When I get really fresh fish, I enjoy eating it straight as sashimi, or I also enjoy creating a quick one-bowl meal by topping it over rice. It never goes wrong. You can make it with sushi rice or just plain rice. I also like to quickly marinade the sashimi in soy-based sauce to top over the rice. It’s called Zuke-Don. Zuke means “marinade”, and Don is donburi rice bowl. Here’s my really tasty Spicy Zuke-Don with fresh tuna.
One day, a very good customer of ours stopped by at our shop to give us a block of fresh tuna he just caught from fishing in the Pacific Ocean. How sweet of him! It was super fresh sashimi quality, so we tried some as sashimi with different kinds of soy sauces we have, then for the remaining, I decided to make a donabe hot pot with it. Tuna hot pot in donabe is a popular dish in Japan, and it’s typically made as a combination with negi (Japanese green onion). It’s called Negi-Ma Nabe. The name is short for Negi (green onion) Maguro (tuna) Nabe (hot pot).
This dish is very simple, and all you need is good quality dashi, tuna (obviously!), green onion (for the name’s sake) and any other ingredients you like to add. I like it with my ponzu.
For the shime (finishing course), I like making quick ojiya (porridge) with freshly-cooked donabe rice.
As I have been to Hawaii almost 50 times since I was a teenager and I’ve been loving their local seafood dishes, I am a self-claimed poke expert (haha). My favorite style of poke is quite simple…it’s all about high quality tuna, soy sauce, sesame oil, and wasabi. When I serve it as an appetizer, I encourage my guests to enjoy on its own or make a wrap with lettuce and nori. To make a meal out of poke, I make this poke don (poke rice bowl). With the sushi rice made in double-lid donabe rice cooker, Kamado-san, this simple dish becomes such a decadent sushi dish you can create at home.
This dish is very easy to make and always a crowd pleaser. Once you get a block of very fresh tuna, all you have to do is to make sushi rice, slice and marinade tuna, get other small components ready and just assemble. The marinating time of tuna should be just up to 15 – 20 minutes. If it’s marinated too long, it will start to “cook” the tuna and the color could get a bit too dark. I like to make the sushi rice by adding 16 Multi Mixed Grains for more complex flavor, texture, and beautiful color in the sushi rice, but you can make it without, too. Whenever I make this dish for friends, it disappears in a matter of moments!
