I made NABE!

Nabe is Japanese stew. I posted about it before when I had the Nabe Party with my Chorus Club.

But this was my first time to make Nabe by myself!

What's wonderful about Nabe is that whatever veggies or meat you like, you can put in!

I think the soup base flavor is the most important ingredient of Nabe. I chose a salt-chanko soup base. It's one part base and two parts water.
For my veggies and meat, I chose shredded pork, Chinese cabbage, carrots, and tofu.

Common ingredients include shitake mushrooms, inoki mushrooms, and long green onions.

Since I live alone, what I made is called Hitori-Nabe, meaning Nabe for One.
So all that on the cutting board fit into this pot!

I am not sure the "proper" way is to put stuff into the pot, but I chose to put the meat and carrots on the bottom and let the cabbage and tofu be on top.
My reasoning was that the carrots would cook thoroughly and be tender and the tofu would absorb all the flavor from the steam.

And finally, nabe is a STEW. So it should be cooked on low heat and simmered for a long period.
So after 20 minutes, I had dinner! AND IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!

My new winter dish is NABE! Next time, I am going to try a kimchi soup base, which is Korean spicy pickled cabbage.

Let the Update Begin! Part 5

So before school started, the chorus club had a nabe party. Nabe is a winter dish that you make at the table. It's like... make-your-own-stew. It's REALLY good and really comforting to eat in the winter time when the cold sets in. So since the teachers had to be at school to work but classes hadn't started yet, we had a nabe party for lunch.


Here are our two MCs.



We played a game where 3 cream puffs were actually stuffed with wasabi (extremely strong green horseradish) instead of cream. But you couldn't tell from the outside which were the bad ones. I think my face is hilarious because I was picked as the "teacher" to participate in this activity. Then we ate them whole and the rest of the students had to guess who were the ones with the wasabi-puffs.




Thankfully, I was not a victim of a wasabi-puff. Poor Yuki, Akiho, and Hayato tried to keep a straight face to keep the game going.




My Nabe Party table from left to right: Chisato, me, Yuki, Hayato, Sayaka, Koharu, Aki, and.... I'm embarassed to say I'm drawing a blank on the last one. Hopefully that'll be fixed soon.



And all the students in chorus club! Fun times!