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Mixed Seafood and Rice

Non-Japanese may think of this as Japanese paella. Like paella, it may be made with or without seafood. Like paella, it relies on good ingredients, including rice and stock, and, like paella, it’s pretty straightforward to prepare and easy to vary. (You can make the recipe below not only with chicken but with almost any combination of seafood. You can also make it with vegetables; see page 510.) There is, however, a critical difference. Whereas paella usually relies on chicken stock, wine, and tomatoes, Kayaku Gohan (along with, it seems, about a million other dishes in Japan) uses dashi. This isn’t a problem, since dashi is easily made, as long as you stock kelp, a dried seaweed also known as kombu, and dried bonito flakes (bonito is related to tuna). Fortunately, each of these ingredients keeps forever, and each is readily available at Asian markets.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    makes 4 servings

Ingredients

4 cups Dashi, preferably homemade (page 162)
5 fresh or dried shiitake mushrooms (caps only)
2 tablespoons neutral oil, like corn or grapeseed
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 pound cleaned squid (page 98), tentacles halved and bodies sliced into rings, or shrimp, peeled
1 3/4 cups short-grain rice
1 cup fresh or thawed frozen peas
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin or honey
1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and cut into small pieces
Salt if necessary

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Gently warm the dashi in a saucepan and if you’re using dried shiitakes, add them to it. When the dried shiitakes are tender, 10 to 15 minutes later, remove and discard their stems and slice the caps.

    Step 2

    Put the oil in a deep 10-inch skillet or fairly broad saucepan with a lid over medium-high heat. Add the onion, sliced mushroom caps, and squid and cook, stirring occasionally, until the edges of all three are brown, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, add the rice, and cook, stirring, until combined. Add the peas, then strain the dashi and pour it in along with the soy sauce and mirin. Stir, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cover. A minute later, check that the mixture is simmering and adjust the heat if necessary; cook for 15 minutes.

    Step 3

    When you remove the cover, the mixture should still be a little soupy (add a little dashi or water if it’s dried out); add the shrimp and stir, then raise the heat a bit and cook until the rice is tender and the mixture is still moist but not soupy. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then serve.

The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved. MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.
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