91 recipes. Page 4 of 4
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Tied to the winter solstice custom of warding off bad luck, this seasonal rice is soaked and cooked in the water the adzuki beans boiled in, which tints every grain an even red. The beans' first boiling water is thrown out, and they come out of the second pot just before their skins split.
Twelve chard leaves are rolled finger-thick around ground beef, soaked rice, onion and dried mint. The rolls are packed tightly into the pot, weighed down with a heavy plate, and cooked slowly in a thin tomato broth. In Turkey they come to the table with a tangy garlic yogurt.
Thick slices of fresh shiitake sit on the rice as it cooks, staying moist in the steam while their aroma drifts down into the grains. With dried shiitake instead, the soaking water becomes the cooking water and the mushroom flavor gets deeper. The finished rice is mixed with a sauce of soy, sesame oil, green onion and sesame seeds.
Instead of sushi vinegar, the rice gets a generous amount of akumochizake, Kagoshima's ash-treated local sake, and is layered with separately cooked dried daikon, shiitake, butterbur, bamboo shoot, sea bream, shrimp, and fish cakes. Traditional versions use raw cured bream and rest for half a day at room temperature; this home version cooks all the seafood through and rests the covered sushi in the refrigerator for 6 to 8 hours so the aromas meld. Because the sake is never heated, its alcohol stays in the dish, which makes it adults-only and unsuitable for pregnancy, children, or anyone driving afterward.
Siraegi, dried radish greens boiled until tender, steam on top of the rice, and nothing seasons the pot. Each person stirs in a doenjang and soy paste with chili flakes and green onion, a spoonful at a time, and decides how salty the bowl gets.
Poached chicken breast, pulled into fine shreds, turns up in every spoonful. The savory depth of the porridge comes from siraegi (boiled dried radish greens) and garlic sauteed in sesame oil before the rice goes in.
Soy-marinated beef lines the bottom of the pot, the rice is layered over it, and siraegi (boiled dried radish greens) tossed with doenjang and perilla oil crowns the rice as it cooks. The beef seasons the lower layer while the greens season the upper one. A gentle stir at the end brings the two together.
Shiitake, carrot and burdock, cut into thin matching strips, are spread over the rice and cooked in dashi seasoned with soy sauce and mirin. They stay on top until the rice is done. Heavy vegetables mixed down into the grains keep the liquid from circulating and leave underdone patches.
Strong bancha brewed to an amber color becomes the cooking liquid, and unwashed rice boils in it just long enough to lose its hard center, leaving loose grains in a thin, flowing porridge. Where Nara's cha-gayu reheats cooked rice in hojicha, this Yamaguchi version starts from raw rice in bancha and is left largely unstirred so it never turns sticky.
Taro goes in just as the rice grains start to swell, so part of it melts into the porridge and thickens it while the rest stays in soft, fluffy cubes. The rice is toasted in perilla oil at the start, which puts a nutty note under the taro's earthiness. Soup soy sauce and salt season it lightly, and chopped green onion goes on top.
The soaked hijiki is rinsed twice in cold water to cut its saltiness and any off smell, then sauteed in sesame oil with shiitake and carrot before the rice goes in. As the pot cooks, the deep sea flavor of the hijiki gets into the rice, and shrimp seasoned with soup soy sauce and garlic sit on top. For a crust on the bottom, turn the heat up a little for the last minute.
The truffle oil goes on only after the rice has finished resting. Heat drives off its aroma, so it never cooks in the pot. The rice itself is cooked in vegetable stock with shiitake, king oyster mushroom and onion that were first sauteed in butter, and the king oyster is cut thick enough to give a real bite.
Thin strips of burdock root, soaked briefly in vinegar water, are sauteed with onion in sesame oil before the soaked rice, carrot and chicken stock go in. The burdock's earthy aroma and faint crunch are what an ordinary chicken porridge does not have. The chicken tenderloin is added after the rice has broken down and cooks only briefly.
Strips of beef round marinate in soy sauce and cooking wine for 10 minutes, get stir-fried with burdock and carrot, and then the soaked rice is toasted in the same pot before the water goes in. The marinade carries over into the rice, so no sauce is served on the side. The burdock, soaked briefly in vinegar water first, still has its crunch after cooking.
A whole salmon fillet cooks right on top of the soaked rice, and only after resting is it broken into big flakes and folded through. The finish is soy sauce, a knob of butter, and lemon juice, which makes the rice rich and savory with a bright edge. Thick fillets can still be underdone at the center when the rice is ready. A thermometer reading of 63°C at the thickest point is the signal to stop.
The rice itself stays unseasoned, and a simple soy and sesame oil sauce comes on the side, mixed into each bowl a little at a time to keep it from getting too salty. Thin lotus root slices steam on top of the rice instead of being stirred in. They stay whole, turn translucent at the edges, and keep a light crunch.
The chicken flavor comes in twice: breast meat poached separately with green onion and ginger, then shredded, and a full pot of chicken stock as the cooking liquid. Lotus root is minced only a little larger than the rice grains, enough to give a slight bite inside the smooth porridge without feeling like separate chunks.
Perilla oil is the only source of aroma. Shiitake, carrot, the rice and the lotus root are all sautéed in it before cooking, so the grains come out glossy, with thin slices of lotus root staying crisp throughout.
The shrimp are never sauteed. After 10 minutes in garlic and soup soy sauce, they go on top of the rice once the pot is bubbling hard and turn pink in the steam under the lid. Their garlicky soy juices season the top layer of rice, and the lotus root, cut 3 mm thick, is still crisp after resting.