Tuna Zuke Don (Marinated Tuna Donburi)

I am introducing a delicious tuna dish. I buy sushi quality Maguro (tuna) from my local Japanese market, then I slice it and marinate with soy sauce based marinade for 15 to 30 minutes. I prepare either sushi vinegar rice or regular Japanese rice for this dish. If you have enough time and ingredients, I recommend making sushi vinegar rice. Recipe is included at the bottom.

I also like to eat Maguro Zuke as “Ochazuke”. Pouring tea and dashi broth over the Maguro Zuke Don makes “Ochazuke”. Add some shiso, Myoga (Japanese ginger), and ground sesame seeds to really enhance the flavor.

Maguro Zuke Don (Marinated Tuna Donburi)

(Serves 4)

·      About 300g of Maguro Tuna

·      ¼ cup of Japanese Sake

·      ¼ cup of Japanese Mirin (Japanese Sweet Wine)

·      ⅓ cup of soy sauce

·      cooked Japanese rice or Japanese sushi vinegar rice for 4

·      optional: Shiso (Japanese herb)

·      optional: wasabi

·      optional: sesame seeds

·      optional: nori (Japanese toasted seaweed)

·      optional: scallion

·      optional : Myoga (Japanese ginger)

1.     In a small sauce pan, heat the sake and Mirin until it boils, remove from heat, then add soy sauce. Let it cool down.

2.     Slice Maguro tuna into ¼ inch slices. Marinate the sliced Maguro for 15 to 30 minutes.

3.     In a bowl (like cereal bowl size), put the rice, and Nori on top of the rice, then arrange the marinated Maguro (Maguro Zuke) slices over it. Add Nori, sesame seeds, wasabi, shiso, scallion, and Myoga if you like.

Sushi Rice

·      3 cups (180cc x3) of rice

·      2 inch of Kelp

·      2 tablespoons of Japanese Sake

·      ⅓ rice vinegar

·      1 and a half teaspoon of salt

·      2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar

1.     Rinse the rice well, then prepare the rice and water for the rice cooker. If you have a sushi line on your rice cooker then use that marking. If you don’t, set the water level a little less than usual. Remove 2 tablespoons of water from the rice cooker and replace with 2 tablespoons of Sake and kelp, then cook.

2.     In a small bowl, mix well rice vinegar, sugar and salt.

3.     Transfer cooked rice to a large bowl right after it fished cooking. Sprinkle the sushi vinegar seasoning evenly over the top of the rice.

4.     Mix the seasoning into the rice with quick cutting strokes using a shamoji (spatula). At the same time, fan the rice to cool it down as quickly as you can.

5.     Serve at room temperature. If you don’t use rice immediately, cover it with a wet dish towel.

*For this Maguro Zuke Don, I add some minced ginger and sesame seeds into the rice and mix well but this is optional.