I know I said I don’t really like meat a couple entries ago, and while it’s true, there are a few meaty things in life that I think are delicious. One of them is Japanese wagyu. Another one is bulgogi. And the only other one I can think of right now is sukiyaki. And it’s not even the meat itself, but the somehow amazing combination of sweet sukiyaki broth and meat dipped in raw egg.

So! Mike and I decided to make sukiyaki for dinner. Sukiyaki (the food, not the Kyu Sakamoto song) is a kind of Japanese nabe, or hot pot dish. It’s a dish that’s usually eaten at home — I’ve never seen a restaurant in Canada that serves sukiyaki. (I’ve seen lots of places that serve Chinese or Korean hot pot, but not Japanese.) It’s also a dish that’s generally eaten in the winter.

You could probably use cheapo beef to make sukiyaki, but you’re supposed to buy good quality beef — it’s a bit of a splurge dish that’s often made for special occasions. We bought two packages of sukiyaki beef (above) from the grocery store  and they were about ¥1000 ($11) a package. We also bought vegetables: cabbage, carrots, enoki mushrooms, and shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves), along with firm tofu and udon noodles. Shirataki noodles are commonly added but this was kind of a lazy sukiyaki. If you want to make sukiyaki at home, here’s a recipe.

Vegetables!

Turning on the burner. This is the kind of thing you need a tabletop burner for, you can’t really make it at the stove.

Mixing up the raw egg. Yes, it sounds gross/weird, but it’s actually VERY DELICIOUS to dip the meat in raw egg. And no, you will not get salmonella poisoning and die. Okay, maybe you will. But I haven’t yet. What’s life without a little danger, anyway?

Sukiyaki in action! After the meat was gone, we added the udon noodles.

So there you go, a random post about my dinner. If you happen to have a tabletop burner and no real aversion to eating raw eggs, you should try making sukiyaki at home.