Faux Unagi with Brown Rice

[mishalak]

½ Large Red Onion, Chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
1 ½ tablespoons honey

Cook brown rice, about ½ cup dry, with 1 cup water. Over low heat on a gas stove top it should be done in about 35 minutes if the rice is dumped into boiling water then turned down to a simmer.

Heat pan over high heat for about a minute and a half. Put in the olive oil, it should immediately form a few bubbles. Dump onion into pan, carefully so as not to splash the oil too much, don't want to burn yourself. Turn down to medium heat. Stir with spatula until onion is nearly cooked then add soy sauce and nutmeg. After a while add honey. Cook until quite dark and sticky. Deglaze pan with a little water and turn off heat. Almost all the water should evaporate. Serve over brown rice.

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Sounds good, and like something easy to try Real Soon Now. (Though I must note that during eight months spent in Japan -- well... call it three months; the rest of the time I was In The Army -- I never even once saw brown rice. But that was fifty years ago.) Non-faux unagi domburi in the traditional style -- which I've never found here in the States -- uses fresh fresh-water eel, isn't especially sweet, and tastes like ...errr... eel (a bit musty, as carp or catfish sometimes do).

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

The way I've usually had unagi is over rice with a sweet sauce, and very flavorful. The sauce is usually made as follows:

Ingredients:
1 cup of soy sauce
2/3-1 cup of mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/3 cup of sake (not sweet; optional)
Unagi head & bone

Directions:
If the unagi head & bone is uncooked, broil until brown and flavorful. Simmer sake/mirin over medium heat until no more alcohol comes off the pan, be careful as this can occasionally burst into flames if the fumes come in contact with a flame. Add soy sauce and unagi head/bone, then simmer for 10 minutes.

It is the broiled unagi head and bones that gives the "tare" authentic aroma and taste. To make the sauce authentic and rich they are very necessary. Though some suggest that in a pinch tariyaki sauce can take their place.