Mushroom and Pork Nabe

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…and melt your cold cold heart…
Oh Winter: the season for simple social nabemono. Gather ’round a hot pot and share a meal to warm your body and spirit.

I have finally begun to move kitchen things into the new house. I designed my old tiny kitchen myself to be as efficient as possible. This kitchen is large, with plenty of counter acreage, but it’s been a puzzle to figure out where things should be stored. There is plenty of cabinet space but much of it requires a ladder to reach! The drawers don’t slide well so I can’t pack too much weight into them. The bottom cabinets are deep and need slide-out trays in order to make items in the back accessible. Oh, the problems of such plenty!
At least Mikey knows where he belongs.

Mushroom and Pork Nabe inspired by Kinoko nabe (mushroom hot pot) by Jessica 6 cups dashi 2 tablespoons sesame oil 4 cloves garlic, grated Ginger, roughly the same amount as the garlic, grated 3-5 dried chili peppers, cut into rings, seeds removed 2 negi (Japanese long onion, cut into 1″ pieces) 3-4 green onions (cut into 1″ pieces) 1 small sweet red pepper, cut into 1-inch squares 1 small sweet yellow pepper, cut into 1-inch squares about 1 Tablespoon white miso, to taste ½ clump/stalk enoki mushrooms, trimmed and cut into 2″ lengths (about 1 cup) ½ package oyster mushrooms, trimmed and sliced bite-sized (about 1 cup) a bunch of shingiku (tung ho or edible chrysanthemum leaves), discard stems, chop the leaves roughly 1 pack of mung bean noodles, soaked in hot water for 5 minutes to soften, then cut into 5 to 6 inch sections ¾ pound sliced pork Heat 1 Tablespoon sesame oil in your nabe. Cook the garlic and ginger over low heat to flavor the oil. Add the hot peppers and continue cooking while stirring constantly. Fry the pork until it turns white, remove, and reserve. Add ½ of the total amount of mushrooms, the onions and the sweet peppers. Cook while stirring until slightly softened. Add the lemon rind. Then add enough dashi to cover and simmer gently. Use a miso koshi strainer to add the white miso (or remove some of the soup into a small bowl, mix the miso in there, then return it to the nabe). Start by adding a few teaspoons, then taste. Continue adding miso until the soup tastes flavorful but not overly salty – the goal isn’t to make miso soup but to add another dimension of subtle flavor. Add the rest of the mushrooms, shingiku, and mung bean noodles, arranging them nicely inside the pot. Add more dashi to cover, but you don’t want to submerge all the ingredients – they should peek out from the broth. Cover the pot to cook the greens. Add a final drizzle of sesame oil for fragrance. Mound the greens in the center of the pot and arrange the pork around one edge. Cover the pot, and simmer for a few minutes to re-warm the pork. Bring the nabe to the table and set it on the portable stove. Turn the table-top burner as low as necessary to maintain a very gentle simmer. To serve, provide each person with a small dish and have them use chopsticks or a ladle to select their own vegetables, meat, and noodles. Note: I don’t have a nabe table-top ring, so we served from the simmering pot in the kitchen.

Have rice and pickles on the table to complete the meal.
This was a lot of food, so of course there were leftovers. I added rice to some of the remaining soup, and had a lovely rice porridge for lunch at work.

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