My meal

I do try not to write to much for fear of boring people with my writing. However, I thought I would just write up a quick post about my meal last night.

One of my favourite meals in Japan is Gyudon. It’s basically fried beef and onions on top of rice. It’s not very fancy and is the meal of choice when you are on the go. It was my very first meal in Japan and I came by it as a result of lucky dip.

After traipsing around Shinjuku us fresh-faced ALTs found a tiny restaurant where you had to buy a ticket from a vending machine, which was then handed to the chef. When my meal arrived, and I have to be honest, it looked awful. I assumed it was some kind of butchered meat on top of rice. The meat was barely identifiable. But this was Japan and I knew it would only get worse from here on with regards to bizarre cuisine.

It was delicious.

Since then I try to grab some wherever I can. I am not aware of anyone in my town who makes it, except for Hotto Motto, whose food isn’t great. So, last night I attempted my own.

It came out very differently but it was delicious none the less. I stole the recipe from a site called Noob Cook, who I like just for their title.  When I got to the till of the supermarket last night with all my ingredients, the friendly cashier (who knows me by now) was obviously very surprised to see the foreigner buying mirin (seriously Japanese cooking staple). I told here I was attempting Gyudon and she was somewhat impressed and checked if I had soy sauce as it was missing from my basket. I assured her I did and then proceeded to check that the beef I had purchased was okay for my grand ambitions. This was then followed by a friendly reminder not to drink and drive (due to the bottle of KWV that she had just rung up).

Ingredients:
200g thinly sliced beef
100ml white wine (I used KWV)
70ml water
70ml mirin
2 Tbsp caster sugar
11/2 onions sliced into half moons.

Directions:
1.    bring water and wine to the boil. Add beef and allow to simmer for a few minutes.
2.    Add sugar, mirin and soy sauce and cover with a lid and again leave it to cook for a few minutes.
3.    Finally add the onions and leave everything to cook until the onions are soft and transparent.

Serve on top of rice.

Mine doesn’t look like much but I assure you it was delicious. It came out a lot darker but I assume it is due to the ingredients I used.