Japanese crab hot pot カニさん鍋

Yesterday was Matt's birthday so I decided to have some of our friends over to have a crab hot pot.

Hot pot, or Nabe (pronounced like nah-be) is everyone's favorite in Japan. When it starts to get cold outside, families gather around the table and enjoy nabe together.  It is kind of like a symbol of happy family dinners to me.

I actually did not grow up having the occasions of nabe with my family.  I was an only child and my dad was never home. When I started elementary school, my mom was working till late so I prepared myself a small dinner every night. So, now I have "family"-like friends around me, I get to have nabe . How awesome !

Nabe recipes evolve forever.  There are already so many kinds of traditional nabe recipes , which usually represent the regional flavors from all over Japan. Then, we also have new or modern recipes combining some flavors from all over the world, such as curry nabe or kimuchi nabe.

When I had girls over for dinner/wine  night, I chose the healthy vegetarian soy-milk nabe.  It fills you up really good because of the soup and lots of veges, but you can keep it very low calories. I love that about nabe.

Crab nabe was delicious.  Here is how you prepare.

1. Get the ingredients:
- Crab legs: I bought 3 lbs this time for about 7 people.
- Vegetables:  Napa cabbage, Daikon radish, Green onions, Onions, Mizuna ( Japanese water greens) and Tofu.
- Broth:  Konbu seaweed, Bonito flakes, Mirin, Sake, Soy sauce, Salt


2. Prepare the broth... good broth is the most important part of nabe.  I like very simple taste for the broth so that it does not overpower the natural tastes of vegetables and crab.  First you soak dashi-konbu, which is the dried seaweed for broth, in 6 cups of water for a 2-3 hours. Then heat the water to boil and take the konbu out.
Next , you put the bonito flakes in it , boil again for about 5 min and take those out.
Add 4 spoons each of Japanese sake, Mirin and light soy sauce. Add a little bit of salt. I like adding a bit of sugar too.

2. Cut the vegetables and crab.  I cut veges then put them on the plate. Nabe is the ongoing cooking. We keep adding more food in the pot to keep going as we eat. So it is good to have those vegetables cut and ready. Taste it and adjust.

3. Start adding vegetables in the order.... Root vegetables like onions, daikon radish or carrots go first.  Mushrooms , tofu and crab legs go next.  Greens go last as they cook very quick.

That's it. You can keep adding vegetables and crab legs as you eat and the pot gets more room.
Traditionally we add noodles or rice in the left over soup to 'close' the nabe dinner in Japan.
But I tend to replace that with the room for some beers :)

Life is good.

Don't just cook rice. Do it right.

I encountered many words and situations that could not be translated word to word from Japanese to English, and vice versa. "Washing rice" is one of them. We don't use word "wash" to wash rice in Japan. We say 研ぐ (to-gu), which literary means " polish". I noticed that many people here just wash rice for a few second and put them in a rice cooker. No, wait! We don't just 'wash' rice, but we are supposed to take time and 研ぐ before cooking.
I know, I will grow old to become an annoying Asian old lady who corrects white kids on how to correctly cook rice. And this is me, starting this process already .
So here are the steps :)
1. Rinse rice 2-3 times very quickly. The initial rinsing should be very quick, because the white water will leave the weird smell and taste to the rice. A little side note....This white water you get when you wash is called "kome-nuka "「米ぬか」and it is very good for the skin. Asian cosmetics often use this essence in their moisturizing lotion.
2. Now, we are ready to take some time to really wash (or polish) the rice.
Put the heel of your hand then slide it to the middle. You almost feel like you are grinding the rice with your hand. Change water 2-3 times and repeat this step. At the end, the water should not be as white as the initial round anymore, but it does not need to be transparent.

3. This third step makes your rice sticky, rich and soft. Say bye to your dry, hard, old rice you used to have.
First, soak the rice in the water for about 30 min. You can leave in the room temp.
If you live in Texas like me, where everything melts in a few seconds, then go ahead and leave it in the fridge.



Now drain the water and dry the rice for 10 min. This step makes the rice to absorb the water very good when you cook.
4. Put the rice in your cute little rice cooker, add water, and switch-on!



5. When the rice is done, gently stir the rice from the bottom to the top. This easy one last touch makes the rice fluffier.

Next time you cook rice, remember these steps please. You will notice the difference.

Btw I am not going to do recipe blogs, like all other Japanese moms in the US are already doing. This was something I needed to share with y'all simply because rice is so stereotypically Japanese!

Perfect for my secret plan here, Japanizing Americans. (- _ -)!!

Sushi, made by a Japanese

 Austinites love sushi.


When I lived in East Lansing, Michigan, the only way for me to get to sushi was to find a restaurant with a panda on its sign.  They used to line up fake sushi next to some fried dumplings and fortune cookies on its buffet table. yeah.


But here in Austin, there are so many sushi restaurants.   They are good and stylish, and their "sushi" are 'Asian fusion creative meals inspired by sushi'.   I don't know why fried things are rolled with rice.  I don't know why they put mayonnaise in every roll.  But hey, I enjoy them too!


A side note..... Sake-bomb.   what? Never heard of a drink like that in Japan either..... I can see how they came up with this name. "Sake? from Japan? Truman? Bomb? ohhhhh, Sake bomb! "

Authentic sushi is hard to get, even in this cultured city Austin.  That's why I decided to make sushi for our dinner with my close friends last night. 


The first time I made sushi was ..... believe it or not, in Austin.  A blue-eyed, blonde, white boy taught me how to make sushi. Surprise!
But now I've gotten a hang of it, and I have been pretty good at it.


I went to select fish at DK grocery and cooked all from scratch . (I will post how to make them some other time.)

I made many rolls (Maki-mono) , Nigiri (Simply a piece of fish on sushi rice - nigiri is a lot more common than rolls in Japan.) , Kinpira-gobo , Dashimaki-tamago (rolled eggs.  Yes, we roll everything.), and Inari-zushi (wiki: Inarizushi (稲荷寿司) is a pouch of fried tofu filled with usually just sushi rice.) 


My friends really liked Inari-zushi.  I haven't seen any sushi restaurants selling Inari-zushi in Austin yet. Maybe I should start a business lol.  

Inari-zushi

Thank you my friends for such a fun night.