Nikujaga, a Japanese simmered dish, means beef and potato. There are a few stories about how this dish came into being. One of them is that before World War II, a military general who returned from England ordered his military cooks to replicate a dish he ate in England—a British stew dish. Without proper ingredients, cooking tools, and a recipe for such a European dish, the cooks produced the one in which potato, carrot, and onion were cut into bite-sized pieces and the beef into thin slices, cooked in dashi stock, and flavored with Japanese seasonings. Beef, potatoes, carrots, and onions are available at any food store. Here is where you can learn how to make dashi stock. Nikujaga is a fun and delicious dish to try in your kitchen. To enhance the color of the prepared dish, I add cooked seasonal green vegetables at the end: Winter: Chinese broccoli, spinach, snow peas Spring: Asparagus, fiddlehead ferns, ramps Summer: Green beans, okra, snack peas Autumn: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale The best cut of meat for the Nikujaga is beef short ribs without bone. Ask a butcher to slice it thin (1/10th of an inch), or partially freeze the block in your freezer for about half an hour and cut it into thin slices with a well-sharpened knife. The easiest way is to purchase sukiyaki sliced meat at Japanese food stores. A potato can be a low-starch, waxy potato or a high-starch russet potato. I chose the waxy one so that the potato pieces kept their clean shape until the end of cooking. Nikujaga, a simmered dish, tastes better when reheated. Ingredients (4 servings) 10 ounces beef short rib without bone 1 pound yellow potato 3.5 ounce carrot 7 ounces yellow onion 12 pieces snow peas 1 tablespoon cooking oil, such as canola or olive oil ½ cup sake (replace with dashi stock if you don’t have) 3 ¼ cups dashi stock 3 tablespoons sugar 30 ml mirin or 20 ml maple syrup 5 tablespoons (koikuchi) shoyu Parchment paper Instructions Cut the meat into thin slices, 2 inches long. Peel and cut the potato into bite-sized pieces (about 1 ½-inch pieces). Peel and cut the carrot into the same size as the potato pieces. Peel and cut the onion into ½-inch wide wedges. Separate all of the onion slices. Cut the rectangular parchment paper into a round circle slightly larger than the pot size. Cut out a small hole in the center of the disk. Heat the vegetable oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the vegetables and cook until they are well coated with oil. Add the beef and the sake and bring it to a boil. Add the dashi stock, sugar, and mirin. Place the parchment paper disk on top of the meat, vegetables, and stock, and cook over medium-high heat for 8 minutes. While cooking, remove the foams with a spoon. Add 4 tablespoons of the shoyu, remove the parchment paper disk, and cook for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat. Before serving, reheat the Nikujaga and divide it among 4 dinner bowls. Pour some cooking liquid over the meat and vegetables.
