Nikujaga (Japanese Meat and Potato Stew)
Cuisine: Japanese
Region: 日本各地
Servings: 4人分
Nikujaga (Japanese Meat and Potato Stew) is a home-style meat dish. Ingredients and step-by-step instructions are below, with notes for home cooking.
Ingredients
- Thinly sliced beef trimmings (pork also works) 200 g
- Potatoes 4 (about 500 g)
- Onion 1
- Carrot 1/2
- Shirataki (konjac noodles) 150 g
- Green beans 6
- Vegetable oil 1 tbsp
- Dashi 300 ml
- Sake 2 tbsp
- Sugar 2 tbsp
- Mirin 2 tbsp
- Soy sauce 3 tbsp
Steps
- Peel the potatoes, cut each into 4 pieces and soak in water for 5 minutes. Cut the onion into 8 wedges and the carrot into small irregular chunks. If the beef pieces are large, cut them into bite-size pieces.
- Cut the shirataki into easy-to-eat lengths, boil for 2 minutes and drain in a colander. String the green beans, blanch briefly and cut into 3 cm lengths.
- Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat and stir-fry the beef. When about half of it has changed color, add the drained potatoes, carrot and onion and stir-fry until everything is coated with oil.
- Add the shirataki and pour in the dashi and sake. When it comes to a boil, skim off the scum, add the sugar and mirin, cover with a drop lid (or foil) and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes.
- Add the soy sauce, cover with the drop lid again and simmer over medium-low heat for 10–15 minutes, until the liquid has reduced to about one third. Shake the pot once halfway through to turn the ingredients.
- When a bamboo skewer slides easily into the potatoes, turn off the heat and let it stand for about 10 minutes so the flavors settle in. Serve in bowls and scatter the green beans on top.
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Notes
Adding sugar first and soy sauce later is the basic rule of Japanese simmered dishes. Letting the sweetness soak in first keeps the ingredients tender and helps the flavor penetrate.
Choose floury Danshaku (Irish Cobbler) potatoes if you like them fluffy, or waxy May Queen potatoes if you don't want them to fall apart.
It is said that many homes in Kansai make it with beef and in Kanto with pork. Use whichever you prefer.
The flavor soaks in as it cools, so letting it cool once and reheating it before serving makes it even tastier.
Origin and history
Nikujaga is meat, potatoes and onion simmered in a sweet soy-based sauce, a home-cooked dish loved as the very symbol of “mom's cooking”.
The best-known story of its birth involves the Meiji-era navy. A naval officer who had studied in Britain missed the beef stew he had eaten there and had the ship's cook recreate it; the cook seasoned it with soy sauce and sugar instead of wine and butter, and nikujaga was the result. The story is not backed by reliable records, but Maizuru in Kyoto Prefecture and Kure in Hiroshima Prefecture, both home to naval bases, each claim to be the birthplace of nikujaga.
Either way, it is a dish that cooks beef, potatoes and onions, ingredients that spread in Japan from the Meiji era on, using the techniques of Japanese simmered dishes. Beef or pork, with or without shirataki: the large differences from home to home are part of nikujaga's charm.