How to Throw a Teppanyaki Party

Benihana Japanese restaurants have perfected teppanyaki, which is cooking foods quickly on an iron plate (teppan). Bring together your friends and family by creating your own teppanyaki outdoor grill. While this type of teppanyaki is not as graceful as those at Benihana, cooking in this style will intrigue your guests and bring everyone together in an effort to create a meal to remember.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. When you know you want to throw a teppanyaki party, invite your friends and family to participate in the preparation of the party. A teppanyaki party is infinitely more fun when many people join to help construct the teppan grill. Ask your guests to bring over a few pounds of their favorite vegetable or meat to cook on the teppan.

2. The day before the party, go shopping for any vegetables and meat that you want to cook on the teppan. Some ideas for the party are: flank steak, chicken breast, napa cabbage, bok choi, carrots, mushrooms, and daikon radish. Consider asking each guest to bring a specific ingredient to the party. This way everyone feels like they are involved in the party.

3. While at the grocery store, buy a few different stir-fry and barbeque sauces. Consider marinating your meat in different sauces after you cut it up. This way you can have several flavors in one meal.

4. If you are going to marinate your meat, do so the night before. To do this cut the meat into bite-size pieces, cutting against the grain of the meat.

5. Place the meat into a large gallon-sized resealable plastic bag and cover the meat with enough marinade to coat each piece. Place the meat into the refrigerator and let that sit for at least two hours.

6. Creating your own teppan is not as daunting a feat as you might think. You can make a teppan by buying a large iron sheet sized at least 3x4 feet in size. The sheet should be fairly thick as well. Buy a sheet at least ½-inch thick — this will help keep the heat steady while you’re cooking.

7. While at the building supply store, also buy four to eight cinder blocks. These will be used to elevate the teppan above the fire.

8. When you get the teppan home, wash it with warm water and a mild dish detergent to free any grime from the metal. Dry the sheet well with a towel and if possible set out in the sun to fully dry.

9. When setting up for the teppanyaki, keep in mind that you will build a fire beneath the sheet metal. If you already have a fire pit, use that as your cooking area. If you don’t have a fire pit, create one by digging a shallow hole one foot deep and line the hole with large rocks. You can also set the teppanyaki up on concrete free of any plants, though when you are finished you will have a black mark from the fire on the concrete.

10. Once you have constructed the fire pit, place the cinder blocks around the pit, making sure that they are close enough to evenly balance the teppan. Test out your arrangement of the cinder blocks by placing the teppan on top of them, if the teppan wobbles a little bit, level out the cinder blocks holding it up.

11. Once you have the teppan leveled out, take it back off and set it to the side. Build a fire in the fire pit by layering kindling, smaller pieces of wood and larger logs. Make sure that the bottom of the fire is able to draw air otherwise your fire will suffocate and go out.

12. Once you have successfully started the fire, place the teppan back onto the cinder blocks.

13. While the grill is still semi-cool, rub at least a half cup of vegetable oil onto the surface of the metal. This will help keep the meat and vegetables from sticking to the teppan.

14. Let the fire burn for at least an hour or so. Keep tending to the fire by adding more kindling and wood as necessary to keep the fire burning brightly.

15. While the teppan is heating, have some of your guests prepare the vegetables. Ask them to wash them well and cut them into even pieces that are easily eaten.

16. Once the teppan is hot, invite your guests to join you around the teppan. Add more vegetable oil to the teppan if it looks dry. Bank the fire by spreading out the coals evenly underneath the teppan.

17. Begin by cooking the meat first since it takes the longest to cook. After five minutes, turn each piece of meat using kitchen tongs or a long-handled spatula. Consider only cooking a small portion of each ingredient so you can try out different sauces.

18. Add on vegetables at different stages of cooking, denser vegetables, such as carrots, take longer to cook than leafier vegetables. When all of the vegetables are cooking on the grill, pour on one of the sauces to the mixture.

19. When all of the ingredients have finished frying on the teppan serve your guests the food directly off the grill.

20. Have drinks available for your guests to serve themselves. Some good choices for drinks are Japanese beer, water, soda and anything else that takes your fancy. If you can find it, Ramune, a Japanese soda with a marble as the bottle stopper, is wonderful for cooling down during the hot summer afternoons.

Tips & Warnings

• You should have help when moving the teppan due to its size and weight. Four people are preferable, but three able-bodied people should also be able to move the metal.
• When adjusting the teppan, be very wary of the weight of the metal. If it looks like it might fall, back away so the metal doesn’t fall on a hand or foot.
• When tending the fire, use long fireplace utensils so you don’t accidentally burn yourself on the hot teppan.
• Instead of making a large amount of food for everyone, consider letting everyone cook their own portion of food. Set the ingredients on a table and let everyone take what they will cook. Make sure that everyone will have their own spatula or kitchen tong to handle the food on the teppan.