Flavorful Kinoko Gohan (Mushroom Rice)

Kinoko Gohan (Mushroom Rice)　きのこごはん

What kind of dish is Kinoko Gohan (Mushroom Rice)??

Kinoko gohan is a type of takikomi gohan. Takikomi gohan is made by cooking ingredients such as root vegetables and chicken together with rice when cooking it.

There are no strict rules for the ingredients used in this dish, and it is often made using seasonal ingredients. It is delicious even when cold, so it is also suitable for making onigiri or in bento boxes and taking on picnics.

I only use soy sauce as a seasoning when making kinoko gohan, as I want to enjoy the flavor of dashi.

Adding multiple mushrooms will give the rice a rich texture and aroma. Choose the type of mushroom that suits your taste.

The only thing you need to be careful of is using maitake mushrooms. If you put them in the rice cooker together and cook them, they will turn completely black. For this reason, you should boil the maitake mushrooms before using them.

Mushrooms are rich in nutrients such as B vitamins and potassium.

Since these nutrients are water-soluble, you can get the most of your nutrients by cooking them in a way that allows you to eat the broth in which the nutrients have dissolved.

What kind of food is Kinoko (Mushrooms)??

Mushrooms have been a popular food ingredient for a long time. There are about 20 species of edible mushrooms cultivated in Japan, but some varieties are imported and sold.

Mushrooms are characterized by their high vitamin D and dietary fiber content and low calorie content.

Originally a seasonal ingredient in the fall, advances in greenhouse cultivation have made it possible to easily and cheaply obtain it all year round. As for shiitake mushrooms, they take more than a year to cultivate, so only 10% of those currently on the market are naturally occurring.

However, matsutake mushrooms are the only ones that are no longer considered possible to cultivate in greenhouses, and so remain expensive.

The benefits of freezing and drying mushrooms

Umami, an essential flavor in Japanese cuisine, is one of the five basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

The components of umami are actually amino acids called glutamic acid, guanylic acid, and inosinic acid.

Fresh mushrooms contain glutamic acid, one of these three. Furthermore, drying or freezing mushrooms breaks down the nucleic acids within the cells, producing guanylic acid.

Hoshi shiitake (dried shiitake) is a food that takes advantage of this function.

Types of dried shiitake

These mushrooms are classified not by variety, but by harvest time.

• Donko (冬菇)
  • Harvested in early spring when the caps are less than 70% open. These mushrooms have thick flesh and are considered the highest quality.
• Kouko (香菇) and Koshin (香信)
  • Caps open 70% or more.

Dried shiitake mushrooms weigh approximately 1.5g each, and when soaked in water, they become 10 times their original weight.

Oita Prefecture is a famous producer of dried shiitake mushrooms. Until now, dried shiitake mushrooms have been mixed with other varieties in the same pack, resulting in different rehydration speeds and flavors even when soaked in water. There are efforts to avoid this and stabilize quality.

(By the way, the vitamin D content of mushrooms doubles when dried in the sun. This effect is not achieved with modern dried shiitake, which are machine-dried. Simply exposing raw or dried mushrooms to the sun before cooking at home can also be effective, so be sure to try this if you’re using mushrooms!)

NUTRITION FACTS

• 1213 Calories Protein 28.8 g Total Fat 7.8g Total carbohydrates 261.2g Sodium 6.4g

INGREDIENTS : Kinoko Gohan (Mushroom Rice)

• Rice (2 cups, 320g)
• Dried Shiitake Mushrooms (2 pieces)
  • Water 420g
• Shimeji Mushrooms (30g)
• Enoki Mushrooms (30g)
• Frief tofu (abura age) (1 piece, 13g)
  • Soy Sauce (30g)　We recommend using 15g of light soy sauce and 15g of dark soy sauce.
  • Dashi Stock Granules (5g)
  • Sake (20g)
  • Water (420g)
• Green Onion (15g)

How to make Kinoko Gohan (Mushroom Rice)

It takes 20 minutes to rehydrate dried shiitake mushrooms in water that is 20°C, or 40 minutes in water that is 10°C.
Raising the water temperature can make the umami (umami) in dried shiitake mushrooms more likely to be lost.
If you need to rehydrate dried shiitake mushrooms quickly, adding a small amount of sugar to lukewarm water is said to be effective in shortening the time it takes to rehydrate them.

1. Soak dried shiitake mushrooms in water.
2. Wash rice.
3. Squeeze the water out of the dried shiitake mushrooms and slice them. Do not discard the soaking water, as it will be used later.
4. Cut the stems of the shiitake mushrooms and cut them into bundles. Loosen the mushrooms.
5. Cut the ends off the enoki mushrooms and cut them in half lengthwise. Loosen the bunches.
6. Cut the sushi frief tofu (abura age) into 5mm pieces.
7. Put the rice, the water in which the shiitake mushrooms were soaked, soy sauce, and dashi stock into a rice cooker and mix quickly.
8. Add shiitake mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, enoki mushrooms and fried tofu.
9. Cook the rice.
10. Place the rice on a plate and top with finely chopped green onions.