HAYASHI RICE

Every time I am  asked what my favorite Japanese dish is,   I couldn’t answer because there are tons I could choose from.

Most of you think Japanese food is VERY Japanese such as sushi, sashimi and miso soup. Even though I could or would eat sushi or sashimi every day, of course, we do have more varieties of dishes.

Some Japanese dishes may not be traditional, but they are VERY Japanese  in a sense and very popular like tonkatsu. We call Japanese dishes influenced by western dishes as YOSHOKU, which literally means western food.

We Japanese like yosyoku.   We have Japanese style hamburger steak (we eat this with rice! but often with a fork!) , omu-rice (omelet rice -pilaf covered with egg), menchi katsu (minced beef croquet) ,korokke (potato croquet), and karaage (Japanese style fried chicken).   I think I could call them as Japanese food even though they are not traditional.

In the previous article, I introduced CURRY RICE.  It is one of the popular yosyoku.  If you use store-bought roux, it is so easy to make it and it is foolproof. (we also could make this without store-bought roux,  here.)

We have another similar dish which we could use store-bought roux .

(This was our Thanksgiving table.)

The Thanksgiving was over, and I had been using my cooking brain at full power, so I need to rest my brain.

OK, I have to use this!

I reached the HAYASHI RICE roux box in my pantry.

WHAT IS IT?

Are you familiar with hashed beef?

That is HAYASHI RICE in Japan.  We modified in our way.

When hashed beef came to Japan,  Japanese people couldn’t pronounce HASHED well, so we call HAYASHI  instead of hashed.

(There are other stories about the origin of the naming, but this is the most common one.)

 

Like Curry Rice, this dish always comes with rice, and we eat with spoons.

Today I would like to introduce this dish briefly, but I would like to make this dish in my way, not in typical Japanese way.    I may not be able to call my dish  “hashed” beef since I use a block of meat, and also I modified this with some ingredients which don’t appear on the instruction on the box.

Anyway I will show my way!

Ingredients

• any brand’s HAYASHI RICE roux
• about 3 lb of beef chuck roast, trimming and cubed by 1 inches
• 1 28oz can of whole tomato
• 2-3 medium size  onion, sliced vertically
• 3-4 carrots, peeled and cut diagonally
• 1/2 head of cauliflower
• brown mushrooms
• 1 cup of green peas (frozen)
• thyme
• 1 cup of red wine (depends, I explain it below)
• black pepper
• hot sauce (optional)
• Japanese rice

 

Let’s start!

First sprinkle salt and pepper on the meat, and then brown the meat by several times.  Don’t overcrowd the pan!  Set aside the meat on the plate.

Use the same pan, saute the sliced onion and carrot.  When they get soft, add the browned meet together with dripping on the plate.

According to the box, we need about 30 oz of water, but I want this dish to be flavorful, so I try not to use pure water.  I am going to use the juice from the can of tomato, so I drained it, and I use it as a part of the liquid required.  Also I want this stew to be rich, so I am going to use red wine.

I scaled the juice and the wine, and make it match to the required liquid quantity.  Add the mixture of the juice from the can of whole tomato and red wine, and scrape the bottom of the pan to take off UMAMI flavor.

Then add the tomato and thyme.

Once it boils, turn the heat low ,and close the lid and simmer about 1 hour.

 

 

Then add mushrooms and cauliflower florets.

I like cauliflower a lot, especially in this kind of stew. They get sweet and tender.

Continue cooking with the lid closed for 30minutes.

Turn off the heat.

Add green peas, and then break the roux and put them into the pot.

Stir gently.

Then turn on the heat low and continue cooking about 10 minutes.

TA DA~!

Does this look delicious or what?

After 15 years of the life in the US, I found the Japanese food is sometime too sweet, so I add some acidity (wine and tomato) to this HAYASHI RICE, and add hot sauce if you like ( I like!) before serving.

 

Usually we use thinly sliced beef and only onion in Hayashi Rice, so it doesn’t take much time to be cooked, so if you are in a hurry, Hayashi rice could be your choice!  You could find this roux at Asian grocery stores.

It goes well with bread , so you don’t need to have rice, but this is Japanese food, so we need GOHAN!