goma dare and ponzu for shabu shabu

Shabu shabu is one of our favourite easy healthy meals. In our house it is elevated to special celebration status - so birthdays, New Year's , that kind of special meal thing. It was a no-brainer for Eden's birthday dinner last week because it is absolutely clean eating (whole foods, no gluten, no refined sugars). Social and totally delicious. Perfect for the day.

Shabu shabu as a dish is super simple - basically a pot of hot water with a piece of kelp (or not) sits on a tabletop burner. Diners add and swish (the shabu shabu sound) various greens, mushrooms, cubes of tofu, and very thinly sliced beef, pork or chicken. Everything 'cooks' very quickly. Healthy fare but not terribly exciting so far. The excitement is in the sauces. For years we bought our dipping sauces for shabu shabu at an Asian grocers. It never occurred to me to do anything else. It was an expensive way to go (ridiculously so) but that's what my Japanese friends did and so that's what I did. One day I realized that making goma dare was likely not only possible but the way to go. Since that day I have made the sauce a number of times and while I can humbly say that it has never been a failure I also have to admit that I have never felt that it was a total success. Eden's birthday dinner was the day the tide turned. I am posting the recipe for both the dipping sauces mostly because I know I won't lose them here :) and I really don't want to. The stars may never align quite as well again.

Because of the cost of the readymade sauces there never seemed to be quite enough sauce (especially the sesame dipping sauce - the hands-down fav). This recipe made a large batch. Large enough to liberally fill dipping bowls for eight adults and five children, refill an inevitably overturned bowl, and have a generous cup left to dress brown rice veggie bowls for a meal for seven. All that didn't begin to match the cost of a measly little bottle from the store. 

A little personal satisfaction that accompanies this meal - I get to use many (but by no means all) of my beloved Japanese dishes. I love layering the pieces, making an interesting statement. A rice bowl, two dipping bowls, a small plate and a pair of o hashi per diner is a good start on displaying the collection. Sort of justifies the passion. lol

goma dare (sesame sauce for shabu shabu)

1/2 cup white sesame seeds, toasted

1/3 cup shiro (white) miso paste

1/4 cup coconut palm sugar

1/2 cup mirin

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/2 cup tahini

1/3 cup dashi (I made mine from dashi grains)

1/2 cup gluten-free shoyu

1 cup water

The method is so easy that calling it a method is really glorifying the process. After toasting the sesame seeds (either stovetop in a closely watched frying pan or on a cookie sheet in the oven) add all the ingredients to a blender container, pop the lid on good and tight, and give it a whirl on high until the sauce is smooth and creamy. The consistency is quite thin.

ponzu

1/2 cup gluten-free shoyu

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

2 Tbsp dashi

1 Tbsp mirin

Mix. Done.

mabo nasu

There is no doubt that Tokyo can be a very expensive place to eat. There are more Michelin starred restaurants there than any other city on earth. Some might say with 88,000 restaurants and counting, that is not much of a feat - I don't know much about stats but I can say there is an abundance of incredible food wherever you turn. You can spend 400.00 on a meal .... or you can buy yourself a plateful of heaven for less than 10.00. One of the lovely things is that you don't have to search for good food, you pretty much stumble across it...as we did when we walked from the Kappabashi district toward Ueno. We decided to stop for a bite, slid open the door of a tiny shop on a corner, and ordered up some most delicious deliciousness. I had mabo nasu and don't recall at all what David ate - it was all a blur after my first bite. Mabu dofu has long been a go-to favourite in our house but I had never known mabo nasu. A small tragedy that, but all is well now. I was immediately determined to try my own version as soon as we returned home.

Well, we have been home almost exactly 48 hours and we had mabo nasu for dinner tonight. I was at the Farmer's Market this afternoon and my eye was caught by a bin of perfect, beautiful eggplants. I knew right away what I would do with them. So I bought them, came home and cooked up a pot of pretty awesome (modestly amazed) mabo nasu. No looking back now.

Nasu is simply eggplant - I would much rather call that elegant vegetable aubergine or nasu; eggplant simply sounds nasty to me and I am guessing that most children would agree. A rose by any other name may still smell as sweet but call an elegant vegetable by an unappealing name and you will have a hard time getting it past the lips of most little ones. 

This recipe for mabu nasu is not exactly as we had it in Tokyo - I loved what I ordered for lunch that day but it was a bit heavy on oil. Yummy but perhaps not terribly wise. This is lighter - something you may have a hard time believing when you look at the amount of oil in the recipe :) I used coconut oil for much of the oil (you can use another oil if you prefer or can't find coconut oil - this for my dear friends in Japan where coconut oil is not to be found. I think I would choose grapeseed oil in that case). My choice of coconut oil was motivated as much by knowing that we are urged to get up to three or four tablespoons of coconut oil per day in our diets as it was by taste. You can adjust the heat by using more or less toban jan. Same with the chili oil. But do try the heat - it just isn't the same if it is bland. 

mabo nasu

2 medium sized eggplants

1 lb ground beef

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 Tbsp minced fresh ginger

1 onion, finely chopped

3 tsp toban jan (chili garlic paste)

1 Tbsp sugar (I use coconut palm sugar)

1 Tbsp mirin (optional)

1/4 cup red miso paste

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 1/2 cups dashi (or chicken broth)

4 Tbsp coconut oil

2 tbsp sesame oil

2 Tbsp cornstarch

chili oil

Cut the eggplant into rough 3/4" 'cubes'. Heat 2 Tbsp of the coconut oil in a skillet, add the chopped eggplant and saute until lightly browned. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add another 2 Tbsp of coconut oil to the skillet and add the onion, garlic, and ginger to the pan; cook until the onion is beginning to soften. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking up the beef with the back of a spoon or spatula. When the pink almost gone from the beef add the reserved eggplant back into the skillet.

In a bowl combine toban jan, sugar, mirin, miso paste, soy sauce, salt, and dashi. Add to the mixture in the pan and stir gently. Bring to a simmer and let cook gently while you stir together the 2 Tbsp cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the ingredients in the pan and allow to thicken. Stir in 2 Tbsp sesame oil. Add chili oil to taste - or pass it at the table.

nikujaga

Way back in the olden days when we lived in Osaka and our children were small we lived in a lovely 900 sq ft apartment (it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be with 5 kids - in fact it was quite liberating). We lived on the third level of the building, the Harada family lived two floors directly below us. Harada-san was the perfect practical older sister that I very much needed. She helped me with the daily demands of our children's school and taught me to make many of the Japanese dishes that we ate regularly and are now comfort food for our family. I have fond memories of our tiny identical kitchens and the time we spent talking and cooking together. Her patient, gentle approach was so perfect for me right then. 

One of the very first dishes we made together was nikujaga. Literally meat potatoes. Everything Harada-san made was a no-recipe affair. Just some of this, some of that, and taste, smell, taste. When I decided to make a pot of nikujaga to share here I thought perhaps I would check some formal recipes just because and to my great surprise not a single one of them was quite like the dish I had been taught. To be fair, nikujaga is kind of like making chicken noodle soup in that every cook has their own particular version. But the big shock was that in many (if not most) versions the meat and potatoes are served on a plate without the wonderful broth they are braised in. Such a shame! Made with miso and soy sauce the broth is rich and interesting with that nifty umami thing going on - to be honest the meat and potatoes are pretty bland without it. Harada-san served hers more like a soup or perhaps stew and that is the way we have always had it in our house. So that is the recipe you get today. 

When we lived in Osaka I was told that the people in Tokyo are very fashionable but Osakans are the better cooks. It is certainly true that Tokyoites are very fashionable but I don't know about the cooking. All I know for sure is that there are definitely regional variations in traditional dishes. That difference may account for the broth-less nikujaga or maybe I just learned it the way that Harada-san liked to serve it. It certainly accounts for the use of pork as opposed to beef - pork being the Kansai preference. My own contribution is one that no self-respecting Japanese cook would countenance - I never peel the potatoes!

It is perfect winter food. Warm and richly flavourful without being heavy. Fragrant. Comforting and comfortable. I cannot even smell this without remembering Harada-san and feeling a wave of gratitude for her firendship.

nikujaga

8 0z pork shoulder cut into 1" cubes
6 small red potatoes, quartered
2 medium onions, chopped
4 carrots, cut into 1/2" pieces
6 cups dashi*
6 Tbsp mirin
4 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tsp roasted sesame oil
sea salt to taste

Heat the grapeseed oil in a large heavy pot and saute the meat on high until it is beginning to brown. Add the potatoes, onions, and carrots and cook together for two or three minutes. Pour the dashi into the pot and bring everything to a boil. Turn the heat down to simmer. Add the mirin, sugar, and soy sauce. Cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Just before serving stir in the roasted sesame oil. Add salt to taste.

This is even better with a sprinkle of shichimi - a mix of dried peppers and sea weed. You may need to go to an Asian market to find it but it is so good and you will like it on lots of dishes so it is worth the looking.

*The easiest way to make the dashi is with Hon dashi granules from Ajinomoto. Again look for that in an Asian market. But to be honest making it from scratch is pretty fast and easy too. Google it if you want to give that a go ... or find your own Harada-san :)