Welcome an abundant new year with a comforting bowl of 'treasure rice'

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — Rice gets a bad rap these days.

Well, perhaps not rice specifically but carbohydrates in general. Whether you’re trying out the Carnivore Diet (or any diet that seems promising; it’s a brand new year after all and fad diets are what we embrace every January, apparently) or trying to increase your blood ketone levels so you get ripped like Wolverine, carbs are out of fashion.

Even in Thailand, long famed as South-east Asia’s rice bowl, I had become accustomed to hearing fellow diners — particularly the younger set — requesting nit noi (“A little less”) or kao noi (“Less rice, please”).

Yet I can’t imagine a divine plate of pad krapao that’s all holy basil and no rice. What a terrifying thought.

So while some of my friends are spending their first 30 days of the year trying out water fasts and juice fasts, I will indulge in a bowl of “treasure rice” – or what the Japanese call takikomi gohan (“mixed rice”).

Japanese short-grain rice (left) and 'shimeji' mushrooms (right).

This is simple farmer’s fare so why the elevated appellation? Stirring the rice pot, you uncover wilted sticks of carrots, morsels of mushrooms and dimpled nuggets of deep-fried tofu pouches.

Not steak. Not caviar or truffles. Nothing expensive or extravagant. Not treasures.

Not true.

Who’s to say treasures can’t be what’s simple and common? Combined and strewn across the landscape of well-seasoned rice, these simple ingredients tantalise our tastebuds and lift us up.

Slice carrots into sticks of even thickness.

They promise a better year to come than what passed before. The handsome harvest of the land, the blessing of a belly that’s always filled (but never to the brink; let’s not oscillate between famine and feasting).

And what’s not to love? It’s a bowl of rice. Lovely.

To be honest, despite my impassioned celebration of everything rice, I’m not going to gorge on these starchy grains either.

Perhaps the best way to ring in this new year, one that we hope will prove more bountiful and less devastating than the last one, is to consider a less extreme path.

We don’t have to go all in or nothing. Rice all the time (and plenty of it) or no rice at all. And the same goes for everything else in our lives. Time for a more moderate approach, a less taxing weight on our synapses and our souls.

The 'shimeji' mushrooms should be coarsely chopped so they mix well with the rice.

Perhaps true abundance isn’t too much of everything but having just enough. As I tuck into this bowl of hot rice, I give thanks for what I’m having and I forgive all the times of self-inflicted gluttony or deprivation.

This here is plenty already. This here is enough and so are we.

‘TREASURE RICE’

To make a classic takikomi gohan, the “famous five” ingredients are Japanese short-grain rice, carrots, gobo (burdock root), aburaage (deep-fried tofu pouches) and shiitake mushrooms.

Other than the famous five above, there are a variety of popular ingredients including asari clams, sweet potatoes, hijiki seaweed and thinly sliced strips of beef. Some are seasonal, such as sanma (Pacific saury) in autumn and takenoko (bamboo shoots) during springtime.

Sauté the root vegetables first so they soften before adding to the rice pot.

So allow your creativity and your pantry to guide you; use whatever you enjoy eating the most and whatever is freshest and available. There’s no point breaking the bank (what more given the current economic climate) to obtain a hard-to-find ingredient.

For instance, you may replace burdock root, which can be difficult to source outside of Japan, with lotus root. You don’t really need to use short-grain Japanese rice; our long-grain jasmine rice or basmati rice would work wonderfully.

Also, I prefer the tender forms of shimeji mushrooms that grow in needle-like clusters with cap-like crowns to shiitake. And so on.

This treasure rice is full of “treasures” precisely because they are what you personally prize above the rest, even if they are simple foods. And we all deserve a treat. Simplest is best.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

30g carrots, sliced into sticks

30g burdock root or lotus root, julienned

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

½ teaspoon sesame oil

200g uncooked white rice

Water (follow rice cooker measurements)

½ teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

30g shimeji mushrooms (or other mushrooms you prefer), chopped coarsely

30g aburaage (deep-fried tofu pouches), sliced into halves

Method

Heat up the vegetable oil in a large non-stick pan. Add the sliced carrots and the burdock or lotus root.

Use a medium-high heat to sauté the root vegetables for about 5 minutes till they begin to soften. Once that happens, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and add the sugar.

Stir the ingredients thoroughly so they are well combined with the rice.

Continue cooking until all the water from the root vegetables has been cooked off. Now you can add the dark soy sauce and sauté a little more until the sauce has caramelised.

Remove from the heat and toss with the sesame seeds and sesame oil. Set aside.

Next wash the rice, rinsing several times to remove excess starch. Put the washed and drained rice into a rice cooker with the appropriate amount of water (which may differ depending on your rice cooker model).

Add the sugar and light soy sauce and stir these in thoroughly. Add the sautéed root vegetables on top, followed by the uncooked shimeji mushrooms and aburaage.

Make sure to have a bit of each ‘treasure’ in every bowl.

Turn on the rice cooker and allow it to cook. Once the rice is cooked, remove the rice cooker lid and stir the rice and the ingredients together till well combined. Ladle into bowls and serve immediately.

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