EASY Japanese Stew | Perfect for Winter

Описание: Hey guys! Happy new year! It’s still really cold here in Japan so I thought I’d kick off the new year with a video introducing Japanese NIMONO, a type of stew that is a great dish to warm you up in the winter!

This nimono I’ll be using chicken thigh but feel free to mix things up and try whatever ingredients you want!


00:00 Intro
00:53 Make the Dashi Stock
02:40 Prepare the Chicken Thigh
03:07 Prepare the Vegetables
04:44 Put our Stew Together
07:20 Let's Eat!

Ingredients:

Home-made Dashi:

700ml Water
Dried Kombu (Kelp), one piece
15g Katsuo-Bushi (Bonito Flakes)

Nimono Stew:
350g Chicken
1 Burdock Root
½ Carrot
¼ Japanese Daikon Radish
2 Shiitake Mushrooms
Green Beans (handful, in pod)
One Block of Konnyaku (This is called devil’s tongue in english!)

How to make:
Your Nimono Stew will taste better if you prepare a dashi stock beforehand, you can use water or store-bought packet dashi but if you want to make your own follow these steps:
Soak a piece of Kombu (dried kelp) in a saucepan with 700ml of water for 30 minutes
Turn on the heat and when the water starts to boil, remove the kombu or else your dashi may turn a bit bitter - also remove any foam from the liquid if you notice any.
Add 15g of katsuo-bushi (bonito flakes) to the water and then bring back to a boil - let that boil for 2-3 minutes
Then using a colander and kitchen towel/a clean kitchen cloth - drain your dashi stock and set aside

For the stew:
Remove any moisture from your chicken thigh with a paper towel and cut off any sinew or fatty parts of the chicken
Then heat a pan to a medium heat (you can use oil but if the chicken still has it’s skin it will crisp up just fine) and place you chicken skin-side down
Cook until the skin of your chicken turns a nice golden color and remove - (you don’t want to cook the chicken just give the skin a nice texture and render off some of the fat in the skin)
Now prepare your vegetables, (you can use anything you want in your nimono but I used the following)
¼ Daikon peeled and then cut into bite sized chunks, ½ carrot peeled and cut into chunks, 2 shiitake mushrooms with stalks removed and cut into chunks
For the burdock - scrape off the skin with your knife, cut off the hard end parts and wash - then cut diagonally so it absorbs more of your nimono stew
Cut the hard ends off the green beans
Now in a sauce-pan add your dashi stock from before (it probably evaporated a little to about 600ml at this stage), 2 tbsp sugar, 3 tbsp of mirin, 3 tbsp of soy sauce
and bring to a boil
Then add your chicken and all the vegetables except the green beans
For the konnyaku, tear it up by hand and add it in - the rough edges help it better absorb the flavor
Use aluminum foil to create a ‘lid’ for your sauce-pan just a bit smaller than the pan - this will evaporate some of the liquid and help concentrate the flavor or your nimono as well as spread the flavors more evenly throughout all the ingredients
Let that sit for 20-30 minutes until the vegetables are soft (poke them with a skewer or chopstick to test)
Finally, add the green beans for 2-3 minutes with the foil lid back on and then take them out so they don’t over-cook
Plate up your delicious and warm winter Nimono Stew