Unadon

Grilled eel over rice in two layers, with the sauce split between the fish and the grain.

Fish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

• 2 grilled eel fillets, as for kabayaki
• 500 g hot Japanese rice
• 100 ml tare
• 1 teaspoon sansho pepper
• 2 tablespoons kizami nori
• 4 slices kimizu pickle

Method

1. THE KABAYAKI PAGE IS THE EEL and is not repeated here: the splitting, the boning, the three bastings over charcoal all live there. This page is the BOWL, and a bowl is a real decision -- almost everything that goes wrong with unadon goes wrong after the eel comes off the grill.
2. TWO LAYERS, NOT ONE. Half the rice, a piece of eel, the rest of the rice, then the second piece on top. Served as one slab on a single bed, the rice underneath stays plain and the bowl tastes of nothing halfway down.
3. SPLIT THE SAUCE THE SAME WAY. A spoonful of tare over the first layer of rice, then the rest brushed over the eel on top. Sauce poured only over the fish runs off and pools at the bottom.
4. RICE STRAIGHT FROM THE POT AND VERY HOT, unlike every sushi dish on this site. The heat from below is what keeps the eel soft and its fat liquid; on cool rice the fat sets and the skin goes waxy.
5. LID ON FOR TWO MINUTES before it goes to the table. The trapped steam warms the eel through from underneath without cooking it further.
6. WARM THE EEL, NEVER RE-GRILL IT. If it has cooled, a covered minute in a low oven or a splash of sake and a lidded pan. Back over the flame and the flesh tightens and dries.
7. Tare should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Thin, it soaks the rice to porridge.
8. Cut the fillets to the width of the bowl so each spoonful gets rice and eel together.
9. SANSHO, NOT SHICHIMI. The numbing citrus pepper is there specifically to cut the fat, and chilli does not do that job.
10. Kizami nori over the top and the pickle on the side of the bowl, not in it.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes