Three Colored Rice (San Shoku Go-han)

The weather was great this weekend.  Fine, not too hot, lovely breeze…  Is autumn just around the corner?

In Japan we call autumn as “eating season”.  There are lots of seasonal food such as rice, grapes, kuri (chestnuts), nashi pears, sweet potatoes, and fish are taster than ever!  Migratory fish eats lots of food in Northern ocean and swim down to South along Japanese Islands around autumn, so we can enjoy juicy tasty fish in this season.  Samma (saury) is the typical autumn fish in Japan, it’s written as “秋刀魚” (autumn sword fish).

People tend to put on weight during this season as the food is so great.  I’m not the exception…  My family owns few rice fields, so we get lots of fresh rice in this season.  I can’t resist these juicy rice and tasty food!  I eat a lot, a lot, and a lot…

Today I felt like stuffing my stomach with rice.  I made this three colored rice (called San-shoku Gohan)  As the name indicates, this is a dish with three different color food on top of steamed rice.  The red (pink) is salmon, yellow is egg, and brown is chicken mince.  You can use any food to make the color contrast.

<Three Colored Rice> for one

• 1 serve of steamed rice
• 30g salmon
• 1/4 tsp sake (or white wine)
• 1/2 egg
• 1/2 tsp milk
• 30g chicken mince
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/6 grated ginger
• pinch of sugar

1. Heat a frying pan (or small sauce pan).  Place salmon, sake and pinch of salt.  Try to break the meat, and cook through.  Set aside.
2. Beat the egg with milk.  Make scrambled egg.  Set aside.
3. Place chicken mince with soy sauce, mirin and oyster sauce in a pan, and cook over medium heat.  Keep stirring.  Once the chicken is cooked, add ginger and pinch of sugar.  Cook until all the liquid is absorbed.
4. Arrange these three food on the top of steamed rice.

The key for this dish is to season well on these three food.  You can add miso paste to the chicken and make it miso flavor.  I can eat lots of rice with those!