This recipe hails from Hokkaido, the northern most island of Japan where mushroom hunters in the fall gather wild mushrooms and make this dish to signal the start of winter. There is a mixture of cultivated Japanese mushrooms in the recipe, but you can add any kind you’d like, including fresh wild mushrooms from your neck of the woods. Can be made vegetarian with the removal of the pork chop slices.
Ingredients: [‘dashi’, ‘sake’, ‘mirin’, ‘soy sauce’, ‘sesame oil’, ‘napa cabbage’, ‘garlic cloves’, ‘fresh ginger’, ‘red chilies’, ‘yellow onion’, ‘boneless pork chop’, ‘firm tofu’, ‘dried shiitake mushroom’, ‘oyster mushroom’, ‘shimeji mushrooms’, ‘enoki mushrooms’, ‘spinach’, ‘shichimi togarashi’]
Quantity of Ingredients: [“4 cups dashi”,”1 cup sake”,”1/2 cup mirin”,”1/2 cup soy sauce”,”2 tablespoons sesame oil”,”1/2 lb napa cabbage, sliced “,”2 garlic cloves, sliced “,”1 piece fresh ginger, sliced (1 inch)”,”2 red chilies, seeded sliced thinly “,”1/4 yellow onion, chopped “,”1 boneless pork chop, sliced thinly “,”1/2 lb firm tofu, cut into 4 pieces “,”1/2 lb dried shiitake mushroom, stemmed “,”1/2 lb dried oyster mushroom, trimmed pulled apart into pieces “,”3 1/2 ounces dried shimeji mushrooms, trimmed pulled apart into pieces “,”7 ounces dried enoki mushrooms, trimmed pulled apart into pieces “,”1/2 lb spinach, stemmed “,” shichimi togarashi, to taste “]
Number of Servings: 4
Steps: [‘Prepare the broth by combining the dashi, sake, mirin, and soy sauce in a bowl. Set aside.’, ‘In a dutch oven, add the sesame oil and bring to high heat. Add the garlic, ginger, red chilies, yellow onion and pork. Stir fry for 1 minute.’, ‘Add the cabbage and tofu to the dutch oven and pour in the broth. Cover the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes more.’, ‘Uncover the hot pot and add the shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms, piling them randomly on top of the other ingredients. Cover the pot and simmer for 5 minutes more.’, ‘Uncover the pot, add the spinach, and simmer for 1 minute more.’, ‘Bring the nabe to the table and set it on a portable stove. Turn the stove heat as low as necessary to maintain a very gentle simmer.’, ‘To serve, provide each person with a small dish and have them use chopsticks or a ladle to select their own vegetables, meat, tofu, etc. Garnish with shichimi togarashi.’]