japanese shabu shabu at home
December 23rd, 2007 by shinzu
Shabu shabu, translating in English as splish-splash is an easy and delicious recipe to make at home.
This serves two:
Time to buy stuff at the market: 30 minutes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total Cost: $14 for 2 people (assuming you have some pantry items). So $7 for one meal.
Ingredients in the pantry:
+ Kikoman soy sauce ($2)
+ Togarashi (red pepper flakes) ($2)
Japanese pepper flakes that don’t make the dish too spicy, but adds a nice flavor to sauces.
+ Rice Stick - Udon (optional)
You can use a couple sticks for the meal
+ Rice (White or brown)
Perishable Ingredients to buy:
+ Firm Tofu ($1)
Note you must be firm and not soft tofu.
+ Enoki Mushroom ($1)
A stringy mushroom that has nice texture.
+ Shabu shabu sauce ($3.50)
+ Shabu shabu meat (sliced ribeye) - .75 pounds ($6)
You can buy this at your local market. Be sure to choose high quality cuts of meat.
+ Vegetables such as broccoli or bok choy
Preparation:
- Get a medium sized pot and fill it half with hot water
- Pour some soy sauce to color the water brown. Also put in some red pepper flakes
- Turn the heat on high until it start boiling
- Rinse and clean your vegetables
Cooking:
First put in the broccoli into the pot when it is boiling. Cook the broccoli for a minute then remove. You don’t want to overcook broccoli or else you will lose a lot of the nutrients.
Next, put in some of the firm tofu in and start cooking the meat. For each slice, put it in the pot until it is no longer red. This should last about 45 seconds. Remove and repeat with all the slices.
Fat will arise to the surface, so be sure to skim after cooking the slices of meat.
Next put in the enoki and firm tofu. You can’t really overcook the firm tofu, so don’t worry too much about leaving it in the pot. Remove the enoki when it starts getting soft in about 2 minutes.
Put some shabu shabu sauce in a dipping plate with some red pepper flakes.
Plate your dish with the meat and vegetables and put your tofu and mushrooms in a different plate. Eat with a bowl of white or brown rice.
Why cook this at home
A plate of shabu shabu at a restaurant can easily cost you about $15. The advantage of cooking it at home is you can control your portions to however you like it. You can choose to have more meat, or more vegetables, less tofu, etc. This is a rare dish that virtually requires no prep time and is so delicious. The key to this dish is really getting good cuts of meat and the shabu shabu sauce. The meat itself is going to not have any flavor besides being marbled (fat in the meat). That is why the dish is complemented by its dipping sauce, which is the shabu shabu sesame sauce.
videos
Here are two videos describing the process
i guess not doing well in that bio/chem of cooking class didn’t matter too much… that class was realllly hard, and i did really bad, but i know what poached eggs are and how they are made now, haha
Hi Minh
It’s supprised that you can cook Japanese food by yourself. I love this food very much but never tried to make it at home. I will try it with your recipe…I will make a special one for you when you come here..:):):)