How To Make Yoshinoya Gyudon.
How To Make Yoshinoya Gyudon.
The intrinsic value of a bowl of Yoshinoya gyudon is not the actual dish, just like how the value of a bottle of coke isn’t the actual drink. We don’t drink coca cola for the taste of sugar, or phosphoric acid v. caramel (E150d). We drink it for the image of youth, summer, tank tops with flat tummy, sweaty men with six packs. That ‘pshhh-aaaah’ sound effect when you pull the ring out.
The significance of a bowl of Yoshinoya gyudon is the fact that you can walk in the restaurant anytime of the day, and get a fresh, ‘home made’ protein and carbs for 448 yen.
It’s the bare minimum one has to pay to be in a restaurant. You want to sit at the counter of a Yoshinoya to feel like you're part of the engine that is building a nation. You're important, you're busy, and you need sustenance. It is the right of being a Japanese.
For every teenager buying a Big Mac; there’s a salaryman ordering two gyudons in Japan.
That’s why 'homemade Yoshinoya gyudon' is an exercise of contradiction.
You can’t replicate that feeling at home.
You won't. You don’t want to. Why?
Even my mother-in-law, a grandmother in the suburbiest of suburb of Japan, just buys the frozen pre-made packs and heats them up in the microwave with rice.
But for foreigners, Yoshinoya is quote unquote, gourmet.
In true gaijin fashion, non-Japanese fetishizes the gyudon.
We need to get wagyu, we need to get the expensive soy sauce, organic onions, the best koshihikari rice …
*Vomits in mouth* emoji.
Come on man, it’s a $5 dish.
Your gyudon failed because you took it too seriously.
Here’s the full breakdown of ingredients:
Beef (Produced in the United States, Canada, or Australia), sauce (domestically produced) containing grape fermentation seasoning, soy sauce, sugar, soy-based processed products, and other ingredients, onions (produced in China, Japan or the United States, seasoning (amino acids, etc.), caramel coloring, acidulant, spices extract, emulsifier. Contains wheat, beef, soybeans, apples, and gelatin in some portions.
All this, is public information, on their homepage.
ChatGPT just translated it for me.
Yoshinoya gyudon uses American beef. Sometimes Canada, mixed with Australian. The cut of beef is ‘short plate’, which is their バラ肉 belly, maybe skirt steak in Australia?
Their onions are from China.
There’s white wine in their sauce.
Get it?
Yoshinoya’s gyudon is no different from Old El Paso from the supermarket.
Alas, ChatGPT could not tell me how to actually make the gyudon.
For that I had to type in some hiraganas online and watch a couple of YouTube videos, but here’s the recipe:
250ml dashi
50g usukuchi soy sauce
50g mirin
25g sugar
50g apple juice (again, the nasty ones; not the hipster cloudy apple juice)
50g white wine
Small pinch of white pepper, salt, MSG, soy sauce
250g of thinly sliced beef - chuck, hanger, skirt. Asian groceries will have the shabu-shabu ones for hot pot. If not, freeze a piece of steak for an hour, then thinly slice with a sharp knife.
1 onion (or as many as you’d like)
Bring everything to boil, add onions, then add sliced beef.
Keep boiling on medium heat for 10 minutes. Skim off the scum if you can be bothered.
Serve on rice.
That’s it.
Soy sauce, sugar, mirin, apple juice and white wine.
The most anti-climatic recipe you’ll ever read this year.
One thing I did learn, or shall I say unlearn, is how to cut the onions.
I usually cut them across the grain, because I’m making mirepoix or Japanese curry, I need them to break down and caramelise as soon as possible. When I do that with my oyakodon or gyudon or katsudon my onions shrivel into a hot mess, leaving me with a frustrated fist in the air: It must be the Japanese onion! These Australian onions suck!
*Vomits in shame* emoji
So, no. The point is to cut along the grain.
That way, you can boil the shit out of the onions and they’ll still hang on like your 40-year-old son in the basement that refuses to move out.
This gyudon surprised my wife.
Anyone in a relationship over ten years involving children and mortgage will attest that it's very, very rare for your spouse to exhibit genuine joy.
To hear her say the gyudon was ‘unbelievably good’ is akin to, I don't know, when your cowboy boyfriend said he wishes he could quit you, or when the only thing your dying dad kept in his safe was the windmill toy he bought for you on your 7th birthday, or when your crush drew you a boarding pass on a piece of tissue paper in her Cathay Pacific uniform, when your mentor said ‘come on, stop trying to hit me and hit me’ during a virtual training,
and you did.