← Nouns Cooking · Japanese

Ingredients

• 300 g uncooked Japanese short-grain rice
• 3 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 120 ml water, for soaking the shiitake
• 135 g boneless chicken thigh, cut into 1 cm pieces
• 50 g Carrot, cut into thin matchsticks
• 30 g Burdock root (gobo), shaved into thin slivers and soaked in water (optional)
• 80 g Konnyaku (konjac block), cut into thin matchsticks
• 1 Aburaage (thin fried tofu sheets), cut into thin strips
• 250 ml Dashi powder or stock
• 2 tbsp Soy sauce
• 1½ tbsp Mirin
• 1 tbsp Sake
• ¼ tsp Salt
• 1 handful mitsuba or spring onion, chopped

Method

1. Rinse the rice several times until the water runs almost clear, then drain it in a sieve for 30 min. Meanwhile, soak the shiitake in the water.
2. Squeeze the shiitake (keep the liquid) and slice them thinly. Boil the konnyaku for 2 min and drain. Toss the chicken with 1 tsp of the soy sauce.
3. Put the rice in a heavy pot or rice cooker bowl. Mix the dashi with the shiitake liquid, soy sauce, mirin, sake and salt; you want 360 ml in total, so top up with water if needed. Pour it over the rice.
4. Scatter the chicken, mushrooms, carrot, drained burdock, konnyaku and fried tofu evenly over the rice. Do not stir: the toppings sitting on top let the rice cook evenly.
5. Rice cooker: cook on the normal setting. Pot: cover, bring to the boil over medium-high heat, then cook on the lowest heat for 15 min. Turn off the heat and leave covered for 10 min.
6. Check that the chicken is cooked through with no pink, then gently fold everything together with a rice paddle, picking up the toasty bits from the bottom. Serve topped with mitsuba.

Tips

• In autumn, swap the chicken for mixed mushrooms, chestnuts or salmon.
• Leftovers make excellent onigiri; cool cooked rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Just One Cookbook Chopstick Chronicles Japanese Cooking 101