4 easy side dishes with Napa Cabbage 〜白菜副菜四種〜 | easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Taichi's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make four side dishes using Napa cabbage. So I think Napa cabbage is getting kind of like more popular in many countries outside Japan but at the same time if you're not into Asian cooking you may not know how to cook these and Napa cabbage is getting into the season right now. As it gets colder and colder outside Napa cabbage increases its sugar rate inside to prevent it from freezing especially when it starts snowing outside. So it just gets more delicious and delicious as the winter gets cold outside and it's also in the medicine philosophy that the vegetable that are in that season contains the nutrient that your body needs to fight against that season and so in these cold season it's really great to eat the Napa cabbage. So I hope this video gives some idea to what to cook with Napa cabbage and hopefully try these dishes yourself because I think they're also very easy and very delicious. Then let's get started. Here are the ingredients for four side dishes using Napa cabbage. So as you already know this is Napa cabbage. Nowadays I think you can get it pretty much anywhere in the world. I have instant dashi powder for the Nibitashi and a little bit of strip of kombu kelp, oyster mushroom also for the Nibitashi. I have lemon for the dressing for the salad and scallion for the sauce for the steamed cabbage and chicken breast for the steamed Napa cabbage. Then I have frying oil, sesame oil for the salad and then for the seasoning I have sake or rice wine, vinegar, any vinegar will do, tahini or the sesame paste, soy sauce, salt and chili pepper. If you don't want it spicy then don't put it in. Now let's get into it. So let's prepare the Napa cabbage. What you want to do is you want to cut off the bottom like this then these will kind of automatically fall out like this. Then I'm going to wash these. So when you wash these Napa cabbage it's very important that you wash them after you separate them because sometimes you have a lot of dirt on the bottom right here so make sure you do that. So then today I'm going to use about two for the salad and I'm going to use kind of more of the inside parts because they tend to be a little bit softer and sweeter and I'm going to use three for steaming and I'm going to use four for the Nibitashi and also another four for the Itame. And according to the dishes I'm going to cut them a little bit differently. So for the salad I'm going to cut the kind of the bottom part off. I'm going to separate the leaf and the stem because they tend to have a little bit different texture just like that and for the salad I'm going to eat them raw. The fiber is running vertically so I'm going to cut them in the opposite direction like this against the fiber and just try to cut it as thin as possible like this and when you do it here make sure you have a hand so-called cat's paw where you don't have your finger like this instead you have a finger a little tucked in like this and the knife is meeting the knuckle right here so just like this so just like that for the stem part and for the leafy part you don't have to cut them so thin so I'm just going to kind of roughly a little bit wider like this so just like that. Then I'm going to kind of mix this a little bit and put it on a plate and then this is done for that and for the nibitashi I'm also going to separate the stem and the leaf and when you see a little bit kind of dark part or damaged part I'm going to cut these parts off as well and the reason for that is it takes longer time to cook the stem and the leafy part gets cooked very easily and then the stem part I'm just going to cut into kind of bite-sized pieces just like that and the leafy part as well but much bigger because they shrink a lot when you cook them so just like in half like this is fine so that's done for that as well so for the steamed cabbage I'm just going to cut them very roughly because I'm going to steam them and doesn't really matter so just kind of like kind of like these pieces so just like that and for the fried cabbage I'm going to cut them a bit unusual way you don't have to do this but this way the flavor still gets soaked in much better and it gets cooked easier as well so I'm going to show you that variation but like I said you don't have to do this so like the other ones I'm going to separate the leaf and the stem so with the stem I'm going to cut them a little bit diagonally so instead of cutting like this so it has a little bit more surface so just like that so it has more surface area but also it looks kind of neat like this so just like that and for the leaf part also just kind of just like this is fine so just like that napa cabbage is also cut up in a little bit different ways according to the dishes so as the next thing let's make the dressing for the salad I already have a video of three different kinds of Japanese style dressing if you're interested in that you can check that out today I'm going to be lazy and do the easiest dressing which is the ponzu dressing which is just a simple mixture of lemon juice and the soy sauce but for this recipe of course you can use any kind of dressing you may have so for that amount I'd probably just need half of this lemon so it's probably about one tablespoon of lemon juice and for that I'm going to put in about the same amount of soy sauce and then with that the dressing's finished so I'm going to pour this in right when I eat them and then over that I'm going to put some sesame oil there's the next thing let's prepare the meat for this recipe I'm going to cut them just kind of similar way I did for the fried cabbage so just like this kind of like that just like that this is done now it's the next thing let's make the nibitashi or the cooked napa cabbage so in a pot I'm going to put a cup of water and there's about two to three gram of kombu kelp I'm going to cut into strips if you have kombu kelp you can skip it it just gives more depth to the flavor then I'm going to put in the dashi powder if you're vegetarian or vegan you can skip this as well this also just gives umami to the flavor and this I'm going to put half of this so just about half teaspoon or 2.5 gram then this I'm going to put the stem part of the cabbage and two teaspoons of soy sauce and also one tablespoon of sake if you don't have sake you can skip this but this will just add a little more depth to the flavor and I'm going to put the lid on and turn the heat to high and bring this to boil so once this comes to a boil I'm going to turn the heat to low or and let it cook like this for about five minutes or so and let the stem part cook so after five minutes so the stem part looks soft and cooked then here I'm going to put in the oyster mushrooms so this is a little bit too big so I'm going to separate in two half like this I'm going to turn the heat to high and bring this to boil so I'm going to cook like this for about a minute or so after about a minute the mushroom has been cooked then here I'm going to put in the leafy part then once it comes to boil again then this is finished and turn heat off and then with that nibitashi is finished now let's make the sauce for the steamed cabbage so first thing I'm going to cut up the scallion then I'm going to cut this up in thin slices here I'm going to put in two tablespoons of soy sauce one tablespoon of vinegar I have here rice wine vinegar but you can substitute this white wine vinegar or apple vinegar then about one teaspoon of sugar then about two teaspoons of sesame paste or tahini and when you use tahini make sure you mix them well and then here a little bit chili how much ever you want depending on how spicy you want it of course you don't want it spicy then just skip this and about one tablespoon of sesame oil this will just give really great aroma to it then we're going to mix this in so then with that the sauce is finished you can put in here also a little bit of ground ginger or ground garlic or cilantro that can be created with this sauce and this is also very tasty as a salad dressing then let's prepare the meat and here I'm going to put in about four teaspoons of salt and then here about one tablespoon of sake you can use white wine as a substitute then you're going to mix it in and then let it soak like this for five minutes or so and let the salt soak in so after about five minutes this has been marinated now let's put this on a plate so I'm just going to spread out the napa cabbage on the bottom I'll take the stem part first and just put it on the bottom and then on top of that just the leaf part and then on top that just the meat then I'm going to put the saran wrap over this so as this has been wrapped like this I'm going to cook this in the microwave then we're going to cook like this for about seven minutes depending on the power of the microwave you may have to cook longer or less so this is finished so this is sizzling hot so be very careful don't burn yourself and then I just need to put the sauce over it at the end so I'm going to prepare the fried napa cabbage you want to do this beforehand because you want to let it leave for about 10 to 20 minutes or so so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put in a little bit bigger container then here I'm going to put in about half teaspoon of salt and this may sound a little bit too much but don't worry it gets washed later so you want to marinate with a little more salt than you think I'm going to sprinkle this around and then you want to mix this in a little bit so the salt will be distributed well then I'm going to put it to the side so as the last thing let's make the stir-fried napa cabbage I'm going to turn the heat to high and heat up the frying pan and for this recipe you need hot water later while you're heating up the frying pan you want to also boil some water on the side once the frying pan has been heated I'm going to put in about two to three tablespoon of oil this may sound a lot but don't worry it gets washed later you'll see this is a technique of a Chinese cooking so then here I'm going to put in the cabbage so what you want to do here is that coat up the cabbage with oil so after about a minute of cooking like this I'm going to put in the hot water just about a cup then cook it like this for about 30 seconds or so then I'm going to drain this and drain the water as much as possible then I'm going to put this on a plate then here about a teaspoon of the sesame oil over it then mix this in then with that this is finished so for the salad I'm going to put the dressing and then over that sesame oil and then for the steamed cabbage I'm going to put the sauce then with that this is finished let's eat oh they all look so delicious and let's eat let's start with the stir fry oh this is so delicious because only added to that is the salt you really taste the sweetness of this napa cabbage and the oil just kind of make it a little rounder with this you just really taste the napa cabbage so simple and yet so delicious and this nibitashi also so delicious this dashi stock is kind of giving another layer to the flavor of the napa cabbage so delicious and this steamed chicken breast so very delicious and maybe because it's steamed the chicken breast is actually not that very dry and the sauce is just such a great match and this napa cabbage is kind of making sweeter such a great combination so perfectly well with rice and let's have the salad also so very delicious because it's raw it's got a little bit different kind of crunchiness and I also like this crunchy texture and this ponzu dressing is just really great and this sesame oil just gives a really great aroma to it you really taste the sweetness of the napa cabbage oh they were all so delicious oh they're all so savory so as you saw making each of these dishes are very very and as you see they're also very very healthy napa cabbage is such a great vegetable so versatile you can use it in so many ways so I hope this video gave you some new ideas for your cooking and maybe give it a try yourself if you enjoyed this video I'd love it if you could hit the like button for me and if you have any feedback or 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