Simmered Chicken And Vegetables (Chikuzen Ni)

Ease:: Medium
Serves:: 4
Prep time:: 20 minutes
Cook time:: 30 minutes
Total time:: 50 minutes

Chikuzen ni (or chikuzenni) is a Japanese food/dish of simmered vegetables with dashi, mirin, and soy sauce. Enjoy this heartier version with chicken.

Ingredients

250g boneless chicken thighs

480ml dashi stock

2 tbsp mirin

3 tbsp cooking sake

3 tbsp soy sauce

1 burdock – peeled

1 taro potatoes – peeled

6 to 8 shiitake mushrooms – rehydrated

1 pack konnyaku yam cake – drained (optional)

1 renkon lotus root – peeled

1 carrot

a few snow peas

Method

Cut the ingredients: Begin by cutting your chicken thigh meat and drained yam cake into bite size pieces, roughly chop your vegetables. Hard vegetables in rolling wedges will make your dish look particularly pleasing. Prepare your dashi stock according to the packet instructions.

Stir fry the ingredients: Par boil the snow peas and cut in half with a diagonal line. Grab a pan and stir fry the chicken first with a bit of vegetable oil. Once your chicken is browned add the vegetables (minus the snow peas) and yam cake and continue to cook, stirring frequently.

Add the sake and dashi: After frying for a few minutes, you can now add the sake and the cups of prepared dashi stock. Mix a bit, bring to the boil and skim off any impurities.

Add the seasonings: You can now add the mirin and soy sauce and leave the mixture to simmer on a low heat for around 15 minutes. Cook to reduce the liquid to half, turn back to high until the sauce is almost gone, finally add the snow peas. Your Chikuzen Ni is done and ready to be enjoyed.