Craving a nice warm hotpot? Maybe you should try some sukiyaki! Sukiyaki is a dish served in the nabemono style, also known as a Japanese hotpot. The dish consists of meat- usually very thinly sliced beef, but some variants exist. The meat is slowly cooked or simmered along with vegetables and other ingredients in a shallow iron pot, in a mixture full of soy sauce, sugar and mirin. The ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl full of raw, beaten eggs after being cooked in a pot, and then the dish is eaten. This dish is especially popular in Japan during year-end parties.
Towards the end of the Edo period of the 1860s, sukiyaki became a part of the Japanese cuisine scene and during the Meiji period, the dish slowly gained popularity. What’s particularly interesting is that there are various stories regarding the history of sukiyaki. As for the name itself, “sukiyaki” comes from “suki” meaning spade, or even “sukimi” meaning thinly sliced meat, and “yaki” means grilled.
But where does the spade/suki come from? During the Edo period, farmers would cook their fish and tofu with their spades. During this time, it was prohibited to eat beef in Japan except for two exceptions- when you were sick, or during very special events, like year-end parties, which explains why sukiyaki is such a popular dish for year-end parties.
And then meat dishes were slowly popularised among the Japanese people, because during the 1860s, western foreigners introduced new cooking styles as well as cows, milk, and eggs. The very first sukiyaki restaurant was opened in Yokohama in 1862, with Kanto-style sukiyaki which simmers the beef and vegetables in a stew of the sauce. In 1923, The Great Kanto Earthquake caused most people to migrate to Osaka. This is when they were introduced to the Kansai-style of sukiyaki in which the beef is first seared in the pot to caramelise with a little sugar and then the vegetables are cooked afterward in a little sauce. The Kansai style of sukiyaki was brought to the Tokyo area when the Kanto people returned there.
Today, you can find two variants of the sukiyaki dish at Sakae Sushi! We have the Sukiyaki Chicken Deluxe Set & Sukiyaki Beef Deluxe Set which you can check out now at our website, sakaedelivery.com!
Comments