21.12.09: 日式豚肉飯 (Japanese pork belly on rice) - the recipe

Ingredients

• pork belly: 3-4 slices per person. We got them pre-sliced from Japanese grocery store, alternatively, you can buy a slab of pork belly and DIY the slices.
• mushroom of your choice: again, about 3-4 pieces per person
• water: a small bowl 
• soy sauce, mirin: amount to your own liking (add in little by little will be the safest bet)
• white onion, thinly sliced: a quarter of a medium size onion per person (don't be shy on the onion, trust me, the more the better!!!)
• bonito flakes, sesame seeds: flexible, to your own liking
• Japanese barbeque & mayonnaise: as much or as little as you like

Steps

1. Pan fry the pork belly for a little while (you will be able to smell the aroma of the cooking pork belly).
2. Add some water and soy sauce to the partially cooked pork.
3. Let the pork cook, but don't over boil
4. Add some mirin, bonito flakes and sesame seeds- these will give the dish a mixture of sweet, fishy and seedy taste.
5. Add the sliced white onion- it's a must and gives the dish a real oniony taste.
6. (optional) Add some mushroom of your choice, we used abalone mushroom (鮑魚菇)- the mushroom will soak up the sauce. You may choose other vegies if you don't like mushroom.
7. Put rice into bowls, and top up with the pork, onion and mushroom. Squeeze some Japanese barbeque sauce on top plus a dab of Japanese mayo. Add more bonito flakes on top to decorate.

Tip: Don't pour in the left over sauce from the cooking of the pork- it's full of pork belly fat, and it will also make the rice dish overly watery.

豆乳 shabu shabu

After having this delicious 豆乳 shabu shabu in Japan, we decided to try it out at home tonight.


It's pretty simple, you just need (1) unsweetened soya milk; (2) meat of your choice (get those thinly sliced beef, pork or chicken from Chinese / Korean / Japanese grocery shop); vegies (tonight we had 金菇菜, cabbage is another nice choice); and (4) udon or japanese ramen.

  

The soup base- just pour in the soya milk, and add some meat of your choice- tonight we put in some left over chicken and pork balls. We also added some tofu. Let it boil (on low heat) for a little while to get the flavour of the meat into the soup.

Once that's done, you are ready to shabu shabu. Pour some sesame sauce (which you can easily get from Japanese grocery shop) into your bowl, and use that as a dip for the meat and vegies that have been cooked in the soya milk.

At the end of the meal, save some room to have a bit of the soup- it's smooth and super rich in flavour. Awesome stuff!


Ideally we should have a hotpot stove so we can eat at our table... but until we get one, the stove will need to be it for the time being.