Donburi in Your Bowl and at Your Fingertips

I don’t think it is cheating to use a rice maker. There are all manner of theorists out there who will tell you their tricks and superstitions about how to get the grain right the old fashioned way. I suppose I could get persnickety about the perfect pot, too, but the truth is that I am often tired.

In the evenings, when I face the task of feeding my family, I tell you, I am in no mood to fuss over touchy rules. Everyone’s hungry and I have nothing to prove, so I put my brown rice and water into the machine, press the START button, and then turn my attention to the more interesting part of the program: what I am going to put on top?

I could scoop on some chilli, a curry, or just butter and salt. But tonight, I have something way, way else in mind. I’m thinking of the Japanese dish—or should I say bowl—called “Donburi.” Really, that’s all that Donburi is: a bowl of rice and something festive and delicious on top.  Donburi are one-bowl, one-pan and one-rice maker meals that don’t leave you washing dishes all night. You steam up your rice, put on your topping and deem the deal done.

I’m not sure if this is a rule, but for sure it is a good guideline: whatever you put on top has to have a lot of flavor to share with the otherwise unadorned rice underneath. What’s cool about these toppings is that they are generally quite balanced with the flavor palette of your palate. They rope in the salty, savory, and surprisingly, the sweet, too.  When I say sweet, I mean truly sweet as in honey, mirin or white sugar.  Of course, there are vegetables, and of course, there is soy sauce, and yes, there can be meat or tofu.

You find a small pan and fill it with an even smaller amount of water, season it up with the usual Japanese seasoning suspects and then add your gathered up goodies so they simmer together and soften. Finally, you mix into the shallow soup just one scrambled egg. This will set rather quickly into a loose omelette-like device that you then slide onto your bowl of steaming rice.

The washing up will be so quick you don’t even need Rosie the Robot to help. And if you succeed in getting the kids to sleep before your bedtime, you may have time to watch an old episode of the Jetsons and really dig all their button pushing ways.

Walk into the kitchen, put of couple of cups of rice in your rice maker along with the right amount of water and push START.  Now go gather your vegetables to prep and all the items you will need to flavor everything:

Vegetables that really ought to make an appearance:

• Shredded cabbage
• Sliced scallions

Along with these vegetables that could make an appearance and still the dish will  retain authenticity:

• Carrots (shredded with your nifty $3 mandoline)
• Mung bean sprouts
• Daikon radish in julienne strips
• Shiitake mushrooms sliced thinly

Vegetables that could make an appearance because you have them, you like them and you are in charge of your donburi:

• Sliced leeks
• Spinach
• Zucchini in julienne strips
• Sweet potato cut into thin discs
• Any mushroom you have, cut thinly
• Whatev.

Seasonings and don’t forget the egg

• ½ Cup of water
• Three tablespoons Soy sauce

• Two tablespoons bonito flakes (dried and smoked skipjack tuna that has been grated into fine flakes. These flakes impart much flavor to the broth. You can skip these if you can’t get yourself over to the Japanese market in Medford called Ebisuya but, the ingredient will be missed.

• A small but noticeable amount of either fresh or pickled ginger (not powdered)
• One tablespoon sugar or some other sweetener
• One teaspoon of toasted sesame oil

• ¼ cup of your protein of choice, truly anything you can thing of would work here  (tofu, chicken, lamb, beef, fish, scallops, squid…anything)
• One raw egg, scrambled and set aside in a bowl

1.     Put all of the ingredients except the egg into a small saucepan and bring it to a simmer.

2.     Add about two cups’ worth of your collected and prepared vegetables and protein.

3.     Cover and let simmer for a few minutes.

4.     Open the lid and stir.

5.     When things look tender but not hammered, pour the egg all over the vegetables and replace the cover.

6.     After another minute or so, the egg will be set and the ingredients will have formed a loose and flavorful omelette-like topping.

7.     Slide this topping on your steaming bowl of rice and enjoy this truly satisfying and vegetable-laden treat.