Niku Jaga - Beef With Potatoes And Carrots

If Japan had cowboys and burly lumberjacks, this would be their meal. It’s a real work horse of the Japanese home kitchen and quite literally translates to “meat and potatoes”. Being high in energy, low on prep time and very tasty, it’s no surprise why. This is also one of those dishes that tastes even better the next day, so you can make it in larger quantities and warm it up over rice for lunch.While each home has their own variation, I’m basing this roughly on my moms version. She typically uses ground beef, but I’ve replaced that here with thinly sliced end-cuts of rib-eye and added a little meyer lemon zest at the end to brighten up the sweet earthy flavor. While this is more or less the base-recipe you could really go on and add just about anything you want, sugar peas, bamboo, shirataki noodles, or even tofu (although if you left out the meat or potatoes, you’d probably have to rename it:-)It makes a great accompaniment to rice, but you could also turn it into a donburi by putting it over a bowl of rice and allowing the cooking liquid to seep in and flavour the rice below.

Yield:

Serves 2

Ingredients

1. canola oil
2. 1/2 small onion sliced
3. 1 tsp minced ginger
4. 1/3 lbs thinly sliced beef
5. 1 carrot cut into small pieces
6. 2 small potatoes peeled and cut into medium pieces
7. 1/4 C sake
8. 1/4 C water
9. 2 Tbs soy sauce
10. 2 Tbs mirin
11. 1 Tbs sugar
12. 1 scallion finely chopped
13. Meyer lemon zest

Directions

1. Put some oil in a pan over medium heat and saute the onions and ginger until wilted and fragrant. Add the beef and fry until brown. Toss in the carrots and potatoes, sake, water, soy sauce, mirin and sugar.
2. Cover and turn down to the heat to a low simmer and cook, tossing a few times until the potatoes are soft. Serve topped with scallions and a little lemon zest along with some rice.

Notes