What I Made for Dinner ... and Lunch ... and Breakfast :: Nabe (鍋)

Now that it's getting colder here in the Mid-Atlantic, Japanese hot pot (nabé: 鍋) will be making its periodic appearance on our dining table. It definitely warms you up, you can use a wide variety of ingredients, and you can really stretch it out over several meals.

For dinner I made our standard version: sliced pork, meatballs (pork, but I've also made it with ground chicken), lots of nappa cabbage, tofu (regular and fried), mushrooms (enoki and shimeji), and shirataki noodles.

For lunch the next day, the husband and I enjoyed the leftovers with udon noodles cooked directly in the broth.


And, for its last iteration, I used the leftover broth to make ojiya (おじや), a rice gruel. Add cooked rice directly into the gently boiling broth and let it simmer until most of the broth is absorbed by the rice. (You can use leftover rice or freshly cooked rice.) Add an egg (just break the egg directly on to the rice and mix it up with a spoon) and thinly sliced green onions.

I'm obsessed with yuzu kosho paste (柚子胡椒) right now so I used it as a condiment for all three dishes. It adds such a nice citrusy saltiness with a slight kick to it.