Impress anyone with this delicious Gyudon recipe

Read Now and learn how to make Gyudon, tender thin sliced beef cooked in an umami rich broth over rice with savory onions and gobo.

I created this recipe in memory of my time spent cooking in Japan in 2017. On my days off when I didn’t get makani (family meal) at the restaurant, I’d walk through the Gion to a Matsuya, a chain restaurant in Japan. My order ticket that I purchased from the ticket vending machine was always the same, the regular sized ¥380 gyudon with a side of miso soup. I’ll always remember pushing the button to open the automatic sliding glass door separating the bustling Kyoto crowd to a quiet meal.

Read through the instructions and most importantly the PRO TIPS and notes at the end before you go shopping and start cooking. Reading everything will help you finish faster and prevent mistakes that could make the dish more challenging or frustrating to cook.

Recipe

Feeds: 5 / 20 min prep time / 25 min cook time

• 3 cups / 750 ml Dashi
• ½ cup / 130 ml Mirin (sweet rice wine)
• ¼ cup / 70 ml Soy sauce
• 3 tsp / 13 g Sugar
• 2 tsp / 4 g Ginger
• 1 tsp / 5 ml Cooking oil
• ⅓ lb / 150 g Gobo (burdock root) about ½ a large root
• ¾ lb / 325 g Onion about 2 large onions
• 2 lb / 900 g Thin sliced beef Chuck roll (Sukiyaki style beef)
• 4 Green onions (only green tops)
• 5 Onsen egg
• Salt to taste
• Short grain white rice

Substitutes

• Gobo makes for a richer broth, but if you can’t find gobo, you can omit this ingredient and add more onion.
• If you can’t find mirin, you can use sake with 2 teaspoons of sugar instead.

Simple instructions

1. Season the beef with a thin layer of salt about 1–2 hrs before you plan to eat and bring the beef up to room temperature.
2. In a pot with a little bit of oil, saute your grated gobo for 3 minutes. Then add the thin sliced onions and cook for 5 more minutes and season everything with some salt.
3. Pour in the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. Bring the pot up to a boil then bring it down to a simmer for 5 minutes. Check the taste and either reduce the broth a bit more to concentrate the flavor or add more soy sauce, salt, or sugar.
4. Mix in all of the beef and simmer it until it’s cooked.
5. To make your bowl, scoop a portion of rice into the bottom of your bowl and gently flatten out the rice without smashing it. Using a ladle, spoon some of the broth over the rice along with some onion and gobo. Next, cover the entire surface of the bowl with beef. Then place your onsen egg that’s been cracked out of its shell in the center. To finish, sprinkle some green onions on the beef and put a pinch of salt over your onsen egg.

Detailed Instructions

Follow the links to learn how to make Dashi, Onsen egg, and Rice.

Season the beef with a thin layer of salt about 1–2 hrs before you plan to eat and bring the beef up to room temperature. Seasoning the beef early ensures the salt penetrates through the beef and doesn’t dilute the flavor of the finished broth when you combine them at the end.

Next peel the onion and slice it in half through the root end. This will give you two halves of an onion. Lay the flat side down and start cutting from the opposite side of the root end. Slice thin strips which can easily separate into individual strands.

Wash the gobo and peel the outside skin using a peeler. Then use a box grater to grate the gobo directly into a bowl of water. If you don’t put the gobo into a bowl of water immediately after grating, the gobo will oxidize, changing its color and taste. After you finish grating the gobo, if the water looks slightly red or brown, change out the water and leave the gobo submerged until you’re ready to cook.

Thinly slice the washed green onion tops and keep them in a separate bowl to garnish the finished dish. Save the white base for another dish or plant it outside to have green onions all year round. Assuming you have nice weather and a place to garden.

Thoroughly strain and dry your gobo so the oil doesn’t splatter when you add it to the pot.

In a medium sized pot on medium to medium high heat, add the cooking oil and saute the grated gobo for 3 minutes.

To the same pot, add the sliced onions and season everything with a little bit of salt. Saute the onions for 3–5 more minutes until the onion and gobo is soft and tender,

Add your dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar, ginger to the pot.

Bring the pot to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. Keep the pot on a simmer for about 5 minutes. During these 5 minutes, you’ll be evaporating the alcohol from the mirin and concentrating all the flavors while making sure the gobo and onion are fully cooked and tender.

Keep the pot on a low simmer, just high enough to cook the meat. Then add your beef and gently stir it around the pot so the beef doesn’t stick together. The longer your beef stays in the pot, the tougher it will get, so serve it immediately or take it off the heat.

Taste the finished dish to check the seasoning. Adjust it to your liking at this time.

To assemble the gyudon, scoop a portion of rice into the bottom of your bowl and gently flatten out the rice without smashing it. Using a ladle, spoon some of the broth over the rice along with some onion and gobo. Next, cover the rice entirely with beef. Then place your onsen egg that’s been cracked out of its shell in the center. To finish, sprinkle some green onions on the beef and put a pinch of salt over your onsen egg.

Pro tips

• Read through the recipe and instructions thoroughly before you begin cooking. This will help you visualize the process before you begin and hopefully make cooking easier.
• When buying the thin sliced beef, the cut I get is the chuck roll or ribeye if they don’t have the former. Inspect the beef for marbling, little bits of fat scattered throughout the meat. The marbling will help keep the meat tender and juicy, so pick the meat with the best marbling.
• Buy gobo imported from Japan (if possible). I find more often than not, gobo from Japan is usually less woody or fibrous than gobo grown elsewhere. If gobo grown outside of Japan is the only kind available, keep in mind you might have to cook it longer.
• When sauteing vegetables, always add a little bit of salt because it helps draw moisture out of the vegetable. The vegetable will also absorb the salt and taste better when the dish is finished. Adjust the amount of salt added to fit your taste. Just keep in mind more seasoning will be added later.
• If you add unseasoned meat to a perfectly seasoned broth, what happens? The balance will be thrown off and the taste of the dish will change. This is why you need to season the beef with a little bit of salt to maintain the balance and make sure the meat tastes good. Try some beef with and without the added salt. I’m sure you’ll notice a difference.
• To add onto the previous tip, when plating, you’ll be pouring everything over plain white rice. If you add a perfectly seasoned broth and meat to the rice, the overall dish might taste underwhelming. Keep this in mind and add more salt, soy sauce, or sugar as needed before serving so the finished product is something you’re happy with. Everything is about balance.
• Dip your beef individually into the sauce to cook it medium to medium well, removing it immediately. I like doing this because the meat is more tender and won’t overcook sitting in the pot.
• Keep in mind that you’ll have to leave the heat on if you dip each individual piece of meat. This will slowly evaporate more liquid from your pot and concentrate the flavor. This can quickly make your broth too salty, so either add a little bit of extra dashi to balance the flavor or keep a lid on the pot at a very low temperature so the broth doesn’t evaporate.

Notes

• “Follow the Recipe.” A quote from Colette in one of my favorite movies, Ratatouille, is advice I’d like to give, but also expand on. I think it’s important to follow the recipe, but I think it’s more important to think of the recipe as a guideline. All the ingredients could be the same but each ingredient tastes different. For example, a carrot I buy at the store isn’t going to taste or be exactly the same carrot you will buy at the store. Different brands, farmers, and processing techniques means each dish you make following this recipe may taste slightly different than mine. In this case it’s important to adjust the seasoning to suit your taste and not get too focused on following the recipe exactly. I’m sharing this recipe hoping you’ll attempt to make it and adjust it to make it your own. That’s real cooking, not following the recipe to a T.
• It might also be helpful to consider all cooking times and temperatures as guidelines as well. Everyone always wants to know exactly how long to cook something, but the honest answer is always “It depends.” Every heat source is different, induction, gas, electric, open fire, with varying strengths and designs. Different pots, pans, and tools means there are infinite variables to calculate the exact “time” it takes to cook something. This being the case, it’s important to use the cooking time and temperature suggested as a reference (unless explicitly stated) and equally important to adjust the timing and temperature so you can achieve the best result. Eventually your intuition from experience will tell you when something’s done, or in the case of checking proteins, sometimes a thermometer.
• Always taste your food. How can you tell if something is tasty without checking it first? Well, unless you’re a magician, the answer is, it’s impossible. So, always taste your food as you go and definitely check before you serve or eat it. If the flavor isn’t right, adjust the flavor and seasoning until it is.