Japan — sukiyaki was created in the Meiji period (1870s) following the government's lifting of the Buddhist prohibition on eating four-legged animals in 1872. The first sukiyaki restaurants opened in Yokohama and Tokyo, catering to both Western-influenced Japanese and foreign visitors. The dish became a symbol of Japan's modernisation — beef was 'civilised' Western food, prepared in traditional Japanese style.
Sukiyaki (すき焼き) is the Japanese table-cooked beef dish in which thin slices of wagyu beef are cooked in a shallow iron pan (sukiyaki nabe) with a sweet, intense broth of soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar (warishita, 割り下), alongside tofu, negi (fat green onion), shirataki noodles, mushrooms, and leafy greens, then dipped in raw beaten egg (tamago, 卵) before eating. The flavour is deeply sweet-savoury — the warishita is one of Japanese cooking's most intensely flavoured preparations — and the raw egg creates a rich, unctuous coating that both mellows the beef's sweetness and adds an incomparable richness. Sukiyaki is considered a celebration or special occasion dish — the best versions use A5 wagyu and are prepared tableside by a restaurant server.
Sukiyaki's flavour is one of Japanese cooking's most intense — the warishita sauce is aggressively sweet, savoury, and deeply coloured, soaking into every ingredient it contacts. The wagyu beef, dipped briefly in the sweet-soy sauce and then in raw egg, delivers a layered experience: first the egg's richness coats the tongue; then the beef's sweetness and fat; then the warishita's soy-mirin depth as an afterthought. The contrast between the pure, rich beef and the intense sauce is the dish's defining tension — too much sauce overwhelms, too little leaves the beef underseasoned.
Two regional styles: Kantō (Tokyo) — add the warishita sauce to the pan before adding ingredients; more standardised, more controllable. Kansai (Osaka/Kyoto) — sear the beef in the bare pan first (no sauce), add sake and soy and sugar directly, then add warishita; more theatrical, requires more skill. Warishita ratio: soy sauce 100ml : mirin 100ml : sake 100ml : sugar 4 tbsp — combine and simmer to dissolve sugar. The dipping egg: beaten raw egg in an individual bowl; each ingredient is dipped before eating. The raw egg is NOT optional from a flavour perspective — it fundamentally changes the dish.
The correct order for Kansai sukiyaki: first sear 2–3 wagyu slices in the bare hot pan; they will release enough fat to lubricate. Add sake, then soy, then sugar directly onto the meat; turn the meat until glazed. Remove glazed meat; begin cooking vegetables in the remaining liquid. The glazed beef eaten at this point — before any warishita is added — is called 'tare-yaki' and is considered by many the finest moment of a sukiyaki meal. Adding konnyaku (devil's tongue) too early breaks down the warishita's seasoning balance — add it only after other components are cooked.
Using low-grade beef — sukiyaki's sweet-savoury intensity requires wagyu's fat marbling to balance the sweetness; lean beef produces a flat, overly sweet result. Not using raw egg — the egg is the critical textural and flavour element. Adding too many vegetables at once — the pan's sauce balance is disrupted by large additions; add components in stages.
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art — Shizuo Tsuji; Washoku — Elizabeth Andoh