Here's a perfect example of how Japanese home cooks create a delicious and filling beef dish -- with very small portions of beef. An abbreviated version of sukiyaki (a combination of thinly sliced beef and vegetables in a sweet soy broth), this is spooned over hot cooked rice in a bowl.

Thinly sliced beef is available in the freezer section of most Japanese markets. It's convenient to use, extremely tender and perfect for this healthy cold-weather dish. If you choose to purchase the beef in a regular market, freeze the meat before you cut it. This will enable you to carve it (with an extremely sharp knife) into paper-thin slices.

I often think that the best part of this beef bowl isn't the beef, but the hot nutty rice saturated with the sweet beef juices.

2 cups dashi (a fish-and-sea-vegetable stock, available online or in Asian grocery stores) ¼ cup sake (rice wine) 1 medium yellow onion, peeled, halved and cut into thin crescents 1 Tokyo negi (or 1 small leek), with roots and rough portion of the top cut off, cleaned, rinsed and cut diagonally into thin slices 3 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 1 teaspoon fine-ground sea salt 1 teaspoon mirin (a cooking wine made from glutenous rice) ½ pound very thinly sliced beef fillet (about 1/8 inch thick), or, if you prefer, ground beef 6 cups hot cooked brown or white rice 1 scallion, roots and top portion cut off, and thinly sliced

1. Place the dashi and sake in a medium saucepan over high heat. Add the onion and Tokyo negi (or leek) and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the soy, sugar, salt, and mirin. Add the beef and simmer until it is just cooked through, about 40 seconds (it will cook rapidly if cut into paper-thin slices).

2. Lay out 4 bowls. Fill each one with 1½ cups of hot cooked rice and ladle even portions of the beef mixture over the top. Garnish each serving with a sprinkling of scallion.