Yakiniku Recipe

Another simple recipe ... this time from Japan

(this one comes by way of my friend Preston in
Osaka from his parents-in-law Shuzo and Eiko)

Yaki-niku (which sounds much cooler than "cooked meat")
and a bit of shabu-shabu

Of course you don't have to do meat, usually there
are lots of vegetables burning as well so even if you
don't eat dead cows you can read on ...

I ate this quite a bit while in Japan ... its your typical
'bunch o people gather round a burning metal surface and 
eat the burning flesh and veggies' kind of thing, but it adds
in that extra element of danger as someone might get too drunk
and fall face-first into the heat.

This recipe is also very good chopstick training as it
involves plucking food items off a very hot metal
surface while burning oil flies at your hand ... the kind
of thing I'm sure they used to train the Apollo astronauts
in the 60s.


here's what you need:

   -  A flat surface suitable for frying. A frying-pan in
      constant action might serve. Flame is faster than
      Electric, but both are used.

   -  A forgiving smoke-detector. CLOSE YOUR BEDROOM DOOR!
      Open any windows you can live with open. The smell of
      yakiniku does tend to linger...

   -  Chopsticks. To be really official you can use the longer
      cooking chopsticks to dump new arrivals into the hell
      of burning oil, and use the regular sized chopsticks to
      pluck them off. 

   -  Plate for your yaki-niku sauce.

   -  Thing to put veggies in so they don't drip all over
      creation as they wait to be cooked.

   -  Generic vegetable oil. My friend's father-in-law uses
      chunks-o-dead-overweight-animal-body-fat to start it out,
      but veggie oil to supplement.

   -  If you wear glasses, you have a bit of a dilema. If you wear
      them they will get coated with bits of flying vegetable oil
      which is somehat gross. Unfortunately the alternative is that
      all this flying vegetable oil is flying into your eyes. Either
      way I feel pretty grungy after eating yaki-niku and very quickly
      try and wash up.

   -  Yakiniku sauce. My friend's father-in-law modifies the bought
      bottled stuff himself by heating it, etc. You go thru
      the sauce fairly fast. Remember to shake the bottle before
      pouring, as it (whatever 'it' is) settles. Yaohan plaza is
      a good place to look for this stuff ... its in Arlington
      Heights, but they have a very nice grocery area and you can
      stock up on green tea, and ramen, and green-tea ice cream 
      while you are there. See Appendix A for the ingredients of
      yaki-niku sauce.

   -  Beef, cut to maybe half the length of bacon, perhaps 2-3x bacon's
      thickness, and a little narrower (i.e. bite-size). You may prefer
      it thinner that usual (Shabu-shabu thickness, which is sort of
      like Steak-Ums gage.) Whatever size you think you'll be able to eat
      without having to cut it after it's hot. You can't sever it with
      your teeth on the fly either or you'll burn your lips off.

   -  Veggies. This is very freeform. Think leftovers: if you have
      it, you can use it, and still be fairly authentic.

      Here are the cliches:
        o  Onions, slashed into disks.
        o  Green pepper, cut however you like.
        o  Spinach, boiled beforehand (though its not like you're
               gonna die if you don't)
        o  General non-boiled green leafy-type veggies, cut up
               into 3x5 card size or thereabouts (remember
               bite-sized!) We have tried lettuce, though I got
               the impression that was kinda exotic. Anything
               green or white that might look at-home in a salad.
        o  Eggplant, slashed into disks. These hold a lot of water,
               so try to avoid burning your mouth out with the
               superheated water. Lots of sucking-in-air after these.
        o  Green Onions, sliced into couple-inch lengths. The wider
               diameter the better, but I don't know if they have
               the Japanese mega-green-onions (d >= 1cm) over there.
               The bigger diameter the more authentic. Keep in mind
               that these also are fairly waterlogged, and so get
               mighty hot inside. Soaking it in the sauce can cool
               things down.
        o  Mushrooms, though they use the type called shii-take,
               which are those long, white fairly mild-flavored
               ones (I think). Five years after he visited the U.S.,
               My friend's father-in-law still talks about how
               cheap the mushrooms were (specifically those generic
               american mushrooms). Apparently those are mighty
               gourmet here, so hey go for broke!
       o  Potatoes, slashed into disks (in general, anything too
               thick won't cook.) I think they've been boiled.
               These take a while before they're ready.
       o  Sweet Potatoes, slashed blablabla. Boiled, maybe? Basically
               if you think it should be boiled before eating it raw,
               boil it before yakiniku-ing it. Except meat (!?)
       o  Ears o' corn, cut into 2" cylinders, boiled beforehand.
               Takes a while, and you gotta keep turning it. But it's
               boiled anyway so when you get fed up with waiting you
               just eat it. Tastes interesting dipped in the sauce.
        o  Broccoli/Califlower, boiled. Doesn't 'cook' to any great
               degree, but it's the thought that counts.
        o  Bean Sprouts, rinsed. Great handfuls of these become a
               couple shrivelled little twigs if you're not careful.


To cook:

   -  Get everything ready and with in reach. Rinse veggies.

   -  Some oil into pan. Heat pan fairly hot. The heat of the pan
      determines the speed of cooking, so as you slow down you can
      reduce the heat. Generally if there's more smoking than cooking
      going on, the heat might be outpacing your eating speed. Or you
      need more oil.

   -  Put a few veggies into pan when it starts smoking (...) and
      go from there.

   -  Add oil as needed, when things get scorchy. Cooking where there's
      oil is more effective than on a dry pan, which is called 'burning'.

   -  Regulate heat vs. speed.

   -  Assure neighbors who've seen smoke coming from windows you're not
      spontaneously combusting.


Yaki-niku is more of a summer thing that a winter thing. If you want
winter food, then there's Shabu-Shabu. That's the same thing except
the meat's thinner because you boil everything on the fly rather than
fry it on the fly. The sauce is different too - its 'shabu-shabu' sauce
instead of 'yaki-niku' sauce. See Appendix B for the ingredients of
shabu-shabu sauce.

I asked my friends in Japan what some good Japanese brands for the sauces
are since I didn't particularly trust the American ones. but the American
government is nice enough to force a nutrition facts label onto the 
imported bottles so here is the ingredients list:

Appendix A; What's in yaki-niku sauce?
	this is Ibara medium hot yakiniku sauce

	Apple
	Soy Sauce (water, soy bean, wheat, salt)
	Sugar
	Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
	Water
	Sweet Cooking Wine
	Garlic
	Honey
	Hydrogenated Glucose Syrup
	Peach
	Carmel Color
	Onion
	Sesame Oil
	Apple Vinegar
	Sesame Seed
	Plum

Appendix B: What's in shabu-shabu sauce?
	this is Ibara sesame-flavoured shabu-shabu sauce
	
	Soy Sauce (water, soy bean, wheat, salt)
	Water
	Sugar
	Sesame Paste
	Apple
	Apple Vinegar
	Sweetened Sake
	Hydrogenated Glucose Syrup
	Microcrystalline Cellulose
	Sugar Ester
	Yeast Extract	
	Xanthan Gum
	Garlic
	Red Pepper