Directions: |
Directions:This is a noodle soup from Japan which utilizes the sake to make the soup slightly bitter, the sugar to sweeten it up, the cider for tartness, and the noodles and cabbage to soak everything up. The mushrooms and meat add a heartiness, and the onions and shallots add some oniony-zing. Basically you chop it all up, put it in the pot, and let it cook. I'll explain. Get a big pot. If you like to saute your onions and garlic and shallots, do this first in the pot. If not, just go to the next step. Pour the bottle of sake in the pot. Then pour some of the sweetener in it and the cider. The ratio is about one cup of sugar to 1 liter of sake, and about a cup or half cup of cider. Also, add some soy sauce, about a quarter or half cup or so, depending on how salty the soy sauce is. After these ingredients are all in, you can adjust to your personal tastes. Add the noodles to the pot. The broth doesn't need to be boiling right now, but it should be at least at a simmer. Next, add the mushrooms and the meat and then chop up the cabbage and put it in the pot. For the onions and garlic and shallots, I like to saute them first, or let them cook down in the oven in a cast iron pan, but you can just throw them in without any pre-cooking. As you add things, the pot may be overflowing, but it will eventually cook down. A lid is good, but if you don't have a lid, that's okay, as the broth cooks off, it will increase the intensity of the flavor. Lastly, I like to add the leafy greens (kale, spinach, etc.) at the end. Overcooked greens lose their bright green color, and if you add them at the last minute before you serve, they'll stay colorful and tasty. Or, you can just throw them in with everything else. This is your soup, you know... There is a lot of chopping going on in this recipe. So be prepared. The soup should not be boiling over, but it should get hot, hot enough to cook the meat. The soup will cook for a while, so it doesn't have to be a rolling boil, but a simmer is nice. Let this all cook together. A real Japanese way of doing it is to lay each item in the pot before you put the broth in, so each item is separated. The mushrooms in one corner, the meat in another. This way, when you get stuff out of the pot to eat, you won't be hoping that you got a little bit of everything, you can actually go from pile to pile and get your stuff. But that's advanced Japanese cooking. For the thin sliced beef, you can ask for "hot pot" beef slices at your local oriental market. It might be frozen or something, but it will just be thin slices of beef. WARNING: This soup has a lot of sake in it. I wouldn't feed it to 7 year olds in large portions. A cup of this soup is like taking a shot of sake. If you don't like noodles, you can cook this without noodles and cook up some rice and serve it with the soup. Either way, the noodles or the rice add some starch to balance out the sake and cider and sugar. Serve in a bowl and enjoy! |
This recipe for Sukiyaki is from