Bulbil rice

Shokuji, the rice course, is one of the dishes that make up a kaiseki meal beginning with the sakizuke, and it is positioned near the very end of the menu. Traditionally, plain white rice is considered the most formal choice, but recently more restaurants have been offering a wide variety of shokuji, such as seasoned mixed rice, rice cooked together with seasonings and ingredients, sushi, zosui, and ochazuke (rice with tea or broth poured over it).

This time we're featuring mukago (yam bulbil) rice, but takikomi gohan in general lets the flavor of the ingredients come through, and the ingredients' own aroma also infuses into the rice, so it cooks up moist and tender. When you steam the mukago, keep in mind that they will later be added to the rice and cooked further, so cook them only until a slight firmness remains at the core. Otherwise, the mukago's flavor and texture will be lost by the time the rice is done. Also, when cooking the rice, we add glutinous rice at about 15% of the white rice - this gives the rice a bit of stickiness, makes it more pleasant to eat, and easier to enjoy.

① Wash and rinse the non-glutinous rice (uruchimai), then let it sit for about 2 hours.

② Rinse the mukago, then steam them until a slight firmness remains at the core. Afterward, peel off the thin inner skin.

③ Season the kombu dashi with salt and a little sake.

④ Put the non-glutinous rice and kombu dashi into a clay pot (donabe) and let it sit for about 30 minutes, then add the mukago and cook.

⑤ Peel the Yamato yam, treat it in alum water to prevent discoloration, then rinse well; grate it in a mortar, and season with dashi, soy sauce, sake, and mirin.

⑥ Pour the tororo (grated yam) over the mukago rice, and garnish with nori cut into fine needle-like strips.