Yakiniku

Yakiniku

Yakiniku is a Japanese dish.  You can buy the marinade for it at pretty much any Asian market.  I, however, prefer to make my own.  This is my mother's recipe for the most part.  My mom doesn't measure anything so I basically learned how to make this by being w/ her and taste testing the sauce as I go.  The measurements given are about as close as I can get.  I suggest tasting the sauce before adding the meat.  The sauce should taste a bit sweet..more sweet than salty.  If it doesn't, the meat will taste too salty.  This dish uses very thin sliced beef that can also be found at Asian markets. You can also use pork or chicken..although that is not the traditional way to make it.  Pork holds the flavor nicely and chicken is the least flavorful of the three meats.  Meat for sukiyaki or bulgogi (Korean) works well.  Shabu Shabu meat is too thin for this dish.  Yakiniku goes well w/ Japanese white sticky rice and a stir fry and/or sunomono (pickled salad).  

1-2 lbs thin sliced beef 

3/4 cups soy sauce

1/2 cup Aji Mirin

1/3 heaping cup of sugar...possible more

1 tsp sesame oil

dash of pepper (japanese pepper is the best b/c it is so fine)

large spoonful of minced garlic

3 tbsp water

2 stalks green onions, thinly chopped

1. Cut meat into large pieces (about 1 1/2 in. wide pieces)

2. In a large glass bowl, add soy sauce, mirin, sugar, sesame oil, pepper, garlic, and water.

3. Mix until the sugar is completely dissolved.  This may take a while.  Taste sauce to see if it is sweet.  If you can't taste the sweet, add a little more sugar and continue doing this until you the sauce has a sweet taste.  

4. Add green onions and beef. Stir to make sure all meat is covered with sauce.

5. Cover w/ lid or plastic wrap and marinade over night.  

6. In a large nonstick skillet on medium/medium low heat..add pieces of meat.  Using tongs or chopsticks, turn each piece of meat to cook both sides.  Should take only a 3-5 minutes to cook each batch of meat.  Cook all meat and pour any leftover liquid in the skillet over meat.