A Meal for a Shogun
A meal fit for a shogun featuring (clockwise from top left) pickled daikon, white rice, boiled chicken with flavored rice, and lightly pickled daikon and gobo
City/Region: Japan
Time Period: 16th Century | 17th Century
The typical meal for a shogun or samurai wasn’t all that different from what everyone else ate. There was usually soup, fish, and pickled vegetables. There would be polished (white) rice if you were of the elite classes, brown rice if you were wealthy, and millet for most people. The quality of ingredients may vary depending on your status, but the basics were the same.
This meal for a shogun includes two different preparations of white rice, one plain and one seasoned with a mixture of Japanese and European flavors, like dashi and cloves. The combination is wonderful and different from Japanese food that I’m used to. The chicken is boiled (not my favorite way to prepare chicken), but it’s still flavorful.
The namasu, or lightly pickled vegetables, are wonderful. They have a sweetness up front, then a pleasant acidity comes through. I’d never had gobo (burdock root) before, and it’s crunchy and delicious (it kind of reminds me of jicama).
“Nanban Ryōri
Boil a chicken to make a broth. Color the stock with gardenia. Add black pepper, a bit of clove, ginger, garlic, and green onion to well-polished rice. Cook this in the stock. Place pieces of the chicken over the rice. ”
Ingredients:
Namasu no Bu (Lightly Pickled Vegetables)
- 1 1/2 cups (350 ml) rice vinegar
- 1/3 cup (65 g) sugar
- Small piece of kombu* (dried seaweed)
- 1 large daikon (Japanese radish)
- 2 pieces of gobo (burdock root)
- 2 teaspoons salt
Nanban Ryōri (Chicken with Seasoned Rice)
- 2 tablespoons dashi powder*
- 3 quarts (3 L) cold water
- 2 lbs (1 kg) mixed chicken pieces with bones, or a whole chicken cut up
- 4 dried gardenia fruits*
- 1 1/2 cups (300 g) Japanese white rice, or other short grain rice
- A large pinch of black pepper
- A regular pinch of ground clove
- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
- 2 teaspoons chopped green onion
- Chopped green onion, for garnish
- Black sesame seeds, for garnish
- Cooked plain white rice, for serving
- Pickled daikon, for serving
*See notes below.
Instructions:
- For the namasu: Mix the vinegar and sugar in a pot. Add the kombu and heat to a gentle boil, making sure all the sugar dissolves. Take it off the heat and let it cool completely.
- Peel the daikon and gobo. Chop both into thin sticks, about 2 inches long.
- Mix the daikon and gobo in a bowl and sprinkle them with the salt and toss to make sure the salt is evenly distributed. Let it rest for 5 minutes.
- After the 5 minutes, squeeze out as much liquid as you can from the vegetables. Take the kombu out of the vinegar (save it for later), and pour the vinegar over the daikon and gobo. Ideally, you want the vegetables to be completely submerged. You can make it in a dish, but an easy way to do this is to put everything in a plastic bag and squeeze out the air. Either way, let it sit in the fridge for about 24 hours.
- For the nanban ryōri: Stir the dashi powder into the water in a large pot. Add the chicken to the dashi and water and set the pot over medium-high heat. Bring it to a boil and skim off any foam and scum from the surface. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the meat is cooked through. If you’re using chicken breast, keep an eye on it and take it out once it’s cooked, but leave the rest of the pieces that have bones in there.
- Continue to simmer for another 2 hours. It should reduce to about 1 liter of liquid. Once it’s reduced, take it off the heat and strain it through some cheesecloth.
- Break up the dried gardenia fruits and put them in the strained broth. Steep for 30 minutes, then strain them out. The broth should be a nice yellow.
- Rinse the rice well, until the water is clear. Mix the pepper, clove, garlic, ginger, and green onion with the rice in a pot or rice cooker. Add 1 1/2 cups (350 ml) of the broth to the rice. Cook in a rice cooker or simmer it on the stove, covered, for 20 minutes, then turn the heat off and leave the lid on to let it steam for another 10 minutes.
- After the rice has cooked, dish it up onto a plate. Slice some of the chicken and arrange it on top. Garnish with chopped green onion and black sesame seeds. Put some of the namasu into a small bowl. Chop up the kombu that you saved from the vinegar and put a little on top of the namasu for garnish. Serve the dishes forth with a bowl of plain white rice and some sliced pickled daikon.
Notes
- Kombu is dried seaweed with tons of umami. It has a natural white powder on it, which is where most of the flavor is, so don't wash it off.
- Dashi is an umami-rich soup stock that is a staple in Japanese cooking. It's usually made with kombu (dried kelp) and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). You can make your own, or you can buy dashi powder or packets (like dashi tea bags) that you prepare with water.
- These dried fruits come from a type of gardenia that is native to Southern China. It's used to dye all kinds of things, like food, clothes, and paper, yellow.
- Link to kombu: https://www.amazon.com/Hokkaido-RISHIRI-stock-Japanese-cuisine/dp/B06XPFC1BW/ref=sr_1_3
- Link to dashi: https://www.amazon.com/Ajinomoto-Dashi-Soup-Stock-4-23/dp/B0002YB40O/ref=sr_1_6
- Link to dried gardenia fruit: https://www.amazon.com/Gardenia-Fruit-Dried-100-Nature/dp/B0781VMSTD?th=1
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