I’m not vegan, but I do tend to veer towards more vegetables than meat lately. This week, I had my eye on trying out an interesting vegan take on a recipe from back home, but I realized the torch I owned didn’t work any more…so off I went to get an upgraded one, so I can “get my char on.” FIRRRRRREEEE!
A handheld torch is important in today’s recipe – I use it to get that proper, necessary char on a vegan unagi bowl. My mom was never a fan of eel – neither unagi nor anago – so it was something I didn’t really develop a taste for growing up in Japan (I suppose there’s something to be said for generational likes and dislikes when it comes to food).
But...eel sauce (known in Japan as kabayaki sauce, so named because grilled eel is referred to in Japan as unagi-no-kabayaki before it's turned into a bowl. Kabayaki is one of the Japanese methods of fish preparation, where the fish is butterflied and dipped in a sweet soy glaze before being put on a griddle or grill, and this style of cooking is synonymous with eel dishes back home). Ooh, that sauce is another matter (so tasty), so when I came across this viral recipe online that used eggplant instead of actual eel a few months ago, I totally had to give a few of the recipes a shot. This is the one that won out of the various tests I tried. In Japan, you can get unagi bowls in two ways: unagi-don (eel bowl) or unaju (layered unagi bowl). For this recipe, I made unaju, but you can easily just omit making this as layers and just make a simple unagi bowl.
The only difference between this being vegan and vegetarian is whether or not you use dashi stock in the braising liquid, so if you prefer to go full vegan, use a mushroom stock rather than dashi, which uses bonito flakes, to get that extra umami in. If you have a hard time finding mushroom stock, soak about 3-5 dehydrated shiitake mushrooms in some warm water for about an hour to extract the stock, and cook it down to a concentrate before adding it to the braising liquid. You’ll lose the “seafood” element that makes this reminiscent of eel, but it’s definitely not necessary.
I say this recipe takes about 15 minutes to make, but that’s for the eel itself. Most Japanese households have rice perpetually at the ready in our rice cookers; if you don’t, then add whatever time it takes to cook white rice to the overall cooking time. I’ve added a link below to the rice cooker I currently use; it’s a smaller size (3 cups), which is great for solo chefs.
I would definitely make this dish again; I also want to figure out the best way to do this using American eggplants, so expect an updated version down the line. I’m super glad I have this dish handy, if I ever have any vegetarian or vegan friends over for dinner. It’s absolutely tasty.
For an alternate Japanese dish using eggplant, check out:
Miso Eggplant: [ Ссылка ]
今日のレシピはなんと #茄子 を #うなぎ の代わりに使う #ベジタリアン 風の #うな重 です。結構簡単なレシピですので、うなぎが好まない方には是非一度試してもらいたい一品ですね。動画を見ながら作ってみて下さい 🥰
Vegan Unagi Bowl Ingredients:
1-2 Japanese eggplants (can substitute Chinese eggplants)
1 Tblsp Sake (not cooking sake, but definitely does not have to be the expensive stuff – I use Gekkeikan, which is a reliable sake for most cooking that you should be able to get at most American grocery stores with a liquor section)
1 Tblsp Soy Sauce
1 Tblsp Mirin
1 Tblsp Sugar (can substitute a granulated sugar substitute)
Potato Starch (can substitute cornstarch)
Vegetable Oil
Dashi Powder (optional, can substitute mushroom stock)
Culinary / Food-grade Torch
Steamed Japanese Short-Grain White Rice
Shredded Nori (dried seaweed)
Shichimi togarashi (optional)
Sansho powder (optional)
Detailed Instructions available at [ Ссылка ]
#KellyNakatomi #NakatomiTestKitchen #JapaneseHomeCooking #JapaneseFood #Vegan #VeganUnagiBowl #VeganUnaju #VeganEel
