Motsunabe (Beef Offal Hot Pot, Soy Sauce Flavor)

Name: Motsunabe (Beef Offal Hot Pot, Soy Sauce Flavor)
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 3〜4人分
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: Beef offal (small intestine, pre-cleaned) 400 g; Cabbage 1/4 head (300 g); Garlic chives 1 bunch (100 g); Burdock root 1/2 (80 g); Firm tofu 1/2 block (150 g); Garlic 3 cloves; Red chili (sliced into rings) 1 tsp; Toasted white sesame seeds 1 tbsp; [Soup] Water 800 ml; [Soup] Kombu 5 g; [Soup] Chicken stock granules 2 tsp; [Soup] Soy sauce 60 ml; [Soup] Mirin 40 ml; [Soup] Sake 40 ml; [Soup] Sugar 1 tsp; [To finish] Champon noodles 1–2 portions

By Chef Cannon

Cuisine: Japanese

Region: 福岡県

Servings: 3〜4人分

Motsunabe (Beef Offal Hot Pot, Soy Sauce Flavor) is a home-style meat dish. If you buy raw offal, the rule is to use it the same day. Ingredients and step-by-step instructions are below, with notes for home cooking.

Ingredients

Beef offal (small intestine, pre-cleaned) 400 g
Cabbage 1/4 head (300 g)
Garlic chives 1 bunch (100 g)
Burdock root 1/2 (80 g)
Firm tofu 1/2 block (150 g)
Garlic 3 cloves
Red chili (sliced into rings) 1 tsp
Toasted white sesame seeds 1 tbsp
[Soup] Water 800 ml
[Soup] Kombu 5 g
[Soup] Chicken stock granules 2 tsp
[Soup] Soy sauce 60 ml
[Soup] Mirin 40 ml
[Soup] Sake 40 ml
[Soup] Sugar 1 tsp
[To finish] Champon noodles 1–2 portions

Steps

Put the water and kombu in a pot and let it sit for about 30 minutes to make stock.
Put the offal in a sieve, pour boiling water over it, then rinse under running water to remove excess fat and odor. Drain well.
Core the cabbage and cut it into 5 cm pieces; cut the garlic chives into 5 cm lengths. Scrub the burdock with a brush, shave it into thin slivers, soak in water for 5 minutes and drain. Cut the tofu into 8 pieces. Thinly slice the garlic.
Heat the pot with the kombu still in it over medium heat and remove the kombu just before it boils. Add the chicken stock granules, soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar and bring to a boil to make the soup.
Spread the burdock over the bottom of the pot, add the offal and tofu, and pile the cabbage on top in a mound. Stand the garlic chives up around the peak in a radiating pattern and place the garlic and chili in the center.
Cover and heat over medium; when it boils, lower to medium-low and simmer for about 10 minutes. When the cabbage has wilted and shrunk and the fat from the offal has melted into the soup, sprinkle with sesame and it is ready to eat.
When the ingredients are finished, add the champon noodles to the remaining soup and simmer for 2–3 minutes to finish the meal.

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Notes

If you buy raw offal, the rule is to use it the same day. If you use pre-cleaned frozen offal, thaw it in the refrigerator before pouring boiling water over it.

If offal is overcooked, the fat renders out and it shrinks and turns tough. The trick is not to boil it hard over high heat from the start but to simmer it gently.

For a miso version, reduce the soy sauce to 2 tbsp and add 4 tbsp of mixed miso dissolved in some of the soup.

Besides champon noodles, you can also finish with rice and beaten egg to make a rice porridge.

Origin and history

Motsunabe is a hot pot of beef or pork offal (motsu) simmered with cabbage and garlic chives in a soy sauce or miso soup, and it is known as a specialty of Hakata in Fukuoka.

"Motsu" is said to be short for "zomotsu" (innards). These parts were once often thrown away, but in the food shortages after the war they came to be eaten as a valuable source of nutrition, especially among coal miners and other workers. In Hakata, simmering offal and garlic chives in a pot took root as a working-class favorite.

In the early 1990s it became a huge boom in Tokyo as a cheap, filling hot pot with plenty of vegetables, and its name spread nationwide. A mountain of cabbage and garlic chives, the aroma of garlic and the final champon noodles have become the established way to enjoy it.