Unagi Don: Broiled Eel on Rice

I'm getting more and more lazy to head out to eat. Traffic and long hours of commute is killing any desire to drive. Although I have been craving for Japanese food for the past week after work, I just rather stay home and rummage in the fridge for dinner. It's weird how I'm not tired of washing dishes but I am very very very annoyed of stepping on the brake and the accelerator.

So what I saw first when I opened the fridge was microwavable rice. Yes! I've just saved 29 minutes from making rice from the rice cooker. Not 30 but 29 minutes because the rice needs one minute in the microwave. It's okay I can live with one minute.

With rice ready, let's make a rice bowl! I love any dinner that has a salty sauce to go with rice. As a kid, I could never finish my bowl of rice without some sauce to go with it. It's a habit my great grandparents passed on to me. I heard that sodium satiates you faster, and it's cheap. So people would sprinkle salt or soy sauce over their rice and have some steamed veggies for supper. This way you won't feel like you didn't have enough for dinner. It's not that my great grandparents were pouring soy sauce over my rice bowl, but the habit is they would take a spoonful of juice from say a slow-cooked pork.

Any time I have rice I try to pair it with a saucy dish. Today I made Unagi Don or broiled eel on rice. It's a common Japanese dish that is sweet but heavy on soy sauce. The easy way to make the dish is buy pre-broiled eel from Asian market and make the spreading sauce at home.

The eel usually comes in air tight package, and the fish look long and thin out at the tip. If you're not eating it immediately, put it in the freezer, and defrost before broiling.

What you would need for a Unagi Don is:

A bowl of rice
A package of broiled unagi or eel
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin
1-2 tablespoon sugar

Open the unagi package and broil it in the oven for 8 minutes
In a small sauce pan, cook soy sauce, mirin and sugar on high heat
Taste the soy sauce for more sugar (salt is not necessary because soy sauce is very salty)
Let the liquid boil for 5 minutes to cook off the alcohol
When the sauce is nice and hot, carefully pour two table spoons over the eel, pop it back into the oven
Spread the rest of the soy sauce on rice and mix well
Take the eel out from the oven after 8 minutes, slice it up into 3 inch pieces
Lay eel on rice
And enjoy!