Yakibuta in White Sauce

Sorry about not posting as soon as I said I would. I got a bit distracted by Thanksgiving! And today's recipe is not daikon soup nor nabe, but something I whipped up over the weekend, when we had some yakibuta (roasted pork) that needed to be used up. This pork was already sliced and was ready-to-use, and also near it's expiration date, when my husband bought it. I'm not exactly sure what it's for, though I would guess for ramen topping, but I suppose you could also add it to salad or soup. Anyway, I have been a bit homesick and when I saw this, I thought I could try a version of chipped beef on toast. Dried beef is not something I have seen in Japan, but there's plenty of yakibuta around.

Basically, this is just chopped, cooked meat tossed into a white sauce, then served over toasted bread. You can also use cooked hamburger (or, what I usually use here in Japan, a mix of ground beef and ground pork). If you've never made white sauce before, it's pretty easy:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
warm milk

Melt butter in a medium-sized pot. Add flour and salt, and combine with a whisk. Cook for a minute or so, then add 1/2 cup milk. Whisk continuously to prevent lumps. Add a bit more milk, maybe another cup or so. Stir with the whisk until the mixture starts to boil. You can add more milk, but be careful not to add too much, or it will not be thick enough (or, it will just take longer for it to cook in order to thicken the sauce). When it begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer as it thickens.

When the white sauce has reached the desired consistency, add the meat, and allow it to warm through. Serve the sauce over toasted bread (I usually use sandwich bread, but any bread will do), or be adventurous and serve it over rice! Season with salt and pepper if desired.

Simmered Cabbage and Ground Pork

Mmmmm, just looking at that picture makes me hungry. This is so delicious! I found this recipe in a book I got at Costco, a real find (if you ask me) since i got it for about 860 yen, and the retail price is about 3500 yen! I haven't made any other thing from this book, though, because it's all in Japanese. Now, I really don't have a lot of trouble with Japanese recipes, it's pretty easy to figure something out if you don't understand a word (especially if there are pictures), but the recipes in this book seem a little more complicated than simple Japanese homestyle cooking, and I haven't had a lot of time to commit to more recipes.

But this is a winner, something even my kids love. It's juicy, buttery and oh so yummy! The book is 手作り家庭料理, which (I think) roughly translate into 'handmade homestyle cooking'. (I would like to link to it on amazon.jp, but there's a lot of kanji in the address and isn't being co-operative in copying. Sorry) There are three sections to this book: Japanese, Western and Chinese. The simmered cabbage and ground pork is in the Western section.

I'd say this is similar to cabbage rolls, without the fiddly rolling and tying.

Simmered Cabbage and Ground Pork

6 to 8 large cabbage leaves
200 grams ground pork
1/3 carrot
1/2 onion
1 small egg
salt
pepper
2 Tbsp. butter

simmering liquid:
2 cups soup (chicken stock)
2 Tbsp. sake
1 tsp. salt
pepper

Soften cabbage leaves by blanching them (put the leaves in boiling water to cover, remove them when they begin to get soft, then place them in cold water to halt cooking.) If necessary, cut down (but not off) the hard white part in the middle of the leaf. Mince onion and carrot, and beat the egg. I grate the carrot using a fine grater.



As an aside, I just love this tool because it has several different cutting/grating options, plus the bowl has a tiny sieve at the top so you can put water in the bowl to immediately soak something you've cut, then just drain away the water.

Anyway, grated carrot:



In a bowl, combine the ground meat, carrot, onion, egg and a small amount of salt and pepper. Mix well.



(You can see my soft cabbage leaves in the back there.)

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan over low heat. Put two or three cabbage leaves on the bottom, overlapping them a bit. Evenly distribute half of the meat mixture over the cabbage. Put two leaves over the meat, then the other half of the meat over that. Use the last of the leaves to cover the whole of it.


butter and cabbage

Add the soup, sake, salt and pepper.



Cover with a paper drop-lid and simmer over medium heat for about thirty minutes.



Carefully lift the whole out onto a plate, top it with a sprig of parsley if you like, and cut into sections like you would a pie. Enjoy!





I didn't quite cook enough cabbage leaves this time around, but I just got it all to fit together. As for the soup, I like to use "gara soup", which I think is a kind of Chinese chicken stock bullion. It's rather salty so I usually don't add a whole teaspoon of salt with the simmering liquid.

Pork and Hakusai

I know, I know, two pork dishes in a row. What can I say? It's a great winter meat....

This is a super simple recipe that I got from shinshu life, a blogger who lives up in Nagano (if I'm getting that right. I usually get things like that wrong, woe is me!) and I have to admit that I had to try it as soon as I saw it on her blog. Two ingredient recipe! Awesome.

Of course, we always have to 'improve'. I believe Heather added a little water. I added shredded carrot. It was delicious, and even the kids ate it!

Hakusai Pork

hakusai (napa cabbage)
pork

As Heather states it, the amounts are not listed because it's up to you. I used a whole (small) head of hakusai and about 400 grams of (thinly sliced) pork. I also used a small carrot and grated it finely. Cut the meat and hakusai into bite-sized pieces. Layer the hakusai and meat, starting with the vegetable on the bottom, in a large pot. I sprinkled the carrot over the meat on each layer. Cook over low heat (I covered the pot with a lid) until the hakusai turns transparent and the meat changes color. You can season with salt and pepper if desired.

Be sure to check out the original post on shinshu life!

Pork and Vegetable Stir-fry

I really like nira, but the amounts sold in supermarkets are usually too big for one dish. I usually make scrambled eggs with nira, and this dish (which can also include scrambled eggs). Use thinly sliced pork, leaner is better. Don't leave the meat in the ginger mixture for too long, or it will get too spicy.

Pork and Vegetable Stir-fry

150g pork
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. sake
small amount of freshly ground ginger
150g cabbage
100g bean sprouts
50g nira
50g carrot
salad oil, sugar, salt, soy sauce, sake

Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces. Mix 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 tsp sake together with ginger and marinate the meat in the mixture. Cut nira into 5cm long strips, and cut cabbage and carrot into similar size pieces. Rinse and drain bean sprouts.

In a wok or large frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Add the pork and stir-fry until it changes color. Add the carrot and cabbage and continue frying until the vegetables begin to soften. Next, add the nira and bean sprouts. When heated through and nira begins to wilt, add one teaspoon each of sugar and salt*. Stir well, then add one teaspoon of soy sauce and one tablespoon sake. Stir to mix all seasoning in, and you're done!

*I only put in a 'dash' of salt, since there's soy sauce added at the end.

Tonjiru

Tonjiru, pork soup, is basically miso soup made with pork and vegetables. It is very warm and filling on a winter's day. Personally, I think you could have this as your meal, because of all the wonderful ingredients, but (I believe) it is usually served in place of miso soup.

Tonjiru

OK, this is a recipe that I have never learned, nor do I have a recipe for it. I just kind of winged it and because it had pork and miso in it, I called it tonjiru. This is what I used pictured above:

4 cups water
1 tsp. hondashi
250 grams thinly sliced pork (such as for shabu-shabu)
1/2 carrot
1/3 daikon
1/2 gobo (burdock root)
1 potato
8 small shitake mushrooms, cut into quarters
1 block konnyaku
4 Tbsp. miso
1 Tbsp. oil
green onion

Prepare gobo by washing; do not peel but do take off dirt and small roots. Julienne or cut into small pieces, then soak in water with about a teaspoon of vinegar until the water turns brown. Drain into a sieve, then rinse. Put the konnyaku into a small pot and cover with cold water; bring to a boil and boil for five minutes. Drain konnyaku, allow it to cool and then cut into bite-sized pieces with a spoon. Cut carrot, potato and daikon into bite-sized pieces. Cut the pork into bite-sized pieces.

In a large pan, heat oil, then stir-fry the pork. After the pork has changed color, add carrot, potato, daikon, gobo and konnyaku. When the edges of the daikon start to look clear, add mushrooms and fry a bit longer. Add water and hondashi. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until carrot and daikon are soft. Turn off the heat, and add the miso. Serve in bowls with green onion.

Simmered Pork with Daikon Radish--Book Review

It's nearly winter, and time for daikons to come into season. I love diakons. This dish is one I make often, and it comes from my favorite Japanese cook book (that I own. It's always possible that there's a better one out there, I just haven't read it yet.) So, that leaves me with a little dilema: copyright. Do I write up the recipe here, with a reference to the book and author? Or do I just direct you to the book? Since I usually follow the recipe directly (instead of adjusting it to our tastes), I think that I will not put the recipe here.

The book.

I found this book in the English section of the Maruzen Book Store. It is a wonderful book with color pictures and complete instructions. It's called Japanese Homestyle Cooking by Tokiko Suzuki. It gives you a run-down on all types of tools and cutting styles used in Japanese cooking. It also tells you what time of year certain dishes can/should be made. Even though most ingredients are available most time of year now, when made at the traditional time of year, they can taste even better. I'm not one to really buy into the 'special Japanese four seasons' thing, but i think that certain foods do taste better at different times of year.

So I don't leave you hanging, this recipe calls for boneless pork belly, daikon, carrot and fresh shitake mushrooms (you don't need a lot of mushrooms. Also, the recipe calls for small mushrooms, but sometimes I just get big ones and cut them into quarters.) Brown the meat, add the daikon and carrot, then the mushrooms. Three cups of dashi stock, some sake, salt (just a little) and soy sauce. Simmer until the daikon is soft. It's easy and fairly quick, and this recipe alone nearly makes it worth buying this book!