Japanese steak with enoki mushrooms, candied sweet potato, butter 'sake' cabbage

The next course involved three Japanese inspired dishes served with rice.

Japanese Steak with Enoki Mushrooms

This dish was the result of inspiration taken from a strange combination of Jamie Oliver and Nobu. The cooking method for the steak was adopted from a one of Jamie's 30 minute meal episodes, whilst the actual dish was a bit of an attempt to replicate Nobu's toban yaki beef dish.

Ingredients

• 400g Porterhouse steak
• 100g enoki mushrooms
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1/2 cup rice wine (use sake if you have it)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp ginger, grated
• 4 cloves garlic, grated
• oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Japanese steak

• Cover the steaks in oil (use a more neutral oil) and leave to sit.
• In a bowl (large enough to place the steaks in), combine soy sauce, mirin, rice wine, sugar, ginger and garlic until sugar dissolves.
• Heat a griddle pan. Once hot enough, cook steaks to preference. For this dish, medium-rare works well.
• As soon as steaks are ready, take them off the heat and place them immediately into the bowl with the sauce. Turn the steaks in the sauce to coat them, then cover bowl with foil and leave steaks to rest.
• Blanche the enoki mushrooms in boiling water for a few minutes, then drain.
• Once the steaks have rested, pull them out of the sauce mixture and slice.
• Pour sauce into the griddle pan and let the residual heat from earlier cook the garlic and ginger.
• Place sliced steak and mushrooms on a serving plate, spoon over sauce.

Japanese steak with enoki mushrooms

To balance out the meat, I made two sides to go with the meal. 

Candied Sweet Potato

The first was a traditional Japanese candied sweet potato.

Ingredients

• 400g sweet potato, chopped thumb-sized pieces
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 cup water
• oil
• salt

Method

• Heat oil in a wok, fry sweet potato pieces until they start to brown a little. Add 1/2 cup water and a pinch of salt.
• Cover with lid and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until the liquid has completely dried up. 
• Remove sweet potato from wok. 
• Combine sugar, soy sauce and 1 tsp of water and add to the wok. Once the syrup begins to bubble, pour in remaining 1/2 cup of water. Bring syrup to boil.
• Add sweet potato back into the wok. Toss to coat in the sugar syrup. Remove from heat.

candied sweet potato

Buttered 'Sake' Cabbage

And a not-so-Japanese side, buttered 'sake' cabbage. The dish was a bit of an invention designed to round out the meal. The steak had strong bold flavours, and the sweet potato had a toffee like sweetness, so I needed something smooth and subtle. The dish is a bit of a take on asari sake, a traditional Japanese dish of clams in sake and butter.

Ingredients

• Handful of cabbage, leaves separated
• 25g butter
• 1/2 cup rice wine (use sake if you have it)
• 1 tsp cooking oil
• salt

Method

• In a wok, heat oil then add butter. As butter melts, toss in cabbage and fry until cabbage begins to soften. 
• Add rice wine and simmer until the liquid stops bubbling and the rice wine has mostly evaporated.

buttered 'sake' cabbage