Japanese barbecue, Yakiniku, is infinitely simpler than American, Canadian or Aussie "barbees." It fits Japanese culture, but also translates well for several sorts of global cooks who want to present a meal with little fuss and little muss. Indeed, there several aspects of cooking and nutrition in which Yakiniku wins Best of Show award hands down.
Grill as if you were in Japan
Among the reasons to love Yakiniku are these:
- Little preparation time and effort. All it takes to prepare a simple, nutritious meal--in addition to the food--is a cutting board, a good knife, and a tabletop electric grill.
- Lots of vitamins. Yakiniku restaurants in the UK generally provide a list of items for diners to cook on their own grill, some meat and some vegetable. While each diner will order according to preference, you can engineer more veggies at home by simply providing the selection you prefer. If you want your family to eat more vegetables, go light on meat, heavy on veg.
- Low fat. Unless you offer intensely fatty meat, eating a Yakiniku meal with have almost no fat. Electric grills are non-stick, so you need not coat the foods to be cooked in oil.
- Rapid clean up. Except for the plates, tongs and chopsticks you use, you will have little to clean except the grill itself. Since it's non-stick, that won't be hard.
NOTE: Eating with chopsticks is not difficult. Find out how here. It is easiest to go to an Asian market and buy a large pack of chopsticks that you can throw away after using, especially at first. Disposable chopsticks are better at grabbing food, because they are rougher, than are permanent and washable plastic or metal chopsticks you may want to buy after you get used to using them.
Basic Yakiniku
Serving a Yakiniku meal could not be easier. Simply choose what you will offer, slice it, and present it raw at table to be cooked by the diners on the centrally placed electric grill.
Choose from chicken, beef, lamb, pork and solid fish or shrimp. Slice meats into pieces that will cook in a very few minutes on the grill, no more than 1/4 inch thick at most. Small or large scallops can be used whole; the large ones, when cooked, can be halved with chopstick pressure. Shrimp can be used whole, after being peeled and de-veined. Solid fish should be slices as thinly as possible and still hold together.
Choose almost any fresh vegetable, depending on how you slice it--literally--except soft ones such as avocado. Provide a selection of different textures and colors, but at least three different vegetables.
Here are possibilities and cutting instructions:
- Carrot--Cut on the bias for larger slices, but slice thin.
- Cherry or baby tomatoes, halved.
- Thin green beans, trimmed.
- Yellow or red onions, peeled and quartered.
- Cauliflower and broccoli florets if small, or half florets.
- Baby asparagus, bottoms trimmed.
- Baby corn.
- Zucchini, sliced on the bias. Peel or not, as you prefer.
- Red, green or yellow pepper, de-seeded and cut into half-inch strips.
- Snow peas or sugar snap peas.
Community cooking
Each diner chooses a few items to place on the grill. Generally, vegetables will take twice as long a meat or fish. However, be sure to cook the pork and chicken well. Caveat: Provide one set of tongs for removing chicken and pork from the plate of raw slices and placing on the grill, and another for removing the cooked chicken or pork in order to avoid contamination. With the other meats, having two distinct sets of tongs is arguably less crucial.
As foods finish cooking, each diner removes them from the grill and places on a few more choices. Then the first choices are eaten, either plain or with rice or dipped in a sauce.
You can provide a dipping sauce as simple as soy sauce alone, or you can enhance the soy sauce with garlic powder, crushed ginger root or a bit of chili paste. Or buy an Asian dipping sauce such as plum sauce or sweet & sour sauce.
If you provide rice, white short-grain rice is preferable as it sticks together better for chopstick use.
Added value: Marinate
You can marinate the meats or fish in any favorite flavor you choose before slicing to cook, or use a rub. A simple lemon-oil-cilantro marinade would work well with shrimp or white fishes. Try a mustard or horseradish rub for salmon. Chicken does well marinated in a flavorful viniagrette. Try a garlic rub on lamb or pork. Beef favors strong flavors, like abundant pepper. Following is a great marinade to make Yakiniku beef both more flavorful and more tender.
Asian Pepper Marinade
Mix together equal portions of purchased Asian pepper sauce, soy sauce, mild olive oil or grapeseed oil and honey. Because this marinade clings, you will need only about one TBS of each ingredient per half pound of beef, and you won't have to turn it if you coat both sides to begin with.
Marinate your choices for an hour up to a day in the fridge before using.
How much to serve?
Determine how much you will need by the appetites of those who will dine. However, for an average couple, a half pound of meat and a dozen large shrimp, for example, are sufficient protein. Several slices of each of three or four vegetables per person should suffice, or perhaps a bit more if you choose to forgo rice.
