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Cooking Notes
Stephen
There are many kinds of Japanese sweet potatoes, ranging from white to orange to purple. This kind of braised vegetable dish usually uses sato-imo, a small, round tuber more closely related to taro.
Sansho, or Zanthoxylum piperitum, is technically not a pepper. It's highly fragrant, often sprinkled on grilled eel, noodles, etc. It's also sometimes pickled whole.
Shichimi is a seven spice mix of ground chili, orange peel, sesame, sansho, ginger, etc. Often used on soba and udon.
Perignon
For stews like this I use low-fat or no-fat chicken stock instead of water to soak the shiitake mushrooms in overnite, and I also add 1 TBS of mushroom powder (or more to taste) to the pot before I add the soaking liquid and vegetables. It makes for an incredibly rich and tasty stew in the same way that mushroom powder is one of my essential ingredients in every pho I make.
C.
This was really delicious! I halved the amount of chicken, doubled the vegetables, and added some cubed tofu towards the end. So comforting on a cold night.
Marj
You may want to avoid iodine-rich dried seaweed if you are subclinically hyperthyroid or have Graves' disease.
I once watched a video that an eminent thyroidologist made with his wife. He chuckled and said that he hoped people ate a lot of kelp. She was puzzled, so he explained that "it was good for business." A little endocrinologist humor that may play well on the domestic front though not with the vulnerable population on the edge or in the trenches.
Vicki
How much water?
Bruce McLin
Real easy to imagine a Japanese-style soup or stew without garlic or ginger. In their style of Japanese cooking, my Japanese wife and her late mother never added garlic or ginger into Nimono (Melissa, this kind of dish is pronounce kneemono, not "numono" and konbu - konbu, long "o", not kanbu). Well, sometimes ginger to some kinds of dishes.
We have been having "kneemono" each New Years Day for the past 35 years.
Laurie A. Smith
The mushroom soaking liquid plus one cup of sake.
SCA
Hard to imagine a Japanese-style soup or stew without garlic and ginger as base flavorings.
I use bone-in chicken thighs in my glass-lidded soup pot, on low heat until they simmer in their own juices. I add grated ginger and a spoonful of garlic paste, plus a tsp. each of ginger powder, mustard powder, allspice and black pepper. Add vegetables of your choice, water, salt, soy sauce.
I slice bok choy and scallions into individual bowls and add soup.
Scott
I added more of the vegetables as well (~7oz). Substituted dried portabellas b/c couldn't find dried shiitakes. Took 1oz of each of the root vegetables, tossed with olive oil and salt and browned in oven for garnish. Delish!
Nancy Lipner
As someone who has been using dried sh*takes for decades, I'm very surprised to see no notes about straining the soaking water, which you must do if you don't want grit in your soup/sauce, etc. I use a large strainer with some cheesecloth folded a few times, then just pour through into a bowl. I even give the dried mushrooms a quick rinse before soaking, but I'm paranoid about the grit, which is pretty unpleasant in food.
nico10028
If you want to make it "Japanese nimono" style, first of all, you need to cut vegetables larger - twice or more larger. Sweet potatoes are not for this kind of stew. I know it's hard to find but we often use sliced lotus roots. There should be much less liquid. When you remove the pan from the gas, you can drizzle a little semame oil for more flavor. I would never use vinegar over nimono. 1 cup of sake is way too much.
Barbara
light and tasty stew, nice variety
Jeremy
The amount of water within which to soak the mushrooms seems like a pretty important detail to omit, no? Since it is the base of the stew and all…
DR
Can this be made in advance, say, by a day?
Kim from MT
I made this for 2 Japanese exchange students (of course, I made plain sushi rice on the side, as requested) and they LOVED it. They consumed every last drop. I was worried about how much liquid to add, it doesn't say, so I just made it look like Melissa's video....
Kim from MT
So, she doesn't say how much liquid to use! I assume enough to cover the mushrooms...but still, would be nice to know? Also, we don't cover the pot? just rely on the aluminum foil?
Lisa
This was delicious and very easy to make. I steamed some Napa cabbage separately and added it to my bowl of soup with some green onions and cilantro.
Brandon from Woodside
I made this recipe twice before and it came out fine, but the third time I followed the order they tell you to add the root vegetables and it was a disaster. The kobocha squash I was using cooked so quickly and the Japanese sweet potatoes took so long to cook that the squash was basically mush by the time they cooked through and sucked up all the liquid. I’m thinking I may serve it over some soba or something now since it’s kind of too thick on its own.
verna
Delicious... maybe the best so far 11/19
verna
The BEST soup yet! Make this one often
Diana
I liked this recipe a lot, or at least the dish it inspired. I adapted it for instant pot (saute chicken on the bone, then pressure cook with veggies for ~6 minutes) and substituted veggies I had on hand (carrots, shiitakes, kohlrabi, celery root, and baby turnips with stems/greens). No overnight soaking required, and the whole thing took <30 minutes. I didn't have sake or kombu so I used miso paste plus lemongrass rice vinegar and a little mushroom powder. Shichimi is a good call.
nico10028
If you want to make it "Japanese nimono" style, first of all, you need to cut vegetables larger - twice or more larger. Sweet potatoes are not for this kind of stew. I know it's hard to find but we often use sliced lotus roots. There should be much less liquid. When you remove the pan from the gas, you can drizzle a little semame oil for more flavor. I would never use vinegar over nimono. 1 cup of sake is way too much.
Nancy Lipner
As someone who has been using dried sh*takes for decades, I'm very surprised to see no notes about straining the soaking water, which you must do if you don't want grit in your soup/sauce, etc. I use a large strainer with some cheesecloth folded a few times, then just pour through into a bowl. I even give the dried mushrooms a quick rinse before soaking, but I'm paranoid about the grit, which is pretty unpleasant in food.
Scott
I added more of the vegetables as well (~7oz). Substituted dried portabellas b/c couldn't find dried shiitakes. Took 1oz of each of the root vegetables, tossed with olive oil and salt and browned in oven for garnish. Delish!
Vicki
How much water?
Rebecca
I made this last night and really liked it. Something about that sake. I agree with a previous cook that some ginger might not be out of place. My chicken thighs were gigantic and needed a longer time to cook. I'm going to bake some rice today and reheat my leftovers for dinner. I'll be making this again.
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