Saturday, September 26, 2009

J-Food Day 25: Sukiyaki

Yesterday I think was the first time I cooked for a crowd during my Japanese Food Project! I made Sukiyaki for a birthday celebration dinner for me. They gave me a hard time for cooking my own birthday celebration, but given the circumstances, and given how much our friends do for us, this was something I was delighted to do- plus sukiyaki is so easy!

Dish 25. Sukiyaki- For those that don't know what sukiyaki is, it is basically hot pot but with a stronger, sweet soy sauce broth. All I had to do was create the sauce with a mix of mirin, dashi, dashi soy sauce, soy sauce, grated ginger, sake, and brown sugar. Cook it up to let the flavors meld, and add in all the chopped vegetables! The vegetables I included were napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and tofu. We also had thinly sliced beef to "shabu shabu" in, as well as rice and udon as complements for the meal.

There were 6 of us eating; Jeremy and I, the Ls, and the McCarthys at the McCarthy home. We had some edamame as an appetizer, sat with the hot pot in the middle of the table and swooshed our way through dinner! I think this was the first time for all of them with sukiyaki and they liked it, woohoo! I think it's a super easy and fun thing to do with a party, plus it accommodates a lot of different tastes. Who doesn't like sweet soy sauce? Well who in their right mind doesn't like Japanese food is my real question, but then I'm sure Jeremy would tell me I'm biased :)

The other fun part of the evening was the collection of desserts. We brought our package of cookies that I've made throughout this week, the Ls brought chocolate covered macadamias from Hawaii, and the McCarthys provided me with a wonderful pink frosting birthday cake. I got to blow out my Winnie the Pooh, 1 year old(er) candle. What other way would I want to celebrate my birthday than with good friends, good food, good desserts (separate category), and good conversations?

1 comment:

Jen Mc. said...

This was a DANG good dinner, so I think it's going to have to be tradition now that (poor) Amy has to cook on her own birthday!!! :)
And by the way, that ginger dish at the top today looks amazing!!!!!!!!