Thursday, December 23, 2010

Nabe for the ladies



The Boyfriend is off visiting relatives until Christmas proper and I have to work the day before and after the 25th so I stayed behind. To keep myself from being too sad and lonely (and because she's an amazing person) I invited my good friend Lilian to spend the night.



Before he left, The Boyfriend and I traded presents (I got him a very nice hat). I received the "Thunder Range" gas grill. So before work, I finally got around to re-firing my nabe (fill with water, put in hot oven for an hour to avoid cracking your nabe over the open flame) and looked at my nabe recipe book and found the Fukugawa recipe which traditionally is for two people, which they bumped up to four and I bumped back down to two.



Clams (which I left in the shell), mizuna (which I substituted spinach), tofu, and mushrooms went into a dashi stock with some miso paste smeared on the lip of the pot so it would caramelize and slowly melt into the stock. It was very fun to put a few clams into the broth and eagerly wait for them to open.



Of course, the best part of nabe is spooning the enriched broth over some rice (or noodles) and devouring the essence of your entire meal over the pleasant chewiness of hot rice.

The Boyfriend definitely "did good" with present shopping this year.

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