“It comes together
in about 15 minutes. It’s really, really
simple, one-pot thing. Did I say one pot? No, two-pot thing. [CHUCKLES]: Or if you’re
making your own dashi, Three-pot thing. Sorry. [CHUCKLING]: All right.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “Hey, everyone, I’m
Kenji López-Alt. I’m a cookbook author and
nytcooking.com contributor. And we are going to
be making niku udon. It is a classic
Japanese home cooking Dish, so made with thinly
shaved beef, simmered With onions. Really, really simple. This dish is one of
my family’s favorites. My daughter actually
is now a vegetarian, So we don’t do it
as much anymore. But before my daughter
became vegetarian, This was one of her favorite
dishes to make at home Because it’s just a
few simple ingredients. It comes together real quick. We’re going to be making our
own dashi, our own stock here. You can use powdered dashi,
though, and if you do that, It comes together
in about 15 minutes. All right. So the first step is
to make the dashi. Dashi is a really
basic Japanese stock. It’s made with
two ingredients, If you don’t
include the water. And then this is
kombu, so sea kelp. We’re going to
throw that in there. The water is cold, and
we’re going to bring it up
To a simmer. Some people will
take the kombu And let it steep cold in the
water for even up to a day, You could do that, and then
slowly bring it up to a boil. You’ll extract a little
bit more flavor that way. Generally, I don’t bother. I just bring it up to
a boil in cold water. And then once that
water reaches a boil, We’re going to be adding
this, which is katsuobushi. Katsuobushi is skipjack
tuna that has been salted, Fermented, smoked,
dried, until it Has the texture of like
plywood, almost, of balsa Wood. And then you shave
it, just the same way That you would shave
a piece of balsa wood. So it comes out
looking like sawdust, But it doesn’t
taste like sawdust. [CHUCKLES]: It tastes
really smoky and umami. So it has a lot of that really
concentrated glutamic acid And inosinic acid that
you find in seafood. That, combined
with the sea kelp, Is what gives dashi, Japanese
flavors, that really deep Umami flavor. Our kombu is almost at a boil. What you don’t want to do is
let this come to a rolling Boil and just sit there. What happens is that will
overextract from the kombu. In the same way that if
you overbrew your tea, It becomes bitter, the same
thing is going to happen here. You’re going to pull out
these flavors that you don’t Necessarily want. The bonito flakes,
you definitely Do not want to boil those. It will turn your dashi cloudy
and really bitter-tasting.
So really, we’re just
going to try and brew this, Almost like making a tea. I also got a pot of
water going on the side, Because we’re going to be
cooking our udon noodles In there. One pot for the dashi
to make, we have a pan To cook our beef, and
then we have a pot For the noodles in there. So this is a three-pot
dish, a real simple one. But it is a three-pot dish,
if you’re going to be making Your own dashi from scratch. All right, our dashi is
coming to a boil here, So we’re just going to
shut it off completely.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “And then I’m going
to add my katsuobushi. What I’m going to do is
make sure it’s submerged. And then I’m going to let
this sit aside and steep, Just like tea, for
about 5 or 10 minutes. And in the meantime, I’m going
to start getting my other Ingredients together —
scallions, scallion whites, Sugar. This is Japanese
soy sauce, shoyu. Mirin, which is a
sweet Japanese wine. Some sake. And then we’re
going to add beef. So this is really
thinly shaved ribeye. You can use any kind
of thinly shaved beef. What I would recommend is
you go to the Asian market. Look in the shabu
shabu section. You’re usually going to find
thinly shaved beef like this. If you can’t, you can also
check out a Western market And look for meat that’s
intended for Philly Cheesesteaks. It’s essentially
the same thing.
There’s two ways that you can
slice an onion when you’re Cutting it. You could slice it, what
I would call, parallel To the equator of the
onion, so into the way you Would, say, cut onion rings. You know, that way? When you slice it that way,
you end up with a texture that I find doesn’t actually break
down very well as it simmers. So the onion pieces actually
stay a little bit too intact, And they get these
little crunchy bits. I much prefer slicing
my onion for dishes Like this the other way,
so from pole to pole. And you end up with –” [CHOPPING] “– an onion texture that –” [CHOPPING] “– the onion kind of melts
into it a little bit more Easily. So that’s why I like
to do it that way. It also changes the flavor of
the onion just a little bit. It results in onion flavor
that’s a little bit milder. So instead of getting that
really super pungent onion Flavor, you get some
of the sweeter flavors And some of the more
aromatic flavors that way. That’s going to go
right in as well. It’s going to steep for
another couple of minutes. But just to get this going,
I’m going to pop my strainer In here. Dip in there with a ladle. And we’re going to grab about
a cup of that dashi and put it In here. Now all we do is simmer this. Sometimes, this beef comes
rolled or clumped up. I’m just going to poke it
apart with my chopsticks.
Now, you can use
a fork, of course. With a dish like
this, also, your goal Is not to try and keep
the beef in intact pieces. It all kinds of ends up
shredding and falling apart. And that’s all fine. It should all have this
kind of rustic texture To it, homecooked quality. Our dashi has been steeping
for about 5 to 10 minutes now. So all I’m going to
do is strain it out. Yeah, it’s got a really nice,
smoky, savory quality to it. Just give a little gentle push
to get all the excess out. What you can do now is you can
add more water to it and make What’s called a second dashi,
a dashi that would be used More for cooking, as
opposed to a soup like this. You can make a second
dashi, of course, Or you can just discard it
if you don’t want to bother Making a second dashi. This is going to go
right back in the pot. All right, our beef and
onions are close to done. These are fresh
Japanese udon noodles. So Japanese udon are
thick wheat noodles. You can buy them
fresh or frozen. You can also get them dried. But I prefer getting
the fresh stuff For this style of noodle. So this is water
that is at a boil. Unlike Italian
pasta, Japanese udon, The dough is usually
pretty heavily salted, So you don’t really need to
salt your water separately. You can add a
little bit of salt If you really feel like it. This is actually completely
unsalted water right now. Season our broth. So this is just the dashi.
All we’re going to do is
season it with some soy sauce And some more mirin. As with a lot of Japanese
homecooked meals, This is going to have a really
balanced, slightly sweet, And very savory
flavor profile. Check for seasoning. Sometimes you want a
little more soy sauce. Sometimes you want
a little more meat. That tastes pretty good to me. All right, I’m also going to
taste the beef for seasoning. Mm, yep. Real good. So you’re looking at this,
and you might think, like, oh, My god, you’re just
boiling your beef. In Western cooking,
we rely a lot On browning to give you
those deep umami flavors. With a lot of
Japanese cooking, You don’t get those flavors
from browning the meat. You get those
deep umami flavors From long-fermented sauces. So things like soy sauce,
that’s what’s going to give You, really, that rich
umami flavor that you would Typically get in Western
cooking from browning Your beef. So you’ll find a lot of
dishes that are just simmered, That really focus on this
kind of tender texture. All the flavor gets
built in through sauces And fermented
things like that. Let’s check our noodles. Those are done. All right. So I’m going to
construct a bowl here.” [MUSIC PLAYING] “Finally, this is
shichimi togarashi.
So togarashi is
Japanese chili flakes. Shichimi togarashi is
Japanese chili flakes That have seven flavors. Shichi means seven. So it’s basically
seasoned chili flakes. It’s got things like —
oh, what does it have? Black sesame seeds, cardamom,
usually orange peel, Maybe some seaweed in there. I don’t remember all
the things, honestly. [LAUGHS]: But you
can buy it as is. All right. Are we ready to
give this a taste?” [MUSIC PLAYING] “Tastes like classic
comfort food for me. These are the flavors
I grew up eating. And by the way, if
you don’t want udon, This topping is really
great over a bowl of rice. You just get a rice
bowl, plop this on top, You get this kind of wet,
seasoned rice that’s really Comforting. And the beef mixes in there. So a really nice balance, very
umami, a little bit sweet, Savory, a little bit salty. All those flavors are
really nicely balanced. And a lot of Japanese
food is these sort Of subtle mixes
of flavors that I Find very, very comforting. [CHUCKLES]: If you want this
recipe, any of my recipes, Or a bunch of other
great recipes — Nytcooking.com.” [MUSIC PLAYING]
Have you ever wondered why most of the Vinaigrettes in the grocery store are made with 10, 20, sometimes even almost 30 ingredients? I remember growing up in Provence watching my mother whipping vinaigrettes before every single dinner. She would mix in a giant bowl, delicious extra virgin olive oil, a robust aged vinegar (the flavor would depend on the main dish), sea salt and pepper and voila! I decided to do the same thing for my family and friends more than 20 years ago here in this beautiful country. And Provence Kitchen® was born. Stay tune for more articles and wonderful family recipes..
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