Jingisukan (Lamb Grilled on a Domed Pan with Vegetables at the Rim)

Variations

• Marinated meat: Hokkaido has both styles, grilling plain meat and dipping it, and grilling meat that has been marinated first. Marinated meat burns quickly on the crown because of the sugar in the marinade, so turn the heat down a little and pour the leftover marinade over the rim vegetables to cook them in it.
• Lamb or mutton: young lamb is mild and tender, while mutton from a grown sheep tastes stronger and has more chew. According to ko.wikipedia the dish grew out of using up meat from sheep kept for wool, so it started closer to mutton.
• Without the pan: grill the meat in the middle of a heavy cast-iron pan or grill pan and pile the vegetables around the edge. On a flat pan, though, the fat does not run to the edge by itself, so basting the vegetables has to be done with a spoon.
• The name: it is named after Genghis Khan, but ko.wikipedia says it has no direct connection with Mongolia or with Genghis Khan at all.
• Next to yakiniku: that page's Variations list says of this dish, "A cousin rather than a variation." Both are grilled at the table and dipped, but the shape of the grill is different.

Tips

• This pan gives table grilling zones. Grilling says of the formats where the eater does the grilling, "There are no zones (one plate, one temperature)", and that therefore the "pieces have to be small and thin, since without zones there is no way to cook a thick one through". The Jingisukan pan changes that condition with its shape. The crown of the dome sits right over the flame, so it is the hottest point, and fat does not stay on it, so the meat grills in dry heat. The rim is further from the flame and a step lower, and the fat and juices that run down collect there. The hot side and the cool side that guide tells you to build over charcoal are cast here into one piece of iron.
• Meat on the crown, vegetables at the rim, never the other way round. Vegetables on the crown give off water that cools the hottest spot and leaves the meat nowhere to go. At the rim they cook half fried and half steamed in lamb fat and take on the flavour of the meat, which is why they are half the dish rather than a garnish.
• Thin slices, a few at a time. The crown is not large and takes a single layer. Cover it completely and the hottest spot cools, the meat gives off water, and it simmers instead of grilling.
• Eat it straight off the pan. Serving temperature notes that "Pork and beef fat begin to solidify somewhere around 30-40°C". Lamb fat sets at a higher temperature still, so as it cools it coats the mouth. That is the reason this dish is cooked at the table.
• Heat the pan properly. Cold cast iron makes the meat stick in the channels. Rub the piece of fat over the crown; when a thin thread of smoke rises as it melts, the pan is ready.