Japanese Beef Rice Bowl

One of my favorite places to eat at is called Toku-Toku. It is a restaurant that specializes in udon dishes. They are all very unique and they are all very delicious but, my reason for going there isn’t for the udon bowls. They serve snow beef!. It sounds kind of weird, but the name actually makes sense. Snow beef is beef that is kept under thick snow, or a “Snow Room”, over the cold winter months and left for it to naturally age. Unlike meat that is kept in an electric freezer, meat that’s kept in these snow rooms can age slowly without the stress caused by the normal electric freezer, allowing the enzymes to help make the meat become softer.  This is an ancient technique of storage, that has been used for centuries in the snowy regions of Japan, like Niigata (famous for their snow beef/pork!).

But, don’t take this as meaning that you can start throwing meat outside during winter now- NOPE!. The “Snow Room” has to keep a stable temperature and humidity, in order for the meat to age properly. So, with all that being said, today’s recipe is INSPIRED by the snow beef bowl, that I love so much. In this recipe, I am just using normal beef, preferably the kind with high saturated fat. This goes perfectly over a bowl of white rice.

Beef bowl

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Add a tiny amount of oil and fry (low-medium heat) the garlic slices to a light golden brown. Set them aside in a little plate, for later.
2. Using the same frying pan, grill the beef and cook evenly on both sides. Use low-medium heat.
3. Prepare two bowls of rice.  Then take the beef and lay it evenly on top of the rice.
4. Us a low heat setting. Add the water, sake, sesame oil and then the onion dressing into the pan and mix the sauce together for a couple of seconds. (you just want the mixture to be heated well). Turn off the heat.
5. Pour the sauce mixture evenly over the beef.
6. Add some of the fried garlic on top and finish everything off by adding some of the Japanese nigi in the center of the bowl, followed by some radish greens.

Enjoy!

If you can not find the pre-sliced beef, you can cut the meat yourself. Look for beef with high-fat content.