Venison Negimaki

 

Beef negimaki is a popular Japanese-American dish, created by the Manhattan restaurant Nippon in 1963. When New York Times food critic Craig Claiborner suggested that the restaurant add a beef dish to cater to the American palate, owner Nobuyoshi Kuaoka created negimaki.

“Negi” means onion and “maki” means roll in Japanese. Raw fish was too exotic for most Americans in the 1960s, but broiled beef slathered with sweet, salty teriyaki sauce became a winning combination for years to come.

The typical cut of beef used for negimaki is flank steak, and the most comparable cut of venison is the bottom round. The bottom round is rectangular, relatively uniform in shape and flat, which makes it much easier to slice into equal-size pieces. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a piece of bottom round in my freezer so I used an oddly shaped piece of top round. It still worked, but assembling the rolls became a bit of a puzzle. It’s OK if you have to use more toothpicks to keep your rolls together -- no one will know if you take them out before serving.

Find the recipe on MeatEater: https://www.themeateater.com/wild-and-whole/wild-recipes/venison-negimaki