Hello Friends!

Apologies for our extended absence… the holidays have been very time consuming this year!

We’ve been doing a lot of cooking of course.  I made a killer tiramisu as well as a fantastic kale minestrone and passable chicken cacciatore.  Whipped out a chicken with roasted winter vegetables last night.  And tonight I am reprising my famous steak and ale pie, this time replacing the stout with a porter to see how that works.

And to offset all the rich food we’ve been eating this season, I’ve been making a family favorite – sukiyaki.  Sukiyaki is a marvelous, old-fashioned Japanese dish that is healthy, flavorful and very easy to make.  I first taught an ex-girlfriend how to make it, and her family still loves it although they forget the name – they just call it “Japanese noodle thingy.”  It’s a good winter dish as well since it has winter vegetables and has a lovely steaming effect – like a warm, exotic chicken soup.

A few words about ingredients – you can usually substitute pretty much any vegetable you have in your pantry as long as you understand how long it takes to cook.  The version I make (which apparently is Western-style Sukiyaki as opposed to Eastern-style) involves sautéing the ingredients before braising them, so you need to know what order to add the items.  The version I make also eschews the traditional mix of sake, mirin and dashi (a fish- and seaweed-based broth that is wonderful but also difficult to make) in favor of a more simple mix of dry sherry, soy, sugar and beef broth.  Also, do watch the salt on this – try to use low sodium with your soy sauce and broth if using.  Finally, not all sukiyaki recipes include noodles, but the cellophane noodles really do make this dish fun – they soak up the sauce and add a playful element when trying to eat them.

Finally, a note about cooking technique.  Unlike stir fries, the goal with sukiyaki is to keep each ingredient one place in the cooking pot.  In large part, this is to make the pot more attractive, but it also allows you to pick and choose which items to serve yourself.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces steak (well marbled, ribeye is good), sliced very thinly, marinated in a little sugar and sesame oil
  • Or 8 ounces salmon, cut into ¾ inch strips
• 8 ounces firm tofu, cut into ¾ inch cubes
• 5 ounces button mushrooms, cut into quarters
• 1 small package cellophane (mung bean) noodles
• 4-5 ounces fresh spinach (or frozen spinach – just don’t used the chopped stuff)
• ½ white or red onion, thinly sliced (or 4 green onions, cut into 1 inch pieces)
• 1-2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil
• A few ounces of other veggies if you like (good ones to try: carrot, radish, bamboo shoots), sliced thinly

Sauce:

• ¼ cup low-sodium light soy sauce
• ¼ cup dry sherry
• 1-2 tablespoons sugar, agave or honey
• ¼ cup low-sodium beef broth (optional – can replace with chicken stock or a little water)

Recipe:

1. Cut all your veggies and make the cooking sauce.
2. Soak the cellophane noodles in hot (tap, not boiling) water.
3. Heat a very large sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add your oil and heat until hot.
4. Add onion and sauté a couple minutes until starting to get soft – do not let them brown. Push into one place in the pot.  (If using green onions, add after the meat rather than before)
5. Add beef (or salmon) and sauté, separately from the onion, until pink color just disappears. Push into one place in the pot (next to the onions).
6. Add mushrooms (or other veggies) and sauté separately for 2 minutes, then push into another place in the pot.
7. Add tofu, sauté for 2 minutes, then push into another place in the spot.
8. Add the spinach into the last open space.
9. Add the softened noodles to the top then pour the sauce over the whole dish.
10. Cover and simmer for ten minutes.
11. Serve straight from the pot, with some steamed rice and a salad. And beer or sake if you so choose.

A few tips:

• The thinner you slice the steak, the better. One handy tip is to put the steak in the freezer for an hour then slice it while partially frozen.
• Marinating the meat in a little sugar and either soy or sesame oil for 10-15 minutes adds a nice complexity to the meat.
• I like to be sure that the noodles have absorbed the sauce and completely turned brown, so you may need to stir the noodles into the sauce a bit.
• I like this dish a little sweeter (2 tablespoons sugar) but your taste may differ. You can add sugar or honey at the end and stir if you like.
• You can substitute chicken broth for the beef broth.
• When using salmon, be sure to keep it cooking with the skin side down. And do avoid overcooking – it really just needs a nice sear on the bottom and then it will finish cooking by steaming.