A tray of ingredients to hot pot… (mini sukiyaki dinner)

Evening is fresher… nothing better than a small informal sukiyaki to warm up the night.

Here you have carrots, konnyaku noddles, green leeks, fine slices of lean beef, shiitake mushrooms, “fu” (gluten croutons) shaped in balls and flowers, small brown “enokidake mushrooms” (their name is “yamacha” mountain brown) and a sudachi (forrest fragrant small green lemon) that I don’t add into the pot but as a final seasoning for the mushrooms.

For the sauce ( equal amounts, I used a cup in total)
-light-salt soy sauce,
– sake,
– mirin,
– fish broth (water + fish powder).
Plus some water. I like it much less salty and less sweet than the Japanese average.

Heat a cast iron sukiyaki pot (mine is huge…I took my mini “cocotte en fonte”). Pass a cube of beef grease if you have…I hadn’t, so a little neutral oil was OK. Grill a little piece of meat, add 1/2 of the sauce, let it bubble, slow down and add progressively 1/2 of ingredients.
Serve with hot rice (a random mix here) and wedges of lemon.
Eat.
Then in the rest of sauce, cook the second part of ingredients… If some sauce is left (I talk of a theory I didn’t test…), you can cook noddles or veggies for the next day.

Cal 559 F11.1g C88.8g P24.5g