The beauty of one-pot cooking-Sukiyaki

A few years ago, I went back to Japan to visit family friends. We were invited to stay with Mr. S and his family. It was a real honour to be invited to stay with Mr. S and family, as the Japanese do not easily invite people to stay at their home. Mr. S's wife is a wonderful cook (like most older Japanese women), and she cooked dinner for us every night. One day, she told us she was going to cook something special for us for dinner, and I was excited. When we got home that night, I was instantly drawn to that ‘special dinner’ I had been promised. I rush to the dining room to find her preparing ingredients for Sukiyaki-a traditional Japanese hot pot. It had been a while since I had authentic sukiyaki, so I was positively excited. Sukiyaki is a traditional Japanese hotpot-one of the easiest, yet most delicious one-pot wonders. It is essentially thinly-sliced beef with various vegetables, Asian mushrooms, firm tofu and gelatinous noodles (shirataki noodles) braised in a sukiyaki sauce, and dipped in raw egg before eaten. Mrs. S fried thinly-sliced Japanese Kobe beef in a dry pan on medium heat, as the fat released from the marbled Kobe beef lubricates the meat and keeps it moist. She then carefully added shitake and enoki mushrooms, chopped Chinese cabbage, shirataki noodles and firm tofu into the same pan, and fried them for a minute or two before adding the sukiyaki sauce. Sukiyaki sauce is made by simply mixing mirin, light soy sauce, sugar and cooking sake (or you can purchase ready-made sukiyaki sauce from any Japanese supermarket). The beef, mushrooms, vegetables, noodles and tofu are gently braised, covered, in the sweet sukiyaki sauce until all the ingredients are tender and cooked through. As the recipe is very forgiving, you can practically throw in whatever thinly-sliced meats and chopped vegetables you fancy. While traditionally Kobe beef is the main meat ingredient in sukiyaki, I do not see anything wrong with thinly-sliced chicken or pork. Sukiyaki is usually cooked in a traditional sukiyaki pan, on a gas stove put at the centre of the dining table. You fish out the cooked ingredients, piping hot out of the pan, and dip them in a whisked raw egg before eating. While the idea of eating raw eggs is not particularly appetizing, in this case, the raw egg is partially cooked by the heat coming from the piping-hot ingredients, and serves as a 'silky' dipping sauce. Sukiyaki, like other hotpot dishes, is more than just a dish-it is a social institution that brings family and friends together. Nothing beats sitting around the table with loved ones, sweating to piping-hot sukiyaki, and drinking warm sake on a cold winter night. So for your next dinner party, ditch the old-school-3-course approach and let the one-pot approach shine!