients which take the longest time to cook. In my case, I added daikon (halved and thinly sliced) and carrot (sliced a bit thicker than the daikon) first, then after 10 minutes or so, I added the white part of Nappa cabbage or Hakusai 白菜, tofu 豆腐, followed by (after 5 minutes) maitake mushroom 舞茸, green parts of Nappa, scallion, and finally shrimp.

The ingredients I could have added include fish (usually a white meat, hardy fish such as cod), chicken (cut up thigh meat), fish cakes, and shell fish. As a condiment, I used seven flavored Japanese red pepper powder 七味唐辛子. To finish the meal, I could have added cooked rice to make porridge, or noodles such as udon noodles but I was too full just eating the items I cooked. Traditionally, warm sake is the choice of drink but we like cold sake even in winter and with nabe.

Baked cornmeal drumett "tulip" 手羽元チュウリップのコーンミールオーブン焼き

I bought chicken wings over the weekend but we did not use them. I marinated them in sake and kept them in the refrigerator so that they would stay fresh for several more days. Since it was not feasible to grill them over a charcoal fire on a weeknight - not to mention that it is getting too cold and dark to barbecue after we get home, I baked them in the oven to make a Yakitori style dish. I decided to do a slightly more elaborate preparation of the drumetts and made "tulips".

It appears this "tulip" preparation is more popular in Japan than here. First, I cut off the wing tips (discard) and then separate the wings and drumetts. For making a drumett "tulip" (here is a visual aid), just loosen the meat from the bone and nick the skin around the joint so that skin and meat can be pushed down and inverted making a "tulip" shaped meat on one end with bone sticking out as a convenient handle. Naturally, I could have deep fried them but I decided to bake them in the oven instead. To make it slightly more interesting, I added a cornmeal crust.

I just evenly coated the the drumett tulips with light olive oil (using my hands) and season with salt and pepper. I made a mixture of yellow cornmeal and potato starch (about 4:1 ratio) and dredged the chicken. I prepped the wings as usual making a cut beween the bones through the skin and seasoned with salt and pepper. I placed the wings and drumetts on a baking sheet with a raised metal rack (I let the drumett tulips stand up with the meat side down). I baked them in a preheated 450F convection oven (very hot) on the top rack for 20-25 minutes until the surface is golden brown as seen in the above picture.

I served this with wedges of lemon and moromi cucumber. It is a bit healthier than deep frying and the cornmeal flavor is kind of nice. 

Snap peas in dashi broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし

This is a very healthy and refreshing small dish which goes well with sake or any drink. Recently, Dave Perry recommended two Izakaya cookbooks to me called "Otsumami Yokocho" おつまみ横町. There are two volumes. Both are called "drinking snack alley". The second is distinguished from the first by the additional phrase in the title of  "Mou ikken"  もう一軒 meaning "one more place". This is an appropriate name for the second volume because this phrase is a classic nagging request made by drinking enthusiasts (read; drunkards) who have finished their first rounds but don't want the bar hopping to end..."just one more place". In any case, I got these books from Amazon Japan (The shipping was more than the cost of the books). These two volumes each contain recipes for 185 small dishes which go well with drinks. Many of the dishes are rather simple (or easy to make) and some are not really new or original but the two volumes still contain a good number of dishes that I would like to try (and post) - thank you Dave, I can continue my blog a bit longer. This is the first such dish (page 12 of the second volume). 

Disclaimer: As usual, I often read these recipes but then I end up doing whatever feels right for me, so the end result may be different from what is described in the books.

Snap peas, Japanese name is "sunappu endou" スナップ豌豆, is the hybrid developed in the U.S. but very popular in Japan as well. We like it more than snow peas. This is a rather simple but elegant and healthy dish especially for an Izakaya snack and also taste good.

I removed both ends of the snap peas and blanched them in salted boiling water for several minutes, until cooked but still crunchy. I drained and put in ice water to stop cooking. I drained again and patted dry with a paper towel.

I made a broth from a dashi pack (kelp and bonito in a tea bag) and added salt to taste. I let the broth cool to room temperature and then refrigerated. I added the above blanched snap peas to the broth and let it marinate in the refreigerator overnight.

It has nice crunch. It has a sweet taste (enhanced by mild saltiness in the broth) with subtle dashi flavor. You feel good eating this, a totally guilt free drinking snack. You can have this instead of edamame 枝豆.

Pork loin Barbecue 豚のロースのバーベキュー

Pork is definitely the most popular meat in Japan, at least, when I was there (especially in my parents' household). Most of the time Japanese use thin slices or ground pork rather than a big hunks of the meat. Japanese style thinly sliced pork belly 三枚肉 is most commonly used in Japanese dishes but it is not easily available here in US. More recently, it appears that roasts including pork roast is getting popular in Japan. Although I posted a dish using leftover roasted pork, I decide to post it again with more details.

The cut of pork we got was a loin. I trussed it (lower left) first. I then cut thin slivers of garlic (5-6 cloves). Using a boning knife, I make 1-2 inch deep multiple slits in the meat and inserted the garlic slivers (below, right). You should make sure all the garlic slivers were completely inserted into the meat so that it will no burn on the surface.

I smeared olive oil all over the pork and applied my dry rub consisting of salt, pepper, clove, cinnamon and cumin (below, left). I use an equal amount of salt, pepper, and cumin and less amount of cinnamon and clove but this is totally up to your taste. Like my chicken, I hot smoke and babecue in a Weber using indirect heat. I put a temperature probe to the middle of the meat and when it registers 145-150F, I take it off the weber (below, right) and cover it loosely with aluminum foil and let it sit for 10-15 minutes on a plate. I remove the trusses, slice, and served it with its own juice accumulated in the plate on which the pork was resting. The Crust has nice flavors and au jus is also very nice and we can only have au jus when it was just barbecued.

This time, I served the pork with ratatouille (I made this the day before) and mashed sweet potato. My wife made the sweet potato. The sweet potatoes were cooked in the same Weber with the pork, covered with aluminum foil. She added butter, chopped chives, and soy sauce (Yes, soy sauce). I did not remove the garlic from the slices of pork but if you use it for sandwich, it may be wise to remove the garlic from the roast as you slice it. As you can easily imagine, the leftover pork is very handy to have for the weekdays.

Braised Daikon green and Jako 大根葉とじゃこの炒め物

This is another one of those small nothing dishes which goes so well with sake and goes even better with hot white rice. I mentioned before that the daikon we see in the U.S. usually does not have the greens attached. But this weekend, I got one that did. When I get diakon greens, I try to make some kind of small dish from them. This is a variation on the same theme. This time, I braised them with small semi-dried and salted fish hatchlings called "chirimenjako" 縮緬雑魚 or "jako" for short.

These daikon greens were a bit on the tough side as you can see from the picture--the stalks are thick. So I blanched them in salted water first (for 2 minutes) and shocked them in ice cold water to bring back the bright green color. If the greens are tender, you can skip the blanching process. I squeezed out the excess water and chopped them finely. In a frying pan, I heated 1/2 tbs of dark sesame oil and saute one package (probably 3-4 tbs) of frozen "jako" and sauteed until they were slightly brown and crunchy. You may want to taste the "jako" at this point since the saltiness may vary quite a bit and the amount of soy sauce needs to be adjusted accordingly. I then added the blanched and chopped daikon greens and sauteed for 1-2 minutes. I added 2 tsp of sake, 1 tsp of mirin and 1-2 tsp of soy sauce.  I braised until the liquid was almost gone. You could mix in roasted white sesame seeds as well. I made this one a bit too salty so this is better with hot white rice. Just mix it in and enjoy.

Rice with butter and soy sauce バーター醤油ご飯

This may not be post-worthy but I realized this represents a regional way of eating rice peculiar to the "Hokkaido dialect" of Japanese food culture and may be worthwhile to "document". Although many Japanese really appreciate (or pretend to appreciate) simply cooked white rice for its subtle flavors, many Japanese children and Westerners find it boring. (Many Japanese adults may also harbor the same opinion privately but do not want to appear unsophisticated or childish by expressing it). Even those who appreciate plain white rice sometimes want additional seasoning.

Furikake seasoning ふりかけ is the mixed seasoning used for this very purpose. It is very popular even in the U.S., and many different varieties are available; some are made specifically for kids and some are for adults. I even know somebody who uses furikake to season cottage cheese (Could that somebody possibly be my wife?). I made the big mistake, early in our marriage, of showing my wife, the way I used to eat rice when I was a kid. I just added a pat of butter to hot rice, let the butter melt first and then mixed in soy sauce as seen below. It had been a long time since I had rice that way. My wife immediately took a liking to it and this is her favorite way of eating fresh, piping hot, white rice. In horror at what I had unleashed I had to warn her about the impropriety of enthusiastically putting together her "favorite" rice at a restaurant. While eating rice for dinner at my mother's house in Sapporo, I reminded my mother of how she used to serve butter and soy sauce rice to me as a kid and how I had made the mistake of introducing my wife to the dish. My mother abruptly put down her chopsticks, got the butter out of the refrigerator, distributed it all around followed by the soy sauce. While mixing the ingredients into her rice she mentioned she used to eat her rice like that as a kid but hadn't eaten it in a long time. She took a bite, sighed and said it sure was good! 

I thought this was a fairly common way for Japanese (especially kids) to eat white rice but apparently that is not the case. This appears to be peculiar to Hokkaido. I guess that makes sense since dairy and specifically butter production are primary industries in Hokkaido.

It is always a bit iffy to season plain white rice in public by doing such things as pouring soy sauce, broth or simmering sauce from, say simmered fish 煮 魚 or miso soup over the rice. But many Japanese will do exactly that in private. If I pour miso soup over my rice, I would call it にゃんこめし meaning "cat rice" but, for people from other regions of Japan, "cat rice" is rice topped with bonio flakes and soy sauce and, they may call it "nekomanma" ねこまんま (the meaning is the same, i.e., "cat rice"). The fact that there is a specific name for this type of rice (albeit a bit derogatory) indicates many Japanese are eating rice in this (unacceptable) manner.  I do not recommend doing this in public, however. Why such doctoring of rice is frowned upon by Japanese is "not logical" as Mr. Spock would say. After all, many donburi どんぶり dishes are made using rice in a seasoned broth with toppings and dishes called hiyajiru 冷や汁 and ochazuke お茶漬け are indeed rice in a broth. It appears that as long as it is prepared in the kitchen or is meant to be consumed this way, it is a "legitimate" dish and can be eaten in public. But if you improvise at the table by pouring soup over rice, it is not OK; go figure. I think there was a lengthy discussion on this subject (in Japanese).

If you have not tried this butter soy sauce rice, I strongly suggest you try it, at least once, and let me know if you like it. You could eat this with seasoned and roasted nori "ajitsuke (yaki) nori" 味付け(焼き)海苔 which was my favorite way of eating rice as a kid (and even now). I am not responsible if you find the comforting flavor of this dish addicting.

Japanese-style chicken curry 日本風チキンカレー

"Curry and rice" or "Kareraisu" カレーライス (or sometimes called "Raisukare" ライスカレー) has been an extremely popular "national" dish in Japan for some time. I assume curry was introduced in the late 19th century to Japan by the British, who brought it from their colonial India. I thought Japanese curry was based on the British version made with brown roux and premixed curry powder. There is one more interesting (at least for me) factoid concerning "Kareraisu".  It has to do with Dr. William Smith Clark. He was an American from Massachusetts who came to Japan at the bequest of the Japanese Government to establish the Sapporo Agricultural College 札幌農学校, the predecessor of my alma mater Hokkaido University 北海道大学. He served as president of the college albeit briefly (for 8 months). Despite his short tenure, he had an enormous influence on his young Japanese students, Japanese society and particularly Hokkaido. He is credited with introducing New England style modern dairy agriculture to Hokkaido. Reportedly, he also came up with the idea of putting potatoes in curry. He was said to have discouraged the consumption of rice by his students at the school dormitory (he must have thought white rice was causing vitamin B1 deficiency or beriberi.) The one exception to his interdiction against white rice was when it was served as "Kareraisu". He apparently really liked curry and rice.

Dr. Clark's parting words to the students who came to see him off at a place known as "Hitsujigaoka" 羊ヶ丘 or "Sheep hill" in Sapporo was "Boys, Be ambitious". This became the motto for Hokkaido University as well as general encouragement for young boys in Japan. (The entire phrase was "Boys, Be ambitious like this old man". Thankfully the egotism "like this old man" was left off the Hokkaido University motto). His statue on the campus used to be a major tourist's attraction but is less so now that access is restricted to foot traffic. His statue on the famous Sheep Hill is more easily accessible and more popular. On one of our first trips after our marriage to Hokkaido, I took my bride for a reverent visit to the statue at Sheep Hill. She was significantly underwhelmed. She took one look at the statue with its motto and said "only Boys...really?" She then scanned the pasture with its few obligatory sheep scattered about in keeping with hill's name and dubbed the place "that tourist attraction where they keep a few sheep on leashes." (I sure can digress!)

In any case, going back to curry, even when I was living in Japan, some more authentic Indian curry restaurants were opening up. Now, in many cities in Japan, you have many authentic (I suppose) and diverse ethnic curry restaurants. But the Japanese style curry is still popular in Japan and it will not disappear any time soon (I hope). As a sign of the popularity of Japanese curry, commercial Japanese curry roux is even available in a regular American supermarket. I occasionally make my own curry sauce based on brown roux and a Japanese curry powder (supplemented by other spices such as toasted mustard seeds, cinnamon, cumin etc), but the problem is the smell of the spices while being dry roasted linger in the house for several days. So this time, I made this curry using a S&B brand curry roux. My only modification to this Japanese curry is using whole bone-in, skin-less chicken thighs instead of small pieces of meat which is common in Japanese curry.  The vegetables to be used include onion, carrot and, of course, potato to be authentic Japanese curry. 

First, I removed skin and excess fat from the thighs. I dredged them in a mixture of curry powder (again S&B) and AP flour (the proportion is arbitrary but I used 1 tsp of curry powder to 1/4 cup of flour) in a Ziploc bag. I brown the surface of the meat in a large saute pan on high heat with olive oil, turning once for 5 or so minutes per side. I removed the chicken and placed it in a separate stock pot or Dutch oven. I added roughly chopped onion to the saute pan and sauteed for several minutes and de-grazed using a small amount of chicken broth. I added this to the pot with the chicken thighs and added chicken broth (my usual Swanson reduced salt no-fat kind) and water (about half and half to prevent it from being too salty) to cover. I added potatoes (I used small red potatoes with the skin on, eyes removed) and carrot. (The amounts of vegetable and liquid are arbitrary but please refer to the package instructions of the curry roux for the appropriate ratio of the roux and liquid.) I simmered it for 30 minutes with two bay leaves (optional). I dissolved the curry roux and simmered for another 5 minutes.

The classic Japanese condiments to curry are pickled "rakkyou" らっきょう (left) and "fukushinzuke" 福神漬け (right in the back). I had the last of the homemade pickled myouga 茗荷, which was added as well (middle).

Using bone-in whole thighs is easier than cutting up the chicken in small pieces. It also appears to add more flavor to the dish. One of the problems of using the commercial curry roux may be the amount of saturated fat and salt it contains but it tastes really good nonetheless. A good sturdy red wine will be our choice of libation here. We had Worthy 2006 which went well with curry.