Traditional burdock, gobo, dish, Yanagawa Nabe

Posted on Jan 5, 2012 in Hiroko's Blog

Yanagawa Nabe is a dish which is served in a shallow, small-sized hot pot, in which fresh water fish called dojyo and thinly shredded burdock are cooked together with egg. The dish is locally famous and there are some specialty restaurants in Tokyo. I tasted the dish with my parents several times when I was little, but was not excited about the flavor of the fish – a kind of muddy taste. Dojyo (a kind of loach) is about 7 inch long and has distinctive 10 short whisks on its chin. The fish lives in shallow muddy water, including rice paddy. Unfortunately, dojyo is not available in NYC, so today I am making the yanagawa nabe using only the leftover shredded burdock. Here is how I make. Add the shredded burdock into a pot, cover it barely with dashi stock and cook 10 minutes. Flavor the stock with some usukuchi shoyu (light color soy sauce), shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin. Break three eggs in a bowl and beat them lightly and breifly. Pour the eggs over the burdock and cook until eggs are briefly set. Do not overcook the egg. Bring the pot over the table and divide it into bowls. I had too much broth in my pot. The broth should be just covering the gobo and plenty of egg should lightly cooked and bind the broth and gobo.