Shrimp, Tofu, and Mushroom Ankake Donburi Recipe

Seriously, I have been wanting to make Ankake Donburi (?????) for so long. Harumi Kurihara the author of Everyday Harumi cookbook has the explanation what Ankake is. Ankake is a typical Japanese sauce, made from thickened dashi stock and can be served with a variety of ingredients. As other Japanese and Korean cooking, the thickening agent in these two countries is potato starch. However, corn starch is suitable for a substitution with a condition; you will need to make quantity adjustments, for it's not as strong a thickening agent as potato starch.



This recipe was adapted from the same cookbook that I mentioned earlier with some changing. I skipped the use of chicken and substituted for tofu and button mushrooms (the white and brown ones)





Shrimp, Tofu and Mushroom Ankake Donburi

adapted from Everyday Harumi cookbook by Harumi Kurihara and modified by me



Ingreddients:

150 g (5.3 oz) peeled and deveined shrimp

salt and pepper, to season

sake (I skipped this), to marinate

1 package silken tofu, cut into pieces

1 cup shiitake mushrooms

button mushrooms

200 g (7 oz) bok choy

1 tablespoon cooking oil

the green stem of leek

45 g (1.6 oz) ginger, peeled and halved

3 cloves garlic, lightly crushed

2 tablespoons potato starch, mix with 2 tablespoons dashi stock

3 1/2 cups hot cooked rice



Ankake Sauce:

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sake (I skipped this)

1 tablesppon mirin

1 tablespoon caster/berry sugar

1 2/3 cups homemade dashi stock



Methods:

Prepare VegetablesClean shiitake, trim the stalks and either finely slice them or leave them whole and star the top with a knife. This ensures that it gets cooked through and also looks pretty. 
Clean button mushrooms, quartered.
Rinse off bok choy.  Separate the leafy parts from stems.  Cut the stems in half lengthwise and chop them into 5 cm or 2 inch-long pieces.  Cut the leaves into pieces of around  5 cm or 2 inches in size. 


Ankake Sauce

In a small bowl, add soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar to dashi stock. Set aside.  Please see how to make homemade dashi stock.  In this recipe I used Ichiban dashi stock.


Heat oil in a skillet or wok. When hot, add leek, ginger and garlic, in that order, and cook until you can smell their aroma.  Then, add shiitake, followed by onion, shrimp, button mushrooms and bok choy.



Add tofu and ankake sauce mixture; cover with its lid. When it comes to a boil, add the potato starch mixture to thicken the sauce, stirring so that it becomes thicker evenly without bits of jellified starch. Be careful on stirring as the silken tofu is extremely fragile.



Dish up.  Serve the ankake on hot cooked rice in individual serving bowl.