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Did you know Sukiyaki …(Japanese: 鋤焼 or more commonly すき焼き; スキヤキ) is a Japanese dish in the nabemono (Japanese Hot pot) style.
It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef), or a vegetarian version made only with firm tofu, slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin. Before being eaten, the ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of raw, beaten eggs.
Generally sukiyaki is a single dish for the colder days of the year and it is commonly found at bōnenkai, Japanese year-end parties. There is a theme in Japanese comedy that one can make passable sukiyaki even on a very tight budget.[citation needed]
Ingredients
Thinly sliced beef is usually used for sukiyaki; although in the past, in certain parts of the country (notably Hokkaidō and Niigata), pork was also popular.
Popular ingredients cooked with the beef are:
- Tofu (usually seared firm tofu)
- Negi (a type of scallion)
- Leafy vegetables, such as Chinese cabbage and shungiku (Garland chrysanthemum leaves).
- Mushrooms such as shiitake and enokitake
- Jelly-noodles made out of konnyaku corm such as ito konnyaku or shirataki noodles. It is said to be advisable to place these away from the beef because the calcium contained in the noodles can toughen meat.
Boiled wheat udon or soba (buckwheat) noodles are sometimes added, usually at the end to soak up the broth.
Preparation
Like other nabemono dishes, each Japanese region has a preferred way of cooking sukiyaki. The key difference is between the Kansai region in western Japan and the Kantō region in eastern Japan. In the Kantō (Tokyo) region, the ingredients are stewed in a prepared mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sake and mirin, whereas in Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto region), the meat is first grilled in the pan greased with tallow. After other ingredients are put over these, the liquid is poured into the pan. The shungiku are added when all the ingredients are simmering. A raw egg is broken into a serving bowl, one egg for each person. Some prefer to add a bit of soy sauce and the egg is lightly beaten. The meat and vegetables are dipped into this sauce before being eaten
