earthy, gooey, fancy.

I've told you before that my favorite donburi (bowl) is the spicy tuna bowl, and Don's is the oyako-don.
Well, my sister Twiggy's favorite is the all-time number one, the gyuudon (beef bowl). She's especially weak for the super sweet, onion-y Yoshinoya types - which would also explain her insatiable appetite for sukiyaki.

I like a junky Yoshinoya beef bowl every once in a while, but I get bored of eating it mid-bowl. The red ginger can only shake things up a bit once or twice, and food out of a foam bowl is so... so unglamorous and boring.

But when you ditch the MSG and onions, and instead add things like earthy gobo (burdock) root and a gooey coddled egg, the once-ho-hum gyu-don can instantly become something, well, fancy.

So if you're looking for a regular, sweet, onion-laden gyu-don recipe... Now would be the best time to stop reading and mosey along. But if you're ready for something a bit different and maybe a bit work intensive, keep on reading.

Shigure-Don
Adapted from a recipe from ORANGE PAGE JULY 2007 issue
Serves 2

4 ounces shredded/sliced beef
1/2 gobo root
1 cup dashi
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sake
2 cups cooked rice
2 eggs
aonori seaweed

Take the gobo root and peel the skin off with a vegetable peeler. Then fill a bowl with water and shred the gobo into it. Let it soak for 10 minutes, then drain well. Notice how the water turned really dark? Yeah, that's the bitter bad stuff that we don't want in our dinner.

Bring the dashi*, gobo root, and ginger to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Add a tablespoon of sugar and let it simmer for 5 more minutes.

Add a tablespoon of soysauce and let it simmer for another 5 minutes, or until the thin gobo pieces start to become translucent around the edges.

Add the beef slices a little at a time, swishing it around in the hot broth so that it doesn't clump up. Once all of your beef is in there, add the remaining soy sauce and sugar, mirin, and sake.

Simmer for 10~15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated off.

While you're finishing up the bowl, let's coddle some eggs! Bring 1000mL of water to a boil, then add 200 mL of cold water. Measure correctly, cause this is key to keeping optimal coddling temperature! Put the eggs in the pot, and let it sit for 10~11 minutes. No more, no less. Remove eggs from the bath and set aside.

I broke my egg :[

Fill your bowls with rice and top with beef. Crack an egg over it, and sprinkle some aonori seaweed. Then nom!

*****************************************

Remember how last time I made dashi from scratch? Just steeping it once seems like a waste, donchathink?

Well no worries! You can re-steep it up to 3 times, and each steep can be used for different purposes. For instance, the first steep can be used for soups because it's the strongest - but 2nd and 3rd steeps are perfect for hotpot and donburis. You just take the dashi ingredients from the first steep and simmer it for another 15 minutes in 1000mL of water!

For the second steep I felt a little mischievious and used compost. I took some clean potato peels, onion peel, daikon peel, the knub off of a bell pepper, and some leeks for aromatics...

And I boiled it for 15 minutes.

And then I strained it. The resulting dashi was murkier but much sweeter from the vegetables. We had it in both the donburi and miso soup, and it was yummy!

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Tagged as: donburi, Easy Breezy Japanesey, Japanese, recipes