133 replies to this topic

[helenjp]

I think (myself) that konnyaku is better cooked in with the rice (takikomigohan style) as it takes a while to absorb flavor.

But I do think that maze-gohan is great in spring and summer, as it tends to be a lighter dish than takikomi-gohan.

We had a "maze-gohan" today, of some seriously substandard beef "steak", with crispy fried onion, tomato, and peppers.

[MoGa]

I think (myself) that konnyaku is better cooked in with the rice (takikomigohan style) as it takes a while to absorb flavor.

You seem to have a point there. The konnyaku didn't really bring anything along to the party, but it wasn't an unwelcome guest either.
I'll cook it with the rice next time. I also wonder if it's worth marinading konnyaku with the sake/mirin/soy sauce Hiroyuki recommended first. Perhaps I should add here that I simmered the konnyaku in boiling water and rinsed it before shredding it. That pretty much eliminated the smell.

The maze gohan was certainly tasty and ended up being a perfect way to finish off some ingredients I had that needed eating. As well as the salmon flakes I had some small cooked prawns and they made a splendid addition also. I always seem to have abura-age in the freezer which I rinse with boiling water and then squeeze dry.

This was my first attempt at maze gohan, but I'm not sure if using sake, mirin and soy sauce in a 1:1:1 ratio was the best way. It did taste good though!

[Hiroyuki]

As for me, I used the same ratio as that for my takikomi gohan:
Soy sauce:sake:mirin = 1:0.75:0.5

Thus, for gohan (cooked rice) made from 3 go (3 x 180 ml) kome (uncooked rice), I used:
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 sake
1 tbsp mirin

Takikomi gohan recipes vary greatly in the dashi/soy sauce/sake/mirin ratio. I think that if you prefer sweeter takikomi (and maze) gohan, the 1:1 ratio for soy sauce and mirin should be good.

[MoGa]

I was curious to know which ratio you had used Hiroyuki. Thanks for responding with it, I'll try it this way next time.

[Hiroyuki]

I made kuri okowa (glutinous rice cooked with chestnuts) for yesterday's dinner.
The ingredients are 4 gou (1 gou = 180 ml) glutinous rice, 18 large chestnuts, 2 tablespoons sake, and 1 teaspoon salt.
So simple, yet so delicious!

It's already that time of the year!? I was really craving some kuri gohan (kuri okowa would be good too, but I'm currently out of mochigome) the other day and lamented the fact that it will probably be a couple more weeks until some chestnuts are available to me. Summer doesn't seem to want to die just yet here.

It's that time of year again! My parents, who live in Chiba prefecture, sent us a box of chestnuts the other day, as they do every year. I have decided to make kuri okowa for tonight's supper.
Before I went shopping in the morning, I told my wife I'd buy some mochigome (glutinous rice) to make kuri okowa, but she replied that I could always make kuri gohan instead. I said, angrily, "But I like mochigome!!" I'm usually a faithful rice person, but when it comes to "takikomi-ing (?) chestnuts, sansai (wild edible plants), etc., I've always preferred mochigome. I don't know why, but the texture of mochigome is so right with chestnuts and sansai.
There has been little or no discussion about varieties of mochigome. Here is the variety often found in Niigata, Kogane Mochi, which is said to be the "king of mochigome".

This 1-kg (2.2 lb.) bag costs 620 yen.
The inner pot of the rice cooker, together with "Kurikuri Bozu", which I used to peel the chestnuts. Tough guy!

I used the whole bag of mochigome, which is equivalent to about 6.5 gou (1 gou = 180 ml). My complaint is why they sell mochigome and regular rice (uruchi mai or gome) by the kilogram when we still use "gou" for cooking .

This evening, I made the first kuri okowa this season. Everyone liked it, as usual. Has anyone else made their first kuri okowa or gohan this season?

[melonpan]

its cold and wet tonight. the chicken and chestnut takikomi gohan and miso soup was comforting!

[nakji]

Here's one I made with shiitake and carrots. It holds nicely to take for lunch the next day. Room temperature okowa is so much nicer than regular rice, and it's even better with the seasonings.

Try as I might, though, I can't keep it from burning on the bottom every time.

[Hiroyuki]

Yesterday, I made takikomi gohan with enoki mushrooms. Photos can be found here with some description. I never would have thought of using enoki in takikomi gohan without these overgrown enoki.

[Salt Creep]

Hello,

I just bought a packaged mix, but I'm afraid I don't read Japanese so I'm not quite sure how to cook it!

Can someone please help? Do I add the mix to the rice after I put in the usual amount of water, or do I add the mix first THEN add water to the level it's supposed to be in the rice cooker? The packaged mix sure seems to contain a lot of liquid. Here are some photos of the outer package:



Also, how much rice per package?

Thanks,
Ken

[Hiroyuki]

Amount of rice: 3 go, or 450 g, or 540 ml
1 go = 180 ml = 150 g (in the case of rice)

Wash rice, add the usual amount of water for 3 go of rice, add the mushrooms (discard the liquid) and the soup (some kind of broth, I guess).

Good luck!

[Salt Creep]

Thank you! I'll let you all know how it goes.

Ken

[Salt Creep]

Well, I told my dad how to do it and so he decides to cook it himself but forgets to add the seasoning! We drizzled the seasoning on top after everything was cooked and it came out great anyway. Now we want to try the other flavors!

Thanks,
Ken

[Hassouni]

3 questions:

1. If I'm adding a bunch of ingredients to the rice, do I use the same quantity of liquid as if I was just cooking rice?

2. Does brown rice work well for takikomi gohan? I have some genmai that cooks about as quickly as white rice.

3. What's the difference between this and maze gohan?

[Hassouni]

Updates:

So I have a 3-cup Panasonic rice cooker, so I used 2 cups of haiga brown and 1 cup of uruchimai. The brown cooks in the same time so I wasn't worried about that.

I added some freshly made kombu+katsuobushi dashi up to the 3-cup line on the rice cooker, and added a splash each of shoyu, sake, and mirin. On top of this I layered (not necessarily in this order) julienned ginger, small pieces of kabocha, julienned gobou, slice shiitake, thinly sliced konnyaku, sliced abura age, and some sliced carrots. On top of this I placed 1 fresh, cleaned, and briefly seared sanma cut in half. All of these additions were piled up to reach the lid of the cooker, which I'm thinking is why I ran into the problems that I did....

I heard the cooker click into the off mode after what seemed like an awfully short time, 15 minutes maybe. Skeptical, I opened it up to investigate. the vegetables were still mostly raw and the rice was VERY al dente. I let it breathe a minute, put the lid back on, and turned the cooker on again, but it went off after another minute.

Giving up on the rice cooker, I pulled down my large Korean ceramic jjigae pot, which by a previously unknown coincidence seems to have as much room as my rice cooker. So I put the jjigae pot on the stove on medium heat, removed the layers of veg and fish from the rice cooker, and dumped the rice into the jjigae pot [wrong forum, but is there a name for these in Korean?], and packed it down to mimic how it was in the cooker. I then put the vegetables back on, and added an additional ladle of dashi. After I while I saw some steam + smoke coming out from under the lid, and I turned the heat to low. At this point it was pretty much done - the rice was fully cooked if a bit soft, and the vegetables and fish suitably steamed. There was even a solid layer of okoge, though I guess the heat was on too high, as it was mostly burnt.

The final taste was nice, but having to switch cooking vessels was a pain. What's the deal for making these in a rice cooker? Use less than the maximum capacity of rice? So, in my case, say 2 cups? I'm guessing that with everything packed up to the lid, there wasn't enough room for steam to circulate or something....

Alternatively, what's the procedure for making one in a pot not dissimilar from a donabe?