Mille Feuille Nabe

Mille Feuille Nabe is a Japanese hot pot dish with “a thousand layers” of Napa cabbage, pork belly, (or thinly sliced, fatty meat of choice, or tofu, if you are so inclined). One of the delights of this dish is the beautiful flower like presentation before cooking starts. While some of the beauty is lost as it cooks, hopefully you’ve made a delicious stock or broth that will make up in flavor, what it’s lost in looks. (Sorta like older women.

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Another aspect of this dish is that after all of the cabbage and pork belly have been eaten, you can cook noodles in the remaining broth for another meal, or as part of the one you’re serving.

The pot I used is a donabe, which is a clay pot that must be properly seasoned before use. It can be used on a gas burner or in the oven, but not the microwave or induction burner.

In addition to the Napa cabbage, I also layered in baby bok choy (also in the cabbage family), for color, beauty, and flavor.

The main players:

Donabe pot, shiitake and shimeji mushrooms, Napa cabbage, baby bok choy, thinly sliced pork belly from Asian Market. (You can also get thinly sliced beef there.)

First separate and wash the leaves.

Start layering. A cabbage leaf, bok choy, pork belly.

Stack the layers, about three layers to the stack. This pic only shows two layer stacks, but I added another layer, and more stacks.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get pics of cutting each stack into thirds, for the layering, so after the fact, I made up a couple more stacks to show how they are cut. I’d used up all the bok choy, so it’s just Napa and pork belly.

I didn’t really know how many stacks it would take to fill the pot, but next time I’d make a bunch before trying to arrange them in the pot. I’m also sorry I didn’t take pics as I was arranging the layers, but I was too caught up in it. I’d intended to use a couple of the larger shiitake mushrooms caps as decor, with a little bit of carving to them. Let’s just say my lack of artistry was in evidence, so they weren’t used, after all.

I used some miso broth with a black garlic sauce (awesome stuff) for the simmering liquid.

Don’t fill to the top, as the cabbage will also release liquid.

And then heat it up slowly to a simmer, but once it’s simmering, it shouldn’t take but fifteen or twenty minutes to cook.

Simmering.

Eating, and dipping. The dipping sauce is ponzu sauce with some togarishi pepper.

As I mentioned earlier, it loses its beauty after the cook.

But before!

Regardless of how this dish does in the challenge, it was a fun learning experience, including learning how to season a Donabe. I’d love to learn more Asian cooking.

This post was edited on 4/10/24 at 9:22 am