Making Japanese Yakiniku at Home & New Zealand Grass Fed Wagyu Flat Iron Steak

During our two recent holidays to Japan, we discovered a real love for yakiniku.*

I was determined to recreate this indoor barbecue experience at home. But there were obstacles: no smokeless charcoal; no indoor barbecue container; no working extractor fan in the kitchen (it died and we’ve not had it fixed); and it can be tricky to find the kind of tender and beautifully marbled beef that is prevalent in Japan.

The first two, I decided to ignore. The third too, though we opened the large kitchen window as wide as it would go. And Provenance Butcher came to the rescue on the fourth.

Founded by a team of three Kiwis and a Brit, this Nottinghill-based butcher’s shop opened just eight months ago. None of the founders have a background in the butchery business – Erin, Guy and Tom grew up on farms in New Zealand and Brit Struan gave up a career in marketing to retrain as a butcher a few years ago – but all four are committed to sourcing and supplying top quality meat. The team have a deep love for 100% grass fed beef, which they currently source from New Zealand wagyu herds. These cattle spend their entire lives outdoors, eat a natural grass diet and are not given growth promoters, hormones or antibiotics. The meat is broken into sub-primal cuts at a New Zealand processing plant, vacuum-packed and transported to the UK by boat. It’s chilled rather than frozen, so further wet-ages during the six week journey. Here, it’s butchered into individual cuts, ready for the customer. Of course, Provenance also sell lamb, pork and chicken and this they source in the UK; the lamb comes from two British farms, one in North Yorkshire and the other in Wales; two fourth-generation farming brothers in Staffordshire supply free range pork and chicken.

When they asked if I’d like to try their New Zealand wagyu I figured it would be perfect for my yakiniku experiment.

One of the cuts they sent was Flat Iron. According to this 2012 article in The Wall Street Journal, Flat Iron is filleted out of the chuck. Care must be taken to avoid a line of tough connective tissue running through the top blade of the shoulder area and, as there are only two such steaks in each cow, many butchers don’t bother, hence the cut is not that widely available. In the UK, it’s more traditionally known as Butler’s Steak or Feather Blade; the Aussies and Kiwis call it Oyster Blade.

Regardless of what name it goes by, it’s a very tender cut that is perfectly suited to being cooked rare or medium rare.

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When our Provenance wagyu Flat Iron arrived, we were hugely impressed at the deep colour and beautiful marbling of fat.

Pete sliced this 500 gram piece thinly across the grain. I arranged some of the slices on a plate and the rest I submerged in a bowl of miso yakiniku marinade (see recipe, below).

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As well as the marinade, we had three sauces in which to dip cooked meat – some beaten raw egg (with a few drops of soy mixed in), a goma (sesame) dipping sauce and another yakiniku sauce I made with dark soy sauce, sesame oil, shichimi (seven spice powder), sugar, fresh ginger and garlic.

The raw egg dip didn’t add much (I was way too stingy with the soy) and my yakiniku dipping sauce just wasn’t very balanced – way too much sesame oil and soy, not enough sugar, ginger and garlic. We quickly discarded these as failed experiments.

Our favourites proved to be the miso yakiniku marinade (which we dunked beef into before cooking) and the goma sauce (which we dipped the non-marinaded strips of beef into once cooked). We bought our goma sauce back from Japan; it’s Mizkan brand, a Japanese vinegar and condiments producer and available online from Japan Centre.

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Vegetable wise, we had some thin spring onions, mild long peppers (from our local Turkish grocery store) and thinly sliced sweet potato. We’d meant to have mushrooms too, but forgot to buy them!

The sweet potato didn’t cook well, blackening on the outside before softening at all inside. It’s definitely a vegetable we’ve been served in Japanese yakiniku restaurants so I’m wondering if they par-cooked it first, though I hadn’t thought so at the time. Or perhaps some varieties of sweet potatoes are better suited than others? I am on the hunt for the answer!

The spring onions and peppers worked very well.

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We used a disposable barbecue, which Pete lit outside, and bought in once the worst of the initial smoke had died down. We placed it over some old cork boards on a folding garden table we’d set up in the kitchen. It worked well enough, and wasn’t as smoky as we’d feared (though the smell did linger in the house for several hours afterwards). But the main weakness was that the disposable barbecue didn’t generate the level of heat we needed for a sufficiently long time, which meant the last several items took too long to cook.

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Oops! It was only when Pete took the disposable barbecue back outside that we discovered this little scene underneath!

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All that said, I was utterly delighted with our first home yakiniku!

I was also hugely impressed with the New Zealand grass fed wagyu which was full of flavour and wonderfully melt-in-the-mouth because of its beautiful marbling.

For next time:

  • I want to find food-grade smokeless charcoal – the British brands I have found seem to be sold for use in fireplaces rather than barbeques. What I’d like to use is Japanese binchōtan, a white charcoal produced from Ubame oak steamed at high temperatures; it is prized for burning characteristics which include very little smoke, low temperatures and a long burning time. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty expensive.
  • I’ll need to source a small bucket barbecue that can safely be used indoors.
  • And perhaps a cast iron trivet or a concrete paving slab might fare better than our cork boards to protect our table from the heat of the barbecue; they did protect the table but didn’t survive themselves!
  • The miso yakiniku marinade was super but I need to find a better recipe for the yakiniku dipping sauce. I might investigate some other tasty dipping sauces too.
  • We definitely need more vegetables and I’ll need to think harder about which ones will work well and whether they need to be par-cooked ahead of time.

Miso Yakiniku Marinade

Ingredients

  • 100 ml light soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp miso
  • 3 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp garlic , grated or pureed
  • 1 tbsp ginger , grated or pureed
  • 1-2 tsp schichimi (Japanese seven spice mix) or a tsp of chilli powder
  • 1 tbsp cooking sake
  • 1 tbsp mirin or additional tbsp of sake plus a teaspoon of sugar

Recipe Notes

As we were using this as a marinade, the slightly runny texture suited us well. However, if you’d like a thicker yakiniku sauce, continue to heat gently to reduce and thicken.

Instructions

  • Mix all ingredients together.

  • Either heat gently in a saucepan or for 10 to 20 seconds in a microwave. This helps all the ingredients to melt and combine more easily.

  • Add sliced beef to marinade about 30 minutes before cooking.

* Read more about the history of yakiniku in Japan and what to expect at a yakiniku restaurant.

Kavey Eats received samples of New Zealand grass fed wagyu from Provenance Butchers.

Please leave a comment - I love hearing from you!
12 Comments to "Making Japanese Yakiniku at Home & New Zealand Grass Fed Wagyu Flat Iron Steak"

  1. Heather

    I am reading this whilst watching the Hairy Bikers cook Kobe beef and between this and them I am seriously hungry. The steak looks really good!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, they really had some wonderful opportunities didn’t they? Looked like such a fun trip!

    Reply
  2. Nicky Bramley

    This is cool, tempted to try. Let me know if and when you get a supplier of charcoal. Btw, bricks or breize blocks may be a better choice than cork! x

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, funnily enough I was coming back inside from back garden yesterday and noticed a lone brick sitting on the patio and though, doh, we should have just used a pair of bricks as the trivet!

    Do try and let me know how you get on! x

    Reply
  3. kaveyeats

    Yes and the mats were grimy anyway so I’d recently bought some new ones anyway!

    Reply
  4. Meemalee

    Gorgeous! I have yakiniku craving!

    Re the sweet potato – maybe it was kabocha squash? Very similar texture and flavour and appearance if chopped into chunks. That stuff barbecues really well.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Oh maybe so! Am growing some squashes this year (not kabocha though) but will try it and see!

    Reply
  5. shane

    I’m thinking of trying this in the rather fleeting Irish summer weather with a disposable tin barbecue like you described. Does it really not get hot enough? In that case I might cut the stuff thinner and try to reduce overall cooking time. Also – a few minutes in a microwave might prep the sweet potatoes a bit better – you could then coat in a bit of oil and grill just for marks and flavour?

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Shane, it’s hot enough when at its hottest but not hot for long enough to last the entire duration of a leisurely yakiniku meal. But give it a try, maybe have a second one to light and switch to part way through!!! Check your ventilation, though and your fire hazards!

    Reply
    shane

    I tried it mate – a trial run with some chicken fajita ingredients served up “yakiniku” style (which worked quite well as a premise!) Your point about the heat stands though – it’s not really hot enough to get a good sear over a sustained period and guests were left waiting quite a bit. Plus the first disposable BBQ that I used was a rather horrific pound shop one which ended up having to be repaced!

    If one wasn’t hell bent on charcoal flavour, I would imagine a portable gas stove and grill plate to be a much more practical option. Aside from that, you’re looking at building a small Japanese style grill.

    Thanks for the article!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yeah we thought about buying one of those raclette type table grills but no charcoal flavour there…

    Reply

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