Mom's Sukiyaki

Wow, it's been over 3 months since my last post. And so much has happened since! I had planned on finishing my posts about my US/Canada road trip but haven't even gotten halfway through that. (I do plan to finish that series someday soon!) Well, as John Lennon said, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Anyway, here I am, another effort to revive this blog. And I'm pretty excited, albeit more than a little overwhelmed, to tackle all the backlog of posts in my head. One tiny step at a time and I'lll get there somehow. To celebrate a new year of blogging, I'm starting with one of my all-time favorite meals, my mom's sukiyaki. It's a family favorite and for good reason. It's usually made on the weekends when everyone is home and it's one of those meals that actually has the power to make you change your lunch or dinner plans, should you have made any, in favor of a meal at home with a big (big!) bowl or three of mom's sukiyaki.

It's absolutely delicious! I usually like to add more mushrooms and tofu then the recipe calls for because they're my favorite ingredients in this dish. And if your family is like ours, you'll need to make 2 batches of the broth to keep everyone happy. We just can't get enough of it!

Mom's Sukiyaki

Ingredients:

1/4 kilo tenderloin sliced very thinly
3/4 Tbsp. Kikkoman soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar

4 cups beef broth

3/4 cup Kikkoman soy sauce

3/4 cup mirin or Japanese sweet rice wine

about 8 pcs. shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water and cut in half

2-3 cakes of firm tofu - cubed

2 large onions quartered

1 pc. carrot sliced into thin rounds

2 stalks leeks chopped

5-6 Chinese cabbage (or Baguio pechay) cut into bite size pieces. Separate the stalks from the leaves

50 grams glass noodles or sotanghon, soaked, and drained and cut but not too short.

1/4 cup butter
1 tbsp. olive oil

Procedure:

Marinade beef in 1 tbsp. of soy sauce 1 tbsp. of sugar.

Pour the beef broth into a bowl then mix in the remaining soy sauce, sugar and rice wine.

Heat butter with a little oil in a wok. Stir-fry the onions until transparent and push aside. Add the mushrooms and stir-fry then push aside.

Stir-fry the beef slices until barely pink. Then pour in the beef broth and add the tofu.

When broth starts to boil, add the carrots, the cabbage stalks and leeks and let cook for about a minute. Lower the heat then drop the noodles and cabbage leaves and simmer for 5 mins.