Gaijin Gyudon: A Guide to Your Easy Beef Bowl

My first real experience with any sort of meat and rice bowls came in the form of fast food. Needless to say, it didn’t exactly pique my appetite.

It took a trip to Japan this year to open me up to the complexities that one could provide in a seemingly simple combination of meat, rice, and vegetables. Like most things in life, however, the most simple things can be the easiest to fuck up.

Because, when you think about it, a ton of Japanese cuisine isn’t really all that complicated. Hell, a lot of most cuisines aren’t that complicated. Gyudon: marinated beef over rice with some veg and topped with an egg. Not much to it, right? That’s where this all comes in, the trick of simplicity. It convinces you that it’s no big deal, someone makes it look easy, or (gods forbid) some company takes the simple and makes it cheap.

Before we move on, yes, I am aware that the term gaijin can be a bit of a mixed term to use in polite company, but I do love alliteration. I also feel like another disclaimer needs to be made: I was incredibly jet lagged when I cooked this up the first time and as always, measurements for liquids and spices here may need to be adjusted as you see fit.

I may have also been a little drunk and trying to hide the pain of being yanked away from canned highballs, convenience store snacks worth an 11 hour flight to get, and a mass transit system that works. But that’s neither here nor there… as with all of my work on this site, adjust as you see fit. Learn to cook without always measuring everything. You’ll find more joy in it.

The reason we’re calling this Gaijin Gyudon is twofold. One: if you’re not super familiar with Japanese is that gyu (beef) plus don (bowl) equals beef bowl. Wow. Thus is we did this with chicken, it would be toridon. Shrimp would be ebidon. Get it? Cool.

Secondly, a proper gyudon would use thinly sliced bits of beef, something I didn’t have on hand at the time. Since we’re using ground beef, and thus butchering a Japanese classic dish, we should at least admit to that. Hell, Tex Mex is great, just don’t call it Mexican food. The same holds with this. Let’s call it, “Japanese inspired” food. Just like a California roll, or whatever landlocked states think sushi is.

Here’s what you’ll need to have to duplicate what I did:

• 1 pound ground beef
• Sushi rice (sorry, long grain rice won’t work here)
• Scallions (green onions or whatever you call them)
• Eggs (at least one)
• Lightly pickled cucumbers (more on that here)
• Red onion
• Bulldog sauce (you can find this in a lot of Asian markets)
• Kewpie mayo (same as above, but some grocery stores carry it now)
• Sriracha (optional, but awesome)
• Soy sauce
• Sake (or some kind of dry white wine or even dry vermouth)
• Mirin (available at some grocery stores or Asian markets)
• Ginger paste (no shame in buying a tube of it)

Here’s a step by step on how all this should go down:

• First things first, pickle your cucumbers. I have a guide to pickling vegetables right here. You should do this a few hours before you plan to make this. I suggest using rice vinegar if you can, or white vinegar if you can’t. Use a bit of mirin instead of sugar.
• Hard (or soft) boil your eggs and let them cool. I personally think a jammy egg works best, but if you overcook it, ain’t nothing wrong with any kind of egg with rice.
• Combine your beef with the sake, mirin, soy, and ginger paste. It should be a little soupy. Don’t worry; it’ll cook off. Feel free to let it steep a bit.
• Cut up your scallions (white and green parts) and set aside. Make sure you’re cutting them big enough to be handled by chopsticks. I also like to cut mine on the diagonal.
• Cut red onions into strips.
• Wash and cook your sushi rice. Seriously. Wash that shit.
• Cook your beef until it’s crumbly and the liquids have soaked in/evaporated. Don’t let it crumble into too small of chunks.
• Remember that a lot of Japanese dinning involves presentation. The way you plate things matters. This recipe started with just me taking a photo of this, thinking, “damn that’s pretty.” People eat with their eyes first. Japanese plating takes that seriously. Don’t just plop everything on top of the rice. Make that shit look like something that’s almost too pretty to eat.

Pro tips and substitutions:

• If you, for whatever reason, can’t use sake, substitute with a dry white wine or dry vermouth. If you absolutely can’t have alcohol in the mix, just use some water. The whole point is to dilute the soy sauce a little bit.
• Don’t be afraid to add some extra spice or sauce to the beef mix. Some Gochujang paste wouldn’t be horrible. Throw some red miso in. The world is your oyster.
• Any of these vegetables can be substituted, but I would recommend having at least one pickled thing in the mix. The acidity makes for a nice balance with the meat and starchy rice. Pickled onions would not be terrible in this either.
• On the note of pickles, cut that shit as thin as you can. Use a mandolin if you have one.
• You can also substitute whatever meat you want for this. It can’t be called gyudon, but whatever you call it, I’m sure it’ll be lovely. This is also pretty easy to make vegetarian or vegan as well. Soyrizo wouldn’t be a terrible substitution for the beef. Go all veg if you want.
• You can also make the sushi rice like proper sushi rice for a little more flavor. Just add some rice vinegar and mirin and mix it up. Just be careful not to smash the shit out of it.