Happy New Year 2017!

Osechi Dinner at Home (Photo by Emiko)

Happy New Year! I wish everybody a wonderful year of 2017!


I had such a busy final month of last year. So, I didn't really get to prepare anything for Christmas including even a gift for Jason, my husband! On Christmas eve, I could finally start to relax and actually enjoy the holiday season. We were invited to our friends' home for Christmas dinner. Peggye made rotisserie whole ducks!


Kabocha soup by Jody.


The duck was so delicious!


I made mixed mushroom rice with double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san". Then, Peggye sprinkled a generous amount of shaved white truffles and folded into my donabe rice dish. Such a decadent holiday version rice! It was a really nice fun dinner party.


On the very Christmas Day, Jason and I enjoyed very relaxed home dinner. I roasted chicken in my classic-style donabe, "Hakeme", and it came out really fantastic. This is a recipe I contributed to Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop.


What's great about living in LA is we can enjoy outdoor BBQ cooking in the middle of the winter. Another evening, we grilled 30-day dry-aged T-bone steak in our Santa Maria BBQ Grill.


It was sooo good.


Then, of course, we did a lot of donabe hot pot dishes during the holidays. With black cod and oysters, I made sake-kasu nabe (sake lees hot pot). On New Year's Eve, I made kamo nabe (duck hot pot), and ended the meal with the shime (final) course of soba (I used black bean soba, made from buck wheat and black beans from Tanba, Kyoto), cooked in the remaining broth. Eating soba on New Year's Eve is a Japanese tradition and we call it "Toshikoshi Soba". We eat soba to pray for good luck and longevity. For kamo nabe, I used my Kyoto-style shallow donabe, "Kyoto Ame-yu".


On New Year Day, I spent busy time making "Osechi Ryori", traditional Japanese New Year dishes. Among many dishes, I made a couple of dishes in donabe. Chikuzen-ni is a root vegetable stew, and I made it in my classic-style donabe. Then, I also made roasted beef in my soup & stew donabe, "Miso-shiru Nabe". I should write the recipe for this dish sometime in this blog.


The following evening, we invited a few friends over for our big Osechi Ryori dinner to celebrate the new year.


I couldn't take any good photos, but luckily Chago and Emiko sent me some photos they took.

Here's the menu.

1. Hoshigaki, stuffed with moshio-butter and roasted pine nuts
2. Kurikinton (puree of satsuma sweet potato, topped with sweet chestnuts
3. Kamaboko (fish cake) with homemade ponzu and wasabi
4. Datemaki (rolled omelet with fish cake)
5. Smoked salmon with ikura (salmon roe) and yuzu yogurt topping
6. Tazukuri (roasted dried fish with walnuts)
7. Karasumi Daikon (daikon radish slices, stuffed with bottarga and shiso)
8. Buri (Japanese winter yellowtail) carpaccio with ao-nori seaweed sauce
9. Kuromame-ni (premium black beans from Tanba, Kyoto, in sweet broth)
10. Shichi-fuku Namasu (a variety of root vegetables, sautéed and tossed in walnuts-vinegar sauce)
11. Sukiyaki of beef and pork belly
12. Udon "shime"

Hew, I did make many dishes! I go crazy every new year.


Then, Yuko, who is a professional pattisiere made a special dessert for everyone. It was matcha "chou cream" cream puffs. It was so delicious.

I had such a wonderful New Year celebration with friends and feel all the good luck for 2017!

Happy donabe life.

Our Hakeme Donabe on Epicurious Gift Guide 2016!

Our Classic-style donabe, "Hakeme", is selected in Epicurious's Gift Guide 2016: Editors' Picks.


It's one of 11 "coolest culinary gifts of the year"! Happy donabe life.

Naoko's Happy Donabe Life on YouTube - Udon Noodle and Clam Hot Pot "Asari Udon Suki"

Subscribe to Naoko's Happy Donabe Life Channel!

Naoko's Happy Donabe Life - My new donabe cooking video is now on YouTube! It's Udon Noodle and Clam Hot Pot, very simple and tasty one pot donabe recipe. Please check it out and hope you will try it home.

For this dish, I used my Kyoto-style shallow donabe, "Kyoto Ame-yu".

Here's the link to Naoko's Happy Donabe Channel. Please subscribe! I will be posting more donabe cooking videos.

Happy Donabe Life.

Back in Japan (March 2016)...Donabe Night with Nagatani Family

(March 14)

It was a cold rainy day today just like a middle of wintertime. But, something warm and delightful was waiting in the evening.


I was invited to dinner at Akiyo & Takahiro's home. Akiyo and Isako are among the 4 siblings of Nagatani-en's 8th generation and they live in Tokyo. Takahiro is Akiyo's husband and he is an amazing cook. Every time I come back to Tokyo, they invite me to their home and I always look forward to it so much. Yasuhiro, the oldest of the siblings and the current president of Nagatani-en also came all the way from Iga for tonight. So, there were 3 siblings of Nagatani family's 8th generation (Keishi, the other son was in Iga), Takahiro, Takemura-san (he works for Nagatani-en) and myself, and we celebrated the successful publishing of my DONABE cookbook! We had a toast with rose Champagne by Moet et Chandon.


And, of course, Gen-chan (son of Akiyo & Takahiro) was with us, too! He is always so cute.


All the dishes were made by Takahiro. For appetizers, he made mizu-nasu eggplant salad, hotaru-ika (firefly squid) & chick peas sautéed in white wine, and braised chicken organs. They were so delicious.


Nabe time! I was excited to see what kind of hot pot dish he was making tonight.


All the ingredients were ready. "Tazeri" was the main ingredient of the night. Tazeri is a very seasonal green related to seri (Japanese dropwort) greens. It's a rare kind and mostly found in the mountains. They were going to be cooked with pemium jidori chicken from Aomori (both thigh meat and minced meat with cartilages), and tofu.


They were cooked in a deep chicken broth. So rich and so perfect. Great with unfined and unpasteurized sake, too.


Another round. More drinks...we had some nice red wines.


"Shime" - finishing course was ramen!


Then, the second "shime" was "ojiya" (quick porridge)!

Oh boy...the dinner was incredible. I ate sooo much. It was such a fun evening with people I love so much. We always have a great time together.

Happy donabe life.

My interview on GOOD FOOD on KCRW

I was on KCRW's very popular show, GOOD FOOD, hosted by Evan Kleiman last Saturday!
As a fan of the show for many years, it was such an honor to be invited to speak about donabe and my cookbook, DONABE - Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking.

Please check out the article about my donabe, cookbook, and donabe recipe plus the audio link of my interview in KCRW's website, linked here.

And, here's the direct link to the audio.



Happy donabe life.

Classic Donabe Recipe...Niku Dango Nabe (pork meatball hot pot)

Since I was in a mood some pork meatballs, I decided to make a simple pork meatball hot pot, Niku Dango Nabe for dinner the other night. I went to McCall's Meat and Fish to pick up the ground pork, as they have the best quality you can find in LA. Their ground pork is rich in flavor and has just the good amount of fat.

While this recipe can be made with any classic-style donabe (medium-size or larger), my pick of the night was Kyoto-style shallow classic-style donabe, "Kyoto Ame-yu". This donabe has the shallow bowl with wider surface area, the meatballs are cooked beautifully in one layer.


I used my homemade Japanese-style chicken stock this time, but you can use instant Asian chicken stock powder (make sure there is no MSG if possible) or dashi stock works perfectly, too. Napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, and meatballs are cooked together in the broth first, then bean thread (cellphone noodles) and nira (garlic chives) are added to finish.


As a variation, you can add some grated daikon right before serving. Really nice.

You can find the full recipe in toiro kitchen's website. So, please check it out.

Happy donabe life.