Simmered Chicken with Vegetables in Broth

Perfect for winter!!!!!!!!!!! Chicken and veg ( #health) simmered in umami broth

Difficulty: Not too bad….the most annoying part is cutting and prepping all of the vegetables
Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
Meat:
- 1 lb Chicken Breast ( traditionally with skin and no bones, but this cut doesn’t exist in America, so it’s fine to use skinless, boneless chicken)
- 2 tbs. sake
-1/2 tsp salt
Vegetables:
-1 bunch of spinach
-4-6 Shiitake ( 1-2 whole mushrooms per person…Note: you can find these fresh or dried,. If you get them dried, remember to rehydrate them before you use them. To do so, cover the mushrooms with water and use a plate, a small bowl, or a wet paper towel to submerge the mushrooms so that they are actually underwater)
-1/2 large carrot ( enough to cute ten to twelve 1/4” slices of carrot rounds).
Simmering Liquid and Broth:
-2 cups Dashi (For more info on Dashi, click here; if you don’t have dashi on hand, you can use a light chicken broth or mushroom stock)
-2 tbs. soy sauce
-2tbs. Sake
-1 tbs. Mirin
Cooking and Simmering:
- Enough potato starch to dust the chicken pieces (Substitute: corn starch)
Serving:
-Serving with a little wasabi ( ~1/4 tsp per person)
Equipment:
- Ziplock or bowl to marinate the meat in
-Measuring Spoons, measuring cup
-Knife and cutting board
-Clay pot or a Dutch oven (Alternatives: a deep sauté pan or a wide pot)
-Tongs/cooking chopsticks
-Small bowl and a weight for rehydrating the shiitakes
-Small bowl to mix the simmering seasonings
- A small sieve/ strainer
-Ladle

The Steps
1) Boil some water: you’ll use the water later for the spinach. Don’t forget the salt the water.
2)Prepare the chicken: Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces. About 1.5” x 1.5” is good. Don’t over think it.
3) Marinate the chicken: place the chicken pieces in a ziplock or a bowl and marinate the chicken in sake and salt for 15-20 minutes.
4) Prep the veg:
Shiitake: Make sure that the mushrooms are fully rehydrate. The mushroom will be soft and squishy. The stem won’t be stiff and hard. Cut off the stems and discard. If you’re feeling fancy, you can use a small knife to carve out a star shape on top of the shiitake mushroom by cutting out a “x” shape on the cap of the mushroom.
Spinach: Wash the spinach and cut off and remove the stem. Once the water is boiling from step one, cook the spinach in the hot water, about 3 minutes. Once cooked, place the spinach on a cutting board and let it cool until it’s cool enough to touch. Squeeze out the excess water neatly bunch the cooked spinach together and cut into 1.5”-2” pieces.
Carrots: Clean the carrots. Remove the ends and peel the carrots. Starting with the wider end, cut the carrots into 1/4” medallions/rounds. Or you can be extra fancy and use a cookie cutter to cut the carrots in to fancy shapes, like this picture. To do this, once you cut the rounds, use the cookie cutter to cut out the shapes.
5) Mix the simmering seasoning: In a small bowl, mix together the seasoning for the simmering liquid: the 2tbsp. of soy sauce, and 1 tbsp. of sake, and 1 tbsp. of mirin
6) Prep the chicken: Remove the chicken from the marinade and shake off the excess liquid. Place the chicken pieces on a plate and dust the pieces with potato starch or flour.
7) Begin Simmering: Drain the water from pot containing the spinach. In a deep sauté pan, neatly arrange the chicken and the shiitake. Pour the 2 cups of dashi and the sauce from step 5. Simmer on medium with a lid. Do not close the pot with the lid fully, leave a small gap so that the steam can escape.
8) Add the vegetables: After 15 minutes, add the carrots. Once the chicken begins to turn white and is mostly cooked through ( about 20 minutes), add the spinach. Once the carrots are soft enough that you can pierce through with a toothpick and the chicken is cooked, turn off the heat.
8) Assemble: In a bowl, arrange 4-6 pieces of chicken, a 3cm piece of spinach, 3-4 carrots, and 1-2 shiitake mushrooms. Ladle the soup over the vegetables/chicken. Add the 1/4 tsp. of wasabi on top. The broth is supposed to be thick ( kind of like ham and bean soup).