Nabe ~ The Lazy Version ~

I watched too many variety shows that has nabe/shabu2 or basically anything with a pot, and tons of stuff inside that pot and it looks mouth watering. From one of the interviews that I watched (viva fansub), 1 person can have sooo many of types of nabe pots and he's a damn busy person, so it shouldn't be THAT hard to cook, right? And, yeah, it's not hard, and basically you just need to put in what you like there. And, NO, having chinese cabbage/sawi/white cabbage whatever is NOT my idea of shabu2/nabe because it's cheating and I hate restaurants who try to cheat you by having lots of cabbage and only tiny 5 slice of meat on the top. My version also have about 5 slice too but underneath those meat is definitely not the damn cabbage, and it still didn't cost me a bomb to make.

This recipe is just nice for a 1 person nabe pot like what I had in the pic.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup bonito stock -- this is the 1 time suffering but you'll enjoy many times of goodness

1/2 cup chicken stock -- I use organic chicken stock, no way I'm gonna boil the chicken bones to make my own stock

1/2 cup water -- no need to use all

1/4 part leek (the big one) -- julliened

1/2 part carrot (another big carrot) -- julliened

1/3 part of shabu2 meat packet -- usually 1 pack will have about 20 slices, so make your own ration, I conclude 1 packet = 3 times of goodness

1/2 pack tofu -- sliced

1 pack enoki mushroom -- cut the root

How to:

1. On the nabe pot, place leek, carrot, and enoki, then tofu and meat. If your stocks are in ice cube form aka frozen, place them on the bottom. Then pour in all the stock first then water until you can see the liquid in between the tofu.

2. Close the lid and bring to boil in very very small fire. It should be done w/in 10-15 min and the meat will be nicely cooked too.

The suffering part --> bonito stock

1 pack bonito --> follow the instruction on how to make bonito stock behind the packet. Usually 1 big pack of bonito can make 2L of very very nice stock and another 1L of a not so fragrant stock but stil can do. Use ice cube tray to freeze your stock for nice rationing (Daisho have tons of different sizes and I think they have pink ones too). You can add konbu too but I find that konbu is bloody expensive.

Tips:

1. Use chives if they're available instead of leek. Most of nabe that I saw (including the one that I had in Fukuoka) have chives. Leek is probably more for shabu2, but anything goes in my kitchen :p, whatever makes me happy.

2. Do add some red chillies (can be dry or fresh), it'll add a zesh and color on your nabe.

3. Don't use green onions because they're slimmy and you can't really julliene them

4. If you're too lazy to julliene, slice carrots very very thinly but it doesn't look so nice :p
5. Do add raw egg just after you open the lid, let the egg yolk raw. This way, you can have 2 flavor of your nabe in 1 bowl. The first one if your original flavor, then you poke the egg yolk and mix into the soup and you'll get another different flavor. Egg yolk makes your nabe creamy, which is yum...