Sukiyaki is a traditionally a hot pot dish. Each diner is given a bowl of raw egg; beef, tofu and vegetables are slow cooked in boiling sauce in a hot pot at the center of the table; then, each diner picks from the hot pot and dips his food in beaten raw egg before eating.
Because half the world is scared of eating raw eggs, in this recipe, the raw egg is allowed to steep in piping hot sukiyaki sauce which makes it safer to eat.
Sukiyaki
In this Kanto-style sukiyaki recipe, all ingredients — beef, noodles, vegetables and mushrooms — are cooked in sukiyaki sauce, arranged in bowls and served with raw egg.
Ingredients
- 1 half-inch piece beef fat
- 150 grams cellophane noodles soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
- 250 grams sukiyaki-cut beef cut into two-inch strips
- 8 to 10 leaves wombok (napa cabbage) cut into two-inch strips
- 250 grams mushrooms (a combination of shimeji and enoki was used for this recipe)
For the sukiyaki sauce
- 1 cup Japanese soy sauce
- 1 cup sake
- 1 cup mirin
- 1½ cups dashi
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
To garnish
- 4 eggs
- naruto slices
- sliced scallions
Instructions
- Heat a heavy thick-bottomed pot on the stove (cast iron is ideal).
- With the heat on medium-low, drop in the beef fat and move it around until it has liquefied and the bottom of the pot is coated with oil.
- Turn up the heat and spread the beef on the hot pot. Cook for 30 seconds without disturbing then stir and push to the center of the pot.
- Arrange the mushrooms, cabbage and noodles around the beef.
- Stir together all the ingredients for the sukiyaki sauce, pour into the pot and allow to boil. Cook everything for a minute or two, pushing down the solid ingredients into the sauce.
- Crack an egg directly into each bowl.
- Without turning off the stove, use a pair of kitchen tongs (or chopsticks, if you want to be more traditional) to pick up the beef, mushrooms, cabbage and noodles, and divide them into four bowls, arranging them around the eggs.
- Arrange scallions and naruto slices in the bowls.
- Slowly ladle the boiling sauce into the bowls. To partially cook the eggs, ladle the sauce directly over them.
- Serve your sukiyaki immediately.
