Shabu shabu is one of the Japanese hot pot dishes and most enjoyable winter dishes. The array of ingredients is prepared in advance. Ingredients such as thinly sliced meat, vegetables and other ingredients are cooked in a skillet on the table making it possible for hosts to relax and enjoy a convivial meal with theiï½’ guest.

Japanese beef with Shabu-shabu:

Ingredients: (Makes 4 servings)

700g sirloin beef, thinly sliced
15 spring onions (scallions), diagonally and thinly sliced
3 carrots, cut into thin round slices
400g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 Chinese cabbage, chopped to bite-sized
1 block cotton tofu, cut into bite-sized cubes
2 litres chicken stock
Japanese short-grain rice, cooked
ready made shabu shabu sauce

Preparations:

Arrange the prepared vegetables, tofu and meat in separate piles on a serving platter. Cover with kitchen wrap and refrigerate before cooking. Position the serving platter and electric wok so they are within easy reach of each diner. Pour the stock into the electric wok, cover and bring to a simmer. Each diner then picks up an ingredient or two with thier chopsticks and places it in the simmering stock for about 1 minute or until cooked. Do not overcook, the vegetables should be just tender and the beef still pink in the centre.Skim off any foam and repeat cooking. The food is then dipped into the sauce and eaten with the rice. The remaining stock can be served as soup at the end of meal.

Every year, during December Japanese are busying on celebrating bōnenkai(忘年会). A Japanese year-end parties or  literally “forget the year gathering” is a Japanese drinking party that takes place at the end of the year, and is generally held among groups of co-workers or friends. The purpose of the party, as its name implies, is to forget the woes and troubles of the past year, usually by consumption of large amounts of alcohol.

Here, I wanna introduce a very simple and easy to prepare Japanese style beef recipe, Japanese beef sukiyaki recipe (すき焼き) that commonly found at bonenkai. Generally, this is a very popular Japanese one-pot dish or nabemono for the colder days of the year. Just add in the thin-sliced beef (you may use other options of chicken or pork slices), vegetables, tofu. Slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin. Before being eaten, the ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of raw, beaten eggs.

The ingredients is easy to get, and may be you can cook it during the Christmas Holiday with your friend and family as an amazing christmas present.

So, are you ready to receive this present (from me)? Just Cook it and you will love it then.

Japanese Beef Sukiyaki Recipe

Ingredients:

150g thinly sliced beef
tofu 2 blocks
2 Onion
spring onion
2 eggs

For sauce:
4 tbsps soy sauce
2 tbsps sake
2 tbsps sugar
2 tbsps mirin

Preparations:

Cut all ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Heat a little oil in a pan. Fry beef slices and arrange onion slice to the pan. Add tofu and pour in ingredients for sauce. Simmer until all ingredients are softened.Turn tofu slowly and garnish with spring onion. Add beaten eggs if you like to.

Japanese Hot Pot Recipes – Oden

Do you know what is Hot, Delicious and yet Cheap dish in Japan during winter time? Ping Pong..the answer is “Oden”. Oden (おでん) a Japanese winter hot pot dish consisting of several ingredients which included boiled eggs, daikon radish, konyaku and processed fish cakes stewed in a light, soy-flavoured dashi broth. These ingredients are simmered for long time with thick dashi stock and soy sauce. You can have as many ingredients as you like just add them in simmering oden pot. Karashi (Japanese hot mustard) is often used as a condiment for Oden. You can easily get a single-ingredient varieties as cheap as 50Yen in most of the convenience stores throughout Japan in Winter. Let’s have some “Oden” to warm you down in the cold winter.

Ingredients:

4 fish cakes
1 daikon radish
2 blocks fried tofu (Atsuage)
4 boiled eggs
1 block Konyaku
2 carrots
2 potatoes
karashi(hot mustard)

Ingredients for making soup:

2000ml dashi stock (2tbsp dashi powder)
15cm konbu (fried kelp)
100ml sake (Japanese rice wine)
3 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp mirin
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp salt
Preparation:

Cut daikon into 4cm thick and round. Cut potatoes in half and other ingredients into bite size. Peel boiled eggs. Add dashi stock in a large pot together with konbu and  other ingredients for soup, then bring to boil. Add all ingredients (except fish cake) into pot and simmer for 30~40minutes in low heat. Add fish cake and simmer for another 10minutes. Serve ingredients with some soup and hot mustard.

Japanese Hot Pot Recipes : Oden