Winter is time for nabe-mono, or one-pot dishes. Sukiyaki is the most famous (click here for recipe), but Shabu Shabu, Yosenabe, Tonyu-nabe (soy milk hot pot), Udonsuki etc. are also popular in Japan. Most supermarkets in Japan  conveniently package assorted veges (see picture right) or meat (see below) in the colder months.

Recipes:

Yosenabe means lots of ingredients “thrown in” together, and is a one-pot dish that is cooked at the table in which seafood, meat and vegetables are “thrown in” and simmered in broth.
There is usually no set recipe, but whatever is in season and fresh is chosen.

Arrange ingredients like prawns, calamari, scallops, chicken (thigh fillet), shiitake, enoki and other mushrooms, shallots, Chinese cabbage, quail eggs attractively in a large clay pot on the table. Bring to boil 2.4 litres of dashi, 180cc mirin and 420cc of usukuchi soy sauce in a saucepan, and add to the clay pot. When ingredients are cooked, let everyone serve themselves. Eat with some of the broth, and add more as needed. Keep adding ingredients at the table. When finished, you will find the leftover stock is wonderful to cook udon noodles in. After our Nabemono Cooking Class on June 14th, 2009 , we made Ojiya (Congee) with the stock and ate it for 2 days. Yummy and nutritious.

Shabu-Shabu is steamboat, in which paperthin slices of beef are “washed’ for a few seconds in hot broth and eaten with vegetables in a sauce like sesame sauce or ponzu (lemon juice, soy sauce and mirin). The idea is not to overcook the beef, so just “shabu-shabu” which is the sound the beef slices make as they swish in the broth (listen…). Many people just use water in a big clay pot, though using bonito stock or kombu stock is better. Other ingredients include shallots, various mushrooms, tofu, udon noodles, fresh shiitake. Offer two or three dipping sauces to make it special.

Tonyu Nabe or Soy Milk Hot Pot is slightly different, but low in calories and healthy. Just heat up some soy milk and skim off the skin that forms on the top. This is called yuba and is nutritious and yummy. You can eat yuba with a little soy sauce and wasabi, just like sashimi. Then add some vegetables to the hot pot, meat or fish (just like in yosenabe). When finished, you can drink the thick soy milk flavoured with goodness.