Unagi Don
Lacquered grilled eel over rice, sweet and smoky and faintly luxurious for something that takes a quarter of an hour. Vacuum-packed pre-grilled eel is what most Japanese home kitchens use too, so no guilt required.
- Total time
- 15 min
- Serves
- 2
- Effort
- Easy
What you need
Written for 2 — nudge the counter and the numbers follow.
0 of 8 in the basket.
How you make it
Simmer the soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar in a small pan over medium heat for 5 minutes until reduced by about a third and syrupy enough to coat a spoon.
Rinse any packing jelly off the eel fillets under warm water and pat them completely dry.
Lay the fillets skin-side down on a foil-lined tray and grill under a hot broiler for 3 minutes.
Brush generously with the sauce and grill for another 2 to 3 minutes, brushing twice more, until the glaze bubbles and the fish is hot all the way through and flakes easily.
Spoon a little sauce over the hot rice in two bowls, lay the eel on top whole or sliced, and finish with more sauce, the shredded nori and a pinch of sansho.
Read all that and thought “absolutely not”?
Completely fair. Unagi Don is sitting in the Japanese kitchen right now, it costs nothing, and it will never arrive.
Order it insteadMore from the Japanese kitchen
Quiet, precise, and secretly the coziest food there is.