Ryuji's "Pork Offcut Salt Hot Pot," Made Tender with Liquid Shio Koji

According to Ryuji, corporate sponsors at this time of year often ask for hot pot recipes, and it's hard to make each one different. The twist this time is to make pork offcuts, which Ryuji considers the cheapest cut of pork, the star. Ryuji has made pork offcut hot pots before, but says that tenderizing them with liquid shio koji makes this the hot pot where "pork offcuts taste their absolute best."

Ryuji explains liquid shio koji as follows. Until now, shio koji has mainly come in paste form, but this product turns granular shio koji into a liquid using Hanamaruki's proprietary method. Ryuji names two features. One is that it makes meat tender. When Ryuji used it in a chicken breast dish for a previous sponsored video, many viewers reported that the meat came out tender. The other is that it adds umami and flavor, so it tastes different from plain salt.

On why they have been chosen three years in a row, Ryuji jokes, "If it weren't selling, I don't think they'd ask me." Ryuji also repeatedly stressed that they aren't calling it delicious because they're being paid; rather, if they didn't think it was delicious, they couldn't work it into their own recipes.

The ingredients are 300g of pork offcuts (feel free to add more if you want to eat more), garlic chives, cabbage, shio kombu, and garlic. Ryuji recommends adding the shio kombu if at all possible. Thanks to the synergy of umami, it pairs well with liquid shio koji and makes for a hot pot with strong umami.

The flavor direction is something like "garlic salt motsu nabe." Ryuji says that since the world is overflowing with gently flavored hot pots, they figured it was fine for at least them to make a hearty one. Liquid shio koji recipes tend to lean toward gentle flavors, but Ryuji wanted to show that it actually suits hearty recipes too. Of course it can be used in gentle recipes as well, and Ryuji gave cucumber pickles and fish as examples. Fish becomes tender too, and it goes especially well with cod; Ryuji says they think they previously released a recipe where you marinate it and then bake it in foil.

The first thing to do is marinate the pork offcuts. If there's an absorbent pad under the meat in the package, remove it, then pour over 3 1/2 tablespoons of liquid shio koji. Even Ryuji remarks, "That's quite a lot," and the amount should be enough to just about submerge the meat. Massage it in well.

Ryuji says that with pork shabu-shabu, too, marinating the meat in liquid shio koji before swishing it makes it extremely tender. Simply replacing the salt you usually season with in advance with liquid shio koji should let you feel the difference in tenderness, and basically, just coating the meat with it and grilling is delicious too, Ryuji says.

For those concerned about salt, Ryuji also recommended the reduced-salt version of liquid shio koji. Use the reduced-salt type, and if it's not enough, adjust with salt afterward. If only one person in the family needs to cut back on salt, making everything with the reduced-salt type and adding salt to everyone else's portions makes adjusting easy. Ryuji doesn't need to adjust for salt this time, so they used the regular type.

The key point, Ryuji says, is to do the marinating first of all. Later on, when asked whether it's OK to marinate for a long time, Ryuji answered, "It's totally fine to leave it." Since 15 to 20 minutes have passed while they've been talking, it should already be tender. The texture is so different that Ryuji even said they'd like people to compare marinated and unmarinated meat side by side.

Slice 15g of garlic. This is for frying it until crisp to bring out the aroma, so the slices don't need to be especially thin. If you don't like garlic, you can leave it out. Ryuji says the aroma of garlic goes surprisingly well with the rich aroma of liquid shio koji. The flavor of shio koji is hard to imitate, so just using it expands your everyday cooking repertoire, Ryuji says.

Roughly chop the cabbage. When weighed, it came to about 350–380g, but Ryuji cut off some of the tough part near the core to bring it to around 350g. Swapping half of it for bean sprouts is also delicious, and anyone who wants more vegetables can add bean sprouts. However, on the thinking that fewer ingredients make a dish easier to make, Ryuji used only cabbage this time.

On the subject of cabbage, Ryuji also talked about using the "big brother" before the newer one. According to Ryuji, "big brother" (aniki) is restaurant slang for older ingredients; if you use the new ones first, the old ones just keep sitting there, so the idea is to use the big brother first.

Wash the garlic chives and use plenty of them. The cutting width is basically up to you, but Ryuji also gave a guideline for cutting them evenly for anyone who wants a nicer-looking result.

That's all the prep there is. In connection with this ease, Ryuji talked about their philosophy of cooking. The simpler an everyday hot pot is, the more easily it can be worked into your daily rotation. Ryuji's own analysis is that their recipes get so many views among cooking channels because many people make them every day. You can't make elaborate dishes every day. That's why Ryuji considers minimal effort, cheap ingredients, and ease of preparation to be the most important things.

Prefacing it by saying that cooking as a hobby is wonderful in its own right, Ryuji says that most viewers aren't going to open a restaurant or become chefs, so cooking for daily life absolutely has to be treated as important. The channel sometimes does restaurant-style dishes, but teaching this kind of cooking is its core, Ryuji says.

There was also talk about the channel's direction. Ryuji also makes videos about eating out and reviewing convenience store food, but if those were the only ones getting views and the cooking got neglected, the channel would be in serious trouble. If they stopped cooking, they'd become an "old guy who just nitpicks," so cooking is the one thing they won't quit, Ryuji said with a laugh.

Another feature of this recipe is how few seasonings it uses. When a staff member pointed this out, Ryuji answered that it's because the liquid shio koji brings out the umami.

Put 1 1/2 tablespoons of sesame oil in the pot and fry the sliced garlic. The sesame oil is "making an appearance for the first time in a while," Ryuji says. Ryuji is often called "the person who uses nothing but garlic and sesame oil," but that's old news, and lately they hardly use them at all. If the amount of garlic feels like too much, half is fine, and if it's cooked thoroughly, it will hardly ever upset your stomach, Ryuji said.

Once it starts sizzling, turn the heat to low and fry until it browns. Making it crisp brings out more aroma later, Ryuji says. As a guide to the color, Ryuji compared it to the brown parts of their Cavalier. When a staff member quipped that this was hard to picture, there was a scene where they searched for a picture of the dog to compare. Once the garlic has been fried to a fairly deep color, remove only the garlic. The oil will be blended into the broth, so leave as much of it in the pot as possible.

With the heat off, pile the cabbage into the pot. Since you're not stir-frying it, the heat can stay off. Store-bought hot pot bases often require around five ingredients, but this one uses around four including the garlic, so it's on the easy side, Ryuji says. Ryuji added that it's delicious with just cabbage, too.

The water is 700cc. Ryuji started to say "500cc" at first, then corrected it to 700cc. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of chicken stock powder to this. That's quite little for the amount of broth, but since the liquid shio koji from the marinated pork offcuts provides the umami for the hot pot, the chicken stock just needs to play a supporting role, Ryuji says.

This kind of salt-based hot pot would normally include sake, but not this time. According to Ryuji, liquid shio koji is made from rice koji and has an umami like sake, so you can cut out one seasoning. On top of that, adding sake brings out the smell of the koji too strongly, so Ryuji thinks it tastes better without it.

While the pot came to a boil, there was also some chat about bean sprouts. Ryuji says bean sprouts spoil quickly and can sometimes end up soggy inside the bag. Ryuji also passed along something they'd heard: when storing them in the fridge, poking holes in the bag with a toothpick apparently lets air out and makes them last longer.

Once it boils, add the pork offcuts along with the marinade and simmer thoroughly. When a staff member asked whether overcooking would make the meat tough, Ryuji answered that it won't, because it has been marinated in liquid shio koji. Without marinating, meat often gets tough from overcooking. You get a softer texture if you don't overcook it, but it stays tender even when simmered, and that's the power of koji, Ryuji says.

Once it's cooked, add 5g (one clove) of grated garlic and give it a stir. This means the garlic is used twice, along with the slices. You can leave it out if you don't like it, but adding it gives the dish more punch, Ryuji says. Feeling that the heat was too high, Ryuji turned it down to low at this point.

Pile on plenty of garlic chives and scatter the garlic chips you set aside earlier. Sliced chili rings are optional, but a touch of red makes it look more appetizing, Ryuji says. It looks like motsu nabe, but this is where it differs, according to Ryuji. Finally, add two pinches, about 5g, of shio kombu over the whole thing. Ryuji says shio kombu really ties the flavor together, so it goes well with salt-based hot pots. It's delicious without it, but having it makes it something else, Ryuji says.

A staff member who tasted it exclaimed, "You'd never believe this is pork." Ryuji says pork offcuts usually have a stringy, snappy texture, but there's none of that at all, and credits this to the liquid shio koji. With this, you can use pork offcuts for any dish, so you should absolutely use it, Ryuji recommended.

The stock is just chicken stock and shio kombu, but Ryuji explains that the liquid shio koji is doing a lot of the work. The umami of kombu and chicken stock is layered in, but at the center is the umami of the liquid shio koji, giving a "slightly refined" result, Ryuji says. This time a lot was used because it served to season the pork in advance, but if you add it to an everyday hot pot, about half the amount is enough, and in exchange you don't use salt. Do that, and pork becomes the ideal meat for any hot pot, Ryuji says. Ryuji praised their own work, saying, "I think this is a real masterpiece" and "Me in sponsored videos, I really deliver."

To finish, use two portions of frozen udon. Ryuji says that if you eat normally, about this much broth will be left, so if it's not enough, add water, and it might be a good idea to add about one swirl of liquid shio koji as well. A pinch of shio kombu tightens up the flavor, Ryuji says.

Udon was chosen because frozen udon doesn't need to be boiled separately, keeping with how simple the process was this time. The broth has absorbed all the umami of the liquid shio koji, shio kombu, and pork, so a finishing dish that soaks all of that up should be delicious, Ryuji says. It doesn't matter whether any of the other ingredients are left. Scatter chopped green onions for color, and it's done.

The two who ate it agreed it was "a flavor like no other." Ryuji said the broth packs such a punch that only udon can stand up to it, and also remarked that slightly chewier udon might work too.

At the end, Ryuji shared something they had just heard: Hanamaruki's liquid shio koji sells well, and its sales have never once gone down. Ryuji speculates that people who have felt its effects keep on using it. Ryuji also mentioned that a bottle will probably come out in the fall, and noted that the earlier bottle design with a big face on it was well received. Saying, "I've come up with a great recipe," Ryuji wrapped up by urging viewers to try making this hot pot that makes any pork offcuts tender.