Sukiyaki

Spring is just around the corner here in Japan! Man, I'll miss the cold weather. Though it seems like winter isn't that ready to leave just yet, as my weather app forecasts a fair amount of precipitation this week:

That said, I'm in for a cold week in the coming days. Not that I mind; I do love cold weather, as I hail from a country where cold weather doesn't exist (what is snow?). But with the rain I'm likely to end up in house arrest for a good amount of time, as the rainy weather tends to make me so lazy to even leave the sharehouse. For weather this cold, a good ol' soup does the trick keeping me warm, and for today I turn to a favorite traditional Japanese dish to bring me all the warmth I need.

Sukiyaki (すき焼き) is a sweet and salty beef and veggie stew that falls under the line of what Japanese call nabemono (鍋物), which are essentially stews cooked in a pot called a nabe (鍋). Most people know these as hotpots wherein you take beef strips, dip it in the soup for a few seconds, then eat it as it is with rice, and sometimes dipped in a raw egg, or a sauce like ponzu (ポン酢).

This recipe doesn't have you gathered up with your friends around a butane gas stove heating up a pot of stew, but it does have you all gathered around a rice cooker, which is even cooler anyway in my opinion. Hope you've got your rice cooker ready!

This recipe should be good for 3-4 people.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 piece Napa cabbage
• 1 piece onion
• 1 stalk leek
• 1 block tofu
• 100 g enoki mushrooms
• 8 pieces shiitake mushrooms
• 30 g dashi powder
• 350 g water
• 200 g sukiyaki sauce
• 600 g beef strips
• 1 raw egg
• 1 small bunch chrysanthemum (optional)

Above is an example of sukiyaki sauce. If you don't have this nor have access to any stores that sell this, please refer to the recipe below.

For the Sukiyaki Sauceless:

• 80 g sugar
• 80 g soy sauce
• 40 g sake

1. Skip this one if you have store-bought sukiyaki sauce. If you don't have any, then that's no problem. Start out by mixing all the ingredients together. Set it aside when you're finished.
2. Cut your onions in half and slice them.
3. Cut off the dirty roots of the enoki mushrooms and separate them into smaller bunches.
4. Remove the stalk of the shiitake mushrooms and score a cross mark on the top of the mushrooms.
5. Wash your cabbage. Then chop it into medium sized pieces.
6. Chop your leeks either into thin slices or thick ones (about a centimeter long).
7. Divide your tofu block into two and then divide each one into thirds.
8. Inside your rice cooker, put in the water and the dashi powder. Add the sukiyaki sauce then mix the liquid.
9. Put all your veggies inside the rice cooker.
10. Turn on your rice cooker. For Japanese rice cookers, set it to hayadaki (早炊き). Let the mixture boil in your rice cooker and feel free to mix it in between.
11. Serve with rice and an egg on the side.

My mise en place. Where's the beef you say?

Here it is.

And that's it. Simple, isn't it? And with all the veggies in this thing it's also very healthy. Best eaten with rice so I hope you've cooked that beforehand!

You might be wondering why I had a recipe for a sukiyaki sauce from scratch, but not dashi. That's because dashi from scratch requires two specific ingredients: kombu (昆布) and katsuobushi (鰹節), dried kelp and bonito flakes respectively. Here in Japan, while we have easy access to dried kelp and bonito flakes, most people (at least here in Tokyo anyways) would prefer to use dashi powder, which has all the necessary ingredients for a decent dashi broth. But for people who don't live here in Japan, dashi powder is much more likely your alternative, as I would assume dried kelp and bonito flakes would be much harder to find over your country as compared.

Some of you might find the idea of dipping your beef in raw egg as weird and plain gross. Grow up you fucking wimp Don't worry! It's not as bad as it seems. You need to understand that the sukiyaki's taste is very strong and can even be a little too sweet and salty, and dipping it in the egg helps mellow down the overbearing flavor so it tastes better in your mouth. Just make sure you know where your eggs are coming from and check how fresh they are before you use them!

Personally, I prefer to put all my vegetables in all at once. If you're the type who wants to eat the cabbages and greens fresh, you can always omit them before you boil the stew and then add them later when you're about to eat.

Not familiar with chrysanthemum leaves? Here's an image. Known as shungiku (春菊), they're a very prevalent vegetable in Japanese cuisine and most other East Asian cuisines. I have made this an optional ingredient mainly because this might not be as easy to find in other countries especially in the west, and it acts as a seasoning more than anything else. Also the fact that my supermarket near me sells a huge bunch of it, and I couldn't be bothered to buy it when I know I'd only use a tenth of the stuff for my dish.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to enjoy the rest of my evening eating some of my own homemade sukiyaki while watching a documentary about Scottish history and mythology. Enjoy your bowls of sukiyaki, and don't forget about your rice!

Mmm, rice.