Winter is advancing.. nabemono time!

It has been raining for perhaps three days now, and today did not get warmer than 9 degC. I have a quilt wrapped around me even as I type (I refuse to bring out the stinky kerosene heater! Not yet anyway :P). No better time than now to enjoy nabemono (hotpot), so we braved the wet and cold yesterday to go to the supermarket and equip ourselves with ingredients like renkon (lotus root), ito konnyaku (konnyaku noodles) and negi (skinny Japanese leeks) for a hotpot feast.

Hotpot is common in Asian cuisines - the Koreans call it jigae and the Japanese call it nabemono but steamboat is the name I am most familiar with. I love steamboat, and my family enjoyed it even in the hot humid weather back in Malaysia (no, it's not just a winter food, but for some reason the Japanese refuse to enjoy nabe except during winter - they insist that winter food is for winter, and summer food is for summer). I find that the homemade ones are the best, like the one we did last year at my parents'.

With the Japanese nabemono, there are different names depending on the types of ingredients used and the region it originates from. For example, sukiyaki uses beef, yosenabe features seafood and motsunabe utilises the innards and guts of a cow. There are many other types like shabu shabu, chankonabe (for sumo wrestlers), dotenabe (featuring oysters) - the list goes on. This website has a pretty comprehensive list and descriptions of nabe types.

The beauty of hotpot is that anything goes. I love simple dishes that are so delicious and healthy for the body. The nabemono I prepared today probably resembles the closest to mizutaki, using chicken and various vegetables. It was my intention to use tofu and mushrooms, but I think I got sidetracked at the supermarket and forgot to pick them up. I do love the variety of fresh autumn veges available at the moment.

Ingredients

Water
Chicken with bones, marinated in some shoyu (soy sauce), mirin (sweet cooking sake) and sesame oil
sliced ginger
sliced garlic
potatoes, cut into 1/8ths or 1/12ths pieces
renkon (lotus root), sliced 0.5cm to 1cm thick
carrot, sliced to the same thickness as the renkon
daikon (Chinese radish), sliced in a similar size to the renkon
negi (skinny Japanese leeks), sliced
Chinese cabbage, cut into pieces
ito konnyaku (konnyaku threads/noodles), rinsed and drained
seasoning to taste (shoyu, mirin, pepper and shichimi)

Method

No hard rules to follow. Just put the ingredients in the pot in the order of the time required for them to cook. The chicken (with the marinade) was first simmered in some water, ginger and garlic for perhaps 15 to 20 minutes (during which the vegetables were prepared). The ingredients above are listed in the order that were put in the pot. This is best enjoyed freshly cooked and hot out of the pot, on its own or with rice or noodles.