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

Chawanmushi

I cooked for a few friends last night and thought I'd have a go at a Japanese theme.

After much Googling, I settled on chawanmushi, a steamed egg custard, for a starter. I've only had the Japanese style once (at Tao's in Bulleen) but had never made it myself. It turned out pretty well, albeit a little overcooked. Next time I'll keep it on a lower heat.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups stock
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp mirin
• 1 tsp rice wine
• 3 small shitaki mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp dried daikon, finely chopped

Method

• Beat eggs, then add stock.
• In a separate bowl, combine salt, sugar, soy sauce, mirin and rice wine until salt and sugar dissolve. Stir into the egg mixture.
• Place shitaki and daikon in the bottom of each ramekin, ladle egg mixture over. Fill up to 2 thirds up the ramekin (it will rise as it steams).
• Steam for approximately 10 minutes on a medium heat, until egg is set.

Drunken Butter Scallops

A Japanese dish that always seems to stand out for me is 'asari sake' (Kobe Restaurant, Doncaster) or 'asari butter' (Izakaya Chuji, Melbourne) - pipis (cockles) in a sake and butter broth. The smooth nuttiness of the butter and the strong almost acidic flavours of the sake blend together to create a whole new depth of flavour.

So with a handful of scallops leftover from my quiche last weekend, and memories of the two dishes in mind, I decided to attempt the dish with what ingredients I had in my kitchen. It worked surprisingly well, although I don't think I'll be repeating it again with scallops. Pipis are definitely the way to go!

Ingredients

• 100g fresh scallops (I left the roe attached, but you can remove it if you want)
• 50g butter
• 50ml Chinese rice wine
• 50 - 100ml water (add more if turning this into a soup)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

• Lightly season scallops with salt and pepper.
• In a heated pan, melt in half the butter.
• Sear scallops in the hot melted butter.
• When scallops are par-cooked, pour in rice wine. Gently swirl pan to mix the butter and rice wine together.
• As liquid starts to evaporate, add in remaining butter, then pour in water.
• Season with black pepper.

drunken butter scallops

Katsu-don

A classic Japanese rice dish...

katsu-don

Ingredients

• 2 pieces pork scotch fillet steak
• flour
• breadcrumbs
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine (or Japanese mirin if you have any)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 stalk spring onion, chopped
• 1 brown onion, sliced
• cooked rice
• salt and pepper

Method

• Pound the pork steaks until they are around 1cm in thickness.
• Coat the steaks in flour, dip in egg, then coat with breadcrumbs. Keep the leftover beaten egg.

crumbed pork steaks

• Shallow or deep fry the crumbed pork steaks. Rest meat, then slice into ~1cm wide strips.

after frying

• In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, rice wine (mirin) and sugar.
• Chop spring onions and slice onions.

sliced onions and spring onions

• In a saucepan, simmer spring onions and onions with the soy sauce mixture.
• Just before serving, turn down the heat and add leftover egg (from crumbing stage), swirl pan gently to combine with sauce. Sauce should thicken slightly. Add water to deglaze pan if necessary.

cooking the sauce

• Place sliced pork on rice and spoon some sauce mixture over.
• Enjoy!