Takikomi rice is rice cooked with Dashi soup, vegetables and meat or fish. It already has a lot of good flavor and taste, so it can be actually a main dish. It tastes good still even if it is not that warm, so sometimes I make an ‘Onigiri” (rice ball) with Takikomi rice. It is also good with pot ruck party! There are a lot of different kinds of Takikomi rice, and this with mushroom and chicken is one of the most popular one in Japan. You can do with a rice cooker, but this recipe is to use a pot.
<Ingredients>
3 Go (450g) of rice
1/2 carrot (about 70-80g)
70-80g of burdock *if you can find this, you can skip.
1/2 fried tofu *if you can find this, you can skip.
1/2-1 pack of Shimeji mushroom + 100ml of water
4-5 dried mushroom
200g of chicken thigh
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
3 tablespoons of mirin
3 tablespoons of sake
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Dashi soup (or 2 teaspoons of hondashi powder + water)
<Instruction>
1. Wash rice lightly and put in a pot. Ideal to use a cast iron, but any type of pot is fine too.
1. Soak dried shiitake mushroom in 100ml of water until it becomes soft. You can do this with hot water.
2. Cut carrot and burdock in 2mm x 1-1.5cm, like a half length of a match stick.
3. Pour the boiled water over the fried tofu to remove the excessive oil around it. Then cut in the same size as the carrot and burdock.
4. Remove excessive fat from chicken thigh, and cut in 1cm cubes.
5. Cut Shimeji into the half length then separate into each by hand.
6. When Shiitake is soft, squeeze the water then cut into similar size as the carrot and burdock. Keep the water used for Shiitake aside.
7. Put the rice in a pot on a scale, and set as 0 in weight (gram). Add the water used for shiitake mushroom, soy sauce, sake and mirin. Then add water (or dashi soup) until it become 630gram. Add 2 teaspoons of hondashi powder if you are not using dashi soup, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. mix lightly. Leave it for 20-30 mins.
8. place chicken first then other ingredients on the rice.
9. Start with high heat without a cover until it is boiled, then cover it and turn down to the minimum heat. Cook for 13 mins. After 13 mins past, turn off the heat and leave it for 15 mins. Do not open! This step is to steam so keeping the moisture inside is very important.
10. Open the cover and mix lightly. The bottom part of rice may be brown, or almost burned. This is the best part! Try to scrape it and mix into the rice. This burned one is called ‘Okoge’ in Japanese, and give some good fragrance to the rice.