Best Japanese Comfort Food: Nabe

No matter where we come from around the world, we all have our favorite comfort foods.  Whether it's fried chicken and mashed potatoes from the US; crispy tempura from Japan; Tom Yum Goong from Thailand;  Pão de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread); Akoho sy Voanio (Chicken in Coconut Milk) from the Southern African island of Madagascar or Ukrainian Filled Dumplings (Perogies); we all remember a favorite dish from our childhood that comforts us to this day.

My good friend, Ritsu, who spent her early years in Fukuoka, Japan, has more than one comfort food, as we all probably do.  One of her favorites is tempura; but the one dish she says she still loves to make from her mother's kitchen is Nabe, a one-pot or one-dish meal.  To hear her tell it; you can throw just about anything edible into it.

This one-dish meal is great for winter, you can add any kind of fish, shellfish or meat, including octopus, oysters, beef, pork, chicken, vegetables, tofu and mushrooms.  I even saw one recipe with sweet potatoes in it. Ritsu likes kimchi in hers.  And she makes it with a traditional Japanese Ponzu sauce.
It reminds me of a winter stew where you can put all kinds of ingredients.  The Japanese, of course, put everything into one pot and cook it at the table. This is also a fabulous comfort food because you don't have to worry about exact measurements. In fact, my friend could not give me the exact quantities, because she literally pits in whatever proportion or kind of ingredients she likes.  She makes it hearty and makes a lot of it for her family.
Here are some of the other foods she puts in this delicious one pot dish.  Chinese or Napa cabbage, salmon, cod, clams, salmon, shiitake and enoki mushrooms, shrimp, scallions, sesame oil and cellophane noodles.

I did look up a recipe on the About Food site.  I have put it here:

Yosenabe is a kind of Japanese nabe (one-pot) dish. It literally means putting everything together in a pot. You can put various ingredients, such as fish, seafood, meats, and vegetables in yosenabe. Like other nabe dishes, yosenabe is cooked at the dining table as people eat it.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cup dashi soup
• 4 Tbsp sake
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 or 8 hard shell clams, cleaned and sand expelled
• 2 salmon steaks, or salmon fillets, cut into 2 inch lengths and bones removed
• 1/4 head hakusai (Chinese cabbage), chopped into 2-3 inch lengths
• 1 negi, leek, rinsed and cut diagonally
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds
• 8 shiitake mushrooms, stemed removed
• 1 enoki mushrooms, stems trimmed
• 1 shungiku (chrysanthemum greens) *if available

Preparation:

Put dashi soup stock in a donabe pot or an electric skillet. Heat the soup and bring to a boil. Season with sake, soy sauce, mirin, and salt. Turn down the heat to low. Add salmon and clams in the pot at first. Place other ingredients and simmer until softened. Have diners take cooked ingredients into individual serving bowls to eat.
*makes 4 servings

Memories of Jamaica, the Value of Family, Friends and Jerk Chicken

My son, Dan, is married to the most wonderful young woman, Natalie, from Jamaica. In fact, my entire new Jamaican family is wonderful and is an awesome addition to the already fabulous family I have here in the US mainland.  Sandra, Natalie's mom, and I became instantly close and have bonded on a deep level.  Wendy, my daughter, has taken on her brother's wife as a  little sister.  My granddaughter, Danielle, and her new step-mom have also become very close and have secrets together.  My brother, Aubrey and sister in-law, Joyce, and nephew, Aubrey III, have also welcomed the Jamaica branch of the family.

Denise and Dudley Stokes, Natalie's aunt and uncle, are lovely and have embraced me and all of my family. Dudley, by the way, was a member of the first Jamaican Bobsled team!  You may remember that they shocked the world in 1988 when the first Jamaican bobsled team participated in the 1988 Olympics Winter Games in Calgary. Canada.

This, to me, is great fortune.   Many people look on fortune as having a great deal of money or great financial resources.  I don't.  Fortune is having people you love, like respect and admire who feel the same about you.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't reject the idea of having money and the things it does, believe me.  I am an entrepreneur and make my money form my business.  You can not get a bus to wherever you need to go without money.  Money is necessary to live.

However, real support comes from people.  They are the treasure of the heart.  For example, when I was battling breast cancer in 2001, money was not what I needed to steel me against what I was forced to confront.  It was my spiritual philosophy, my family and friends, including my former husband, who encouraged me that, no matter what, I had the strength within myself to win and overcome this fierce opponent.  And, I did.  Money, which is paper, uncaring and neutral, could not do that.

I have had jerk chicken here in my area, yet, there was nothing like tasting Jerk chicken in its native habitat with native chefs.  So, in honor of my Jamaican family, I present this Jerk Chicken recipe:

INGREDIENTS :

    * 1- 31/2 lbs chicken (3lb of chicken breasts may be used if preferred)
    * Jerk Sauce (See below)
    * lemon or lime juice

Jerk Sauce

METHOD:

   1. Clean, skin,and cut chicken in medium pieces,then wash with lime or lemon juice
   2. Rub the chicken with the Jerk seasoning.
   3. Be sure to rub under skin and in cavities
   4. Marinate overnight.
   5. Grill at lowest possible setting over a low fire until done.
   6. Pimento (all spice) branches (this is what is used in Jamaica) mixed with charcoal is best. If not try to use an aromatic wood in the barbecue grill to enhance the flavor.
   7. Chop meat into pieces, and serve traditionally with hard-dough bread

INGREDIENTS :

    * 1/2 cup Pimenta ( allspice berries)
    * 1/2+ cup packed brown sugar
    * 6-8 garlic cloves
    * 4-6 Scotch bonnet peppers
    * 1 tablespoon ground thyme or 2 tablespoons thyme leaves
    * 1-2 bunches scallions (green onions)
    * 1 teaspoon cinnamon
    * 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
    * salt and pepper to taste
    * 2 tablespoon soy sauce to moisten

METHOD:

   1. Put ingredients in a food processor or blender and liquefy
   2. Pour sauce in a Jar and keep refrigerated.
   3. The sauce will keep forever if kept refrigerated
   4. To increase spiciness blend pepper and pimenta and add to sauce the hot peppers at any time.

Seasoning Instruction:

    * Leave skin on chicken
    * Rub the meat (chicken, pork or beef) with the seasoning.
    * With chicken, be sure to rub under skin and in cavities
    * Marinate overnight.

Cooking Instructions

    * Grill at lowest possible setting over a low fire until done.
    * Pimenta (all spice) branches (this is what is used in Jamaica) mixed with charcoal is best. If not try to use an aromatic wood in the barbecue grill to enhance the flavor.
    * Chop meat into pieces, and serve traditionally with hard-dough bread

World's Best Fried Catfish Nugget Recipe

That's a pretty bold statement, however, beauty and taste are in the eye (mouth) of the beholder.   I am a catfish lover, so, IMHO, this is the word's best catfish recipe!  Having grown up at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on the Severn River in Annapolis, MD, I suppose it is only natural that I came to love fish.  We had all kinds of fresh fish and seafood available to us: butterfish, rockfish, shad, white and yellow perch, and hardheads (which I was to learn later were actually Atlantic croaker) were a few in abundance. 

Of course, we also had Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and in late spring through the summer, we would enjoy pan-fried soft-shell crabs.  Aside from a short walk to the bottom of my street to go fishing and crabbing with my father and brother, there was a fish vender who came to our street every Saturday and sold fresh fish right from his truck. Then my mom would fry the smaller fish and bake the larger fish and add a sauce.  Then I would be in fish heaven.

I hasten to add that we did not have catfish nuggets; it was the whole catfish with the bone in that my dad would catch, skin, clean and cut in half.   At that time, my mom cooked the world's best fried catfish. 

2 lbs catfish nuggets or fillets cut into strips
1 cup yellow corn meal
2/3 cup crushed Panko (Korean or Japanese bread crumbs)
3 tsps salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or to taste
Oil

Pour enough oil into a large heavy skillet (cast-iron is my favorite) so it is about 1/4 inch deep.  Heat oil to very hot, but not smoking. 

Rinse catfish nuggets in cold water.  If using fillets, cut them into pieces.  Put cornmeal, Panko, salt, pepper and cayenne into a thick brown paper bag.  Drop nuggets into bag and shake until well coated.   Shake off excess. 

Carefully place catfish pieces in the oil.  Fry in batches in a single layer so you don't crowd them.  Cook until golden brown; about 2 minutes on each side.  Drain on brown paper bag or newspaper.  If preferred, you can cover paper with a paper towel.

Serve with homemade tartar sauce.

Homemade Tartar  Dipping Sauce

1 cup mayonnaise
3 Tsp dill relish
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or to taste
1/2 tsp cumin seed (optional)
Mix well and dunk away