Breakfast in Shanghai

In the first morning in Shanghai, my sister, who's been living in Shanghai for 15 years, went out to get some humbaos from a street vendor nearby heated them up in a bamboo steamer and served them hot. It's a popular breakfast item in Shanghai it looks like. Both meat and veggie humbaos were tasty.

It's intriguing to compare different breakfast menus in different cultures. In the last 15 years of my life in Seattle, I have become addicted to crispy bacon strips on some weekend brunches but am still never a fan of sweet breakfast like pancakes and French toast. In Japan, a typical breakfast menu consists of plain rice & miso soup with something "salty" such as broiled salmon, fermented soybeans(natto), raw eggs with soysauce and/or vegetable pickles. How many Americans would be willing to smell like rotten soybeans when they get to work I wonder......

Recipe: Japanese Pork Stew (Buta no Kakuni)

(Wow, this is the first post in the last three years!?)

Ideally this should be "Pork Belly Stew" in traditional Japanese recipes, but it's not the end of the world if you can't find a slab of pork belly. The key to a good pork stew is "FAT". As long as tasty fat is not trimmed off the meat, other parts like pork shoulder or butt can be used.
I found a frozen pork shoulder roast in my freezer and decided to experiment with this less fatty (well, compared to a chunk of belly of cource) piece of meat. Turned out.....AMAZING!




Ingredients (serves 4)

A Pork shoulder roast 2 - 2 1/2 lb
Dashi (Japanese broth made of kombu and bonito flakes - you can use a pouch of dashi powder with no MSG) 3 cups
Green part of Negi (Japanese leek/white onion)
Soy sauce 1/2 cup
Sake 1/2 cup
Mirin 1/2 cup


1. Cut the pork roast into 2 inch square cubes.
2. In a deep pot, put in 4 5- cups of water and add the pork cubes. Add negi and heat the pot over high heat to bring it to boil. Then turn the heat down to medium and cook for a few hours. Add water if necessary.
3. Turn off the heat and let the pork sit overnight.
4. When the fat on the surface solidifies, take out the pork cubes and rinse them in hot water.
5. Discard the water in the pot and add clean water (2 cups + dashi 1 cup). Add back the pork and bring it to boil.
6. Add sake and mirin. Once the alcohol content is evaporated turd the heat down to medium/low and add soy sauce.
7. Simmer for about 1 hours until the meat is very tender (you can test itcan with chopsticks. If you break apart a piece easiliy then it's done
8. Serve hot with hot mustard paste as garnish.

Yumm!! Try it with a good full bodied red wine :-)