Soy Milk Hot Pot with Chicken (Tōnyū Nabe)

Serves: 2

(tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

Ingredients

200g/7.1oz chicken thigh fillets cut into large bite-size pieces(note 1)
300g/10.6oz Chinese cabbage
60g/2.1oz carrot
2 shiitake mushrooms (about 30-40g/1.1-1.4oz in total, note 2)
40g/1.4oz shimeji mushrooms (note 2)
1 sheet aburaage
½ pack momen tofu (150g)
70g/2.5oz green onion
Soy Milk Broth
300ml/10.1fl oz dashi stock
2½ tbsp mirin
2½ tbsp light soy sauce (note 3)
300-375ml/10.1-12.7fl oz soy milk (note 4)

Instructions

Prepare Vegetables

Chinese cabbage: Trim off the end of the stem and cut the leaves perpendicular to the direction of the leaf into 3cm/1⅛" wide strips.

Carrot: Slice into 4-5cm/1½-2" long, 2-2.5cm/¾-1" wide, and 3mm/⅛" thick planks.

Shiitake mushrooms: Trim the end of the stem off. You may want to decorate the cap by making cross incisions, then make V-shape cuts along these lines.

If the cap is large, halve or quarter the mushroom so that it is not too large to eat.

Shimeji mushrooms: Trim the cluster base and separate the mushrooms into small clusters.

Aburaage: Cut it crosswise into 1.5cm/⅝" wide strips.

Tofu: cut into 4 equal blocks.
Green onion: Diagonally slice the stems into 5-7cm/2-2¾" long pieces.

Cooking Soy Milk Hot Pot
Mix dashi stock, mirin, and light soy sauce in a bowl (note 5).

Place chicken pieces, the stem part of the Chinese cabbage pieces, carrots, mushrooms, tofu, and the white part of green onion pieces in the pot (note 6), clustering each ingredient together

Pour the dashi broth in a bowl over the ingredients in the service pot, place a lid on and bring it to a boil. When it starts boiling, remove the lid.

Reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until chicken pieces and the vegetables are almost cooked. You may need to jiggle ingredients, particularly the meat, a bit to submerge the uncooked parts in the broth.

Add the remaining Chinese cabbage leaves and the green onions to the pot, gently push downwards to get to the broth level. Cook for a minute or so.

When the cabbage leaves and green onion pieces start wilting, add soy milk to the pot and gently stir without breaking the clustered vegetables. If you jiggle the meat/vegetables with your chopsticks/spoon in various places, the milk will mix.

When the broth starts bubbling around the edge, reduce the heat to low. When the broth starts boiling, turn the heat off (note 7).

Bring the pot to the centre of the table with a ladle and serve with individual small bowls.

To eat, transfer some meat and vegetables with the soy milk broth from the serving pot into your bowl. (note 8)

Recipe Notes

1. I used skinless thigh fillets, but you can use skin-on fillets or even breast fillet.

2. Any Asian mushrooms can work for this hot pot. Other mushrooms you may use includes enoki mushrooms, pearl oyster mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, or white shimeji mushrooms. It is good to have different shapes/colours of mushrooms if you can.

3. I used light soy sauce so that the broth can maintain the white colour of the soy milk. If you only have normal soy sauce, that’s OK.

4. I give a range for the quantity of soy milk. Depending on your palate, you can adjust the quantity.

5. You could mix the broth in the pot directly, then place the meat and vegetables in it. But I find that by placing meat and vegetables in the pot without liquid it is easier to cluster the ingredients.

6. I used a Japanese clay pot specifically made for hot pot. It is called ‘donabe’ (土鍋) and I often use it in my hot pot recipes (see today’s Meal Ideas). Donabe retains the heat very well. The best alternative is a thick metal pot or a cast-iron pot.

7. Do not boil the broth too long once soy milk is added. Soy milk curdles when it is heated because of the transformation of the protein in the milk.

If you are using a pot that can retain heat extremely well, such as donabe (clay pot), you can even turn the heat of when the broth starts bubbling just around the edge. This is because the broth will continue to cook even after removing the pot from the heat.

8. After you finish eating the meat and vegetables, you can add cooked udon noodles with some chopped green onions to finish the meal.

9. Nutrition per serving, assuming that you drank 1/2 of the soy milk broth.