Osaka, Japan
Shabu-Shabu
Paper-thin beef swished through clear kombu broth at the table — Japan's minimalist hot pot, named for the swish-swish sound the meat makes.
Three seconds in the broth.
The whole technique is the swishing — *shabu shabu*, the onomatopoeic name. A slice of beef is held by chopsticks and waved back and forth through the simmering broth for two or three seconds, just until the colour turns from red to pink to grey. Lift, dip in sauce, eat. Over-cook and you have boiled beef; under-cook and you have raw beef in a broth slurry. The window is small.
4 · Plate
Osaka, Japan
Shabu-Shabu
Paper-thin beef swished through clear kombu broth at the table — Japan's minimalist hot pot, named for the swish-swish sound the meat makes.
A Japanese adaptation of a Mongolian-Chinese hot pot. Shabu-shabu was created in 1952 at Suehiro restaurant in Osaka, where the owner, Kanae Mishima, had encountered a Chinese version of instant-boiled mutton (shuan yangrou) during his time in Beijing and adapted the technique for the Japanese kitchen — beef in place of mutton, kombu in place of the spice-heavy broth, dipping sauces in place of the sesame-sauce mix. The name was registered as a trademark by Suehiro in 1955, though it’s long since become generic.
The dish is restrained where sukiyaki is rich. Shabu-shabu’s broth is clear water with a sheet of kombu — no soy, no sake, no sugar. The dish lives or dies on the quality of the beef; great wagyu becomes transcendent, average beef becomes obvious. The Japanese kitchen approaches it as a celebration of the ingredient rather than a transformation of it.
Ponzu and goma, both at once.
Two dipping sauces side by side. *Ponzu* — citrus-soy with grated daikon — for the lighter cuts and lean beef. *Goma* — sesame paste, soy, mirin — for the fattier cuts. Most shabu-shabu meals offer both and the eater alternates by slice. The vegetables — napa cabbage, mushrooms, tofu — usually go in *ponzu*.