Stir-fry meat and vegetable is the best way to use up leftover ingredients from the fridge. It doesn’t need exact measurements of ingredients and seasonings. Add whatever on hand and stir-fry together, and that will always work. For example, if you don’t have Asparagus, use broccoli or brown onion. One of the seasonings used for the dish was oyster sauce. It has touch of sweetness already, but you could add some honey or sugar if you like. Mix and match, and enjoy!
Beef Shigureni is a great side dish you can make ahead. This strongly seasoned beef can be kept in the fridge up to a week. Perfect for lunch and busy weekday dinners when you want one more thing.
Nikumaki Onigiri is a rice ball wrapped with thinly sliced beef and cooked in sweet soy sauce. Although it’s still called Onigiri, Nikumaki Onigiri is a more substantial and satisfying meal than normal Onigiri which is usually wrapped in Roasted Seaweed.
Pan-Fried Roast Beef is an easy way to make roast beef with a smaller size of meat, actually the size of a steak. Cooking is done in a frying pan in a much shorter time than traditional roast beef cooked in the oven. Pan-Fried Roast Beef is a great dish for anytime, but it is particularly good for a more special day like New Year’s Osechi.
Niku Udon is Udon noodle soup with beef (Niku=meat), but don’t let the name deceive you. It is not just throwing sliced beef into the soup, but there is more to it. The beef topping, to be placed on regular Udon noodle soup, is cooked in sweet and salty seasonings and punched up with ginger. This beef could even be a wonderful dish without Udon. Niku Udon looks quite simple and, in fact, it is not so hard to make, but the flavor combination of noodles, soup, and the cooked meat is surprisingly but intentionally complicated and delicious.
Teppanyaki is grilled meat and vegetables prepared on a flat Teppanyaki iron grill. The meat used in this dish is usually beef although not exclusively, and it is similar to or sometimes interchangeable with Yakiniku, grilled beef often cooked on a slotted grill. Most often Teppanyaki is eaten with a garlicky spicy dipping sauce or simple salt. Teppanyaki can be enjoyed as a regular dinner for a family but it’s also great as a party food for bigger crowds.
Japanese Beef Steak is very close to western steaks except for the sauce. The sauce is a soy sauce based sauce, a little bit like Teriyaki sauce but maybe less sweet. Even though Japanese people typically don’t eat big steaks as often as people in the US, the dish is still one of their favorites.
Beef Roll Up with Vegetables is pan-fried beef that is rolled up with vegetables inside. It is a great beef dish for dinner and also stays tasty cold in the lunch box.
Shabu Shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ) is a Japanese hot pot dish, Nabemono, with paper-thin sliced beef. It is cooked at the dinner table using a portable gas stove and we eat it as we cook. There are a lot of Shabu Shabu speciality restaurants in Japan, but you can prepare it at home too. The single most important ingredient of the dish is beef. If you can get good quality meat, the rest is not hard at all.