Recipes Gone Wild: Yuka Miyata’s Pork Hiya-Shabu

This week’s lesson in language, and cooking for that matter, comes from Greenpointer’s own Yuka Miyata, who you may know from our Greenpointer’s markets (like the Spring Market happening next week Sunday! Y’all should come by for food, fun, crafts, and more). I asked Yuka what she likes to cook when the weather gets warmer (and veggie-roasting season has ended), and she answered my call with this beauty of a recipe for Hiya-Shabu— a chilled take on shabu-shabu made with thinly-sliced pork, infused with refreshing ginger and scallion, sprinkled with shiso leaves and drizzled with a soy-sesame-ginger-herb sauce. Whoa… Yum!

To understand a little more about hiya-shabu, let’s get to the root of what shabu-shabu is, according to Wikipedia:

 Shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ , also spelled shyabu-shyabu) is a Japanese dish featuring thinly sliced beef boiled in water. The term is anonomatopœia, derived from the sound emitted when the ingredients are stirred in the cooking pot. The dish is related to sukiyaki in style: Both consist of thinly sliced meat and vegetables and served with dipping sauces. However, Shabu-shabu is considered to be more savory and less sweet than sukiyaki.

And now a bit about hiya-shabu, from Yuka:

Here’s my favorite Japanese dish—one of my mom’s recipes. It’s called “Hiya-shabu” in Japanese. She makes when the weather gets hot. “Shabu-shabu” is made up of thinly sliced beef boiled in water, but with this cold version, you refresh the meat in an ice bath after you finish the boil. Usually beef is used for hot shabu-shabu, but I prefer pork in this chilled recipe. “Hiya-su” means chill. But enough about Japanese language!

Yuka Miyata’s Pork Hiya-Shabu
Serves 2 people

Ingredients for the Pork:

1/2 lb. thinly, thinly, thinly sliced pork (thin as paper)
3 cloves garlic
Fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1 bunch scallions, cut into 2-inch pieces
10 shiso leaves (green perilla), cut into long, thin strips

Ingredients for the Sauce:

2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. ground white sesame seeds
1/2 Tbsp. garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp. ginger, minced
1/2 Tbsp. scallion, minced

Method:

1. In a medium-sized bowl, prepare an ice bath.

2. Boil water in a sauce pan with garlic, ginger, and scallions, and then drop the pork into the boiling water and let boil just until cooked through. Immediately transfer pork to the ice bath, and let chill for a minute or so.

3. In a separate small bowl, mix together all the sauce ingredients.

4. Dry pork with paper towel.

5. Serve pork on a plate, sprinkle with shiso leaves, and dress with sauce, to taste.

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Thanks so much to Yuka for sharing this awesome, light, refreshing recipe that will surely be one of my new go-to recipes all spring and summer long.

HEY, ALL YOU COOKS OUT THERE! Do you have a favorite spring or summer recipe you’d like to share in Greenpointer’s Recipes Gone Wild series?  Send it to me at libby.vanderploeg@gmail.com! I’d love to hear from you.

Illustration by Libby VanderPloeg