Sukiyaki (Gunma Style with Warishita)
Cuisine: Japanese
Region: 群馬県
Servings: 4人分
Sukiyaki (Gunma Style with Warishita) is a home-style meat dish. Cook the first slice yaki-suki style, simply seared with a coating of warishita. Ingredients and step-by-step instructions are below, with notes for home cooking.
Ingredients
- 500 g beef (thinly sliced for sukiyaki)
- 1 piece beef suet
- 2–3 Shimonita leeks (or Japanese long onions)
- 200 g shirataki noodles
- 1 block grilled tofu
- 6 fresh shiitake mushrooms
- 1/8 head napa cabbage
- 1 bunch shungiku (chrysanthemum greens)
- 4 eggs
- [Warishita] 100 ml soy sauce
- [Warishita] 100 ml mirin
- [Warishita] 50 ml sake
- [Warishita] 3 tbsp sugar
- [Warishita] 100 ml water
Steps
- [Warishita] Put all the warishita ingredients in a small pan over medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved and it comes to a boil, turn off the heat.
- Cut the Shimonita leeks diagonally into 2 cm pieces; thick leeks turn meltingly sweet when cooked. Trim the shiitake stems and score a decorative pattern on the caps, slice the napa cabbage on the bias, and remove the tough stems from the shungiku and cut it in half.
- Boil the shirataki for 2 minutes to remove any odour and cut into easy-to-eat lengths. Cut the grilled tofu into 8 pieces.
- Heat a sukiyaki pan over medium heat and melt the suet, rubbing it all over the pan. Arrange the leeks cut side down and sear until browned.
- Spread in a few slices of beef, drizzle with a little warishita and sear briefly. As soon as the meat changes colour, dip it in beaten egg and enjoy the first bite.
- Pour in the rest of the warishita and arrange the tofu, shirataki, shiitake and cabbage attractively in the pan. Keep the shirataki away from the beef so the meat doesn't toughen.
- When it comes to a boil, lower to medium-low and eat each ingredient as it is cooked, dipped in beaten egg. Add the shungiku just before eating, and add beef a little at a time as you go. If the liquid reduces too much, adjust with water or more warishita.
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Notes
Cook the first slice yaki-suki style, simply seared with a coating of warishita. The aroma of the beef comes through and you get the true pleasure of sukiyaki.
Something in shirataki is said to make beef tough. The trick is to keep the meat and the shirataki apart in the pan.
Shimonita leeks are in season in winter. They are thick and tender and become astonishingly sweet when cooked. If you can't find them, use thick Japanese long onions.
Add boiled udon to the leftover warishita and ingredients and simmer them for a perfect finish the next day.
Origin and history
Sukiyaki is a hot-pot dish of beef, leeks, tofu, shirataki and more simmered in a sweet-savoury warishita and dipped in beaten egg — one of Japan's classic feast dishes.
Gunma Prefecture is known as a place where every sukiyaki ingredient can be sourced within the prefecture, a "100% sukiyaki self-sufficiency" prefecture. Alongside Joshu beef, one of the first Japanese beef brands exported to the EU, and the thick, sweet Shimonita leek, a speciality of Shimonita in Kanra District, Gunma grows more konjac — the raw material of shirataki — than anywhere else in Japan. It is also one of the country's leading producers of napa cabbage, shungiku and fresh shiitake.
To promote sukiyaki as a dish that lets you taste all this bounty at once, the prefecture has run events that invite residents to take part, such as contests for sukiyaki bento ideas and for photos of families gathered around a sukiyaki pot. Simmering in warishita, the Kanto way, is the norm, but some restaurants adopt the Kansai style of searing the meat first, so there are many ways to enjoy it.