Do-It-Yourself Teppanyaki

On May 9th I shared a Fried Rice Recipe with you that included an amazing sauce. Many years ago, our dear friends, the Valenzuela's, had us for dinner and served us a Japanese meal that centered around food cooked on a griddle in the middle of the table. It was accompanied by The Sauce. Here's the recipe and pictures of us sharing the meal with my in-laws.

The Sauce

Ingredients:

½ C soy sauce
½” of ginger, sliced
¼ C water
1 t. sesame seeds
½ C brown sugar
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 drops Tabasco

Boil these ingredients for 1 min., then strain and serve as a dipping sauce. (Can be doubled.) Serve with white rice.

Heat a griddle and spread with margarine. Cook cook raw beef, skinless chicken breast, scallops, shrimp, Napa cabbage, bean sprouts, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, Chinese eggplant and peppers.

Recipe Given By: Sofia Valenzuela/Jon Sugimoto

We try to keep the shrimp and scallops to the outside so they don't get overdone and the chicken right down the middle where the griddle is hottest. Napa cabbage lays across the cooked meat or vegetables and wilts as it steams.

Here's what our table layout looks like. We keep the raw meat separate from the vegetables. You can see Katie in the background taking photos for the blog.

This photo shows our place settings. We each have a small bowl of rice and a small bowl of the dipping sauce. The margarine is on hand in case the food begins to stick. Most of the vegetables taste better with a little margarine coating the cooking surface anyway. We try to have forks to turn the food and chopsticks to eat with, but when it's family we don't follow that rule strictly.

This is a do-it-yourself teppanyaki meal.

Japanese: teppan (griddle) + yaki (broiling).

douzo omeshiagari kudasai (Japanese: Enjoy your meal!)