Chūkadon

A stir-fry thickened in its own wok liquid and tipped straight over rice.

Pork, Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains chicken stock, oyster sauce, pork, shellfish.

Ingredients

the stir-fry

• 200 g pork loin, in strips
• 150 g squid, scored and in pieces
• 8 prawns
• 300 g Chinese cabbage, in pieces
• 100 g bamboo shoots, sliced
• 6 shiitake, sliced
• 100 g mangetout
• 1 carrot, in thin slices
• 2 tablespoons oil

to season

• 300 ml chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sake
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons potato starch, slaked in 4 of water
• 4 portions hot rice

Method

1. THICKENED IN THE WOK, IN ITS OWN LIQUID, and that is the line between this and the tenshindon in the same batch. There is no separate sauce here: the cabbage gives up a great deal of water, the stock goes in on top of it, and the starch is slaked into THAT. Nothing is made in a clean pan and nothing is poured over.
2. SO DO NOT DRAIN THE VEGETABLES' WATER AWAY -- it is the body of the sauce. Tipping it off and adding stock instead gives something thin that tastes of stock.
3. EVERYTHING CUT TO THE SAME SIZE AND READY BEFORE THE PAN IS LIT. The whole stir-fry is five minutes and there is no point in it where you can stop and chop.
4. SCORE THE SQUID in a diamond pattern on the inside face. It curls into neat rolls and cooks in under a minute instead of going rubbery.
5. Wok as hot as the hob will take it, oil in, pork first for 1 minute until it colours.
6. Squid and prawns in for 40 SECONDS and then OUT onto a plate. They finish in the sauce at the end; left in throughout they are ruined.
7. Hard vegetables next -- carrot, bamboo, shiitake -- 2 minutes, then the cabbage stalks, then the leaves.
8. Stock, oyster sauce, soy and sake in, and let it come to a fast boil.
9. STARCH IN A THIN STREAM WITH THE PAN BOILING, stirring constantly, and stop when it coats a spoon. Added off the boil it does not set; added all at once it lumps.
10. Seafood back in, sesame oil off the heat, and tip the whole panful straight over the rice so the sauce soaks downwards.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes