The Japanese hot pot of thinly sliced beef and vegetables cooked in a sweet soy-based sauce is sukiyaki.
Sukiyaki is prepared in a shallow iron pot, usually at the table. Its characteristic cooking mixture combines soy sauce, sugar, and mirin, with ingredients such as beef, tofu, napa cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, and shirataki noodles. Diners traditionally dip the cooked ingredients into beaten raw egg before eating them.
The dish became established as a modern Japanese food during the Meiji era, from 1868 to 1912, when beef eating spread more widely after Japan opened to foreign trade. It is especially associated with winter meals and year-end bōnenkai gatherings.
Sukiyaki is often confused with shabu-shabu. Shabu-shabu uses a more savory broth and cooks very thin meat by swishing it briefly in simmering liquid. Sukiyaki is sweeter and generally simmers its ingredients in a richer sauce.