Who doesn’t like a nice bowl of hot and hearty chicken vegetable stew when it’s cold outside? Here in NYC, it was very windy and snowy yesterday evening – the perfect time to serve something rich and satisfying for dinner! A Japanese chicken vegetable stew is quite different than a Western stew; it’s usually made with dashi (bonito) broth, a dash of soy and sugar, and veggies include daikon (type of radish) and carrots. For this particular stew I added bunashimeji mushrooms (also known as beech mushrooms) for their earthy flavors and konnyaku, for extra texture and health. The chicken in this recipe is so tender it almost melts in your mouth while the miso added at the very end, rounds up all the flavors and gives the sauce a rich and silky texture.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with konnyaku, it’s worth taking a moment to get to know this extremely healthy product:

Konnyaku comes from a plant that grows in Asia where the corm (like in taro roots) is being used to make flour and jelly. It’s a little salty though mainly flavorless and is used for its gelatinous texture. You’ll find konnyaku in Japanese, Korean and Chinese dishes such as stews, jelly flavored snacks, simply sliced and covered with a white miso sauce or turned into noodles. The benefits of konnyaku are quite spectacular; it’s a very effective ingredient to use if you are looking to lose weight because it’s fat free and low in calories, but makes you feel full. It’s rich in calcium, fiber, and acts an organ cleanser (intestines). It also lowers blood pressure and prevents diabetes. It can easily be found in most Asian supermarkets next to miso paste other other gelatinous products.