Oshogatsu ("new year" in Japanese) is just around the corner. I'm excited to cook all the traditional and non-traditional celebration dishes for the coming new year.
Chikuzen-ni is a one of the popular dishes in Oshogatsu meal, it's a stew of root vegetables (and often with chicken). It's also a popular winter dish apart from Oshogatsu. I've made this dish many times many different ways. I think this time, I made the best Chikuzen-ni ever. But, it's still very simple! I think the key was to add the seared chicken and sato-imo (taro) at the very end and cook just until they are done, instead of adding them earlier and often simmer them too long.
For this dish, I used my classic-style donabe, "Hakeme". With the same donabe, I first made the dashi stock (I used beautiful Rishiri kombu from Hokkaido) and set aside.
Ingredients were sauteed together. Broth was added.
Chicken was browned separately. At the end, everything came together in one donabe.
The result was really great. The dish was so integrated, at the same time I could also taste the ingredients individually.
I posted the recipe on toiro's website. So, please check it out.
Donabe is wonderful. Happy donabe life.
