sukiyaki - Variations, History

A Japanese beef dish. Traditionally Buddhism avoided meat, but Westerners introduced meat eating after 1868, and sukiyaki was an adaptation to Japanese taste. Thinly sliced beef is cooked with suet in an iron pan in the middle of the table. Sauce is added, made of shoyu, beaten raw egg, sugar, and mirin (a type of sweet saké).

Sukiyaki (Japanese: 鋤焼 or more commonly すき焼き; Generally sukiyaki is a dish for the colder days of the year and it is commonly found on the menu of bōnenkai, a Japanese year-end party.

The ingredients are slowly simmered in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin. A common joke in Japanese comedy is that making passable sukiyaki can be done with a very tight budget, especially if one is poor.

Variations

Like other nabemono dishes, each Japanese region has a preferred way of cooking sukiyaki.

Sukiyaki, or simply "suki" is also the name for a type of meal enjoyed in various other parts of Asia. The name can be used for a dish remotely resembling Japanese sukiyaki eaten with rice noodles, pork, and "sukiyaki" sauce, to a meal where the diners cook various kinds of meat and vegetables themselves in a hot pot.

History

Cattle were introduced to Japan in the 2nd century CE, powering the cultivation of rice paddies. Returning with an appetite for beef, the soldiers cooked it on plowshares over hot coals outside the house, as cooking it indoors was considered a sacrilege and desecration to the household by the older generation.