Yesterday my husband had dinner out, so I decided to keep things simple.
This takikomi rice is one of my favorite easy meals. All you have to do is chop the vegetables and let the rice cooker do the rest.
My kids love this rice, so I make it quite often.
It’s simple, but it’s packed with vegetables and full of gentle flavor.
I also made a big pot of miso soup with lots of vegetables. With hearty miso soup and this vegetable rice, we don’t really need any other dishes. But yesterday we also had some cabbage pickles I had made earlier. That was a lucky extra.
Both recipes are very simple—mostly just chopping vegetables—so I was able to prepare everything quickly while the kids were taking their afternoon nap.
And I still had some time left!
So I peeled three amanatsu oranges and stored them in the fridge. Now we have a little fruit ready to enjoy anytime, which always makes me happy.
Ingredients (for 3 cups of rice)
- 3 cups rice
- 15 g dried hijiki seaweed
- 45 g dried daikon strips (kiriboshi daikon)
- 1/2 sheet fried tofu (aburaage)
- mushrooms (any kind)
- 50 g carrot
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
(1) Soak the dried hijiki and dried daikon in water until softened, then drain well.
Pour hot water over the fried tofu to remove excess oil, then cut it into bite-sized pieces.
(2) Put the rice into the rice cooker, rince them a few times. Add the soy sauce, mirin, and salt. Tnen add water up to the 3-cup line.
(Using the soaking water from the dried daikon instead of plain water adds wonderful flavor.)
(3) Place the mushrooms (I used enoki and shiitake this time), carrot, fried tofu, hijiki, and dried daikon on top of the rice.
(4) Start the rice cooker!
When the rice is done, gently fluff it with a rice paddle, turning the rice from the bottom to mix everything.
Burdock root is also delicious in this dish, although I didn’t have any this time.
Takikomi rice is often made with meat or dashi seasoning, but when you add plenty of dried daikon, mushrooms and kombu, they create a wonderful natural broth.
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