Exploring One-Pot "Nabe" Cooking with Gramercy Tavern's Eric Takahashi

Chefs Takahashi and Romano.
Photo by George Hirose

One of the best things about the arrival of winter is the return of cold-weather comfort foods. For the Japanese, that means nabe-ryori, or one-pot cooking, preferably done tableside. It’s warming, it’s social, it’s delicious, and much cheaper than a tropical vacation.

To celebrate this tradition, Eric Takahashi, a cook at Gramercy Tavern, offered a nabe workshop a group I belong to called JAJA (Japanese Americans and Japanese in America). On hand to act as his assistant was recently retired Union Square Hospitality Group director of culinary development Michael Romano, whose work in Tokyo I recently chronicled.

Chef Takahashi likes to shop at the greenmarket, so the idea was to stage a summit between the greenmarket and the hot pot, a pretty enticing idea for a season in which staving off root vegetable fatigue is a major challenge. The demonstration took place in the kitchen of a loft near Union Square, generously offered by a JAJA member. 

Exhibit A was yosenabe, most often a mix of fish and meat trimmings (yose means “to put aside”), but in this evening's rendition, featuring flavorful rack of pork from Heritage Foods. Chef Takahashi started by building a dashi, or broth with konbu (dried seaweed), and water.  Most of the konbu available here is harvested in Hokkaido, the chef informed us, where very cold waters promote wide ribbons of seaweed. He prefers the narrower, and more intensely flavored konbu from the warmer waters of Okinawa. 

Next, strips of Napa cabbage, carrot, shiitake and white honshimeji mushrooms, cubed firm tofu, long scallions and shirataki (konjac yam noodles) went into the pot. Traditionally chrysanthemum leaves or spinach add a dash of green, but Chef Takahashi used locally grown mizuna from Lani’s Farm instead. He dislikes overly salty food, so he added salt and soy sauce sparingly.

Since this is a fairly light dish, it’s enhanced by dipping the pot’s components in a ponzu sauce before eating. This was Exhibit B. Chef Takahashi likes to makes his ponzu

Exhibit C: Zosui.
Photo by George Hirose

with a ratio of two parts dark soy sauce, one part yuzu, lime or sudachi juice, half part sake (alcohol burned off), a square of dried konbu (4” square per two cups of soy sauce), and one part bonito flakes. Let this marinate overnight or up to a week in the fridge, then strain the bonito and konbu and save for another use.

One fun suggestion of the chef’s:  you can make a great furikake, (a condiment for sprinkling on top of steamed rice) by cooking down the marinated bonito flakes and konbu with a little soy sauce in a non-stick pan until it’s completely dry and crunchy. Optional adds include some rehydrated dried hijiki and toasted sesame seeds.  

 For Exhibit C, chef Takahashi showed us how he makes a thick rice porridge called zosui with the rich broth that is left when all the nabe contents have been eaten. He simply juliennes the konbu that was used to flavor the nabe, adds cooked rice and beaten egg to bind it, and a little salt. The addition homemade pickled vegetables made with nuka, or fermented milled rice bran, gives the zosui that zing that completes the dish.

Stay warm this winter, friends, and eat nabe!

Michael Anthony's Gramercy Tavern Cookbook

Chilled corn soup.

Outside the air was shimmering with heat and humidity but inside the private dining room at Gramercy Tavern it was all chill, from the refreshing corn soup to the lemon verbena granité. The occasion was a recent lunch introducing The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook, written by executive chef Michael Anthony.

The book, to be released in October, is a handsome collection of recipes, mini-profiles and stories published by Clarkson Potter. Union Square Hospitality group founder and co-owner Danny Meyer writes in his introductory history of the restaurant that he visualized his second restaurant as "the love child of Taillevent and Union Square Café," a combination of the casual spirit of the first and the elevated services and fine dining of the second.

Watermelon and beet salad.

Anthony told his lunch guests that he strives for the simplicity of home cooking at work, noting, "If we have the courage to cook at the restaurant the way we cook at home then we're a success. It's the opposite of what you would think." 

Anthony cooks at home for his wife and three daughters, and says he's excited about joining the Norwich Meadows Farm CSA and cooking from its offerings.

Flounder with marinated cucumbers and yogurt sauce.

I wondered if any of Anthony's experiences cooking in Japan made it into his book. He does write memorably about his impoverished days as a young cook living on the far outskirts of Tokyo and befriending a middle-aged Japanese woman. She dragged him to meetings of her "culture club," where he traded English lessons for instruction in both Japanese and Japanese home cooking, and "excursions with their straw-hat hiking club."

"Japanese people eat an amazing variety of carefully prepared foods every day, but that kind of home cooking hardly ever finds its way to Japanese restaurants in the United States," writes Anthony. He lists a few of key ingredients from those Japanese ladies' home kitchens that he loves most, and that have made their way into his pantry, including the very practical bottled shiro dashi, a mix of dashi (the basic building block of Japanese cuisine, a broth made of bonito flakes and dried seaweed), soy sauce, saké and other seasonings.  He likes to use shiro dashi to season fish and sauces.

Lemon verbena granite with blueberry sorbet.

The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook includes Anthony own dashi recipe, used in the book for a dish of halibut and radishes in beet dashi.

Now, says Anthony, he's fascinated with Korean cuisine. I'm looking forward to seeing how those influences might eventually appear on the Gramercy Tavern menu.

Everything was Ducky in Jimmy's Back Room

Over the weekend, I had the enviable honor of being a judge for Duck-Off 2013, a Food Systems Network NYC fundraiser held at Jimmy’s No.43, in the East Village. FSNYC is a membership-based non-profit that works to change our food system in a way that will allow universal access to nourishing, affordable food. It’s a subject I feel strongly about. I’m lucky to be able to shop at the greenmarket and eat the best, most nutritious foods daily, and I want everyone to be able to do that.

Since FSNYC raises its entire operating budget on its own, the organization has to get creative; this event was a perfect example of how it does that.

So the idea was that contestants had to wow us with their creative preparation of some beautiful ducks generously donated by Matt Igoe of Hudson Valley Duck Farm.

There were too many great entries to list, so I’m highlighting a few of my favorites here. Keep an eye on FSNYC’s webpage and Facebook page for full recipes, which will be posted soon.

Winners Andrew Gumpel, left, and Micah Mowrey

Micah Mowrey and Andrew Gumpel from Gramercy Tavern walked away with the judges’ first place award for their impeccably constructed Duck Pastrami with Sunchoke’s & Aji Dulce Pepper Jam. It was a little like awarding first to LeBron James amid a cast of NCAA hopefuls, though, so you’ll just have to go to Gramercy Tavern to learn more about what these talented young chefs can do.

Jamie Saurman's duck legs doing their thing.

All the judges loved the flavor combinations of Jamie Saurman’s Cumin-Coriander Duck Leg Confit. It’s no wonder, since his inspiration was his wife Hemali, whose family in Mumbai has been mixing small-batch spices for 75 years.  Using his favorite slow-cooking method, Jamie flavored his duck legs with curry leaves, freshly ground cumin seeds and a turbo-charged coriander powder to highlight the natural savory flavor of the duck. Then he used rendered duck fat and bacon fat to confit his Hudson Valley Farm duck legs in a 250-degree oven.

Hemali, spice muse, and Jamie

 “I love to submerge things in their own fat, or borrow even tastier fat from other sources and slowly cook them,” says Jamie, a Johnson & Wales grad who is preparing to open his own restaurant and brewery in Brooklyn. (The intriguing part of his business plan: DIY beer brewing for restaurant guests.)

 It was the combination of the shredded confit, green mung beans (cooked in a pressure cooker with garlic, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves), fresh pomegranate seeds and crispy lentil papadum that made the dish so alluring. As judges, our only quibble with this delicious dish was that it was hard to scoop up these disparate and truly complementary flavors into one bite amid the scrum of the duck-off. Jamie placed second, after the Gramercy team.

Duck Confit Tart and proud maker, Laura Luciano.

Everyone knew that besides the Gramercy guys, the contender to beat was Laura Luciano, winner of the recent cassoulet cook-off at Jimmy’s No. 43 and a scarily talented cook and blogger from the East End of Long Island.

The confit's close-up.

Sure enough, her Duck Confit Tart did well, taking third place from the judges for its beautiful and complex combination of pâte brisée, brie, and a very duck-y confit mixture. She made and baked her tart shell the night before. The first layer onto the pastry was a slathering of triple-cream brie, which Laura puréed in a food processor with the rind on. For the duck layer, Laura brined and then confit-ed her duck legs in duck fat, roughly chopped them and mixed them with caramelized onions (deglazed with vermouth and cognac) and some fennel and Bosc pears that had been roasted with thyme. She also threw in some garlic confit salvaged from the duck confit-ing process.

 French-Mex? Duck Burrito Pie

Adrian “The Cook-off King of Queens” Ashby describes his Duck Burrito Pie as a cross between a Mexican burrito and an English shepherd’s pie; to me it evoked the tortilla casseroles and tamale pies of my Southern California childhood. Adrian didn't place in the competition in part because judges felt that in a duck-off, the duck had to be front and center, not one note among many.

Still, the dish was appealing and addictive, the way a great chicken pot pie or bowl of mac & cheese is. The layered casserole starts with wall-to-wall overlapping tortillas on the bottom, then a layer of room temperature shredded cheese to act as a binder. Rice (any kind will do, says Adrian) and sofrito form the next strata. Adrian makes his sofrito by sautéing garlic, onion, green peppers, cilantro, and tomato paste in olive oil over medium heat until the onions are transparent.  Other layers involve beans, jalapeno, and the duck meat, which he shredded and seasoned. I couldn’t keep track of the exact ordering of all these layers, but they repeat and add up to something that would be great around a campfire or to feed to a hungry horde of teenagers.

I can’t end the post without a shout-out to Jimmy Carbone, whose generosity is as wide as his craft beer list at Jimmy’s No. 43. He’s a huge supporter of sustainable farming and local purveyors, who always know they have a room for their events in his handy and well-used Back Room—thanks, Jimmy!

Ishikawa Prefecture Drops in on NYC

Here are a few photos from a beautifully cooked and presented dinner I attended last night at Gramercy Tavern in celebration of one of Japan's most culturally rich areas, Ishikawa Prefecture. Hosts Michael Romano, president of culinary development for Union Square Hospitality Group and  GT executive chef  Michael Anthony presided over the event, held in a private room decked out to the nines by USHG's talented in-house floral designer Roberta Bendavid.

Before guests arrive,  ChefAnthony decides to preserve the moment.

Paying homage to the foods of Ishikawa, which is located on the more picturesque side of the country, the Sea of Japan coast, nine courses showcased oysters, lobster, crab and kinmedai (golden sea bream) among other delicacies. We sat down to a first course of sea urchin, creamy Hakurei turnips and apples dressed in miso and pumpkin seeds. A teepee-like wooden construction stood over each dish, an allusion to the yukitsuri rope coverings used to protect wintering trees in Japan, and in Ishikawa's Kenrokuen park.

Two of Ishikawa most famous exports (besides Chairman Kaga of Iron Chef  fame) are Kutani ceramics and Wajima lacquerware, both of which were represented at the table. I was so taken with this Wajimaware bowl, but the matsutake mushroom and crab soup inside it was equally refined. Chefs Romano and Anthony were assisted by a surprise guest, chef Shinichiro Takagi of Zeniya restaurant in Kanazawa, the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture. (Orchestrating the dinner behind the scenes was Gohan Society founder and Korin Japanese Trading Corp. President Saori Kawano.) Later, Anthony noted that the one word he took away from the kitchen lessons of the evening was "restraint;" this clear soup exemplified that value.

Romano, who has been given the honorary title of "Ambassador of Culture and Fine Dining" by the governor of Ishikawa Prefecture, enthusiastically discussed his Ishikawa culinary finds, especially koji, the mold-innoculated rice that is enjoying its moment in Japan, especially mixed with salt to form a kind of super-seasoning, and ishiri, an Ishikawa-made super-powered fish sauce containing pickled and fermented squid intestines. In what must have been catnip to the roomful of chefs, Romano evoked those moments "when you just need a little something to round out a dish, fill in the middle." A squirt of ishiri, he marveled, "fills up a whole flavor spectrum on your palate."