About the Recipe
I've said before that in the days before the globalisation of ramen and sushi, sukiyaki was the standard bearer of Japanese cuisine abroad. Years, later, sukiyaki is still popular but ironically, harder to find - but don't worry, my recipe shows you how to cook it at home! If you have a table top cooker, this is a great dish to cook in front of the family. If you don't it'll still taste delicious cooked on the hob. If you have any leftover sauce when your meal is finished, fry some udon noodles in it next day for a tasty lunch. PS: Kanto is the region of Japan with Tokyo at its centre, while the Kansai region centres on Osaka. There are more regional variations in Japanese cooking than you might imagine. For sukiyaki, Kansai cooks will brown the meat with sugar while Kanto cooks put the sugar into the sauce before the meat is cooked
Ingredients
80g peeled onion
120g leek
2 large chinese cabbage leaves
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms
250g firm or grilled tofu*
4 bundles of shirataki
250g extra thin sliced beef**
1tbsp veg oil or beef lard
250 ml Japanese dashi stock
for the sukiyaki sauce:
50ml japanese dashi stock (I used instant granules here)
100ml soy sauce
100ml mirin
50ml japanese sake
30g brown sugar
a table top cooker if you have one, otherwise you can make this one your hob
Preparation
first to make the sukiyaki sauce:
put all the sauce ingredients in a pan, bring to the boil while stirring, then turn off the heat
next, to prepare the sukiyaki:
cut the onion into 1cm / 1/2 inch slices
cut the leek diagonally into 1cm / 1/2 inch slices
halve the cabbage leaves lengthways, then cut them diagonally into 2cm / 1 inch slices
halve the tofu lengthways and cut into 1 cm / 1/2 inch cubes
remove the mushroom stalks and cut crosses into the mushroom heads (this is only decorative, so you can miss this step if you wish)
heat the oil in a frying pan and fry 1/2 the leeks lightly, then add 1/2 of the onion, tofu, mushrooms, shirataki & shiitake
pour in the sukiyaki sauce. simmer the vegetables and
when they are half cooked, put 1/2 the beef slices into the over pan
when the onion & leek is cooked well, it’s ready to eat
as you remove cooked food from the pan, top up with more raw ingredients and sukiyaki sauce
if, as you are cooking, if the sukiyaki sauce becomes too thick, add a little of the japanese dashi stock to loosen the sauce up