Traditional Japanese Home Cooking – Japanese Mom’s Flavor
Japanese meat and potato stew, also known as Nikujaga, is a common homemade dish. Niku means meat in Japanese and Jaga is short form of Jagaimo or potato in Japanese. Since it’s a homemade dish, it’s widely known as mom’s flavor (おふくろの味 or ohukurono ají) in Japan. This dish is made of majority of chunks of potatoes with sliced meat which gives the dish the flavor. This dish is a popular yoshoku or Japanese cuisine with western influence in the 18th century and meat along with potato and various ingredients are cooked in broth made of sweeten soy sauce. Sliced beef is most commonly used in western Japan and sliced pork is found in eastern Japan. In this recipe, I use store bought sliced beef but feel free to choose your favorite cut of beef and cut it thinly. The thinner the better.
Snap peas, green beans or peas are commonly used in this dish. To maintain the bright green color of the green veggies, you will want to add this ingredient last.
Ingredients

- 2 medium size potatoes (russet or gold)
- 1 medium size yellow onion
- 1 medium size carrot
- 8 to 9 oz of shirataki (konjac yam noodles)
- 1/2 lb of sliced beef/pork
- 1 cup of green bean/snap pea/green bean
- 2 tablespoon soy sauce (use gluten free soy sauce for gluten allergy)
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 2 tablespoon mirin
- 2 tablespoon sake
- 2 cups water/dashi

Shirataki means white waterfall in Japanese and is an unique Japanese ingredient used in this recipe. Shirataki is noodles made of 97% of water and 3% konjac yam flour. It has zero calorie with low digestive carbohydrates and almost no flavor. Konjac noodles have become quite popular in the US in recent years and you can find them in vegan section in the grocery store. Shirataki is normally packaged in liquid and has shelf life up to a year. Shirataki comes in two different styles: Plain noodles and noodles in knots. You can use either one for this recipe.
Here is my homemade dashi video