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Takikomi Gohan (Rice Cooked with Chicken, Shiitake and Root Vegetables)

Takikomi Gohan (Rice Cooked with Chicken, Shiitake and Root Vegetables) reads umami 5.7, salinity 5.5 and funk & ferment 3.3 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Japanese main, about 1 hr 38 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 6.5 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 3.4 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 1.5 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 2.2 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 3.3 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 2.8 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 5.7 · Salinity 5.5 · Funk & Ferment 3.3 · Richness 3.0 · Sweetness 3.0 · Herbaceous 2.7 · Earthy 2.1 · Floral 1.8 · Fruity 1.3 · Citrus 1.2 · Sourness 0.8 · Nutty 0.8 · Bitterness 0.8

What's in it (13)

• short-grain rice — 450 g
• shiitake — 20 g
• chicken thigh — 200 g
• soy sauce — 15 g
• abura-age — 30 g
• carrot — 80 g
• burdock root — 60 g
• ichiban dashi — 400 g
• soy sauce — 30 g
• mirin — 15 g
• sake — 15 g
• salt — 3 g
• mitsuba — 10 g

Time & effort: about 1 hr 38 min (1 hr 13 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 197.8 kcal, 4.1 g protein, 6.9 g fat, 29.2 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (6 steps)

1. Wash the rice in a bowl of cold water, stirring with your fingers and pouring off the cloudy water four or five times until it is nearly clear. Drain it in a sieve for 30 minutes, then leave it to soak in fresh cold water for another 20 minutes and drain again. Rice for takikomi gohan is soaked and drained separately because the seasoned liquid, being salty, does not penetrate the grain as plain water does.
2. Toss the diced chicken with the 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and leave it 15 minutes. Squeeze the shiitake dry, discard the stems and slice the caps thinly. Strain the soaking water through a cloth.
3. Combine the strained shiitake water with enough cold dashi to make 520 ml in total, then stir in the 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, the mirin, sake and salt. This is the cooking liquid, and its volume matters more than any other number in the recipe: too much and the rice is heavy and wet, because the chicken and vegetables release their own water as it cooks.
4. Put the drained rice in a heavy pot or a rice cooker, pour the liquid over and level the surface. Scatter the chicken, shiitake, abura-age, carrot and gobo evenly on top and do not stir them in. Stirred through, they weigh the grain down and it cooks unevenly.
5. Cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes, then drop to low and cook 12 minutes, until you hear the liquid stop bubbling and the pot goes quiet. Raise the heat for 10 seconds at the very end if you want a thin crust on the bottom.
6. Take it off the heat and leave it, covered and untouched, for 10 minutes. Only then lift the lid and fold everything together from the bottom with a wet paddle, cutting rather than stirring so the grains stay separate. Scatter with mitsuba and serve. In an ichiju-sansai meal a seasoned rice like this replaces both the plain rice and one of the sides.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Sukiyaki (すき焼き) — Japanese
• Beef Sukiyaki Hot Pot — Japanese
• Mandarin Consomme — Japanese
• Roast Cherry Tomatoes And Feta — Greek
• Saba no Shioyaki (Salt-Grilled Mackerel with Grated Daikon) — Japanese

Keep reading: what umami, salinity, funk & ferment mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.