Niku Jaga

The first thing I should warn you about when you order this dish is speaking too quickly.  If you mess it up, you might just get an ageing Rolling Stone for dinner instead of braised meat and potatoes.

The second important point to note is that I have been told that this is a Japanese test of home style cooking.  If you can pull this off, then you are bound to make a good housewife, or in my case, a house husband.  The best bit about this is that it is a very easy dish to cook and the ingredients are not all that hard to come by.

250g thinly sliced beef or pork

4 or 5 medium potatoes

1 medium onion

about 100g Konyaku (devils tongue) noodles

A little oil for frying

2 cups water

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons sake

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon mirin

Peel and chop the potatoes.

Rinse then boil the konyaku for a few minutes and drain

cut the beef and the onion into strips

Fry the beef, potatoes, onions, and konyaku for about 5 minutes

Add the water and boil.

lower the heat and add the remaining ingredients, cover and simmer until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Serve it on a bowl of rice, on a cold winter night on a couch on a weekend.  What could be better.