Khushbu LalwaniApparently ankake is a Japanese sauce and can be served with any of your favourite ingredients. This sauce is made with something called dashi stock which you can make from scratch or simply buy ready made, I did the latter. You then need to thicken the sauce using cornflour or potato starch. This sauce is the backbone of many Japanese dishes and is served as a donburi (on rice).
For a meal of 4 you will need the following ingredients:
- 125g shitake mushrooms
- 396g tofu (I used Cauldron from Tesco)
- 250g pak choy
- 1 large onion
- Salt and peper
- Sake – 1tbsp and some to marinate
- 45ml soy sauce
- 1tbsp mirin
- 1tbsp caster sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 400ml dashi stock
- 1 tbsp oil
- Green stem of one leek
- 40g fresh ginger, peeled and halved
- 15g fresh garlic lightly crushed
- 2 tbsp potato start mixed with 2tbsp of cold water
- Hot cooked Japanese rice for 4
Preparation
- Prepare the vegetables: chop the onion lengthwise, the shiitake mushrooms finely sliced and the tofu cut into cubes and shallow fried in oil until golden brown.
- Prepare the pak choy by separating the leafy parts from the stems, cutting the stems in half lengthwise and then further by chopping then into 5cm long pieces. Cut the leaves into pieces of around 5cm long.
- Add the soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar and salt to the dashi stock, mix together thoroughly and set aside.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the leek ginger and garlic in that order once the oil is hot. Cook until you can smell the aroma. Then add the mushrooms, onion and pak choy.
- Add the dashi stock mixture and when it comes to the boil stir in the potato starch mix to thicken the sauce.
- Discard the ginger, leek and garlic. Serve the ankake on hot cooked rice in individual serving bowls.
