Cooking for later

Both children came home for a whirlwind visit this weekend.  I am also having guests for dinner tonight so I wanted to make something that would be fine sitting on the stove to feed children as they got hungry.  So, I made a large pot of rice and a Niku jaga which literally means meat and potatoes.  It is a dish that gets stewed on the stove top and the flavours improve with sitting around.  The only hitch is, you need sukiyaki sliced beef.  I happened to have some in the freezer from my last trip to Japan Centre, but my friend Nana says you can achieve the same effect by slightly freezing a steak and slicing it.  I will have to give that a try the next time.  I was also able to try out my home made kombu soy sauce which was a great shortcut to producing dashi (stock).  The result is pretty good if I do say so myself.  Here is the recipe.

sukiyaki sliced beef  300g
potatoes                   3 large
onion                        1 medium
carrot                       1 small
mange tout (snow peas) handful

water                        2.5 cups
kombu soy sauce       6 TBP
sugar                          2 TBP
rapeseed oil                1.5 TBP


Slice the beef into 5cm pieces, set aside.

Peel and cut potatoes into good size chunks (6-8 for a large potato), put into a bowl of water.

Peel the onion, cut in half lengthwise and slice into 7-8mm pieces.  Chop the carrot into small pieces (about half the size of the potato).  Slice the mange tout in half on the diagonal.  Drain the potatoes in a colander.

Put the rapeseed oil in a pan and saute the beef followed by the onion and carrot.  Saute lightly and add water.

Separate the beef while cooking over high heat and remove the foam as it forms.

Add the potatoes cover with aluminum foil with hole in center and cook 12-15 minutes on medium low heat.

Remove the foil lid, add the kombu soy sauce and sugar and reduce cooking liquid by half.

When the potatoes are close to crumbling, add the mange tout, let it cook a bit and serve.

Here is what it looks like.