Easy Japanese Potato Stew (Niku-jaga) Recipe

Niku-jaga(meat-potatoes) is a typical Japanese dish. It's a simple potato stew that's easy to make. All you need is potatoes, carrots, and hamburger meat. Often niku-jaga calls for sliced beef, but we usually just use ground beef at my house.

You boil everything in the broth. The seasonings are soy sauce, mirin(a kind of sweet cooking sake), dashi(fish stock both, my wife prefers katsuo, a kind of fish), and sugar. It's really tasty and has a slight sweetness. The picture shows the dish everyone shared from. Itadakimasu! Let's eat!


Ingredients:

• 5-6oz.(150g) ground beef
• 4 potatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 2 cups water
• 4 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 3 Tbsp. mirin(sweet cooking sake
• 2 Tbsp. Dashi stock (katsuo)

Directions:

1. Peel potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces and wash them in cold water(to remove excess starch).
2. Cut carrot and onion into small chunk pieces.
3. Heat some oil in a pan and brown the meat and vegetables.
4. Add the water and bring to a boil. Add soy sauce, sugar and mirin to the pan and reduce the heat. 
5. Cook for about 15 minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally.
6. Serve in a large bowl at the table everyone can share from.

Variations:

It's also popular to add green beans or peas for a little green, or shirataki, the clear, gelatinous noodles often put in sukiyaki