chanko-nabe (no recipe in details)

[abe@kaleida.com (Masumi Abe)]

The followings are some of the variations of Chanko-nabe.

There are no recipe for Chanko-nabe. Do you know why? Since chanko is for
sumotori (rikishi), and the amont each rikishi eats is varies very much,
detailed recipe does not make sense. The only requirement is to make sure
you have enought for everyone to feed. If you have left-over, chanko-ban
will just use them next day. There are no particularly required
ingredients. When you have extra vegitables and meaty stuff, chanko-nabe
will help you clean up your refregirator.

Basically, you need to guess how many and how much ingredients you need for
the people you are preparing for. 

For seasonings, you trust your taste and keep checking the taste. 
In general, Mizutaki style is easier, since the taste is up to the dipping
sauce each eater will make for himself. 
For soppu-daki, you better season it at least slightly stronger than as a
soup. If it is cooked as a soup and put other ingredients in the soup, the
ingredients will not get much of taste and soup will be diluted by other
ingredients.

You may create your own variation of any chanko-nabe. For example, season
light for everyone and make your own dipping sauce for your own taste.

Chanko: Side dishes for sumo rikishi

Chanko Nabe: Side dishes cooked in a pot in front of rikishi. Rikishi pick
foods from the pot one after another whenever they are ready.

Two main styles of Chanko Nabe:
        Mizu-taki: cook foods in boiling water, dip in sauce and eat
        Soppu-daki: cook foods in seasoned soup, pick foods from the pot and eat
        
Typical ingredients

Meat: (must, at least one of them)
        Chiken, Fish (Traditional)
        Pork & Beef (Recent, meat of four-leg animal resembles losing sumo
match)
        Winner Sausage, Tsumire (meatball of any kind, including fish)
        clams, crabs, prowns, shrimps, squids, octopi, eggs

Recommended:
        add flavors: fried tofu, mushrooms, burdock (gobou)
        suck up flavors: eggplants, nappa cabbage (hakusai), o-fu (bran
bread?), radishes

Others:
        edible chrysanthemum (shungiku), tofu (soybean curd), konnyaku
(devil's tongue?), 
        taro roots, big radishes (daikon), carrots, cabbage, spinach,
onions, green onions, 
        konnyaku strings (shirataki), noodles, sticky rice cakes (mochi), 
        and any other vegitables you like to eat

Soup stocks: chicken bones, shaved dried bonito (katsuo-bushi), small dried
sardines (hoshi-jako), 
        kelps (kombu), black mashrooms (shii-take)

Seasonings: salt, soy sauce (shoyu), soy paste (miso), sugar, sweet sake
(mirin), 
        citrons (lemons), garlic (ninniku), ginger (shouga), 
        chili pepper powder (shichimi), pepper (koshou), sesami oil, sake
kasu (lees)

Important: 
        1. To skim off the scum that rises to the surface of the cooking
water/soup 
        (quite often, don't wait too long).
        2. put the ingredients, which is harder to cook, first

You may use any or all of the above items.

Ajigawa-beya: Buta-Miso-Nabe (Pork-Miso Pot)
        a. bring water to boil in a (earth) pot
        b. shiro (white) miso and hatcho miso
        c. pork meat
        d. sweet sake and sugar
        e. sesami oil, graded garlic & ginger, chili pepper powder is optional
        f. other ingredients
        g. eat as you prefer

Musashigawa-beya: Winner Chanko
        a. bring water to boil
        b. winner sausages, chicken, pork meat
        c. miso & shoyu
        d. kim-che (korean pickles) & its sauce, toubanjan
        e. other ingredients
        f. eat before getting soggy

Dewanoumi-beya: Shabu-shabu
        same as any other shabu-shabu with any easily-cooked meat 
        (including crabs) and vegitables.

Naruto-beya: Salmon Sampei-Nabe
        a. kelp & salt
        b. salted salmon, green onions, daikon, carrots, fried tofu,
shirataki, sake lees

Takasago-beya: Miso-shiru Kim-che (Korean Pickles) Nabe
        a. miso soup, kim-che seasoning
        b. cook as you like, eat as you like

Magaki-beya: Niku-dango (meatballs) no Soppu-daki
        a. make meatballs with the rate of chicken 7 pork 3 miso, eggs, 
                with finely diced vegitables: zasai (chinese pickles),
green onions, ohba (shiso), 
                and grounded garlic & ginger
        b. bring chicken stock to boil
        c. meatballs
        d. shoyu, mirin, sake
        e. vegitables
        f. eat
        g. at last, udon noodles and eat

Matsugane-beya: Ara no Chiri-nabe
        a. ingredients: ara (a white fish) & vegitables

Takadagawa-beya: Ika (Squids) no Chanko-nabe
        a. soup with kelp
        b. sugar
        c. squid's liver, shoyu, ginger, mirin, kim-che seasoning
        d. circular-shaped sliced squids, cabbage, onions, leaks, konnyaku,
fried tofu
        
        broiled hering:
        a. make dipping sauce: shoyu, sugar, mirin, garlic, ginger, miso
        b. dip hering in the sauce and broil

        rice: cooked with chicken, carrots, burdock (gobou), shirataki,
fried-tofu
                seasoned with  shoyu, mirin & sake