During an intensive, eight-week summer school course in the Japanese language too many years ago, I remember our class got such a kick out of our teacher teaching us the Japanese way to pronounce "Western" food.

Hambaaga-desu was hamburger, hottodoggu was hotdog. You get the idea. He also threw in Jamezu Bondo for good measure.

My knowledge of Japanese food at the time was pitiful. It still is, but I know a couple more things now.

One is that there is a whole class of food called Yoshoku, which refers to Western-style dishes that gained popularity during the Meiji Restoration, when Japan was modernising.

The politically correct will sneer at the menu and cry culture appropriation. Well, let's leave them to stew.

The rest of us will just enjoy the unique dishes that have become so much a part of the cuisine that it is hard to think of them as anything but Japanese food.

Consider hamburg steak, minced beef patties in a rich sauce eaten with oroshi, or grated daikon, and rice.

Spaghetti Napolitan, which will make many an Italian shudder, is sauced with ketchup and topped liberally with factory grated cheese from a canister.

Even the humble potato croquette or korokke, is Yoshoku. So is kare raisu or curry rice, inspired by the curries served on ships by the British navy.

For a spell, I was obsessed with doria; rice, white sauce, cheese and some sort of protein baked together. Others include Castella cake, which had its moment in Singapore earlier this year; beef hayashi rice and tonkatsu.

Japanese cream stew got its start after World War II, when schools served a stew made with chicken or salmon and vegetables, thickened with the powdered milk the United States supplied.

A generation of school kids, malnourished after the war, had that stew for lunch.

Better times came along. But nostalgia exerts a strong pull and makes people inexplicably hungry for unexpected things from the past.

About two decades later, in the mid-1960s, House, a popular Japanese food brand, came up with instant roux cubes for making the snow white stew. And so, new generations of kids, not malnourished, have grown to love it too.

The roux is convenient but making the stew from scratch takes just a little more effort. What you need to thicken it is bechamel, which requires only constant whisking.

What I like about this dish is that it is quick - you can get it done in under an hour, and the small effort pays off big time.

My colleague Gin, who took the photos here, marvels that it does not require any exotic or esoteric ingredients. You can get everything from a supermarket. She is thinking of how she can adapt it to her busy life as a working mother.

Well, all she has to do is make everything but the bechamel ahead of time. Then it is a simple matter of heating up the chicken and vegetables, making the bechamel, combining both and ladling into bowls.

I have chosen very basic vegetables for the stew: carrots, potatoes and broccoli. I add corn kernels because I like them and there are other possibilities: sugar snap peas, peas, zucchini, celery, mushrooms and I have even made the stew with chunks of lotus root in place of potatoes. Instead of chicken, try salmon or pork.

There are other possibilities.

Chop the ingredients smaller, use less stock and a thicker bechamel and make a filling for chicken pie or chicken pot pie. The chicken can be encased entirely in pastry and baked, or spread in a buttered baking dish, topped with pastry and baked for an easy dinner.

If you have leftover turkey from Christmas feasts, the stew becomes much easier to make. Just stir chunks of cooked turkey into the simmering vegetables before adding the bechamel.

The stew can even be mixed with rice, packed into a baking dish and blanketed with cheese to bake until the top is bubbly and golden brown. Hello doria.

On a rainy night, nothing is more satisfying than dunking warm bread in the creamy sauce. Or, in true Yoshoku fashion, eating the stew with rice sprinkled with dried parsley flakes.

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JAPANESE CREAM STEW

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless, skin-on chicken legs or 5 boneless, skin-on chicken thighs, 500g to 600g

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground white pepper

1 large onion, 200g to 250g

1 large carrot, 250g to 300g

3 to 4 small potatoes, 350g to 400g

1 small head broccoli, about 250g

1 Tbs grapeseed oil, plus more if needed

500ml chicken stock

1 large bay leaf

50g butter

50g plain flour

500ml full fat milk

100g corn kernels (optional)

Parsley flakes (optional)

METHOD

1. Rinse the chicken under running water and pat very dry with paper towels. Using a pair of kitchen shears, trim off the excess skin and fat and cut the chicken into 3cm by 3cm chunks. Place on a large plate, rub in the salt and white pepper and let sit while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Peel the onion. Quarter it and slice crosswise into 1cm-wide slices. Peel the carrot and cut into bite-sized chunks. Peel the potatoes and cut into bite-sized chunks. Slice off the stem of the broccoli, peel off the skin and cut into bite-sized chunks. Separate the rest of the broccoli into florets.

3. Heat a wide and deep pot over medium heat. I used an enamelled cast iron cocotte, 24cm in diameter. Pour in the oil. When it is heated up, place the chicken skin-side down for about a minute, then flip over. The chicken should have a light golden colour. Do not brown it too much. Do this in two to three batches. Avoid crowding the chicken in the pot. As the chicken browns, transfer the pieces into a bowl.

4. When all the chicken is browned, add more oil if needed. Add onions to the pot and stir-fry until the slices become translucent, scraping up the browned bits at the bottom of the pan. Add the carrots and stir-fry one minute. Add the chicken stock and bring it to a boil. Add the potatoes and the bay leaf, and when the pot comes to a boil again, turn the heat down to low. Simmer 20 minutes uncovered or until the carrots are tender. Give the pot a good stir at the 10-minute mark.

5. Add the browned chicken to the pot, mix it well with the other ingredients and continue simmering.

6. In a clean pot set over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the flour and whisk until a pale beige paste forms. Add the milk, about 100ml at a time, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Season with salt and white pepper to taste. When the bechamel thickens, turn off the heat. Do not let the sauce thicken too much.

7. Add the broccoli and corn kernels (if using) to the chicken and give the pot a good stir. Cook one minute. Scrape the bechamel into the chicken stew and stir to mix it in well with the stew. If the stew is too thick, thin it out with some hot stock, water or milk. Have a taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Remove the bay leaf. Let cook about two to three minutes.

8. Divide the stew among four bowls, top with parsley flakes (if using) and serve with bread or rice.

Serves four