Photo/Illutration Pot-au-feu of salt pork and potato (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

Kaoru Ariga is motivated by her desire to make everyday home cooking easier and freer.

Here are some of her suggestions on a soup that fits today’s lifestyles.

Why not make a one-dish meal comprising soup poured on rice, instead of cooking many dishes, if the person in charge of cooking grows tired of the task?

You can satisfy your stomach and soul with a packed soup lunch if an insulated soup container is used.

“When I was little, many of the mothers were full-time homemakers who could spend time and effort on cooking,” Ariga says. “But today, it is common for both parents to work, and they cannot afford to put that much time and care into daily cooking.”

From restaurants, ramen shops to takeout dishes, fine flavors are offered all around us. That may make you think that you must cook dishes at home that are just as tasty.

“But it requires complex steps and effort to re-create dishes prepared by professionals,” Ariga says. “Instead, I want to pare the steps down at home and focus on the simple tastiness.”

Pot-au-feu with salt-cured pork, prepared with meat and vegetables, is warm and satisfying.

By simmering pork dusted with salt and pepper, you get a filling soup. Ariga makes it a point to use potatoes as the only vegetable in the dish.

“That is because if you use just one kind, it is easier to determine how far it is cooked,” she says.

One can use cabbage, turnip or lotus root instead to suit your palate.

The dish becomes interesting if you add a whole tomato and eat it by breaking it up.

Adding drops of soy sauce and serving with pickled Chinese scallion (“rakkyo”) or pickles of various vegetables colored by red shiso leaves (“shibazuke”) will turn the dish into a Japanese-style soup that goes well with rice.

If you learn a format, you can evolve it in various ways by changing the ingredients and seasonings.

This spring, Ariga stopped making soup every morning, a custom that she had maintained for more than 10 years. She felt that it was time to take a break now that her son had left home and the family’s pace of life had changed.

It became easier for her to go on trips, and she visited Kagawa Prefecture in June to look into “iriko,” small dried sardines used to make stock.

“I would like to think about what the best dashi for home cooking is,” she says.

Her days of making soup while pursuing new designs of home cooking continue.

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Kaoru Ariga: Born in 1964 in Tokyo, Ariga is a soup creator who offers simple and easy-to-make soup recipes, as well as lifestyle tips, through media. Her book, “Raifu supu: Kurashi ga totonou watashitachi no shin-teiban 48 pin” (Life soup: Our 48 new staple soups that sort out our lives), was published by President Inc. in September.

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Kaoru Ariga (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

BASIC COOKING METHOD

Main Ingredients (Serves three)
400 to 500 grams block of pork shoulder (buta-katarosu), 2 tsp coarse salt (2 percent of the weight of meat), 1/4 tsp coarsely grated black pepper, 3 potatoes, bit of vegetable scraps

1. Coat meat evenly with coarse salt that is 2 percent of the weight of the meat. Dust with pepper also. Wrap with kitchen paper, cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge for half a day to two days.

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Coat pork evenly with coarse salt. (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

2. Remove paper from pork, cut into three equal parts and place in pot. Pour water that covers pork (about 1,200 ml if pot with diameter of 20 cm is used) and place on medium heat. Add vegetable scraps and bring to a boil. When froth appears, bring it together and scoop out. Turn to low heat and simmer for 1 to 1 and a half hours.

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Wrap pork with kitchen paper. (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

3. Remove vegetable scraps from pot and add peeled potatoes. Simmer for about 30 minutes until bamboo skewer enters potato easily.

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Add peeled potatoes to the pot. (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

4. Serve meat and potato in bowl and pour soup. Serve with mustard or pickles to taste.

About 440 kcal and 2.8 grams salt per portion
(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

If meat is left over, it can be used in fried rice or as a ramen topping. If finely sliced, it can also be used as ham to top salads or in sandwiches.

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Jinsei Reshipi (Life Recipe) column

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