Takikomi Gohan

If your main diet is rice, you may find that sometimes plain rice tastes rather boring.   Here, we have a recipe called takikomi-gohan (literally means, mix cooked rice).  It is when you mix other ingredients with the plain rice.    There are various recipes for takikomi gohan and basically two ways of cooking it.

First, you prepare the mixture separately from cooking the plain rice.   Secondly, you can mix the ingredients with the rice then cook them together in the rice cooker.

My favorite is Go-Moku-Takikomi-Gohan (meaning, five mixture rice) - where you put 5 different ingredients in the mixture.

What you need:

3 cups of plain rice (or even brown rice if you like a healthier type)

540 ml of water (a little more if you use brown rice) - i recommend that you make Japanese soup stock (dashi) with this 540 ml of water, instead of just plain water (it tastes much better with dashi)

2 tbsp of sake* and mirin* each

3 tbsp of soy sauce*

5 mixture ingredients (you can change the variety of mixture with other ingredients such as: cooked corns, sliced fried tofu, ham/bacon, sweet potatoes sliced into little cubes, etc.) :

200 gram of chicken meat (sliced into little cubes)

1/2 carrot (sliced into little cubes)

80 gram of burdock (sliced thin and smallest possible)

4 shiitake (you can choose raw shiitake or dried one - if you use dried shiitake, make sure you dip them in water for a while first before cooking)

konnyaku (rinse konnyaku with salt water to get rid of its unpleasant smell) - you may find konnyaku in a Japanese store, otherwise use an alternative ingredients such as: dried tofu or my favorite in spring time is "bamboo shoots" - use already boiled bamboo shoots.

How to make:

1. Season the chicken meat with 1 tbsp of sake and 1/2 tbsp of soy sauce.   Put aside.

2. Cut all the ingredients into small cubes or thin slices.  Then mix them into a bowl.

3. Prepare rice in the rice cooker as usual.   Then pour the water (or dashi water) into the rice cooker as you would do when you cook rice.   Put the 5 ingredients and mix well in the rice cooker.   Then pour sake*, mirin*, soy sauce* into the mixture.   Stir well.

4. Turn on the rice cooker and start cooking.

5. When the rice is cooked, open the rice cooker and the first thing you need to do is to stir the rice well.   You will find that most of the ingredients will sit on the top of the rice.  Mix them well.

Warnings!

1.  Some rice cooker do have special mode for cooking takikomi-gohan, unfortunately some rice cookers do not.   But don't worry.   I have an alternative recipe.  You can actually cook the 5 ingredients separate from the rice.   Cook the rice as usual in the rice cooker - with plain water or dashi water adjusted accordingly to how much you normally use to cook rice.

How to cook the 5 ingredients:

1. Prepare 1 cup (150-160ml of dashi) in the pan.

2. Pour the sake*, mirin* and soy sauce* mixture and the 5 ingredients into the pan.

3. Cook with a low fire until all the water runs out.  While cooking stir the mixture time to time to avoid burning and uneven cooking.

4. When the plain rice is ready, pour the cooked mixture into the rice and .... you have the same "takikomi gohan" at your table!

Enjoy also a variation of takikomi gohan in onigiri!  Good luck!