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At this time of year in 2010, Tomiko and I flew to Tokyo and spent a month staying with our friend for hanami – cherry blossom viewing. Tomiko and I got gobo to ninjin no kimpira – burdock and carrot kimpira – from the supermarkets in Tokyo and ate it on fresh, white rice for breakfast almost every day. It was also served as a sandwich filler in a Japanese burger chain!
Vegetables cooked ‘kimpira’ style are stir fried quickly over high heat to retain their crispness. This recipe uses burdock and carrot, but you can easily do this with any other type of crunchy vegetables, like lotus root, broccoli stalks, and cabbage. Burdock is a root vegetable that looks like a brown stick. Well, it is a brown stick. You can find it in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese grocery stores and the roots are often one metre long. I don’t even peel the burdock – I just scrub any dirt off and then julienne it.
Most of the preparation of this dish is in the julienne of vegetables, so you can save some time by finding bags of frozen, julienned burdock and carrot. I would just recommend thawing it so that it cooks quicker and doesn’t get soggy.
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 7 oz (200g) burdock root, scraped and julienned
- 1 medium carrot, julienned
- 2 dried red chilis, seeded, sliced
- white sesame seeds, toasted, for garnish
- sesame oil for drizzling
- 1 tsp dashi stock
- 1 Tbsp sake
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp mirin
- 1½ Tbsp shoyu
- Heat oil in a wok and stir fry the burdock and carrot over high heat using chopsticks. When the vegetables are coated with oil, add the chilies.
- Lower the heat to medium and add the seasoning ingredients. Continue to stir fry until all the liquid is absorbed.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds and drizzle with sesame oil. Transfer to a dish and allow to cool before serving.
Thank you for the recipe and the beautiful shot of the Buddha framed with cherry blossoms and people.
Thanks for linking up at Bloggers Brags Weekly Pinterest Party this week. I’m pinning to our group board on Pinterest!
This looks so good! I’m drooling right now. Pinned and tweeted. We appreciate you being a part of our party. Please stop by on Monday at 7 pm. Happy Sunday! Lou Lou Girls
This looks delicious I can’t wait to try it! Thanks for sharing on Monday Madness link party 🙂
[…] by Kiku Corner […]
Burdock has been an important botanical in Western folk herbalism and traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, primarily valued for its cleansing and skin smoothing properties. The entire plant is edible and is a popular vegetable in Asia, particularly in Japan. Gobo is hard and looks like a tree root, but it gets quite soft when cooked and then it has a mild but distinct flavor. Though Gobo doesn’t contain very many vitamins, it has a lot of fiber and minerals. There may be a detox effect on you if you eat it regularly. Gobo can be used in Nimono (boiled and seasoned vegetables), Miso Soup, salads, and many many more dishes.
Great flavor, I doubled the recipe since I had that much gobo. I only used 3 chilis, it got pretty spicy!!
Added a tick more shoyu, the recipe is very good.
Great, I’m glad you liked it!