Mille Feuille Hot Pot (Nabe) with Pork and Chinese Cabbage

Hot pot recipes are usually easy. Among those easy hot pots, this Mille Feuille Hot Pot is the easiest nabe recipe. Chinese cabbage/nappa cabbage and thinly sliced pork belly are layered, then placed in a pot to look like a large flower. The simple dashi-based broth enhances the flavour of the cabbage and pork.

When you Google search ‘mille feuille recipe’, you will find the layered puff pastries with cream. But today’s dish is a savoury hot pot. The French ‘mille feuille’ means thousand leaf. Because the cabbage leaves in the hot pot are layered, Japanese people call today’s dish Mille Feuille Nabe (ミルフィーユ鍋).

It is said that this hot pot became popular after the food corporation, Ajinomoto broadcast a TV commercial for their dashi stock powder in 2010. In the commercial, it was introduced as a layered pork and cabbage hot pot.

But it was subsequently called Mille Feuille Nabe and became very popular. Many things named using foreign words tend to become trendy in Japan, because people think that they sound fancy and “cool”. There are many good reasons why Mille Feuille Hot Pot became popular.

• Fancy name
• Easy to make
• Only two main ingredients
• Tasty!

The Australian summer is over, and we are well into autumn. When I see beautiful Chinese cabbage on the shelf of the vegetable shops I have to buy a whole cabbage, even if I am the only person living in my house and it will be too much. I then have to think about Chinese cabbage recipes to use up the whole cabbage.

Today’s dish, Mille Feuille Hot Pot (Nabe) with Pork and Chinese Cabbage can consume quite a bit of Chinese cabbage.

What’s in My Mille Feuille Hot Pot

The mille feuille is made of just Chinese cabbage leaves and thinly sliced pork belly. The broth to cook the cabbage and pork has more ingredients!

Mille Feuille

• Chinese cabbage leaves – 4-5 wide leaves
• Thinly sliced pork belly – 200g / 7.1oz, about 8 slices

The number of leaves and pork slices are approximate. You can increase the quantity of pork if you wish but be careful not to add too much meat as the balance between the cabbage and pork is important.

The thickness of the pork belly should be 2-3mm / 3⁄32-⅛”. Thinner than this, like shabu-shabu slices, is OK as you can layer the slices. But I would not recommend using pork slices any thicker than, say 4mm thick because you only cook it for 10 minutes and the meat can be a bit tough.

Broth

• Dashi stock
• Julienned ginger
• Soy sauce
• Cooking sake
• Salt

The broth of the hot pot has a sufficient flavour, so you can eat the hot pot with the broth, without neding a dipping sauce. But if you find that the broth is too light, I recommend ponzu for a dipping sauce.

Ponzu is often served with this hot pot as a dipping sauce. You can buy a bottle of ponzu at Japanese/Asian grocery shops, but it is very easy to make at home. You can find the recipe for home-made ponzu here.

How to make Mille Feuille Hot Pot

Most of the effort is in layering the Chinese cabbage leaves and the sliced pork belly.

1. Place the widest cabbage leaf on a cutting board, then place pork slices on top to cover the surface.
2. Place another cabbage leaf on top of the pork slices and repeat until all the cabbage leaves and pork slices are used up. End with the pork slices on top.
3. Cut the layered cabbage and pork into 5cm / 2” wide pieces.
4. Place the layered pieces in a pot.
5. Add all the Broth ingredients and bring it to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes or so until the cabbage leaves become tender.
6. Serve while hot.
7. To eat, transfer the cabbage and pork with the broth into a small serving bowl.

Cutting the layered leaves with the pork between them is quite a challenge as the pork can slide around. You need to hold the entire mille feuile tight and gently cut it. Even if it becomes a bit messy like the photo above, that’s OK.

About a Pot for Mille Feuille Nabe

Unlike other hot pot dishes, the ingredients of today’s dish need to fit snuggly in a pot so that the patterns of the mille feuille that are carefully made does not disintegrate when cooked.

I used a small clay pot specifically made for a single serve hot pot. The diameter of this pot is about 18cm /71⁄16″, in which my mille feuille can snuggly fit.

It does not have to be a clay pot, but the size of the pot needs to be just right so that the layered cabbage and pork can fill the pot without gaps.

When placing the layered pieces in a pot, try to make a regular pattern. I placed the pieces on the outer edge of the pot first, then filled in the centre. This makes the mille feuille look like a circular pattern.

There are no rules as to how to place them, except that the cut side should be facing up to show the layers of mille feuille. I saw some recipes that made a windmill pattern.

I think today’s hot pot is a bit different from the typical hot pot dishes, perhaps because it is not really an interactive meal. Unlike Shabu-shabu Hot Pot and Sukiyaki, you do not place ingredients into the broth yourself and pick them up when ready to eat.

Mille feuille Hot Pot (Nabe) with Pork and Chinese Cabbage is a hearty dish. It is surprisingly tasty and Chinese cabbages are so tender. You can have it as a main dish or a side dish. When I have it as a main dish, I usually add cooked rice to the remaining broth in the pot and make Zosui (Japanese Rice Soup – Ojiya) at the end.

Yumiko

5 from 2 votes

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Mille Feuille Hot Pot with Pork and Chinese Cabbage

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

15 mins

Total Time

25 mins

 

Hot pot recipes are usually easy. Among those easy hot pots, this Mille Feuille Hot Pot is the easiest nabe recipe. Chinese cabbage/nappa cabbage and thinly sliced pork belly are layered, then placed in a pot to look like a large flower. The simple dashi-based broth enhances the flavour of the cabbage and pork.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Main, Side

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: chinese cabbage recipe, hot pot, Japanese hot pot, mille feuille, pork recipe

Serves: 2 as a main

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

• 200g / 7.1oz pork belly thinly sliced (2-3mm thick, note 1)
• 4-5 Chinese cabbage leaves (about 300-350g / 0.7-0.8lb, note 2)

Broth

• 300ml / 10oz dashi stock
• 1 tsp ginger julienned
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1½ tbsp cooking sake
• A pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Trim the bottom of the cabbage leaves to make the edges straight.

2. Place the widest cabbage leaf horizontally on a cutting board, then place a couple of slices of pork belly (note 3) to cover the surface of the cabbage as much as possible (see the step-by-step photo in post).

3. Place the 2nd widest cabbage leaf on top of the layered pork, then place a couple of pork slices in the same way.
4. Repeat until all cabbages are layered with the pork slices at the top.

5. Starting from the bottom-end of the cabbage leaves, carefully cut the layered cabbage and pork into 5cm / 2” wide pieces (note 4). The top end of the cabbage leaves can be longer than 5cm / 2” as the leaves are soft and ca be folded easily.

6. Starting from the bottom end of the cabbage, take one piece of layered cabbage and pork (mille feuille) and place it against the outer edge of a small shallow pot (about 18cm / 7 1⁄16" in diameter). The cut side should be facing up so that you can see the layers, and the wider leaf should be against the side of the pot. (see the step-by-step photo in post).

7. Take the second piece of mille feuille and place it next to the first piece. Repeat to fill outer edge of the pot, then fill the centre.

8. Add all the Broth ingredients to the pot and bring it to a boil.

9. Place a lid on and cook for about 10 minutes until the cabbage becomes tender.

Recipe Notes

1. If you can buy thinly sliced pork belly (1-2mm / 1⁄32-3⁄32" thick), that would be the easiest. Japanese/Asian grocery stores and butcher sell them.  Supermarkets such as Woolworths sometimes sell thinly sliced pork belly and you can use it, but the slices are a bit thick (about 3-4mm / ⅛-3⁄16").

If you cannot buy sliced pork belly, you can slice a block of pork belly yourself. Before slicing, freeze the block for 1 hour. The surface of the pork freezes and you will find it easier to slice the pork thinly. Without freezing it, it is almost impossible to slice very thinly.

2. Use wide leaves. If you buy a half or a quarter Chinese cabbage/nappa cabbage, the leaves on the edge of the cut cabbage are vertically halved and very narrow. Avoid those narrow leaves. Try to pick either full-size leaves or vertically cut but wide leaves.

3. Depending on the thickness of the pork slices and the number of cabbage leaves, the number of slices that go onto each cabbage leaf can vary. If you want, divide the pork by the number of leaves and use each portion to cover the surface of the leaf.

My sliced pork belly came in very long strips. I cut them shorter to adjust the length and some layers ended up with bits and pieces of short pork slices. But it doesn't matter at all.

4. Cutting the layered leaves with the pork between them is quite a challenge as the pork can slide around. You need to hold the entire mille feuile tight and gently cut it. Even if they become a bit messy like the photo above., that’s OK.

5. After you finish eating the mille feuille, add some rice to the remaining broth in the pot and make Zosui (Japanese Rice Soup – Ojiya).

6. Nutrition per serving.

serving: 418g calories: 581kcal fat: 55g (85%) saturated fat: 20g (100%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 6g monounsaturated fat: 25g cholesterol: 73mg (24%) sodium: 866mg (36%) potassium: 817mg (23%) carbohydrates: 4.4g (1%) dietary fibre: 1.6g (6%) sugar: 1.8g protein: 16g vitamin a: 134% vitamin c: 113% calcium: 13% iron: 10%