With my donabe collection, there are so many different ways to enjoy vegetable dishes. Simple steaming with the donabe steamer is always wonderful. I also enjoy steam-frying with the tagine-style donabe.
I was inspired by the colorful vegetables with bagna cauda sauce which I had at Nakajin in Kyoto last month. So, I made my donabe version with the tagine-style donabe, "Fukkura-san". What's great about Fukkura-san is that I can just set the ingredients in the donabe and the tasty steam-fry vegetables get ready in a short time.
I just used what I had home...satsuma-imo (Japanese sweet yam), kabocha pumpkin, and orange cauliflower were arranged on the oiled skillet of Fukkura-san with a couple of table spoons of water and some salt & pepper. After about 7 minutes with the lid on over medium+ heat, asparagus and snap peas were added and cooked for additional 2 minutes. I turned off the heat and let it sit for a few minutes with the lid on.
The simply steam-fried vegetables were already so tasty on their own, but I served with my homemade bagna cauda sauce. Here's roughly how I made the sauce. It's a bit time-consuming but the procedure is quite simple and it's so tasty.
1. Put 5-6 cloves of garlic (halved) in a small pan, cover with white wine and milk (about 50/50). Low-simmer for about 20 minutes or until the liquid is reduced down to almost nothing.
2. To the same pot, add the olive oil (4-5 oz) and bring it to very low simmer for about 1 hour.
3. Mash the garlic with the back side of a fork. Add about 1 oz oiled anchovy filets. Stir and let the anchovy fall apart.
Happy donabe life.
