No… I’m not going to bust out singing that Japanese pop song from the 60’s that got renamed for the US market by some culturally insensitive prick record executive. Instead you get my rendition of this ubiquitous dish that’s become synonymous with Japanese food. Not that I have anything against record execs, or even renaming songs, but really… did ya have to name it after a hotpot dish? I wonder how that guy would have felt if I took a song like “Unchained Melody” and renamed it “Beef Stew” in Japan because it’s easier to say and more catchy.
There are many styles of making this, but perhaps the most common way is to cook meat and veggies in a sweet soy sauce based broth at the table. While I’m a big fan of the table top cooking method (especially for Shabu Shabu), I actually prefer to pre-cook the stuff separately and just serve the sukiyaki in a large bowl in the center of the table.
Regardless of how you decide to cook it, it makes for a really simple weeknight meal that requires no more than some washing and cutting of veggies. It’s typically made with thin slices of well marbled beef, but you could really use just about anything. Japanese markets tend to have the meat pre-sliced and packaged. I lucked out and got a pack of wagyu end-cuts (kiriotoshi) for a couple bucks. Because they were the end cuts the pieces were kinda irregular (which would be a problem for shabu shabu), but works just fine for sukiyaki. The most important thing is that the meat is tender and has a good amount of fat marbled with the meat.
For veggies you can use just about anything. I went mostly traditional using Tofu, green onions, bamboo, enoki mushrooms, and chrysanthemum leaves, but I also added some fresh summer squash I got at the farmers market the other day. It’s a good way to clean out the vegetable drawer in your fridge.
Traditionally it’s eaten by dipping the cooked meat into a raw egg, but due to the potential for getting salmonella I wouldn’t recommend it. You could soft poach or coddle the egg, but I still don’t think that would technically be “safe”. Instead I just grate some raw yamaimo (japanese mountain yam) also known as nagaimo which has the texture and slimy consistency of a raw egg when grated. If all this talk of slimy things is turns you off, or you can’t find it, you could always just skip it.
Leftover sukiyaki makes for a great bowl of udon (with some boiled noodles and egg cooked in the broth), or you could turn it into a donburi by reheating it with some beaten egg on top then serving it over a bowl of rice.
Units
Ingredients
- beef sirloin well marbled (thinly sliced)
- aromatic veggies (like onions, leeks, green onions, carrots etc)
- mushrooms (shitake, shimeji, enoki, portobello, button, etc)
- leaf veggies (like napa cabbage, chrysanthemum leaves, etc)
for broth
- ½ cups dashi
- ¼ cups mirin
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
to serve
- yamaimo (peeled and grated)
Instructions
for table top cooking
- If you're cooking it at the table (I use a fondue pot), double or triple the recipe for the broth and mix all ingredients in the pot and heat. You'll need enough broth to mostly submerge your food as you won't get as much heat out of a fondue pot.
for stove top cooking
- If you're cooking it on the stove, heat a pan on high until hot then add a bit of oil and sear the beef. You don't want to cook it all the way through, just enough to brown the meat and get some fond on the pan. Transfer the meat to a plate and set aside.
- Add the ingredients for the broth into the pan. There should be around 1/2" of liquid in the bottom of the pan. Double the recipe if you need more. Start with the aromatic veggies then transfer to a serving bowl as they cook. Then move on the the "other stuff", then the mushroom, then the leafy veggies, and finish by putting the beef into the stock until it's cooked (careful not to overcook it). Dump the meat and broth over everything else and serve.
- Goes well with some grated yamaimo to dip the meat in and a bowl of rice.
Notes
Laura @ Hungry and Frozen says
Yum this looks so good, simple and classic! Love the rant about the music. Unchained Melody would definitely not be so sweet by another name.
Rasa Malaysia says
Hey Marc, I love your website and absolutely agree with your tagline. I don’t have recipes either when I cook, but for my readers, I started to take my recipes very seriously, especially the measurement. No more guestimate. 🙂
Will add you to my blogroll and reader ASAP. 🙂
Rasa Malaysia says
Hey Marc, I love your website and absolutely agree with your tagline. I don’t have recipes either when I cook, but for my readers, I started to take my recipes very seriously, especially the measurement. No more guestimate. 🙂
Will add you to my blogroll and reader ASAP. 🙂
Syrie says
Marc, this looks divine. Exactly the kind of thing I’d like for dinner.
Syrie says
Marc, this looks divine. Exactly the kind of thing I’d like for dinner.
feeding maybelle says
Oh, I love sukiyaki. thanks for the recipe.
feeding maybelle says
Oh, I love sukiyaki. thanks for the recipe.
Rikke Rorbak says
First off, thanks for all your recipes!Actually, eating raw egg isn’t much of a problem at all. As long as you don’t mix all the eggs together (as, if you did have one bad egg, all the others would be affected), and eat them fairly cold (as heat = bacteria paradise), the risk of salmonella is quite minimal.
This is spoken by the head of food security/quality control for a big meat exporting company, educated veterinarian (not me, but my father).A soft-boiled egg is as “bad” as a whole raw egg.
Eggs for ice cream, though, is a whole different story. Sugar, protein, heating + cooling => potential bacteria bomb.SO, eat your sukiyaki dipped in raw egg, and don’t worry too much about it 🙂
Rikke Rorbak says
First off, thanks for all your recipes!Actually, eating raw egg isn’t much of a problem at all. As long as you don’t mix all the eggs together (as, if you did have one bad egg, all the others would be affected), and eat them fairly cold (as heat = bacteria paradise), the risk of salmonella is quite minimal.
This is spoken by the head of food security/quality control for a big meat exporting company, educated veterinarian (not me, but my father).A soft-boiled egg is as “bad” as a whole raw egg.
Eggs for ice cream, though, is a whole different story. Sugar, protein, heating + cooling => potential bacteria bomb.SO, eat your sukiyaki dipped in raw egg, and don’t worry too much about it 🙂
Liz says
Tryin for a family bbq!! Hope it’s good when I’m done cookin it
Jennifer Spencer says
This was just fabulous – made it for dinner last night and my discerning, fussy partner said it was as good as what he’d had in restaurants in Japan. Well worth the time and ingredients. Thank you for a great no-recipe.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Jennifer, I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed it! This is one of the first recipes I posted to the blog back in 2008, I’m glad to hear that someone still finds it useful as I was thinking about taking down all of these older posts due to to the bad photography. Thanks for taking the time to let me know!