On New Year’s Eve 2019-2020 at the “Tenkaippin” restaurant in Roppongi, along with the ramen, we also tasted Yaki-Meshi, it is gohan rice*, a basic recipe for any Japanese cuisine preparation (gohan generally means “meal”), stir-fried with variable ingredients, but there are always: eggs and onions.
Also called Chahan, Yaki-meshi (Japanese: 焼飯), might have originated in 1860 from Chinese immigrants arriving at Kobe port.
In Chinese, fried rice is called chǎofàn 炒飯, these same Chinese characters have a
Japanese reading of Chāhan.
A typical dish of Japan Teppaniyaki cuisine, it can be cooked in a wok.
The following recipe is with pork bacon, which can also be replaced by char siu, braised pork.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 10 Minutes
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 2 People
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Japanese
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 12.3 oz uruchimai rice (short grain rice)
- 3 cups Water
- 7.1 oz bacon (or beef or shrimp or chicken …)
- 2 eggs
- 1 scallion
- 4 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons Sake
- to taste sesame oil
- to taste salt and pepper
Preparation
For the gohan rice: the rice should be washed in cold water and then placed in a bowl full of water and soaked until the water becomes milky. This operation should be repeated three times, in order to clean the rice as best as possible.
Put the rice in a pot and add cold water, cover with a lid and bring to a boil over high heat (about 2 minutes), when wisps of steam begin to come out from the pot, lower the flame and continue cooking for another 10 minutes without opening the lid. After 10 minutes, turn off the flame and let the rice rest for another 10 minutes without opening the lid.
If you like, you can season with sesame oil or rice wine.
It’s better to let it cool or even use it the next day for the yaki-meshi.
In a wok, sauté the scallion in sesame oil.
Add the beaten eggs and immediately the rice, and with the help of a spatula, crumble it.
Add the diced bacon. Stir.
Adjust the salt and pepper.
Add the green part of the scallion.
Finally, pour the soy sauce.
Serve.
*Gohan rice
It is Japanese steamed rice, “gohan” also means meal in Japanese as it represents what bread is to Westerners.
This rice is prepared with round Japanese rice cooked without seasoning. It is traditionally consumed in a bowl, along with all the dishes available on the table.
To make sushi, a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, and salt is added.
VIDEO RECIPE
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You can buy glutinous rice, also suitable for making sushi, in its BIO version, online.
What types of rice are there in Japan?
With the term Japanese rice it refers to several cultivars of Japonica rice short grain, including common rice (uruchimai) and glutinous rice (mochigome).
The common Japanese rice, or uruchimai (粳米), is the staple food of the Japanese diet and consists of short and translucent grains.
When cooked, it has a sticky texture that can be easily picked up and eaten with chopsticks, and it is also ideal for sushi, in fact, outside Japan, it is labeled as sushi rice, as this is one of its common uses.
It is also used to produce sake.
Glutinous rice, known in Japan as mochigome (もち米), is used to prepare mochi (餅), Okowa and special dishes like sekihan.
It is a short grain rice distinguished from uruchimai by its particularly short, round, and opaque grains, its greater stickiness during cooking, and its firmer and chewy texture.
