Kinpira Gobo (Burdock root and carrots)

Ok, I think you subscribers to my wondertasticular blog have waited long enough for the illustrated recipe for KIMPIRA GOBO. So voila, ta-da, ya-ho!

Here is a shot from an earlier te-shoku (complete meal with many side dishes served on a tray) that has kimpira gobo in it (on the pink flower plate in the upper left, next to the tofu topped with a natto-kimchi mixture, photo courtesy of the tuba).

Step 0: Get the ingredients to get together in your kitchen.

• 1 gobo
• 1 really big carrot
• sesame oil
• mirin (sweet, vinegary, winey liquid you keep in the fridge), or sugar if you don't have this
• men tsuyu (concentrated soup base for noodles like soba and udon, available as a liquid and kept in the fridge), or soy sauce if you don't have this
• sesame seeds

Step 1: Peel the roots.

I peel the carrot with a vegetable peeler, but for my more earthy readers you can skip this step and just wash it. To peel the gobo (which is recommended because gobo skin is REALLY earthy) you use the back of your knife and scrape the gobo skin off. Don't use too much muscle because it comes off easily and is very thin (fig.1):

Figure 1:

Step 2: Cut the roots.

Holding the gobo in your anti-dominant hand like you're about to hit someone with it, cut it into shaving-like pieces (that might be called shaving it, but don't cut it too thin) with your favorite kitchen knife. My favorite knife is called Shun by KAI, a gift to Pa from his fancy student, which the chicken-chested ninjat says looks like some kind of traditional Japanese weapon. Shave the gobo like you might use a penknife to sharpen a pencil before they invented pencil sharpeners (or if your pencil is more of a rectangular prism than a cylinder, even after they invented pencil sharpeners). Here is Shun taking a breather from the action in fig. 2:

Figure 2:

Do the same to the carrot, and submerge them all in cold water.

Step 3: Cook the roots.

In a medium to large frying pan, heat about a 3.5" diameter circle of sesame oil on medium-high heat. Drain and add the roots, and stir-fry with a pair of very long chopsticks like the fancy $5 made-in-japan ones I have here, or a free pair from chinese take-out, or a spatula if you feel like being only about 85% authentic (figs 3-4.) Add a splash of water when it starts to look dry and smoky, about 2-3 minutes. Put a lid on the pan, and steam until the water is pretty much gone. Turn the heat down to a little lower than medium.

Figure 3:

Figure 4:

Step 4: Add the seasonings.

Coerce all the veggies into a pile in the middle of the pan, and pour mirin around it like you're making a mirin moat. How much? Make 2 circles around the pile, spending approx. 2-2.5 seconds making each circle. You will have to shake the bottle to get it to come out because it doesn't pour like soy sauce. So the mirin will come out in straight lines, which makes you feel like you're more like drawing tangents to a circle instead of a circle, but that's OK. Stir the veggies around to distribute the mirin. If you use sugar instead, don't do the moat thing, just sprinkle it on top. Maybe about 3-4 tbsp.

Then make it into a pile again and repeat with the men tsuyu, except don't shake the sauce out because it pours like water, and would make a salty brown soup if you did. Make one circle around the veggies, spending approx 2 seconds and with a stream of sauce approx. 3-4 mm in diameter (I know liquids don't come out in a stream shaped like a cylinder, but you know what I mean.) If you use soy sauce instead, do the moat thing but use only about 3-4 tbsp (more or less to taste.)

Stir fry on low-medium heat until the sauce has evaporated, the carrots are tender, and the gobo is slightly translucent.

Step 5: Make it look nice with sesame.

Sprinkle and distribute the sesame until it looks pretty (fig.5).

Figure 5:

Serve on a small dish, one per person. I find that kinpira gobo looks best served on warm-colored dishes. Make a haystack-looking pile in the middle of the dish, covering around 30-40% of the surface of the dish. Sometimes, if there is not very much sesame in the rest of the dish, I feel like an extra sprinkle of sesame on top looks nice. Here is the kinpira gobo presented on a pink flower-shaped plate as a side dish in a complete chicken teriyaki te-shoku (shown from the server's point of view in fig. 6):

Figure 6:

And here is a picture of the food photographer for this entry, Robin the Eyes-On, looking like she doesn't mind that she was being made to eat by herself (fig. 7):

Figure 7:

Here is a gratuitous photo of the dinosaur baby during the preparation of the kinpira gobo te-shoku (fig.8):

Figure 8:

I will conclude with figure 9, which features the cranky dinosaur, the photographer, the cook, and the teen-aged toddler:

Figure 9: