Nabe Dishes

Also known as the Japanese hot pot, nabe (pronounced "nah-beh") was first introduced hundreds of years ago. While a lot has changed since then, the basic concept has remained the same, consisting of delicious Japanese food eaten while it’s still on the flame, surrounded by friends and family.

In Japanese homes during the Edo Period in Japanese history, there was usually only one fireplace where the family would gather during winter evenings to stay warm, cook their food, and eat it while it stayed hot. It is thought that this is where nabe originated, as the earthenware dish is traditionally eaten by several people out of the same platter as it cooks. While nabe dishes now include a variety of ingredients, the first dishes were mainly prepared with fish, in part because Japan was under Buddhist rule, which denounced the consumption of beef. Later on into the Edo period, however, the country started trading with other nations and began using beef and other new ingredients.

The pot is filled with a broth or flavouring and then the ingredients are gradually added to cook. Everyone helps themselves from the pot in the middle of them. Depending on the dish, iron or clay cooking pots may be used, but when one eats nabe at home, it tends to be from a clay pot. These dishes are definitely a winter warmer and are known to originate from rural areas sometime around the 9th century. It is farmhouse fare, descended from the large pot that was kept warm over the irori (hearth).

Sukiyaki すき焼き

Sukiyaki is perhaps the best known nabe dish (thanks to the pop song of the same name!) but there is a variety of regional specialties. Nabe from Hokkaido uses salmon and vegetables in a miso broth, while horsemeat features in Nagano and wild boar appears in Tanba and Yamashiro (near Kyoto). Modern varieties have also taken on imports such as Korean kimchi (pickled cabbage) and there is now a great choice of pre-prepared flavourings available.

Sukiyaki consists of meat or tofu, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, slowly cooked or simmered in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar and mirin. Before eating, one can dip the food in a bowl of beaten egg, but this is not compulsory for the nervous of disposition!

Thinly sliced beef is usually used for sukiyaki; although in the past, in certain parts of the country (notably Hokkaido and Niigata) pork was also popular. Ingredients cooked with the beef are tofu, small spring onions, mushrooms, and leafy vegetables like Chinese cabbage and konnyaku (jelly-like) clear noodles.

Udon or soba (buckwheat) noodles or rice are sometimes added at the end to soak up the broth.

Like other nabe dishes, each Japanese region has a preferred way of cooking sukiyaki. The key difference is between Kansai in the west and Kanto in the east of Japan. In the Kanto (Tokyo) region, the ingredients are stewed in a prepared mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sake and mirin, whereas in Kansai, the meat is first grilled in the pan greased with fat. After other ingredients are put over these, the liquid is poured into the pan.

Shabu shabu しゃぶしゃぶ

Shabu shabu is traditionally made with thinly sliced beef, though modern variants sometimes use pork, crab, chicken, duck, or lobster. It is also possible these days to have mixed dishes of beef and pork. Like Sukiyaki, Shabu shabu usually includes tofu and vegetables, including Chinese cabbage, chrysanthemum leaves, seaweed, onions, and mushrooms.

The dish is prepared in a pot of boiling water or dashi (broth) made with kombu (kelp). The very thinly sliced meat is then cooked by each person by submerging it and swishing it back and forth several times. The swishing sound is where the dish gets its name - Shabu shabu roughly translates as "swish-swish". Cooked meat and vegetables are usually dipped in ponzu or goma (sesame seed) sauce before eating with a bowl of rice.

When all the meat and vegetables have been eaten, rice (or sometimes noodles) is added into the remaining broth in the pot and the resulting soup is eaten as a finale.

Chanko nabe ちゃんこ鍋

Chanko nabe comes from the word chanko, which was originally a generic term for any dishes cooked for sumo wrestlers. The one cooked in a nabe has become the best known and in recent years has become hugely popular. It is similar to the various other forms of Japanese nabe cooking but is made with careful consideration given to its nutritional value, and is eaten in large quantities as the primary source of energy for sumo wrestlers. Normal citizens can eat smaller quantities but it is still advisable to be quite hungry before a meal!

The dashi (stock) in which the food is cooked varies from sumo stable to stable, but is usually flavoured with soy sauce, miso, and/or sake - each sumo stable has a characteristic style with different ingredients and flavour.

When some wrestlers retire, they use this knowledge to become a chef and open up their own restaurant. These are often filled with sumo memorabilia and are a magnet for sumo fans. Many are in the area around Ryogoku, no doubt because of its proximity to the sumo stadium there. These restaurants run by retired sumo wrestlers also often serve the original recipe from the stable they formerly belonged to.