Sukiyaki, Japanese big dinner

As Christmas is approaching, I wish you a nice holiday season. So let’s have a sukiyaki party !
It’s a party meal designed to showcase delicious premium Japanese beef and season produce. A hot pot to cook and share on the table.

The ingredients are cut, cleaned, prepared and presented on big trays on the table.
First tray : fungi, konnyaku noodles and grilled tofu.
There were 4 types of mushrooms : shimeji, enoki, dry and soaked maitake and fresh kikurage.

Second tray : negi leeks, onions, soaked yakifu (gluten croutons) and kikuna (chrysanthemum greens).

Third tray : the beef. Wagyu, Japanese traditionally raised cows. Beside you can see cubes of beef fat.

Each eater is given a bowl with a good fresh egg. Whisk your egg with the chopsticks and get ready to dip you ingredients in this sauce.

First step : greasing the pot with fat and roasting the first slices. They can be enjoyed this way as the beef is delicious, just on its own.

That’s the technique : melt some fat, add some meat, pour a little sugar, then a little shoyu (sauce sauce), a little sake. Mix and cook.

All the other ingredients are added in small batches…

For dessert… well, there are no desserts for Japanese meal. So that’s a French tarte Tatin, made with Japanese apples.

Sashimi lunch

A classic Japanese meal around a dish of sashimi. I prepared the sides.

Steamed kabocha pumpkin and ninniku no me garlic stalks. With soy sauce.

**I simply place the veggies in a steaming basket on top of a boiling water pot, or in the steaming mode of the microwave. Thin kabocha slices take 8 to 10 minutes. Garlic stalks only need 3 o 4 minutes to be at my taste. I add sesame seeds and soy sauce when I serve them.

The sashimi : ika (calamari), buri (yellow tail) and ama ebi (nordic shrimps).

An umeboshi (salted plum).

Tofu with oboro kombu (seaweed), seasoned with the soy sauce left after the sashimi dipping.

**How to choose or make tofu.

The miso soup with hijiki seaweed, shimeji mushrooms and kintoki red carrots.

Making miso soup

Add rice. That’s a complete Japanese menu.

**Cooking Japanese rice

Today’s bibinbap

Korean lunch : bibinbap, the colorful rice bowl.
Put rice to cook in the cooker and let’s go :

Namul veggies (preparation here)

Azuki-natto : I heated onion and cooked azuki beans with a little oil. When the onions were cooked, added a little miso and natto and mashed roughly.

The soup is soaking water of shiitake mushrooms (those used for the namul), in it, I cooked mini-radish and added cubes of silky tofu.
Also get some kimchi, a egg yolk and fragrant sesame oil.

Put all the garnishing veggies on very hot rice, add a egg yolk, a drizzle of sesame oil. Serve with the hot soup.

Add a little broth in the bowl, mix and enjoy :

Autumn namul

Namul is the name of Korean style blanched veggies.

The boring supermarket version, all year round the same :
namul set
Boiled spinach, soy bean sprouts, zenmai fern and daikon radish.

Home-made version, in Spring.
So this time with Autumn produce :

I had suguna kabocha. I grated and steamed it, added only sesame oil and garlic.

Soy bean sprouts, steamed, with soy sauce, a little hot chili, garlic, sesame oil.

Konnyaku. I’ve added re-hydrated shiitake mushrooms. with soy sauce, a little hot chili, garlic, sesame oil. Let overnight.

Leafy radish. Blanched and refreshed the greens in cold water. Added garlic and sesame oil.

The 4 dishes :

Konnyaku and eringii in ginger nikomi

An easy Japanese dish.

Konnyaku (konjac). You can use blocks too, just cut them in slices or cubes.

Eringi mushrooms, cut in cubes.

Ginger. Minced. I put a good amount.

Kombu seaweed. A small cut. Later after cooking, I cut it into ribbons.
Soy sauce and mirin (or sake + sugar), 3 tbs of each. A little red hot chili if you want. Cover with water. Let simmer. I cooked 30 minutes.