Yesterday, we had a meatless Monday. It felt appropriate after a weekend of gorging like behemoths at my parent's house, and I was feeling sooooo bloated from all that salt that we had eaten.
It feels good to go meatless every once in a while. Sometimes I think I can be a pescetarian vegetarian, but then I'll pass by a robata-yaki place around the third day and give into some skewered pork belly. Oh well, one can't live on sushi and M Cafe alone.
Cookbooks are always wonderful to look at when you have the kitchen blahs - this recipe in particular is derived from my beloved Vegetable Encyclopedia. Because the best way to battle the kitchen blahs is to cook with stuff that you usually don't mess with. In this case, I cooked with turnips.
I did make some minor tweaks with the recipe to better fit my tastes, and I must say, this was really tasty! I should also add that this dish is incredibly easy, and can be made well under 20 minutes (well, if you already have cooked rice on hand). It's definitely going into my repetoire.
Vegetable Donburi
makes 2 servings
1 turnip, peeled and sliced
3 stalks scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 cup Chinese style dashi*
sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp cane sugar
cooked rice
* To make Chinese style dashi, simply make throw some ginger and scallion stalks into your pot and simmer away. Traditionally Japanese Chinese style dashi (a mouthful, innit?) is made with chicken stock, ginger, and negi, but I wanted to keep this dish meat-less, so I made it with a kombu-shiitake dashi base.
Heat some sesame oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Throw in the ginger and let it cook until the pan starts to emit a delicious Chinese food-esque aroma. Throw in turnip slices and pan fry until it browns a bit.
Combine soy sauce, sugar, and oyster sauce in a separate bowl.
Then throw in the rest of the ingredients and the sauce mix, and simmer until most of the liquid is gone.
Pour contents over some white rice, sprinkle some shichimi peppers, and nom.
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Since I’ll be having some meatless Fridays thanks to Lent, this recipe will come in handy!!
When I was in Chiang Mai, my cooking teacher substituted mushroom sauce for oyster sauce for vegetarian dishes. It has a similar texture and color, but doesn’t have any seafood derivatives.
This sounds delicious and heart-warming. I might just have to make this for dinner tomorrow night!
bianca, thanks! hopefully you’ll have some veggie recipes to share too
aaron, where can i obtain this mushroom sauce? that would expand my repertoire a bit, methinks.
megan, thanks for stopping by! let me know how it goes!
congrats on a meatless monday! are you doing this every week?
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