"New York" Hot Pot

Discover a unique New York-style hot pot recipe created by Tadashi, inspired by the Sumo Wrestler Hot Pot recipe but with the addition of tomatoes and garlic. This article explores the use of umami-rich ingredients like tomatoes in Japanese cooking and shares the ingredients and cooking method for the flavorful hot pot dish.

Tomatoes, garlic... hot pot? When the local Japanese-language newspaper in New York, Japion, contacted us about doing a story about our hot pot book, Tadashi got inspired to create a New York-style hot pot. He based it on our Sumo Wrestler Hot Pot recipe in the book (page 105), but decided to add tomatoes and garlic. This flourish isn't as far-fetched as it seems. Tomatoes are incredibly rich in umami, the natural savory taste that's a hallmark of Japanese cooking. So they melded perfectly with the other flavors of this dish. Here's what went into the dish: Garlic, fresh tomatoes, canned whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, shiitake mushrooms, onions, chicken balls, pork belly, napa cabbage and shungiku. He used tori gara, Japanese-style chicken stock, to make the broth (p. 32) and flavored it with Sendai miso (a rustic, intense red miso), sake and soy sauce. For shime, the finish, he used spaghetti instead of udon! I don't have a formal recipe for this hot pot, but if you're comfortable cooking these dishes, use the Sumo Wrestler method as your guide. Any adventurous cooks out there make this dish - please let me know! (Here's the article we were in, in Japanese.)