Japanese Mushroom Rice (Kinoko Gohan)

Japanese Mushroom Rice (Kinoko Gohan)

This Japanese mushroom rice recipe is made entirely in the rice cooker. Seasoned with soy sauce, mirin, and a couple other yummies, this is an easy way to enjoy a savory and filling one pot vegetarian meal.

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine Japanese

Diet Low Lactose, Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword easy rice recipes

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 40

Servings

Calories 197kcal

Author Agile Test Kitchen

Equipment

1 rice cooker see Note 1 for using a regular pot on the stove

Ingredients

1 c brown rice (I used short grain) See Note 2 for white rice substitute
1 ½ c water plus additional water to rinse the rice
1 g konbu about 2" square, see Note 3 for substitute
4 c mixed mushrooms, sliced enoki, oyster, shitake, trumpet, etc.
2 Tb soy sauce
2 Tb sake see Note 4 for substitute
1 Tb mirin
2 Tb butter or vegan butter optional

Garnish ideas

sliced green onions
toasted sesame seeds
seaweed strips

Instructions

Rinse rice with water and drain.
Add rice to rice cooker with the measured 1 ½ c water and dried kombu. Soak for 20-30 minutes.
While the rice and kombu soak, prepare the mushrooms. Trim off an inedible stems of shiitake mushrooms or enoki mushrooms, Separate into smaller pieces with your hands or chop into 1-2" pieces.
Remove the rehydrated kombu from the rice pot. (See Note 3 for kombu discard.)
Mix the soy sauce, sake, and mirin into the rice.
Layer the mushrooms directly on top of the rice.
Set the rice to cook per the rice cooker setting. When rice cooker turns off, open, and mix up the rice and mushrooms. The soy sauce seasoning will settle to the bottom, so you'll want to distribute it through the rice.
Mix in the opitonal butter.
Serve hot with optional garnish.

Notes

This recipe makes about 3 cups of food. This is good for 2 large portions or 4 smaller portions to serve with other food.

To make this in a pot on the stove, use a pot large enough to hold the rice and mushrooms. Bring the drained rice and water to a boil. Then mix in the soy sauce, sake, and mirin. Layer the mushrooms on top. Bring back to a boil (if it stopped boiling), then turn down the heat to a gentle simmer (low bubble). Cover and continue cooking until the rice is cooked. This should take about 40-45 minutes for brown rice or 25-30 minutes for white rice.
To make this recipe with white rice (short grain or long grain), reduce the amount of measured water from 1 ½ c to ¾ c.
To be honest, dried kombu can be expensive. If you don't use it regularly, I wouldn't buy a whole package of it. Omit the kombu, and top the finished dish with some seaweed strips or crisps.
Similarly, if you don't drink or use sake regularly, substitute with water. Sake adds very subtle notes of sweetness, freshness and umami, but I wouldn't buy a whole bottle if you're not going to use it all. It can last a couple weeks after opening in the fridge, but taste before using. If it has oxidized too much, it will start tasting sour instead of sweet.
Where this recipe goes wrong is if there is too much water. Most brown rice packages call for 1.5 - 2 times the amount of water to rice. However, since the mushrooms also release water into the rice, I use a 1:1.5 ratio of brown rice to water.

The nutrition facts are calculated without the optional pats of butter.

Nutrition