…but for those of you who missed out that particular delicacy, nabe is a one-pot Japanese dish consisting of various ingredients which is cooked in (obviously) one –pot in the centre of the table and shared by who ever has the good fortune to be dining with you.
In this case, it was the kids, but once they’d had their fill/got bored of the hassle we pumped up the volume so to speak and chucked in a pile of kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) and gochujang (fermented chilli sauce) to give it some kick…and a distinctive redder look…
Cooked over a camping stove in the middle of the table, this is a wonderful dish as the weather closes in the nights get longer. In this case, we had the tofu, shiitake mushrooms, prawns, chunks of white fish, dumplings, pork mince balls, udon noodles and a range of Japanese green vegetables we were fortunate to receive today from a friend with a farm specialising in Japanese produce – but you could get away with some Chinese cabbage and rocket.
What makes it yummy is the chilli from the kimchi and gochujang.. definitely a cold-boosting dish and a great meal to share with friends (especially if you have a fridge of cold beers on hand)…
…one of the great things about nabe is that as the pot is kept warm on a portable stove in the middle of the table diners can pick what they want and generally graze. Eating together from a shared pot is considered as an important feature of nabemono; the belief is that eating from one pot makes for closer relationships. The Japanese thus say, Nabe (w)o kakomu (鍋を囲む、"sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot…
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