I’m not really sure what to call these! They are closer to sushi than to nuggets. Like a pinwheel that has been sizzled on a grill. Beef and veggies rolled up and slightly kissed by the grill. Our grill isn’t their grill. The street vendors had these charcoal grills that use a specific kind of charcoal. The grills are square and have a basket kind of thing that holds the coals up close to the food. Binchotan is made from a specific tree, the Ubame oak. It is known for it’s high carbon content which allows it to burn longer and more cleanly letting the food shine. I am not yet the proud owner of one of these but it’s on my wish list! The charcoal has to be imported so it is fairly expensive.
Okinawa is a beautiful island. Oceans and Mountains. Typhoons and cave jumping. Pineapple wine and street food. Fish on every menu. The most beautiful fresh seafood everywhere. I am not a fan of seafood. I spent 3 years eating noodles, yakitori and these beef rolls. Once a week I would take the baby out to dinner at Kadena Marina. They always gave us a water side table and we ordered pretty much the same thing every time. We started with soup and salad, baby shrimp bisque for her and a Caesar salad for me. Dinner was garlic chicken pasta for me and fish nuggets for the baby. It was our waitress who told me where I could find the street vendor who made these meat rolls. He was down an alley outside of a bar that didn’t really serve the tourists. That bar ended up being my spot. Those rolls changed my food life. I hadn’t thought about them in ages. We had a family date at a sushi place and I was reminded about them. Challenge accepted!
I was kind of making things up as I went along. Back then I didn’t speak enough Japanese to get a recipe or ingredients. I have since made it a point to eat all of the food and try all of the sauces and spices. I found a website that has Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Mexican products. My first couple of shops were blind. I searched the basic name of what I was looking for and ordered their top 3. Soy sauce, black vinegar, Chinese cooking wine, katsu sauce, Korean BBQ sauce, miso, pepper flakes, black garlic, rice vinegar, mirin, we tried 3 of everything! We also shopped our way thru our local Asian market. I tasted the stuff I have on hand and I found two that I thought were close. A dark mushroom kind of soy sauce and a sweet soy sauce. I had mirin and sake as well. I didn’t use measurements, just kind of mixed them together until I had something that tasted familiar.
I’m sure that the street chef used a specific cut of meat but again, I didn’t ask. I decided to use the super thin sliced rib-eye I had found at the Asian market. I usually use it in pho, its so thin the broth cooks it almost instantly. It had to be thin enough to use as a wrapper so it was perfect.
I put the meats in a zip lock with the sauce and let it marinate for about 4 hours.
Scallions are one of my favorite onions. They are the perfect topping for just about everything. They can be cooked into anything. They are just so light and crispy and perfect. The combination of the super thin beef and scallions is a tiny bomb of flavor.
For building the rolls, I used 2 slices of the beef slightly overlapping and 3 scallions cut in half. Cut off the root end and trim the tops so when they are cut they are roughly the same length. I used two of the halves that had the white part of the onion and one of the all green tops. The sturdiness of the white end was crucial for roll integrity. Once I had all the rolls assembled I used butchers twine to tie then closed. After the roll cooks it will get cut either in half or in thirds. Keeping this in mind I positioned the twine so it would be in the middle of the bites. If I had cooked these on the grill I could have used toothpicks or a skewer to hold them closed.
With the thin meat these rolls don’t take long to cook. With the onion in the middle they need a bit of time to cook. I should have cut the scallions in half so they would cook faster but that wasn’t what I remembered. I built the rolls and put them back in the marinade. The salt and acid and joy worked on softening the onions up a bit. I set my skillet on medium high and added a teaspoon of canola oil just so the meats wouldn’t stick. These only took minutes to cook. I gave them about 45 seconds on each side. I had two batches so while I did the second batch I put a piece of foil over the first ones to keep them warm.
After the rolls were cooked I put the marinade in the skillet so it could turn into a glaze kind of thing. I was tempted to just drizzle the marinade over the cooked rolls but it had raw meat in it. I wanted to serve tasty food not e-coli. When they were all rested I sliced them into one bite bits and snipped the string off. I let the “glaze” simmer until it was reduced by about a third before I drizzled it over the bites.
I got real close. The meat was tender and juicy, the onions got soft and almost sexy. The marinade I concocted was close but not quite it. I also got side tracked by thinking of what else I could put in them. I am still thinking about what I could put in them instead of the marinade. I don’t even need a marinade, I need a baste. Thinking back, that man brushed the rolls with sauce, he didn’t have a marinade. Or maybe he did? I will never know for certain. I do know that what I made up came out great. I have three ideas about how to make them differently which will also be great, hopefully.
Let’s take a minute for those ideas. No longer than they take to cook, cream cheese could go in with the onions. It could be a miso and ponzu sauce marinade/baste. I have this garlic and ginger paste that could me used like a spread. Make the meat wrapper, spread the garlic and ginger, place the scallions and roll. Might need a pinch of salt or MSG for the meat to be at it’s best. They don’t even have to be Asian! Mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes on the inside, garlic butter on the outside. Feta and olives on the inside, Greek seasonings on the outside with a tzatziki dip. So that was like six ideas! Those are just about what I have right this minute in the pantry, y’all probably have other things. So many possibilities! Go forth and creat
Embrace your kitchen! Let your taste buds be your guide! Have adventures in your own house!
Ali's Kitchen 