Sukiyaki

Some anecdotes are known for the early history of sukiyaki. One is about a medieval nobleman. He stopped at a peasant’s hut after a hunt and ordered him to cook the game. The peasant realized that his cooking utensils were improper for the noble, so he cleaned up his spade (suki in Japanese) and broiled (yaki) the meat on it. Another story is about the Portuguese in the sixteenth century in Japan, where beef was not common food. They eagerly ate animals everywhere, even on suki.
Another history is that peasants would cook sweet potato in the field. And doing so in their spades they would need to carry less gear.
In the 1860s when Japan was opened to foreigners, new cooking styles were also introduced. Cows, milk, meat, and egg became widely used, and sukiyaki was the most popular way to serve them. The first sukiyaki restaurant, Isekuma, opened in Yokohama in 1862.
Beef is the primary ingredient in today’s sukiyaki. There were two main ways of cooking sukiyaki: a Kant? (Tokyo area) and a Kansai (Osaka area) style. In the Kant? way, the special cooking sauce’s ingredients are already mixed. In the Kansai way, the sauce is mixed at the time of eating. But after the great Kanto earthquake of 1923, the people of Kant?, temporarily moved to the Osaka area. While the people of Kant? were in Osaka, they got accustomed to the Kansai style of sukiyaki, and when they returned to Kant?, they introduced the Kansai sukiyaki style, where it has since become popular.

Ingredients :
adapted from Japanese Hot Pots by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat. If you don’t have or can’t find some of the ingredients below, don’t let that stop you from making this. Substitute what you can and like to eat.
1 T Beef Fat Trimmings
1 lb Beef Strip Loin or Rib Eye, sliced 1/8? thick *see note 1 below
8-10 Shallots or 1/2 med. Sweet Onion
1/2 lb Napa Cabbage, sliced *see note 2 below
4 Green Onions or 1 Negi (Japanese Leek or Welsh Onion), sliced on angle in 2? pieces
4 oz (@ 8 pieces) Shiitake Mushrooms, stems removed
7 oz (200g) Enoki Mushrooms, trimmed & separated
6 oz (about 1/2 package) Broiled Tofu, cut into 1/2? sticks
7 oz Ito Konnyaku noodles, rinsed, strained & quartered (these can be hard to find, and have a texture many American palates aren’t used to. Don’t feel bad if you leave it out. There are Japanese households which don’t include it either)
2 c Junmai Sake (or other amiable sake – no cooking sake please)
1/3 c Sugar
1/2 c Japanese Soy Sauce, better soy sauces really shine in this broth
1 c Arugula leaves, rinsed & in 3? lengths – original recipe calls for 2 c Shungiku (a type of chrysanthemum leaf) but we have a ton of arugula growing & love it in this recipe
shime- cooked short grain rice to eat with leftover broth
optional- 1 egg for each person, beaten

Procedure :
1. In a 4 1/2 – 5 qt pot (preferably an enamaled cast iron, but use what you’ve got) warm pan over medium heat and add fat trimmings. Render fat for a minute or so, then add beef slices. Try to lay in the slices in a singular layer. Brown each side.
2. Gather the meat to one side of the pan. Arrange shallots or onion, cabbage, green onions, mushrooms, tofu, and noodles into neat clusters in the pan. Add sake, sugar and soy sauce then simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add arugula leaves on top of everything, then cook for 1 minute more. Serve in the pot you cooked it in. One optional way to enjoy this nabe, is to crack and beat an egg in a bowl for each person. As they eat, they can dip each cooked ingredient into the egg, then consume. Eat through all the goodies in the pan, then add the remaining broth into bowls with rice to finish off all of the delicious broth.

*Note 1: You can always ask your butcher to slice the meat thinly for you, but for those DIY types, put the meat in the freezer for 2-3 hours to firm it up, then slice it using smooth, long strokes slicing across the end grain. In Japan the beef is usually super well marbled. Not just the Kobe beef either, nearly everything we saw had incredible marbling. If you can, try to find something similar in your area.

*Note 2: To slice the cabbage so they absorb the broth well, lay a stack of leaves flat on a cutting board. Starting at the base end, instead of slicing straight down, slice at a sharp angle, right to left (if you are right handed.) Repeat every two inches.

Reference : wikipedia and http://www.whiteonricecouple.com
Image : yummyinthetummyblog