Japanese Faves: Donabe 3: Braised Beef Brisket with Shio Koji & Vegetables

This tasty donabe dish was inspired by a recipe in Donabe Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking by Naoko Takei Moore and Kyle Connaughton, which is a great cookbook all about donabe dishes. I love tender, fall-apart-tender beef brisket, which this dish delivers. I’ve taken quite a few liberties with the cookbook recipe, using my Anything Rub and basil pesto instead of the coffee rub and puree in the book, which is basically a pesto. And I use homemade shio koji, made from my recipe. I’ve also changed the vegetables and the seasoning, but the browning and braising techniques are basically the same as the cookbook recipe. -- John Hornick

Serves 2 as a main course or 4 as a medium course

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Preparation time: about 5 to 5.5 hours, plus marinating at least 2 hours, and preferably overnight

Ingredients:
About 1 lb. beef brisket cut into 5-6 strips
2-3 Tb. Anything Rub (see the lesson in my Sauces to Die For Series: John’s Anything Rub)
1½ to 2 cups onions, sliced about 3/8” wide
About ¼ cup shio koji (see my Japanese Faves lesson: Making Shio Koji, Shoyu Koji, & Amazake)
About 2 Tb. white miso
Olive oil
About ¼ cup sake
About 2 cups beef stock
About 2 cups chicken stock
About 2 Tb. garlic, thinly sliced
A few sprigs rosemary, tied with kitchen twine
3 stalks bok choy, cut into ¾” pieces (green and white parts) (or Napa Cabbage)
1 medium radish, halved and thinly sliced into halfmoons
10-15 shishito peppers (or small sweet peppers)
About 1 cup mushrooms (shitake mushrooms or wild mushrooms, sliced)
About 1 Tb. shoyu
Juice of ½ lemon, freshly squeezed
Juice of ½ lime, freshly squeezed
1 heaping Tb. red miso dissolved in a little warm water
2-3 Tb. pesto (see the lesson in my Sauces to Die For Series: Basil Pesto)
2 chicken eggs (or 6-8 quail eggs)
One scallion, thinly sliced

Equipment needed: Donabe (https://toirokitchen.com/)