Nikujaga

Tags

beef stew, black yam cake, fish cake, Japan Centre, Japanese beef stew, Japanese food in London, konnyaku, kuro konnyaku, London, nikujaga, takebue chikuwa

Cousin Hannah brought her friend from college with her for a weekend visit who happens to be a foreign exchange student from Japan; and knowing that I’m half-Japanese, she promptly requested a meal to remind her of home as soon as I offered to make her anything she wanted for dinner – it was nikujaga.

Niku means meat and jaga means potato, this dish is simply the Japanese version of meat and potato stew. It changes regionally and from household to household but the same basic flavors shine through – just the amounts of each ingredient tend to change slightly. The add-in’s also change and for fun, we added fish cakes (takebue chikuwa) , black yam cakes (kuro konnyaku), something that we just happened to find out recently that we could finally get in the UK  and tofu.

a small, finished portion

For those shopping for fresh, fridge and freezer Japanese foods in the UK and don’t know of an Asian shop that stocks Japanese ingredients or don’t have one, Japan Centre offers shipping of these items out of their main store in London. They do a great job with delivery and offer the widest range of items that I have managed to find in the UK so far, which is pretty difficult considering of the various Asian populations, Indian & Thai people are the most widely represented.

takebue chikuwa

This was a great opportunity for me to break out a small Japanese-English cookbook that I received for my birthday last year from my aunt. She knows that I love to cook, that I cook and bake very often, if not daily, and with the varying degree of amounts of base ingredients that go into all the Japanese soup bases and sauces, that this cookbook -offering each recipe both in English with non-metric  measures and Japanese with metric measures, would be hit with me! Often, my mother cooks by taste, and I find that even with a recipe, I adjust the taste to what I like and remember from my childhood, so really it’s a guide to get me started in the right direction and it’s fantastic!

Sake & mirin, essential for this recipe

Needless to say, this meal went over like gangbusters! Cousin Hannah was exposed to new tastes that she had never had before, her friend from school literally “died and went to heaven” having a bit of home while being miles and miles away from her family, and we all enjoyed breaking out the dinner table and eating as a “family” together. Mei really enjoyed this meal, especially all the bits without the “soup” part. I hope this will all help her to develop her palate to eat a variety of foods from a variety of cultures and never to shy away from anything new.

This is an incredibly easy, heart-warming dish perfect for large gatherings and for cold nights. I simply pair this with fresh, steamed rice although you can make any variety of veggie sides you desire. Japanese meals are often served with a variety of tiny side dishes, including pickled veggies, steamed veggies, veggie salads, etc so that you can eat what you like with the main course so don’t feel limited in your spread when making a Japanese entree!

Ingredients: (to serve four)

• 200 g thinly sliced beef
• 2 medium onions
• 600g or 4 large potatoes (I used small, new potatoes)
• 1 C (200ml) dashi
• 5 TBS soy sauce
• 2 TBS mirin
• 4 TBS sugar
• 1 TBS sake
• 1 TBS vegetable oil
• any additional mix-in’s you like, other veggies are encouraged to be made as side dishes

First, peel the potatoes and cut each into six pieces. Soak them in water for 5-6 minutes then drain them well. Cut the onions into six, equal wedges. Slice the beef into bite-sized, very thin slices.

Next, heat the oil over medium heat in a tall frying pan. Add the potatoes and fry them until their surfaces are transluscent and a bit colored. Add the onions and beef and continue to fry the ingredients just until they gain some color or the onions just begin to turn transluscent.

Add the dashi, soy suace, mirin, sugar and sake then simmer. Skim the surface as any debris and foam forms then put a drop-lid on. You want the lid to be smaller than the surface of the pan, covering most of the ingredients but not completely. The lid will rest on top of the potatoes. Simmer until the potatoes are easily pierced with the tip of a knife. Turn off the heat and let it stand a couple of minutes before serving.

This dish is typically served in a large serving bowl or straight from the pan, each person taking as much as they like as they eat their meal.

Okonomiyaki

Tags

cabbage pancake, grilled pancake, Japanese savory pancake, Japanese street food, Kewpie mayonnaise, okinomiyaki, savory pancake, sriracha, tonkatsu sauce

This is easily one of my favorite Japanese foods!

It is simply a savory pancake, at its root, it is made simply of thinly shredded cabbage, flour, egg and water. It is meant to sustain livelihoods and provide nourishment. For me? It means a comforting, eat-til-you’re-full evening!

Growing up, we would crowd around a griddle and make one pancake per person, quickly pouring a second as you are busy consuming your first, eating until you just can’t eat anymore, with a variety of toppings to smother in tonkatsu sauce and mayonnaise. The toppings vary from person to person and region to region. We would often have dried shrimp, bacon, thin cut beef, pork and a number of thinly sliced veggies mixed into the batter and fish flakes on top.

students crowded around a griddle for an okinomiyaki party!

This is a very popular street dish in Japan, making an appearance in okinomiyaki bars, much like noodle bars, where there is a cook in front of a very large griddle, making these to order for passers-by that have settled into one of the stools lining the opposite side of the griddle with a small bar to eat your steaming pancake and have a drink on your way home from work or after a long night of drinking, or just for a great meal in your neighborhood!

mise -en-place, basic, simple, perfect

One of the constants in okinomiyaki is the flour that binds each pancake. There are different grated yam flour that has a certain “stablizing” effect and just makes for a phenomenal flour to make it from. As a result, you can buy bags of specially marketed okiomiyaki flour that has the grated yam flour in it, but you can easily substitute all-purpose flour if you don’t have access to it or have run out. However un-traditional, I also enjoy putting grated carrot into my okinomiyaki also – which makes it just a touch more flavor and nutrition – again, you can put in what you want and top it with anything your little heart desires, often changing the flavor with each pancake you make! How could a meal be any better?

okinomiyaki flour

It’s a quaint dish with an endless list of topping options, seasonings suiting any taste! And best enjoyed street-side or crowded around a steaming griddle with your family and friends, fighting for the next hot pancake!

With only two of us, there is not much “fighting” per say, and instead of cooking as we eat, my husband and I opt to just make up a batch of batter that makes enough for each of us to have four or five and fry up as many as we think we will eat for dinner and saving some to make up for a quick lunch the next day. Once we have decided on the toppings for each, I get busy frying them slowly until they are golden and cooked through, then covering them in fish flakes, mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce.

perfect carrot ribbons

shredded cabbage and green onions to start

carrots, egg, flour and water to bind

a perfect batter and the base for so many different creations!

Tonkatsu sauce is a vegetable made sauce that is perfect for fried pork chops or tonkatsu, and also for okinomiyaki as well as a variety of other foods. It is a sauce that I always have a large bottle of in the fridge and one that we aren’t shy with when we use it. For this meal, I even had some Kewpie mayo on hand – the best mayo, in my opinion! It is Japanese made and comes with a picture of the child with the one-spike hair-do that we often give our children when we wash their hair during a bath, and is the best mayo for this dish. It just takes me back! This is also the mayo that many sushi restaurants use to make their spicy mayo sauces and other sauces to drizzle over different housemade rolls.

sauces and katsuobushi (bonito fish flakes)

first pancake in the pan!

This time, we just went for regular okinomiyaki with no toppings, except for the fish flakes (which are really just mandatory) and the tonkatsu and mayo on top (the husband unit put sriracha on his… but there isn’t much that he won’t put sriracha on – it is as ubiquitous as salt and pepper for him). They were hot, with the most recently cooked one on top, keeping the rest warm while we made our way through the alternating layers of pancake and sauce and lulled us into a quiet, shared meal as we quickly devoured each savory bite. The perfect end to a particularly long day, and the perfect meal to have some Japanese beers with – of course, I obstained due to pregnancy, but I also don’t care for any beer so far, or at least not more than about a half pint….

my first pancake

his and hers first pancakes... can you guess who is more hungry than the other?

Ingredients:

• 1 C okonomiyaki flour
• 3/4 C water
• 10.5 oz shredded cabbage
• 2 green onion sticks, chopped
• 2 eggs
• 2 carrots, thinly sliced or cut into ribbons with a veggie peeler
• okonomiyaki sauce
• mayonnaise
• thinly sliced beef, pork or whole, raw, tail off shrimp to your liking (optional)

First mix the okonomiyaki flour and water in a large bowl until the flour fully dissolves. Add the cabbage, green onions and eggs (and carrots, if using) to the flour  mixture and combine gently.

Place oil in a medium sized skillet over medium low heat, scoop out one third of the mixture and shape it on the skillet into a round pancake shape about 1/2 inch thick patty. Cook until the underside has cooked to the point where it is golden brown underneath and easy to flip.

Flip the pancake and continue to cook a few more minutes until golden brown on all sides and cooked through. I like to put the bonito fish flakes on the second side just before flipping. Top with okonomiyaki sauce and mayo as you like, garnish with more bonito fish flakes and enjoy!

If you would like to put bacon or other thinly sliced meats or shrimp, stick them on the top of the pancake just after you have formed the pancake on the skillet and it will cook completely through once you have flipped it.