Steamed Vegetables with Miso Sesame Sauce (Mushi Nabe)

To Prepare the Miso Sesame Sauce

1. Gather all the ingredients for the Miso Sesame Sauce.
2. Grind 6 Tbsp toasted white sesame seeds with a pestle and mortar.
3. Crush 2 cloves garlic. Add 1 tsp sugar and 2 Tbsp miso and combine well. 
4. Add 2 Tbsp soy sauce, 2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil, 4 Tbsp mirin, and 2 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned). Mix well.
5. Check the taste and add kosher salt, if necessary. I added ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt.

To Prepare the Vegetables

1. Prepare all the ingredients. Make 2 cups dashi (Japanese soup stock); otherwise, use water instead.
2. Cut 1 Japanese sweet potato (Satsumaimo) into ¼-inch (6-mm) slices (uniform, smaller pieces will cook faster than larger pieces). Soak in water to remove the starch. Drain and set aside.
3. Wash ½ gobo (burdock root) really well and peel it thinly with a peeler. Soak in water immediately to keep it from changing color; after a few minutes, change the water once and soak again. Drain and set aside.
4. Discard the seeds from ¼ kabocha squash and slice thinly.
5. You can either cut 1 carrot into ¼-inch (6-mm) slices or use a peeler to peel the carrot.
6. Cut 1 ear sweet corn into pieces 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick.
7. Hold each of the 10 asparagus spears and snap and discard the shorter bottom end. Cut the asparagus in half lengthwise.
8. Cut 1 head broccoli and 1 head cauliflower into florets.
9. Cut 5 leaves napa cabbage into bite-size pieces.

To Steam

1. Pour the dashi in your steamer pot, cover the lid, and bring it to boil on medium-high heat. Make sure you have at least 1–2 inches of dashi or water in your steamer or pot. Insert the steamer basket. Check that the surface of the dashi (or water) is not touching the basket. If it is, then remove some of the liquid.
2. When steam is coming out from the pot strongly, reduce the heat to medium and place in the steamer basket the hard vegetables, such as the sweet potatoes and root vegetables. I also added kabocha squash and corn here as the rest of ingredients are fairly fast to cook. Cover the pot and set timer for 5 minutes.
3. Then, add the “flowering” vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower. Add the bottom part of the napa cabbage at this time. I also added the carrot ribbons here. Set the timer for 3 minutes.
4. Lastly, add the leafy part of the napa cabbage and 10 cherry tomatoes. Cook for 2 more minutes.
5. Insert a bamboo skewer to check the doneness of the denser vegetables. If it goes through, it’s ready to eat! Stop the steaming when the vegetables are still a bit crunchy since the residual heat will continue to cook the vegetables.
6. Serve the steamed vegetables with Miso Sesame Sauce and enjoy! During the meal, you can continue to steam the vegetables. Keep an eye on the dashi/water inside the pot. Make sure you are not running out of dashi/water. If it’s too little, add more dashi/water.