Sukiyaki - It's My Dish (2024)

The literal meaning of Sukiyaki is “hot pot on a shovel”. The story goes like this: long long time ago, while the Japanese Emperor is hunting and he became hungry, they then found a peasant place and ask them to cook the game they got, the peasant then cooked the game on a shovel because they don’t have a proper pot. That’s how it got its name.

To me, sukiyaki is very high end cuisine in Taiwan. We can have it only when there is a celebration event like someone’s birthday. Different than the typical hot pot, you actually don’t drink the soup of sukiyaki because it’s very salty. However, it tastes so good that I usually sneakily take a few sips, which usually makes my mom nag me a little bit. Now I’m working in the US and my parents are still in Taiwan, this fact makes me really miss my mom’s nagging 🙁

Sukiyaki reminds me of my good family times. To me, it’s the flavor of “home”. I hope you will like this dish I present you!

Ingredients

• 10 oz of beef slices (Beef Loin Tri-Tip Roast from costco)
• 1½ cup of shiitake mushroom
• 1 pack of udon (pack udon from my picture)
• 4 leaves of napa (about 1 cup of cut napa)
• 1 pack of enoki mushroom
• ½ box of tofu
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp of butter
• ½ onion

Sauce Ingredients

• 1 cup of rice wine
• ½ cup of soy sauce
• ½ cup of mirin

The soul of sukiyaki, in my opinions, is the sukiyaki sauce. The profoundly rich flavor of sukiyaki sauce can elevate the food ingredients to the next level. Once you get your sukiyaki sauce right, the rest of this dish is simply preparing those food ingredients to go into the sauce.

Mix 1 cup of rice wine, ½ cup of soy sauce and ½ cup of mirin and bring to boil, you can smell the alcohol evaporating from your sauce. Just let it bubble slowly until you don’t smell the alcohol anymore. I suggest to heat at medium heat for 3 min. Since I want to turn off the heat right after the alcohol is all gone to prevent further reduction in volume, I usually concentrate on cooking the sukiyaki sauce alone and not try to prep other materials at that time. You can also cook up more sauce and store it in the refrigerator, it can last for long time because it’s high in salinity!

My cooking skills and concepts have evolved a lot since I first started cooking at age 18. In my early age of cooking, I believe the only value in food is being tasty. At one point, I even felt proud of myself if I cook something that taste awesome but looks terrible! I believe having the best taste is so much more important than working on the garnish or decor. Gradually, my belief has matured so that food has to also look good, not just taste good. They said there are three key to good food: the taste, the aroma, and the appearance! Since you are already cooking this dish at home, why not seize the chance and use your creativity to see how pretty you can make your dish? I’m saying all this, just to convince you to carve the mushroom!!

Let’s talk about preparing the ingredient! Shiitake mushroom, you have to remove the stem first and then carve the cross shape on top. This is the only ingredient that will take up some time but it’s fun to carve and it looks pretty afterwards. Wash all other ingredient clean and cut to the size you desire. Now it’s time to cook!

First, melt 1 tbsp of butter and stir fry the onions until aromatic. Carefully place in the ingredient as desire, add the sukiyaki sauce and close the lid. Use low to medium heat to bring to a gentle boil. The vegetables will yield enough water to cover half of the ingredient, that’s roughly 10 min to 15 min. Now it’s done!