KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 – Some weekends we just feel like putting in a little bit more effort in our cooking. Spending more time in the kitchen can be a meditative affair.
That’s one way of seeing things.
The truth is that sometimes it can get expensive dining out every weekend. Dropping by a Japanese restaurant for your favourite soft-shell crab temaki or big bento set with the whole works can get pricey real fast.
Speaking of bento sets, one of my favourite bento staples is the traditional Japanese beef rolls known as negimaki. I don’t see this as often in Malaysia, but they are common in Tokyo and Kyoto.
It was in Kyoto some years ago that I learned how to make negimaki from a Japanese cooking teacher. She explained it as basically julienned vegetables wrapped in thinly sliced beef and cooked with a glaze similar to teriyaki sauce.
Comfort food the Japanese would cook at home or enjoy chilled as part of a bento set. And easy enough to make at home yourself. Do give this a try!
NEGIMAKI (JAPANESE BEEF ROLLS)
Now, this dish is called negimaki due to the usage of negi (Welsh onion, a type of scallion). I’m not too fond of its intense aroma here, however.
It’s meant to balance the strong flavours of meat but I like my beef to taste, well, beefy. Consider this a version of negimaki without the negi (Calling it Japanese beef rolls seems the safest route for the pedants).
For the vegetable "stuffing”, I have used julienned sticks of carrots and green beans. Other popular ingredients include young asparagus when they are in season or small bunches of enoki mushrooms.
This is a fairly straightforward recipe. The only thing I would note is to make sure you roll the paper-thin beef into tight cylinders; loose beef rolls may fall apart when you sauté them.
One hack I have found to help is to roll tightly using cling wrap. It’s sort of an easier version of using bamboo sushi rolling mats when making makizushi. (More hygienic too, as you’re wrapping raw meat before cooking the rolls.)
For the finishing glaze (a basic version of teriyaki sauce), the Japanese cooking teacher I learned this recipe from used a mix of sake and mirin. I don’t always have either/both at hand in my pantry but I have found Shaoxing rice wine to be a stellar replacement.
The resultant flavour might be stronger – I’d say it’s more aromatic – but if you’re a fan of stronger flavours as I am, then this shouldn’t be an issue.
In fact, it might very well be an unexpected plus. Work with what you have.
Ingredients
100ml sake
100ml mirin
100ml soy sauce
4 tablespoons sugar
200g beef, thinly sliced
1 carrot, parboiled and julienned
4 green beans, parboiled and julienned
1 tablespoon potato starch
Neutral cooking oil
Method
Add the sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar to a saucepan. Boil the mixture over medium heat, stirring continuously until the sugar is dissolved.
When the mixture has come to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Once the teriyaki sauce has thickened, pour into a clean container and set aside to cool.
Spread a large piece of cling wrap over your cutting board, wide enough to cover it. Next, place two slices of the beef on the cling wrap, allowing each slice to overlap the other slightly.
Place some of the julienned carrot and green beans on one end of the beef. Roll the beef forward, ensuring the carrot and green beans are tightly wrapped inside the beef.
Once complete, you can unroll the cling wrap back on the cutting board. Set the beef roll aside on a plate and repeat the steps until all the beef are used up. (You might have some leftover julienned vegetables.)
Lightly dust the beef rolls with some potato starch. This will help prevent the beef rolls from sticking to the bottom of the pan as well as tenderise the meat further.
Heat a little cooking oil in a saucepan over medium high heat. Depending on the size of your pan, place 2-3 beef rolls in the pan, making sure each is spaced apart so they do not stick to each other.
Sauté the beef rolls on one side for a few minutes before flipping to cook the other side. Once both sides are nearly cooked, pour the teriyaki sauce onto the beef rolls.
Allow the sauce to reduce further, acting as a finishing glaze for the beef rolls. Once the sauce has thickened, turn off the heat and transfer the beef rolls to a cutting board.
When the beef rolls have cooled enough to slice but are still warm, cut each roll into bite-size chunks. Serve immediately with hot steamed white rice.
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