A recipe from 2019, I cooked this dish just a week or two after the house renovation. I hadn’t figured out the best angles given the new lighting so I won’t brag about the quality of the photos. Ugly delicious comes to mind. Whatever. The important thing is that you can see exactly what’s in the dish.
What you won’t be able to tell from the photos is how it tastes. I can use a dozen adjectives and they won’t do the dish real justice. You’ll have to cook it to understand that it deserves to be described in the lines of a haiku.
But it’s a teriyaki dish, you say, and what’s so exceptional about that? Well, the teriyaki sauce is the final layer of flavor. Before it touches the meat, the pork ribs are first simmered in dashi with ginger thrown in. Dashi, of course, is an array of stocks the most basic of which is made by boiling shaved bonito and kombu. Kombu is a seaweed. For more about bonito, see the linked post below.
Are katsuobushi and bonito flakes the same?
Fine curly shavings that dance in the heat of the steam of takoyaki or okonomiyaki. They’re shaved fermented fish. The Japanese name is katsuobushi but bonito flakes is not an accurate translation.
The teriyaki sauce is brushed generously on the ribs after the meat had soaked up the umaminess of the dashi and ginger. The ribs go under the broiler and stay there until the dark sauce caramelizes and forms a crust on the surface.
What about the mushrooms? Where do they fit in? Mushrooms are little sponges, did you know? They absorb any flavor they come in contact with. But by themselves, they’re rather bland. So, the mushrooms were cooked in the liquid in which the ribs had simmered. In effect, the mushrooms soak up the flavors of the pork, dashi and ginger.
With both the pork ribs and mushrooms cooked to perfection, they are tossed in the remaining teriyaki sauce. It’s quite amazing at this point but, wait! Top with toasted sesame seeds and thinly sliced scallions for the perfect finish.
Ingredients
- meaty pork ribs about 700 to 800 grams or enough for three people
- 4 cups dashi
- 1 half-inch knob ginger
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- ¼ cup sake
- ¼ cup mirin
- 200 grams button mushrooms or substitute shiitake
- 2 tablespoons sesame seeds toasted in an oil-free pan and ground
- thinly sliced scallions to garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Rinse the pork ribs and dry with a kitchen towel. Cut between the bones.
- In a sauce pan, bring the dashi to the boil with the ginger.
- Drop the pork ribs into the hot broth and wait until the liquid comes to a full boil again. Lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer the ribs for about an hour or until tender but not overcooked.
- While the pork ribs simmer, make the teriyaki sauce. Boil the soy sauce, sake and mirin until reduced by about a quarter. Cool.
- Scoop out the pork ribs and spread on a rack to drain well.
- Preheat the broiler to 400F.
- Transfer the ribs to a baking pan lined with non-stick paper (or use a silicone mat) and brush liberally with teriyaki sauce.
- Broil the ribs just until a light crust forms on the outside, about 10 to 12 minutes.
- While the ribs broil, cut the mushroons into halves or quarters if they are rather large and simmer for about five minutes in the broth in which the pork ribs were cooked. Scoop out and drain.
- Reheat the remaining teriyaki sauce in a frying pan.
- Take the ribs out of the oven and dump into the hot sauce.
- Add the mushrooms and toss everything around for half a minute.
- Transfer the pork ribs and mushrooms teriyaki into a serving bowl. Garnish with sesame seeds and, optionally, sliced scallions. Serve hot with rice.
