JAPANESE ONE-POT MEALS Hot Pot Goes Haute

March 3, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

When the popular Asian dish costs $500, it may be time to try it at home.

By Betty Hallock

McClatchy Newspapers

What’s the most expensive dinner in America? An omakase meal of pristine, perfectly sliced sushi, the fish flown in from Tsukiji market in Tokyo and prepared for you personally by a Yoda-equivalent sushi master? Or maybe a 12-course tasting menu from a Michelin three-star French chef, each plate a culmination of several components made by an army of kitchen staff?

Not exactly. It’s most likely $500-per-person Japanese hot pot — yes, hot pot.

A popular style of Asian home cooking, hot pot comes from a nearly 1,000-year-old culinary tradition of dipping sliced meat or seafood and vegetables into bubbling broth, supposedly a la Genghis Khan. A communal dish cooked and shared at the dining table, it’s soul food, great for cold weather and for feeding an intimate group (emphasis on the intimate — you are, after all, eating from the same pot).

Lately, though, the humble hot pot doesn’t seem so humble. Masayoshi Takayama, the sushi chef whose New York restaurant Masa might be the epitome of rarefied Japanese dining in the U.S., has taken it to Las Vegas. At Shaboo, the restaurant he just opened there, his version of shabu-shabu — traditionally paper-thin slices of beef quickly poached with vegetables in a water-based broth — will cost you more than the recent price of an All Nippon Airways round-trip flight to Tokyo.

American chefs are putting shabu-shabu on their menus too, using Wagyu beef or sashimi-grade fish or foie gras.

But hot pots are by nature informal, cozy affairs, with everybody leaning over a big pot in the middle of the table, taking from it whatever they want. And they are easy enough to make at home, so they can be impromptu meals.

A new book by chef Tadashi Ono and food journalist Harris Salat titled “Japanese Hot Pots: Comforting One-Pot Meals” has enthusiastic home cooks pulling out their enameled Dutch ovens and konbu (kelp) to make Hakata chicken or pork belly and greens hot pot. It’s “the quintessential Japanese comfort food,” Salat writes.

Too elite to eat?

But what about five-hundred-dollar hot pot? Takayama unveiled Shaboo, his shabu-shabu restaurant, recently in Las Vegas’ $8.5-billion City-Center. There are custom-molded individual cooking vessels; high-tech induction burners set into the tables; and ingredients such as wild bluefin tuna belly wrapped around julienned Japanese leeks, taraba crab legs from Hokkaido, sliced abalone, winter yellowtail and beef from the Ohmi region of Japan. A supplemental dessert of white truffle ice cream costs $95. The restaurant’s name is a slightly infelicitous play on the words “shabu” and “taboo.” Will the “Viva Elvis” crowd go for it?

The Japanese consider shabu-shabu the highest expression of hot pot, in accordance with the culinary principle of using the freshest food, lightly cooked, beautifully presented. The closer it is to its natural state, the better to draw the most pleasure from a single thin sheet of beef.

Takayama describes the cooking method by waving his hand back and forth in the air, mimicking the motion of the meat as it is swept through the poaching liquid. “You slowly dip, cook, then dip it in sauce” — cooking it yourself is part of the enjoyment. (Shabu-shabu means “swish-swish,” referring to the way in which ingredients are cooked in the hot pot.) Traditionally this is accomplished with chopsticks, but at Shaboo with special tongs in the shape of crab claws.

THE GOLDEN BOWL

“I wanted solid gold pots, but the heating technology isn’t available here,” he says. “Maybe in two or three years.”

But Japanese cooks traditionally use a donabe, a clay vessel with a slightly rounded bottom and domed lid. And really all you need is a cast-iron Dutch oven to make hot pot at home.

And though shabu-shabu may be the most highly regarded, there are simpler types of hot pots, called collectively nabemono — one-pot meals that are more substantial than soup but not as thick as stew.

How-to

There are two ways to cook hot pots: at the table — using a tabletop burner — setting out a platter of ingredients to be cooked by guests (shabu-shabu style). Or on the stove, with the finished dish brought to the center of the table, from which the contents are ladled into small bowls, or diners can help themselves. It’s de rigueur to pick up your own food from the pot with your own chopsticks.

Whatever the type, the foundation of the hot pot is the broth, which often includes dashi, a stock of konbu and dried bonito flakes. For his seafood shabu, Takayama uses a golden broth of dashi made with konbu and niboshi, or dried anchovies. The stock for his beef shabu is prepared in an eight-hour process making a consomme from konbu, niboshi, seared Ohmi beef tendon, carrots, onions, garlic, beef and chicken bones, and bay leaf.

Into the pot you can put a wide variety of meat or vegetables: slices of rib-eye, whole shrimp, salmon, chicken, lamb, mushrooms, spinach, dumplings. Greens such as mizuna, a mustard, and shungiku, the leaves of chrysanthemums, are easy to find at Asian stores and farmers markets.

A rich broth

Chef Michael Mina, who has been serving shabu-shabu of sliced abalone, shiitake mushrooms, scallions and Kobe beef rolled with spicy radishes at his latest restaurant, American Fish (also in Las Vegas’ CityCenter), starts with a dashi of konbu, bonito and ginger. “Beef with dashi is really delicious,” he says. “And foie gras. What that does is really fortifies the broth, leaves a lot of richness behind. When thinking about ingredients, you have to think about both how it’s going to cook in the broth and what it does to the broth.”

Take pork belly, for example. In a hot pot recipe from the “Japanese Hot Pots” cookbook, thin slices of pork belly are dipped into a simmering broth of dashi, mirin and soy sauce, imbuing the liquid with the rich flavor of pork.

A duck gyoza nabe is made with chicken stock, mirin and konbu, enhanced by vegetables such as cabbage, negi (Japanese leeks) and shiitake and enoki mushrooms — the chicken stock complementing the duck filling in the dumplings.

It’s served with a dipping sauce of chile oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar and scallions.

DUCK GYOZA HOT POT

Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Servings: 4 to 6

Note: Adapted from “Japanese Hot Pots” by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat. White miso (soy bean paste), nira (garlic chives), ra yu (chile oil), konbu (kelp for stock) and negi (Japanese green onion) are available at Japanese markets. Look for the thickest wonton skins you can find so they hold together as they cook; you can find them at select well-stocked supermarkets.

Duck gyoza

Salt

1 cup finely chopped green cabbage (about 4 ounces)

1‚Ñ2 pound (1 medium) boneless duck breast with skin, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons chopped green onions

1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon sake

1 tablespoon shiro (white) miso

1‚Ñ4 cup finely chopped garlic chives (nira, about 1 ounce)

1 package (about 50 skins) round wonton skins

1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1‚Ñ2 cup warm water

In a medium bowl, lightly salt the chopped cabbage and toss to mix well, then set aside for 15 minutes. In batches, place the cabbage on a clean kitchen towel and wring the towel over the sink to squeeze out excess moisture. Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, place the duck, green onions, one-fourth teaspoon salt, ginger, garlic, sake and miso. Pulse just until the mixture becomes a coarse paste. Transfer to a mixing bowl and fold in the reserved cabbage and the garlic chives, mixing well.

To assemble the gyoza, place a wonton skin in the palm of one hand. Spoon 2 teaspoons of the gyoza mixture onto the center of the wonton skin. With your finger, wet the wonton skin’s edges with the cornstarch-water mixture. Fold the skin in half and pinch it together, pressing out the extra air before sealing the skin. (The cornstarch will “glue” the wonton skin together.)

Place the gyoza on a plate and repeat with the rest of the mixture, which will make about 25 pieces. Keep the wonton skins covered with a moist paper towel while you work, so they don’t dry out. Set the gyoza aside.

Dipping sauce

4 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon ra yu (chile oil, also called la yu)

2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallions

To make the dipping sauce, combine the soy sauce, rice vinegar, chile oil and green onions in a small bowl. Set aside.

Hot pot assembly

2 (6-by-3-inch) pieces konbu (kelp)

5 cups chicken broth

1‚Ñ2 cup sake

1 teaspoon salt

1‚Ñ2 pound nappa cabbage, sliced crosswise on an angle into 2-inch pieces

1 negi (Japanese green onion), sliced on an angle into 2-inch pieces

4 ounces shiitake mushrooms (about 8 pieces), stems removed and halved

31‚Ñ2 ounces (about half of a 200-gram package) enoki mushrooms, trimmed and pulled apart

Duck gyoza

1‚Ñ4 pound spinach, stemmed

Dipping sauce

In the bottom of a pot (such as a Japanese clay donabe or cast-iron Dutch oven), place the konbu. Add the chicken broth, sake and salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove the konbu and discard. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the nappa cabbage, negi, shiitake mushrooms and enoki mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes. Add the gyoza to the hot pot, making sure they’re submerged in the broth. Continue to simmer until the gyoza are cooked through, 5 to 10 minutes (check by opening one up at the 5-minute mark). Add the spinach and simmer for 1 minute more.

While the hot pot simmers, fill four small bowls with the dipping sauce. Transfer the hot pot to the dining table. Dip the ingredients into the sauce-filled bowls, and eat. Add more dipping sauce to the bowls as needed.

Alternatively, this can be cooked tableside with a portable gas burner: Arrange the ingredients on serving platters. After preparing the gyoza and dipping sauce, do all the cooking at the dining table. Add the supporting ingredients all at once, or reserve half or more to cook later. Cook a few of the gyoza at a time.

Nutritional analysis: Each of 6 servings: 237 calories; 12 grams protein; 30 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams fiber; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 22 mg. cholesterol; 2 grams sugar; 1,715 mg. sodium.

TOKYO-STYLE BEEF SUKIYAKI

Total time: 40 minutes

Servings: 4 to 6

Note: Broiled tofu and itokonnyaku noodles are available at Japanese markets. Sliced rib-eye is generally available at Japanese and Korean markets; you could also ask your butcher to slice it. To slice the meat yourself, freeze it until it is partially hardened (2 to 3 hours), then slice very thinly against the grain with a very sharp knife.

1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) beef fat or suet

3 tablespoons sugar

1‚Ñ2 cup soy sauce

2 cups sake

1 onion, thinly sliced

1‚Ñ2 pound nappa cabbage or bok choy, sliced crosswise at an angle into 2-inch pieces

1 package firm tofu or yakitofu (broiled tofu), cut into 12 pieces

4 ounces (about 8) shiitake mushrooms, stemmed (and halved at an angle, if desired)

1 bunch green onions, cut on the bias into 2-inch pieces

1 (7-ounce) package itokonnyaku, rinsed, strained and cut in half

11‚Ñ2 pounds boneless rib-eye, sliced 1‚Ñ8-inch thick

2 cups stemmed shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves) or watercress, stemmed

Heat a large skillet or saute pan over medium heat and place the beef fat in the pan, moving it around with chopsticks or spatula as it melts so that the entire surface is greased. When the fat is hot (it may not be entirely melted; it will melt as the dish cooks), add the sugar and cook until it begins to caramelize. Add the soy sauce and sake (be careful, as it will sputter).

In arranged mounds, add the onion, cabbage, tofu, mushrooms, green onions and itokonnyaku; they should be placed in neat bunches, leaving some room for the beef.

Bring the contents of the pan to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Place the beef in a mound in the pan, alongside the other ingredients. Cook just until the vegetables are tender and the meat is cooked to the desired consistency, about 8 minutes, pressing the ingredients into the broth so that they cook evenly. Add the shungiku leaves in the center on top of the other ingredients and simmer just until the leaves wilt, about a minute. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Nutritional analysis: Each of 6 servings: 487 calories; 31 grams protein; 35 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 15 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 52 mg. cholesterol; 9 grams sugar; 267 mg. sodium.

PORK BELLY AND GREENS HOT POT

Total time: 30 minutes (plus 1 hour, 15 minutes for the dashi)

Servings: 4 to 6

Note: Adapted from “Japanese Hot Pots” by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat. Konbu (kelp for stock), dried bonito flakes, usukuchi soy sauce, negi (Japanese green onions) and the greens mizuna and shungiku are available at Japanese markets. The dashi can be made ahead of time and kept refrigerated for 3 days (or in the freezer for up to 2 months). To slice the meat yourself, freeze until it partially hardens (2 to 3 hours), then slice it thinly against the grain with a very sharp knife.

Dashi

8 cups water, plus 2 tablespoons water, divided

2 (6-by-3-inch) pieces konbu

3 packed cups (1 1‚Ñ2 ounces) bonito flakes

In a medium stockpot, combine 8 cups of water with the konbu and set the mixture aside to steep for 30 minutes. Place the stockpot over medium heat and bring it to a boil. Remove and discard the konbu, and stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons of water. Add the bonito and stir it once to combine. As soon as the liquid boils again, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove any scum that appears on the surface, as this can adversely affect the flavor.

Remove from the heat and set aside to steep for 15 minutes. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or cheesecloth; don’t squeeze the bonito flakes. Discard the bonito flakes. This should make 4 to 5 cups dashi.

Hot pot assembly

4 cups dashi

1‚Ñ2 cup mirin

1‚Ñ2 cup usukuchi (”light,” not low-sodium) soy sauce

2 negi (Japanese green onions), sliced on an angle into 2-inch pieces

3‚Ñ4 to 1 pound fresh pork belly, thinly sliced into 1‚Ñ8-inch thick strips (Japanese markets carry it pre-sliced, you can also ask your butcher)

8 cups stemmed spinach (from about 1‚Ñ2 pound)

4 cups trimmed and cut mizuna (a Japanese mustard), trimmed and stems cut into 2-inch pieces

2 cups shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves), stemmed

2 cups watercress (about 1‚Ñ2 pound)

Several baby bok choy, quartered lengthwise, or two regular bok choy, cut into small pieces

Ground white pepper, for garnish

To prepare the broth, in a medium bowl, combine the dashi, mirin and soy sauce.

In a pot (such as a Japanese clay donabe or cast-iron Dutch oven), place the negi, then pour in the broth.

Cover the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to a simmer, uncover the pot and add the pork belly, arranging the slices on top of the negi. When the hot pot returns to a simmer, continue to cook for 3 minutes. Add the spinach, mizuna, shungiku leaves, watercress and baby bok choy in a random pile on top of the pork belly. Cover and simmer until the greens are cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes; gently press the greens into the broth if necessary for even cooking.

Transfer the hot pot to the dining table. Serve the ingredients together with the broth in small bowls, garnishing with the white pepper.

Alternatively, this can be cooked tableside with a portable gas burner: Arrange the ingredients on serving platters. After preparing the broth, do all the cooking at the dining table. Add the negi all at once. Then cook a little of the greens and pork belly at a time.

Nutritional analysis: Each of 6 servings: 429 calories; 12 grams protein; 12 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 35 grams fat; 13 grams saturated fat; 48 mg. cholesterol; 8 grams sugar; 1,436 mg. sodium.