BREAD

The week before Easter spectacular processions fill the streets of Madrid, with insanely heavy statues being carried around, people in traditional costumes (the famous pointy hoods that the Ku-Klux-Klan copied) and bands playing sad tunes for the death of Jesus Christ. Too bad it rained this year, so some events were canceled; but there were still a lot of impressive sights.

The city is now back to normal, after the Sunday of the Resurrection. In Italy instead the religious calendar is a bit different and today was still a holiday: the Angel Monday, called in a more informal way Pasquetta (Little Easter). It’s the day that somewhat marks the start of the spring, and it is generally devoted to picnics - or more often to traffic jams, since most Italians take the car to reach their picnic destinations.

In my hometown tradition dictates that during Pasquetta you eat simple food, such as boiled eggs, salame and bread. I had eggs and salame in my fridge, so it seemed appropriate to try and make bread.

No-knead bread

Now, if you ever tried to make bread you know that the whole thing can be rather unpredictable: the kind of yeast, the kind of flour, the temperature of the room can affect in one way or the other how your bread will rise; and even the oven and the way you bake the dough can make a lot of difference. Plus there are zillions of different processes out there: you can use pre-fermented masses like poolish and biga, you can knead the dough various times with long pauses for rising in between, et cetera.

But then, around 5 years ago a professional baker called Jim Lahey showed a New York Times interviewer something he called “no-knead bread”, basically a super-easy way of making good quality bread at home. The recipe became very popular, was discussed and quoted by countless food blogs – so maybe you know about it already. Me, I missed it at the time (to be honest I wasn’t particularly into cooking, back then), and I wish I hadn’t, as my bread baking experiments would have benefited immensely from it.

The way I usually make bread nowadays is based on that recipe, with some adjustments mainly due to local products availability. Note that the rising will take a minimum of 14 hours, so you will obviously have to start the whole thing one day in advance. Also, you will need an ovenproof pot with a lid – a cast iron one, for example.

Ingredients

400g strong wheat flour, or harina de fuerza. Can be found at Carrefour and other big supermarkets

1 full teaspoon of salt

10g fresh yeast, again can be found at Carrefour

Some olive oil

270ml of lukewarm water – which in terms of volume is about half of the flour

How to

Crumble the yeast into the water, then mix with a spoon until the yeast is completely dissolved.

Put the flour in a big bowl (as the dough will greatly increase in size with the rising); throw in the salt, throw in the water with the yeast and start mixing with your hands until you have a dough with a uniform texture. It shouldn’t take long, maybe a few minutes.

Cover the bowl with a wet towel and let it rest for 12 hours, at warm room temperature. The dough should become double the size, with bubbles on the surface.

Grab a clean cotton towel, put it on a work surface then coat it with flour - you can use regular one, semolina or whole wheat, they all give nice results.

Put some olive oil on your hands, so the dough won’t stick; grab the dough then fold it on itself a few times. Transfer it on the towel covered with flour, leaving the seam side down (i.e. the “lines” made by the folding should be touching the surface, while the smooth side of the dough should be up). Coat the dough with the same flour you used for the towel, then cover it with another towel. Let it rise for at least another 2 hours, better 3 or 4.

Some 45 minutes before starting with the baking put your empty pot (with the lid) in the oven, then set the heat to maximum. The pot, by the time you are ready to start, should be blazing hot.

After 45 minutes, make sure to protect your hands adequately, then open the oven and remove the lid from the pan. Remove the towel covering the dough; put your hand under the other towel, pick up the dough and throw it in the pot seam side up (careful not to throw in the towel…). Put back the lid and close the oven. Leave to bake for half an hour, then open the oven, remove the lid again and bake uncovered for another 15 minutes or until the crust of the bread has a nice brown color.

Take the bread out and let it cool for an hour or so before cutting it.

The pot does the trick

The guy that came up with this system was stressing a lot the fact that this way of making bread is especially easy, as it requires almost no kneading. To me, the real stroke of genius was actually the use of the pot: it keeps the steam inside and makes sure the loaf gets soft inside/crunchy outside. Without it, bread cooked in a conventional oven would tend to become dry and parched.

PULPO CON PATATAS

I remember this old D&G TV ad, supposedly set in Sicily: the usual Big-Jim-look-alike kind of guy that you see in all D&G ads captures an octopus while swimming, then comes back to the beach and kills the animal smashing it on a rock. Then he checks out a nearby Monica Bellucci who at that precise moment is putting on a swimsuit, with two old Sicilian women helping to hide her naked body; Monica and Big Jim exchange a glance, then she jumps into the water and he starts eating the octopus raw, right there.

Now, I am not sure if this scene really succeeds in appearing sort of sexy, I suspect that for example an English viewer (who most likely wouldn't even think of cephalopodes as edible things) will just find it weird. However, it's true and historically accurate that octopus is a traditional delicacy not only in Sicily but in pretty much the whole of Italy. And as a matter of fact, this is another food that the Italian and Iberian peninsulas have in common, as in Spain and Portugal octopus is very popular too. 

The most common version around here is definitely pulpo a la Gallega (roughly "octopus in the Galician way"), which means that the octopus is boiled and accompanied by thinly sliced potatoes, pimentón dulce (paprika), good olive oil, coarse salt. Simple but effective, as all ingredients come together nicely. The recipe originated in Galicia, like the name suggests, but it is now spread pretty much everywhere in the country, and it is very easy to find in Madrid venues.

Personally I love octopus, especially with potatoes, but when I am home I tend to prepare it differently from the orthodox a la Gallega version, just to have a bit of variety. My usual recipe is actually more similar to a Portuguese dish called polvo à Lagareiro, where the octopus is first boiled and then grilled.

A word on octopus

You could easily find pre-cooked octopus at markets/supermarkets, but then you would lose all the fun of cooking it, and you wouldn't have control over the degree of chewieness that you want for the final product, and it would be way more expensive...  Buy raw instead, it will cost you usually less than 10 euros per kilo and the dirty job of cleaning will be already taken care of by the fishmonger. The only small steps left for you to do are fairly easy: remove the eyes, the beak and the ink sac with the help of a sharp knife or scissors. That's it.

But, before starting with the actual cooking, you should know about the classic problem with octopus, the fact that it tends to become rather chewie after it's been boiled. There are a few tricks you can use in order to improve its tenderness:

*You can buy the octopus a few days in advance, then simply freeze it. The water inside it will turn into ice and expand, supposedly breaking the tissues and making the defrosted pulpo more tender.

*You can "scare" the octopus. This is a traditional solution, and you can actually see it done live in traditional ferias Gallegas (Galician fairs), where cooks seem to be constantly throwing octopi around, in and out of boiling water. Basically, you don't just throw the mollusk in boiling water then forget about it; rather, you grab it by the head then put it in boiling water for a few seconds, then pull it out; then put it in again, then pull it out; then put it in for the final time, and leave it there to cook. It should have something to do with the octopus flesh (is it called "flesh", I wonder? "meat" sounds wrong...) gradually getting used to the high temperature, and staying tender because of this. Similarly, some Italian recipes suggest to put the octopus in cold water and then slowly heat the whole thing together (and this is more or less what I do).

*You can also beat the octopus repeatedly with a meat mallet. If you do this, remember to cover it with some film or you'll be splashing water all over the place.

Last thing before starting: don't add any salt to the boiling water, at least not from the start. The octopus is already soaked in salty water, that will be released during the cooking, giving flavor to the broth.

Ingredients for 4:

1 octopus of 1,5 or 2 kgs

1 kg of potatoes

extra-virgin olive oil (you'll need quite a lot of it, some 10 tablespoons)

half a glass of white wine for cooking

1 clove of garlic

1 laurel leaf

some parsley

some rosemary

some thyme

coarse salt

Remove eyes/beak/ink sac from the octopus. Now it's the moment: if you feel brave, take a good bite and then let me know if it tastes good.

If you don't feel brave, put 4 tablespoons of oil, the laurel, chopped garlic and chopped parsley in a big pan - or, if you have it, in a pressure cooker. Fry on low heat for a couple of minutes, then add the octopus. Shake the pan a bit, pour in the white wine, let it evaporate a bit, then add cold water until you cover the octopus almost completely. Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook on low heat for something like 40 minutes from the moment it boils. In the meantime, peel the potatoes and cut them in rather big chunks.

Note that the cooking time might actually vary depend on the size of the octopus, and on how tender you want it to be: many prefer a final product that is a bit chewie, rather than something cooked for so long that it almost falls apart. In any case you can always stick a fork into it to check on its tenderness. Also, if you are using a pressure cooker you can reduce the cooking time by half.

When you are satisfied with the tenderness of the octopus, take it out of the pan and leave it alone for 15 minutes, so the skin doesn't fall off. In the meantime, taste the broth left in the pan - it should be very flavorful, as the octopus during cooking has released juices and salty water; add salt only if needed, then throw in the potatoes. Boil them for 10 minutes or so.

Switch on the oven, set it to grill-200º. Prepare a large oven dish, sprinkle some oil on it, some thyme and some rosemary. After the 10 mins have passed, remove the potatoes from the broth and transfer them to the oven dish. Cut the octopus into pieces, then add it to the oven dish. Sprinkle with oil, add some coarse salt and put the dish in the oven for 10 or 15 mins, close to the grill. Once potatoes and octopus have a color that you like, take them out, add some more olive oil if you like it, and serve.

By the way, after all this you will still have the excellent broth that you used to cook the pulpo and the potatoes: save it for some nice soup or fishy preparations. You can also freeze it.

CARBONARA

Rachel - a food blogger based in Rome - wrote in this funny post about the carbonara-phobia that only recently she managed to overcome. The trauma (Post Bad Carbonara Stress Disorder, in her words) had been caused by weird versions of the recipe that she tasted over the years in various restaurants outside of Italy. She mentions overcooked spaghetti, cream, bad bechamel sauce, mushrooms, scrambled eggs and on one especially unfortunate occasion, sausage.

Traditional carbonara is a very simple dish. It's made with 3 (three) things:

cheese

eggs

pork fat, like guanciale or pancetta

and nothing else - well, salt and pepper. And you need spaghetti, too. But no cream, no onions, no mushrooms.

This simplicity is also what makes the sauce deceptively difficult to prepare, because of course carbonara needs to be creamy, and the key to get it creamy using only these ingredients is to bring the temperature of the beaten eggs somewhere around 65º. Not enough heat will produce a very liquid sauce and cold spaghetti (bleah), while too much heat will produce scrambled eggs - this by the way is by far the most common mistake of a carbonara beginner, that often pours the eggs directly in the pan with the sizzling fat.

Now, let's ask a couple of legitimate questions. Is this worth the hassle? Why use only these three ingredients and noticeably raise the difficulty level when we can just throw in some cream and basically be 100% sure that the final result won't resemble a badly shaped omelette?

Answers: yes, it's worth the hassle, the semi-cooked-eggy personality of a traditional carbonara is unique in terms of texture and taste. If you add cream you get something that looks similar but that is actually different, just like Chicago pizza is different from traditional pizza napoletana. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine to add cream, lots of people do it; it just won't be carbonara, it will be something else. Plus keep into account that the above mentioned semi-cooked-eggy personality is rather addictive, it's likely that once you get used to it you won't be able to add cream to your sauce anymore. And finally the preparation of traditional carbonara has an elegance of its own: getting your timing right, the simplicity of the moves... this kind of things.

Rachel's post is comprehensive, informative and clear, I would almost be tempted to link it and lazily skip the actual recipe part. But then again, like she herself points out, there are many carbonara variants and I think mine (the Italian-living-in-Madrid-with-no-easy-access-to-guanciale version) is worth putting on paper. Another very interesting one is Dario Bressanini's yolk-only type; see below for some more detailed comparisons.

A word on pasta

I use only long varieties: spaghetti, spaghettini, linguine, bucatini, et cetera. Some people use short pasta too (Rachel goes for rigatoni), but personally I like it less, I think the whole dish doesn't come together as it should. I admit this is highly subjective, though:).

Here in Madrid it's easy to find Italian brands such as Barilla, Agnesi or De Cecco, all good options. Thanks to Chiara I also found out not long ago that some Hipercor pasta (Hipercor is the house brand of El Corte Inglés supermarkets, in case you don't know) is actually produced by pastificio Garofalo, one of the best pasta makers around. So now I always buy that, it's excellent and cheap. Just check the look of the product name: if it's sort of fake handwriting, like this

it's made by Garofalo. There should also be a small Garofalo logo somewhere on the package.

A word on pork

Traditionally carbonara is made with guanciale, which is pig's cheek cured and peppered (I love the stuff:)). A common alternative would be pancetta (bacon); the most obvious difference between the two is that guanciale has more fat, i.e. the white part of the meat is largely predominant over the pink part.

You can use a number of Spanish products as replacements: panceta fresca, panceta curada or tocino if it has at least some pink part in it and it's not 100% fat. I would not use smoked products, they usually don't release enough juices when frying. Whatever you use, it should look something like this piece of guanciale:

 

A word on cheese

Tradition dictates pecorino romano, but parmesan is often used as a replacement; sometimes you have a mix of the two. Here in Madrid I would go for a 100% parmesan, as it's not hard to find, or maybe a very strong queso de oveja curado (seasoned sheepmilk cheese).

Ingredients for 2:

200g pasta

2 eggs

80g tocino/panceta/guanciale...

40 g grated parmesan

pinch of salt

pepper

a glug of extra virgin olive oil

Heat a large pan of salted water until it boils. In the meantime put the parmesan, two eggs and pinch of salt in a small bowl, then whisk them together with a fork. Cut the pork fat in small strips or cubes, then put it in a large anti-stick pan, with a bit of extra virgin olive oil.

When the water boils, throw the pasta in and at the same time start cooking the fat in the anti-stick pan, on medium heat - Rachel says it perfectly, it should be fried until translucent and crisp at the edges. If it reaches this state when the pasta is far from ready, just lower to a minimum the heat under the fat.

Around two minutes before the pasta reaches the cooking time written on the package, turn off completely the heat under the pork fat. After another minute, grab some tongs and quickly transfer the pasta (which should be almost ready) in the pan of the pork fat. In the process you will also transfer quite some salted water; this is ok, it will make the sauce creamy and tasty.

If the pork fat reacts to the pasta with a lot of sizzling, it means the pan is very hot, so wait another 30 seconds; if there is some sizzling but not too much, this is the moment: pour the mix of eggs and cheese on the pasta, then toss/stir until the sauce is evenly distributed (and hopefully, not too liquid nor too solid).

Transfer the pasta to the individual plates, top with a generous amount of pepper and grated parmesan cheese, then serve.

Variants

Rachel and Dario describe different ways of dealing with the crucial add-the-eggs moment: Rachel tosses the pasta in the pan with the pork fat, then removes it from heat and add the egg mix still in the pan; Dario has a less risky approach, as he tosses the pasta, move it to a bowl and only then adds the yolks. This way he is sure that the eggy substance won't get in contact with any very hot surface - then again, he is only adding yolks; if he added whole eggs the temperature of the whole thing might drop too much, resulting in a very liquid sauce. Since I use whole eggs, I usually prefer Rachel's approach.

A sauce made only with yolks is definitely more powerful and filling, and is usually "cut" with some of the boiling water used to cook pasta - that's what Dario does. Rachel uses whole eggs, but add a couple of extra yolks at the end, and insists a lot on the importance of adding not less than a full cup of water (for 4 people). I am sort of in the middle: I use whole eggs, I don't add extra yolks, as I find the sauce tasty and thick enough, especially if I am using deeply flavored fat; and some water gets added to the sauce when I transfer the pasta using tongs.

The bottom line is, you should try and experiment, see what you like. Just remember that the key moment (the part that can go wrong) in all carbonara recipes is always the "baking" of the eggs.

REVIEW: VIAVÉLEZ

Asturian

Area: Bernabeu

Category: Heavyweight. It can reach Super-heavyweight if you go for the fancy wines

Having located this very interesting restaurant (Asturian with a twist, sounded like) close to the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, I called them to book a table, and I unknowingly picked the one evening when Real Madrid was playing at home. On top of that, I smartly decided to take the car to reach the restaurant, hoping it would be faster. As a result I got there in 10 minutes, found a parking spot in 45 minutes and managed to be extremely late.

So before you book, check if there is any football match on that day, and if there is, don't go by car.

The place

In terms of physical spaces, Viavélez is kind of a hybrid, like two different things piled up on each other: the restaurant, small and cozy with its dozen or so tables, and the more informal taberna at ground floor. Prices in the taberna are less steep, and often you can order the same food that is served downstairs (although portions seem smaller).

Everywhere the decor appears elegant and very modern, with lots of white and grey, an urban we-mean-business style that couldn't be further away from the checkered tablecloths and stereotype pictures that you would normally associate to venues with a regional connotation.

Because first and foremost, this is an Asturian restaurant: it is named after a pueblo located on the northern coast of Spain, and its menu is clearly founded on recipes that originated from that region.

The food

You can pick from a range of rather elaborate traditional dishes, like the famous fabada or the funnily-named patatas a la importancia. You can also go for simpler preparations, such as the salpicón de bogavante, or the impressive entrecote, a towering structure made of various slices of beef. In this case the ingredients being used are the real stars: simplicity brings out the freshness and tastyness of the building materials of the dish. Both meat and seafood here are of outstanding quality.

On top of all this, there is also a good amount of unexpected, as chef and owner Paco Ron throws in the pot some experimental haute cuisine, the kind that gets rewarded with Michelin stars. Things then can get pretty strange: see for example the bonito con chocolate y reducción de piña, or the whole bunch of very stylish desserts.

So we could say Viavélez is a hybrid also in a gastronomic sense, as it practices a very unusual (and very successful) blend of tradition and innovation. It basically combines the best of two worlds: on one side it makes an extreme effort in the selection of awesome ingredients, and it builds on an orthodox repertoire of perfectly executed recipes - the kind of things you would expect from an exceptional Asturian restaurant of traditional breed. On the other hand, it also shows a taste for the complex techniques and variations that are commonly associated to those fashionable Michelin-starred cocineros. In short, it's kind of a restaurant for all seasons, with something to offer to every possible kind of customer, to Whigs and Tories alike.

Anything bad?

I'd say the rules of the menu degustación are objectionable. Basically, this epic menu (really great, as it includes a lot of courses and allows you to sample many different things) can be ordered only if the whole table wants it, regardless if you are a group of six or four or two. This I found rather awkward: it obviously means that two people that fancy the menu degustación AND are sitting by themselves will get it, but if these same two people have brought friends that don't share the same preferences then nope, not possible, sorry. Maybe there is a logic behind this and it's just not obvious to me?

Not much else to whine about, to be honest. The service is great, it matches the expectations that you can legitimately have for a place of this level. The waiters have a very formal way of addressing you, and this can be kind of intimidating for a certain type of restaurant-goer; and maybe they are also a tiny bit too present, checking on you very often... nah, but I am being VERY picky here, truth is, service is just great, like I said.

Overall

Excellent. The wine list is also very good, lots of choice and quality, also in terms of dessert wines. Price of bottles goes from 21 euros up to thousands. And talking about price, this is not exactly a budget restaurant, but in my opinion the expense is actually justified by the quality of what you buy. Smartly enough, in-between courses they bring you lots of (like the French would say) amuse-bouche, free little portions of food, sort of like tapas or candies. So in the end you genuinely feel you got a lot of stuff for what you paid.

Final grade: 9

http://restauranteviavelez.com

FRUTOS SECOS #1 - BREAKFAST

...and we’re back, after a few weeks, a trip, loads of work and well, yes! new recipes!

This time it’s all about one of Spain's biggest love affair: frutos secos!

And if you don’t get what i mean let me help you: remember all these tiny, mysterious nutshells lying everywhere in town? all those people eating and spitting super-small light-brown woodish thingies? Well... we’re talking about pipas :), the most eaten/spitted thing in the whole of Spain. Don’t ask me why Spaniards love them so much! They simply do.

Anyway, in the fabulous world of frutos secos there’s muuuuch more interesting stuff than pipas. You can check it out in the shops you’ve certainly seen out there, with a huge amount of chips lying in the window’ shop :). In there you’ll really find all kind of dried fruits/nuts: salted, unsalted, caramelized, with honey, peeled or not, toasted and raw. Yes! I really meant ALL-KINDS!! :).

Not to mention how healthy nuts are (i mean raw nuts, not certainly salted or caramelized :P)... I’m preparing different entries about frutos secos, related to all kinds of meals. Today it’s breakfast time and yes, granola is the answer! The lovely thing about granola is that you can basically use the nutshells you prefer, same for dried fruits and seeds. I suggest you to visit a good bio-shop to buy some good cereals and be inspired.

So, just grab your favorite ones and turn on the oven... :)


Granola:

160g mix of corn flakes, rolled oats and puffed rice

50g puffed quinoa

50g flax seeds

100g raw, peeled almonds

50g raw, peeled hazelnuts

150g dried blackberries

100ml sunflower oil

50ml maple syrup


Preheat the oven to 150°C. Place all the dried ingredients BUT the blackberries into a large bowl, then pour the oil and maple syrup over and stir until combined. Put into a large baking sheet or two and bake for 40 minutes, stirring every now and then. Let it cool, then add the blackberries.

Keep in an airtight box; it’s PERFECT with yoghurt, but it gets along very well also with a good cup of milk :).

LENTILS' SOUP WITH SOBRASADA

Here we go with some comfort food for these cold-cold days!
I chose 100% Spanish ingredients this time, to remind both me and you that I live in Spain :). Good thing is that you’ll easily find them in almost all groceries/markets :).

Ingredients

500g “pardina” lentils (they are a type of small lentils from Castilla y León)
2 shallots
3 tablespoons of sobrasada
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1,7 liters water
vegetable stock-cube
salt
pepper

Chop the shallots; heat the oil in a heavy large pot over medium-high heat and add the chopped shallots. Stir until they get softer, then add sobrasada and let it melt. Add the lentils, stir again, add the water and the stock-cube (I use this one, with herbs).
Stir and let it cook for at least 45 min. Make sure the water is enough; if not add another good ladle. Once the lentils are ready, puree them in a food processor or anyway blend until smooth.

Season the soup with salt and pepper and serve adding a tablespoon of sobrasada. They’re perfect with tetilla (typical galician cheese) “croutôns” :).

TUNA HOT POT

And now for something completely different, some Japanese food: I am joining Foodalogue’s Culinary Tour Around the World, with a traditional Old Tokyo Tuna-Belly Hot Pot recipe.

My source/inspiration/starting point is this awesome cookbook. Its awesomeness may be not so evident at first sight, as all those soups might somewhat look rather unglamorous, and certainly the ingredients are not always browser friendly - names like itokonniyaku, yuzu koshu, negi et cetera can be intimidating for non-experts of Japanese food. However if you read the book properly, taking the time to go through the introduction and having more than a cursory look at the glossary, you will be rewarded with a fascinating glimpse into centuries old traditions.

The hot pot is the physical center around which the meal is orchestrated. Since hot pots are often prepared directly at the table using portable burners, we could say that the act of cooking is actually part of the meal, there is no marked separation between cooking and eating. Not only that, but the diners participate rather actively in the cooking part: they sometimes place raw portions of their food in the boiling pot, and cook them as long as they see fit; or they take broth from the pot and use it to flavor their shime, a bowl of rice or noodles that is traditionally the closing part of a hot pot meal. A dinner like this can last quite long, and the authors talk fondly of epic evenings when they cooked oysters, then pork belly, then rib eye in the same broth.

So the recipe is basically just the starting point, and recreating this sort of food sharing social event is half the fun. Keeping this in mind, I decided to try the Tuna Belly Hot Pot recipe for a very practical reason: I don't have a portable burner, and this dish allows at least some sort of tableside cooking even without it.

Timing:

1 hour for the broth to be ready, then maybe 20 mins for the preparation of the actual hot pot.

Ingredients for 4:

(note that if you are in Madrid you can get pretty much all the special seasonings you need at Tokyo-ya)

*20cl mirin - a sweet cooking liquid brewed from rice. I also saw it at El Club del Gourmet.

*20cl soy sauce

*2 pieces of kombu - this a kind of dried kelp, or algae. Can also be found at El Corte Inglés supermarket.

*40g  hanakatsuo or kezurikatsuo - shaved bonito flakes. This is used to prepare the base broth, it is maybe the only thing really hard to find, and it is very expensive here: you might easily spend more than 10 euros at Tokyo-ya for such a small quantity. Personally I think some shrimp heads and shells would be an acceptable replacement, as you can use them to prepare a light fish stock. Not the same, but not bad either. Or you can use this.

*150g noodles - I used rice ones.

*2 scallions, with most of the green leaves

*200g napa cabbage - called col china (Chinese cabbage) around here. Found at the supermarket.

*100g tofu - again found at the supermarket.

*500g tuna belly - in Spain the season for ventresca is the summer, so I just replaced it with "plain" sushi-grade tuna, works very well.

How to:

Put 2 liters of water in a pot; throw in the kombu and let it rest for half an hour. Then place the pot on medium heat, and as soon as the water boils remove and discard the kombu. Add a couple tablespoons of water, throw in the bonito flakes and stir only once. Let the liquid simmer for 5 minutes, removing any foam that forms on the surface, then turn off the heat and leave the pot to rest for another 15 minutes. After that, filter the broth through a fine sieve, without squeezing the bonito flakes. Discard them, add mirin and soy sauce to the broth, reserve.

(as I was saying, I think you can basically replace the bonito flakes with shrimp head and shells, you will get something more similar to a traditional fish stock. In that case you will have to boil the broth for longer, probably half an hour. Make sure you are left with at least 1 liter of liquid before adding mirin and soy sauce; if not just add some extra water. Also, if you want to replicate at least partially the smoked aroma of hanakatsuo/kezurikatsuo, you might throw in a pinch of smoked salt)

While the broth is boiling you can start preparing the veggies: wash the cabbage and the scallions, then cut them in bite size pieces. If you want to do it properly, cut them on a sharp diagonal, as per Japanese tradition; this way the pieces will absorb more flavor and will also look nicer.

Wash the tuna, then cut it in small (around 2cm) cubes. If you already know your guests will like it, sprinkle them with some seasoning like pepper and/or shichimi togarashi.

Place cabbage, scallions and tofu in a pot, arranging them in separate neat bunches and leaving some space on a side. Pour in the reserved broth, bring to a boil, then add a bunch of noodles where you have space. Don’t stir, the ingredients should stay separate. Once the cooking time of the noodles have passed, turn off the heat.

Now you can throw in the tuna cubes, which will be cooked to medium-rare in maybe 2 or 3 minutes, then serve the ingredients with the broth in small bowls. Or, for a more interesting alternative, if you can find some way to keep the soup hot (for example with a candle and something simple like a fondue kit) you can serve the raw fish in a separate plate, and place the hot pot at the center of the table; then your guests can just help themselves, grabbing some fish and cooking it to their liking.

You can also cut the pieces more finely, sashimi style, so it is ready more quickly. Or you can throw in some variety, and serve sushi-grade salmon along with the tuna.

Itadakimasu!