I love this dish, but didn't think making it through before making it and ended up with the quantities that I usually made for and an adolescent male diner and myself. I haven't changed the recipe as transcribed below, because leftovers made for a very nice lunch the next day (which I highly suggest that you try as well, if you make this.)
This recipe is exceedingly versatile -- different every time as what one puts in it depends on the season, on what has in one's fridge to use up, and on what one might be serving with it. This time I used sliced dried shiitake mushrooms, lily buds, scallions, edamame, and also shaved in a carrot.
You can turn it into a meal, as I did, with the addition of a BBQ-ed Oyster Mushroom Steak for example, or steam thin slices of chicken or a piece of salmon on the top of the rice as it cooks to simplify your evening's cooking.
1 cup Japanese rice
1 cup assorted chopped vegetables
1 cup minus two tablespoons of dashi*
1 Tbsp mirin (or a tablespoon of white wine or sake to which you have added a teaspoon of granulated sugar)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
Rinse the rice several times, until the water runs clear. Put it in a colander to drain well, while you chop your vegetables.
Place the rice in your rice cooker.
Pour over the dashi, to which you have added the mirin and soy sauce to make up a cup of liquid.
Place all of your ingredients in one layer over the surface of the rice.
Turn on your rice cooker and set the rice cooking cycle.
Once the rice has finished cooking and has steamed for about five minutes, remove the lid and stir all of the ingredients together.
This is a twenty eight minute and twelve seconds to the table dish, much of it unsupervised. Please keep in mind that twenty five of those minutes the rice was cooking in the rice cooker and that I had that time to produce my BBQ-ed Oyster Mushroom Steak as well as steamed pea shoots as a side dish while the rice was cooking.
(* I recommend investing in dashi granules at your local Asian grocery store or on Amazon because they will come in handy, but fish stock or even plain water will do in a pinch.)
Inspiration recipe, here.