Previously, on tastingmenu.wordpress.com –
* https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/morimoto-hayashi-stew-fast-version/
Boston. Dec 1st. It started snowing. So while trying to think warm thoughts, Waikiki came to mind. And then I thought – “Loco-Moto: Iron Chef Morimoto’s Hayashi Stew with a fried egg on top…”. A picture of the dish can be found here:
and here’s what I made:
So I went to Whole Foods and got 2 lbs of chuck roast that I tried to cut up into 1.5″ long x .5″ thick
“batons”. The original recipe from Iron Chef Morimoto began by sauteeing a whole large sliced
onion in oil for about 5-7 minutes and then setting it aside. The process continued by searing the
beef in 3 tablespoons of heated butter (in this case, I used grapeseed oil) and a minced clove of garlic (about 3-5 minutes), then setting
aside the meat with the onions and deglazing the pan with a cup of ‘hearty red wine’(I read that as ‘a
good low tannin cabernet sauvignon’). The beef, onions, pan deglazed contents (cup of wine and 3
tablespoons of ketchup) were then combined
into a stew pot with 2 cups each of Perfect Additions Beef Stock and shanton broth (chinese superior broth). The whole thing was left to simmer for about an hour and a half (“until the meat is almost
tender”). While the stew was simmering, I got a roux made by gradually whisking in 1/4 cup of flour into 6 tablespoons of hot grapeseed oil.
Once the roux was made, about half of the simmering stew liquid was gradually added to make a thickening
agent that’s added back to the stew to further cook for the last half hour. The stew had its seasoning corrected with 3/4 teaspoon of 4:1 salt/pepper mix. Once it was ready to serve, I got some rice out to cover half of the serving dishes and the left the other space to be occupied by the hayashi stew. My wife wanted to help out with the fried egg topping since she liked hers easy over and I liked mine sunny-side up!
Iron Chef Morimoto’s recipe makes enough to generously serve four people; my wife commented that she liked it enough that she thought we’d finish the whole thing in one sitting. So, I guess I got the vote of confidence in how I did the dish. I must say, having the Perfect Additions beef stock was a real time/resource saver!
Resources
Perfect Additions Beef Stock – Whole Foods, Fresh Pond/Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, MA