Japanese Foods--nabe

[torakris]

Just for clarification: Did they mean that the deli slicers couldn't be used because of cross-contamination? Or did they mean that the machines themselves weren't usable for raw meat due to code?

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I don't remember, it was about 12 years ago, I just remember they couldn't use them.

[SuzySushi]

Just for clarification: Did they mean that the deli slicers couldn't be used because of cross-contamination? Or did they mean that the machines themselves weren't usable for raw meat due to code?

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I would think that cross-contamination would be the problem.

FYI, because of the high percentage of Asian-background population in Hawaii, all the supermarkets here sell packages of beef, pork, and sometimes even chicken sliced for sukiyaki, teriyaki, shabu-shabu, etc. (different thicknesses). It's impossible to get lamb sliced that way, which I was able to find in Chinatown in NYC, because lamb is not very popular here.

BUT, I encountered a reverse cross-contamination issue. When I wanted the butcher to slice a whole ham, he couldn't do it because the ham was already cooked. I had to take the ham to the deli department to do on their cold-cuts slicer!

[sanrensho]

I would think that cross-contamination would be the problem.

That was my assumption, too. But the thought crossed my mind that the deli slicers might not be considered "safe" for cutting raw food. Due to reasons such as cleaning, etc.

[torakris]

lazy nabe

Premade chicken meatballs with Chinese cabbage, carrots, negi (Japanese bunching onion), konnyaku and mizuna, the broth was also a purchased product made with stock form Hinaiji-dori chickens. The broth was so good that you needed nothingelse but a little shichimi (seven spice mix) for a kick.

[smallworld]

Motsunabe, a specialty of Fukuoka, at Koganeyain Shibuya.

"Motsu" is a general term for variety meats, but the motsu in motsubabe is always beef intestine. Koganeya prepares their motsu in such a way that even people like me, who normaly can't eat organ meats, can eat it. And it's actually really good.

See my blog for a more complete description of the meal.

[jeniac42]

I have a general question about donabe. The Chinese market near my house sells pots that look like donabe, and I saw upthread that these might be less durable than the Japanese type. That's fine by me, because they only cost US$3 to $6.

Now... they have both glazed and unglazed types. Are the unglazed ones really horoku? Which type should I buy for making nabe?

Also, is it safe to use them on an electric burner? I don't have a gas stove and can't afford to buy a portable burner right now. I will be getting one for next winter, though.

[helenjp]

Is it safe to use them on an electric burner? I used to work in a Chinese grocery store, and that was the million dollar question. The answer is, maybe. A thin nabe of poor-quality clay is quite likely to crack or break. Even good ones are earthenware, not china.

Lots of do-nabe showing glazing inside and out, with the unglazed portion on the bottom.

There are do-nabe made for use with IH cookers - they have a special carbonized coating or insert, haven't seen one so not sure. They may suit you, especially as they have a flat bottom.

However, I have also used 1) an electric frypan with a lid, 2) a shallow, enameled pan with lid, and 3) Yamamoto-nabe

Mine doesn't look like that photo though, it's a sandwich-style steel/aluminum/steel pan shaped like a flat-bottomed wok, with a flared edge at the top to cool boiling liquids and prevent overflow.

[Kuma]

konban-wa.

We had Shabu-shabu tonight, cooked in my old Fondue set - it seems to work well for the purpose, however.

We had beef filet, regular button mushrooms (darn supermarket was out of ALL exotic mushrooms - no enoki or matsutake for us tonight), bok-choy, spring onion, carrot, & snow-peas.

Sauces were a commercial Ponzu (I am desperate, but unable to find Yuzu in Sydney, and lemon juice is just not the same) and a home-made sesame sauce.

Now, the big question.... We always beat an egg each and use it as a dip a' la sukiyaki, but is this the done thing ? We like to have it, as we always tip the leftover egg into the broth at the end to finish off the soup nicely. I think the egg at the end is correct (as are udon, yes?), but I don't think anyone dips the meat into the egg first, or do they?

We love this dish so much we are buying a rotating blade deli-slicer in order to shave the frozen beef more thinly than we can with a knife. I'm good, but I'm not Hiroyuki Sakai

Cheers,

Rob.

[torakris]

I have never seen anyone dip their shabu shabu in an egg but that doesn't mean that it isn't done somewhere.....

[Hiroyuki]

Me either, but I did find a restaurant "Ajimori" in Kagoshima city, Kyushu, where you dip your meat in a beaten egg.

From here

まるで「すきやき」のように地たまごにつけて食す黒豚しゃぶしゃぶは絶品。

[Kuma]

I might need some help with translation, Hiroyuki, as Google translation gae me this:

Quite like " the sukiyaki " the area cartridge attaching, as  for the black pig plain gauze ぶ plain gauze ぶ which it eats the  paragon.

Gotta love Google Translation !

[Hiroyuki]

I might need some help with translation, Hiroyuki, as Google translation gae me this:

Quite like " the sukiyaki " the area cartridge attaching, as  for the black pig plain gauze ぶ plain gauze ぶ which it eats the  paragon.

Gotta love Google Translation !

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OK, how is this:

Kuro buta (black pig) shabu shabu, which you eat by dipping it in locally produced eggs just as you do with "sukiyaki", is excellent.

[Kuma]

ありがて　ございます Hiroyuki, my Nihongo is poor to say the least !

[herbacidal]

Now, the big question....  We always beat an egg each and use it as a dip a' la sukiyaki, but is this the done thing ?  We like to have it, as we always tip the leftover egg into the broth at the end to finish off the soup nicely.  I think the egg at the end is correct (as are udon, yes?), but I don't think anyone dips the meat into the egg first, or do they?

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I believe Chinese do the egg for the meat for our version, but it's been a while since I've done it, so I'm not sure.

[tissue]

I like adding rice in the end w/ the egg for porridge rather than w/ udon.

[torakris]

I saw a commercial last night for a new nabe base product from Ebara:

Tan tan goma nabe

Tan tan men is a popular spicy noodle dishes that you can in many ramen shops, I have never used a bottled base for a nabe before but this one looks very tempting.

Here is a photo by someone who has tried it.

[Hiroyuki]

After reading through a couple recipes here is a general description.

This would be best cooked in a donabe (clay pot) at the table but could be made in a wide saucepan on the stove.

Figure about 100 to 200grams (about 1/4 to 1/2 lb) thinly sliced pork per person and a half a bunch of spinach per person.

Fill the pan with 2 to 4 cups of water and add a piece of kombu (kelp), turn on the heat and bring just to a simmer, removing the kombu before it starts to boil, then add sake to equal the amount of water added, some recipes call for less sake. At this point you can also add ginger and or garlic (minced, sliced or whole your preference) and let this simmer for a little while to burn off some of the alcohol.

It can either be eaten shabushabu style where diners dip the food into the pot themselves until desried doneness or it can be eaten regular nabe style where all the ingredients are cooked together and and diners pick out what they want.

Other additions to the nabe can be shiitake, enoki, aburage, negi (long scallions) or thin noodles.

It seems to be me most commonly eaten with either ponzu or goma sauce, but I did see soem recipes just calling for shichimi. Other recipes also added some soy sauce to the broth or used dashi instead of the konbu.

I am not sure if it is specific to one region or not, I can't find it mentioned anywhere so I am assuming not really...

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I made joya nabe for supper last night, for the very first time. I tried the water to sake ratio of 1:1. Unfortunately, it wasn't a hit with my wife or children. They all said it smelled of sake. I myself found it not particularly tasty. I will try a sake-less recipe some day.

For ingredients, I used a bunch of spinatch, thinly sliced pork, tofu, and enoki. We had it with ponzu.

[Joon]

Hey everyone,

I went to the local Japanese market here (NJ), Mitsuwa and saw some beautiful wagyu beef. It was so fatty that I just had to buy it. It sort of looks like this: http://images26.fotki.com/v895/photos/7/75...0056Edit-vi.jpg

There were two different packges labeled Sukiyaki and Shabu Shabu, but the cuts and shapes of the beef looked identical.

Since this beef is so expensive, I want to make sure I do the right thing with it. What would you guys recommend? Shabu or sukiyaki? I'm a little hesitant to take this great beef and 'boil' it, but then it's so thin that i can't conceive of grilling it either.

Any good recipes would be appreciated also.

Thank you!

[torakris]

Which one did you buy? The shabu shabu cut or the sukiyaki cut? It may not be noticeable at first but the shabu shabu cut is thinner. Shabu shabu is far from "boiled" the meat is swished around in the hot water (not boiling) for just a second or two then pulled out and dipped into a sauce of choice (usually a ponzu or sesame sauce).

The thicker sukiyaki cut doesn't work as well as shabu shabu because it takes longer to cook. In contrast the delicate shabu shabu cut is often too thin to stand up to the stir fry then simmer in the sukiyaki pot.

Neither cut is meant for grilling.

You could also use the sukiyaki cut in niku-jyaga.

[rykomatsu]

Expanding on what Torakris said in regards to shabu shabu, if you overdo wagyu in shabu shabu, you might as well get regular beef. it's so marbled that the oil melts into the pot really quickly so if you leave it in there for too long, you're pretty much "converting" it down to lower grade beef

[rykomatsu]

Not sure if too many people who frequent this section have had this, but it's a fun (well...it CAN be funny in retrospect) culinary event...aaand if you haven't done this before, I encourage you to try with no hard feelings

Yami nabe (闇鍋) isn't an official hot pot per se...there's no official recipe...no official soup stock...hell there isn't even any official ingredients to add. It translates directly as "Darkness hotpot". This can be done in a few ways, the gist of it is, what you're going to be eating is shrouded in darkness until it reaches your mouth. One trustworthy person can collect the ingredients in secrecy, cook, then serve to everyone while the room's dark, or you can keep the room dark the entire time and everyone will just dump their items in and hope that everything gets into the pot. I'm sure there are other variations, though these are the 2 that I participated in.

Adding items in during the dark isn't safe...period. One of our friends couldn't pinpoint where the pot was, tripped on the table corner, and fell on the pot. 2 people got second degree burns (ie. blisters). Upon fumbling around and tripping on other household items trying to get to the light switch, we saw what was supposed to be our dinner: strawberries, squid, natto, inago (look like grasshoppers/crickets), some oden items, tofu, ground nagaimo, and rakkyo...not a very good looking combination...

The second time we did this, we had one person go around and collect everything and served it in a covered bowl, then turned the lights off...considering no spills, this actually wasn't too bad. Little did we know the horrors that awaited us. Most of the items seemed normal; chikuwa, tofu, sliced pork or beef...the less appealing items were sliced kiwi (i suspect it was the same person who brought strawberries previously), liver, gizzard, chex. But this wasn't the worst...unbeknownst to us, there was a sadistic soul in our group who decided to have a little too much fun and mess around with what was inside kinchaku (the thing that looks like a small purse in oden). I ended up with one filled with a whole tube of wasabi One of the guys ended up with one filled with mochi and Dave's insanity sauce...another filled with baby food...and yet another filled with Ika no shiokara (squid fermented with its guts...this alone with rice is very good). My face was red and was drinking water non-stop for a while to get the burning out of my mouth...my friend was doing the same except he made the mistake of using the same napkin he used to wipe the corner of his mouth with to wipe the tears from his eyes and his eyes became swollen (from dave's insanity sauce) and well...it was a dinner disaster.

Fast forward a few years to now...it was a fun experience and I encourage you guys with courage (and trustworthy friends) to try this

[_john]

I have never tried this but I really want to. Thats why I am planning a Yami Age party! Everything will be fried on skewers a la kushi katsu. I'm bringing strawberries, shhh don't tell my guests.

[torakris]

I have never tried this but I really want to. Thats why I am planning a Yami Age party! Everything will be fried on skewers a la kushi katsu. I'm bringing strawberries, shhh don't tell my guests.

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You aren't actually going to deep fry in the dark though, are you?!

That sounds more dangerous than the nabe version.

This sounds like something I would have really enjoyed back when I was in college...

[_john]

not in the dark! The coating will hopefully mask the shape of the food a little. The idea is that everyone will bring a few things. skewers and pre-made coating will be available. then each person dips there own item and fries it. Arrange all the skewers on a platter covered with foil and have the ends of the skewers sticking out. Then you have to take one at random. I'm imposing a rule that you have to bring at least one item that is a standard "good" item. I will make two sauces. One will be the standard kushi katsu sauce and the other will be chocolate.

[_john]

I'm a month late for nabe no hi (nabe day) but I recently bought this cool nabe because I have been wanting to have some nabe parties. I live alone so I don't eat nabe very often but there are lots of dishes I want to try. One thing I want to try, that was in vogue this year, is cooking rice in my nabe. It has straight sides so I think it would be suitable for cooking rice. Does anyone else do this? My rice cooker has been broken for almost a year so I am very used to cooking rice on the stove top. why not use the donabe?