Description: Japanese-style izakaya dish. This can be served as a starter or a side dish. You can cook a large portion and eat it the next day too. Flavour is well-absorbed into the ingredients, so the next day dish becomes even tastier.
Serves: 3
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• Pork belly – 100g (1 slice)
• Daikon radish – chopped into thin stripes, 150g
• Spring onions – chopped, 10g
• Garlic – chopped, 1 clove
• Dry chilli – chopped, 1 piece
• Sesame oil – 1 teaspoon
• Sake cooking wine – 1 teaspoon
• Soy sauce – 1 teaspoon

Method

1. In a non-stick frying pan, add the sesame oil and dried chilli, then fry the pork over medium heat.
2. Add the radish, sake, soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of water and cook them thoroughly until the water evaporates.
3. Sprinkle spring onions and serve.

Nutritional Values Per Serving

Kcal	Protein	Fat	Carbs	Fibre	Sugars	Salt	Saturated Fat	Vitamin C
200.5	3.7g	19.2g	2.9g	1.0g	1.5g	0.3g	6.7g	12.3mg
10.0%	7.4%	27.5%	1.1%	3.2%	1.6%	5.3%	33.4%	30.8%

Nutritional Tips

‘Izakaya (居酒屋)’ is a Japanese-style pub where people go there to have drinks and meals. It is one of the cultural aspects and one of the most common places people go after work (instead of just going for a drink). These meals are usually prepared for sharing with others, matching with drinks but portions tend to be small. Izakaya offers different types of seating including by the counter, a private room, tables or tatami seating. Izakaya provides an oshibori (wet hand towel) for patrons to clean their hands before the meal (no need to go to the toilet just to wash your hands in Japan, I love this) and the towels are cold in summer and hot in winter (such a perfect service, some people even wipe their face … ). Then you start with Tsukidashi (or Otoshi) which is a tiny appetiser dish served in every izakaya and is usually unique (differs by day and restaurant). This recipe can be either a Tsukidashi or an izakaya-style dish. Feel like eating like a Japanese? Try this.

So the point is … people eat little by little and focus on talking which is a similar style to Spanish tapas. Instead of eating one large portion of a dish, people order various foods and share them with others. Therefore, people tend to eat a variety of food. However, it is important to eat balanced food instead of ordering just greasy oily fried food to stay healthy. Recently, people are more concerned about their health, so there are a lot of healthier options such as tofu salad, seaweed salad, sashimi, steamed edamame beans, kimchee, grilled chicken skewer steamed chicken breast etc. Of course, there are a lot of traditional dishes as well, including karaage (fried chicken), tempura, croquettes or french fries…