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Cooking adventures in a small, closet sized, kitchen. - I came to realize that my meals were boring and that I had been eating the same few dishes over and over again for years. It was time for a change! I now spend my free time searching for, creating and trying tasty new recipes in my closet sized kitchen.

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Nikujaga (Japanese Beef Stew)

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Nikujaga (Japanese Beef Stew)

The weather certainly has gotten cooler as of late and I have been craving heartier meals. It recently came to my attention that I have not been doing much Japanese cooking lately and I was missing it. I decided to combine the two and make nikujaga or meat and potatoes. Nikujaga is a Japanese version of a beef stew that is simmered in the classic Japanese seasonings of soy, sugar, sake and mirin. The stew ends up with a really nice blend of sweet and salty which works surprising well. Nikujaga is easy to make and tasty and because of that I make it fairly often. Recently I seem to always have some extra pumpkin lying around that just screams “use me” so I decided to replace the potatoes with pumpkin this time. I garnished the nikujaga with some chopped green onions and some shichimi togarashi. Shichimi togarashi is a Japanese condiment that is made from a blend of chilies and other things like sesame seeds, nori, etc. I enjoyed the heat that the shichimi togarashi added to the nikujaga.
Notes: Nikujaga is often simmered until most of the liquid has evaporated but I prefer to have some liquid left. I prefer to use dashi as the liquid but I have also used beef stock or even just water.

Nikujaga (Japanese Beef Stew)

Nikujaga (Japanese Beef Stew)

Prep Time:10 minutes Cook Time:20 minutes Total Time:30 minutes Servings: 4
ingredients
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1 pound beef (thinly sliced or cut into bite sized pieces)
  • 1 onion (sliced)
  • 2 cups potatoes (or pumpkin cut into bite sized pieces)
  • 1 carrot (cut into bite sized pieces)
  • 2 cups dashi (or water or beef stock)
  • 3 tablespoons soy
  • 3 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoon sake
  • 1 tablespoon mirin
  • 1 green onion (sliced)
  • shichimi togarashi to taste (optional)
directions
  1. Heat the oil in a pan.
  2. Add the beef and brown on all sides.
  3. Add the onion, squash and carrot and saute for 5 minutes.
  4. Add the dashi, soy, sugar, sake and mirin, cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender.
Similar Recipes:
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Jamaican Style Jerk Beef Stew
Pot Roast Beef Stroganoff
Beef Massaman Curry
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Paula says

    October 28, 2008 at 11:49 pm

    I’ve never had a Japanese stew, but you can bet I’d like to give this a try! I love those flavors, and would enjoy the salty sweetness if offers!

    Reply

  21. Debbie says

    October 29, 2008 at 11:02 am

    I am always learning something from the dishes you cook. Never heard of this one but it sounds wonderful. This looks like it might be good with rice on the side.

    Reply

  39. Kumiko says

    November 4, 2008 at 8:37 pm

    looks nice, the weather must be good with you, your pictures look great. In England it is so dull, it’s difficult to get enough natural light for my photos.

    Reply

  41. Vic says

    March 3, 2009 at 1:10 am

    That’s a great recipe, thanks very much. I made it a couple of days ago and I’m doing it again today with all the authentic ingredients (dashi instead of beef stock, etc.)

    The only thing that I find a bit odd is 3 tablespoons of sugar! Am I reading that right? I put in 1.5 tablespoons and it’s still a bit sweeter than I’d like it. I can only imagine it would be sickly with 3! The mirin that I have is extremely sweet too.

    …and I have a couple of questions. Firstly, I have some “Yasai Fumi Furikake” (rice seasoning with nori, seasame seeds, etc.) Could I use that instead of the s.togarashi stuff? I’ll try it anyway. The other question is regarding sake. The first time I made this dish I used drinking sake, but this time I found “cooking sake” which is much saltier and would be revolting to drink straight. I suppose it’s the second type I should be cooking with?

    Great recipe, thanks very much, and I love the idea to use pumpkins instead of starchy potatos.

    Reply

  42. Kevin says

    March 3, 2009 at 1:36 am

    Vic: Definitely adjust the recipe to your tastes! I like the combination of strong salty and sweet. I have made it with less sugar and it words just as well.

    The togarashi is a blend of chili peppers that adds a spicy heat. I would not try replacing it with furikake. Maybe a dash of cayenne pepper?

    I have always used drinking sake. I would think that the cooking sake would work, though you might want to adjust the recipe to take into account the extra salt in it.

    Reply

  46. Anonymous says

    May 13, 2012 at 8:58 am

    I had this recipe from a TV cooking show and I immediately had to try it. Simple and sooooo yummy. 😀 Reading this just makes my mouth water. And I even have some frozen pumpkin, I think I hear it knocking 😉

    Reply

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