Calling “okayu”  a risotto is a misnomer...but I think it’s more fitting and appetizing than “rice gruel”. Okayu is sometimes thought of as “food for the inferm” as it’s extremly easy to digest and very nutritious for those who need  to convelesce.

But  okayu is so much more . I eat a  hojicha and rice okayu first thing every New Years morning. Then a few days latter, nanakusa-gayu is eaten to celebrate the  festival of seven herbs on January 7.

It’s a versatile comfort food that can easily be elevated to the main foucs of the meal.

This version is similar to the classic Korean  “Jeonbakjuk”.  This particular recipe came out of a snow storm.  Some friends had stopped by to visit and wound up getting snowed in. They asked me to make them tea, so we decided to have an informal chakai with something to eat during the thick of the storm.

I happened to have one treat in the freezer, and that was some abalone.  Serve this awabi okayu with chopped sallion, toasted white sesame seeds, shoyu, toasted or seasoned nori and a nice bottle of  DASSAI Junmai Ginjo 50 to sip alongside.

3 frozen  abalone (awabi) - scrubbed and all black skin trimmed away (save cuttings for dashi).

1 cup of short grain Haiga Genmai  (slightly polished brown rice) soaked in 4 cups of water for 3-4 hours

1 - 4” square of dried konbu

6 cups of water

2 handfuls of katsuo (dried bonito shavngs)

1 scallion loosely chopped

1/2 onion chopped

3 shiitake mushroom caps (fresh or reconsitituted from dry)

1 tbsp of  toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp of sake

1 tbsp of marudaizu soy sauce

1 scallion minced/sliced thin

1 tsp of toasted sesame seeds

3 individual packs of Korean roasted nori (one for each guest)

Clean and dry abalone after  trimming the black skin.

Pound each abalone with a kitchen mallet/tenderizer to help tenderize., then cut into  a medium dice.

Mix the  diced abalone with the sesame oil, sake and soy sauce and let marinate while you prepare the dashi and rice.

Place konbu in water and gently heat till it begins to simmer.  Add the katsuo and let it boil for another minute or so. Turn off the heat and wait until the katsuo sinks to the bottom of the pan. Pour the dadhi through a strainer into another pot that contains the loosley chopped scallion, onion and the shiitake mushrooms. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. Strain the dashi again and this time combine it with the rice in a nother pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and let simmer for approx 20-25 minutes or until the rice is very soft and the cooking dashi is starting to get thick.

Heat a large pan and toss the marinated abalone cubes in for 1 minute and sear well over high heat.  Remove from the heat and add contents of pan to the cooking rice.  Stir well and continue to cook until the okayu is thick but still creamy.  Serve in a bowl with the thinly minced scallion and sesame seeds sprinkled over the top and a splash of good quality soy sauce. Or try gomashio (roasted black sesame seeds and salt) scattered over the okayu. Serves 3.

A quick but always welcome snack, yaki onigiri are perfect for those nights when you want to graze on an assortment of  tasty tidbits to go along with a nice bottle of sake, shochu or a pot of your favorite tea.  Yaki onigiri can be simply brushed with sake and shoyu or they can be topped with more elaborate toppings like  gingery, negi-miso.  They can be made with fresh cooked rice or frozen rice that has been microwaved  till hot.

Either  way, grilled under the broiler or in a pan, the crisp, roasted rice flavor is a must with any

Izakaya meal, once the sake starts flowing.

3 measures of short grain brown rice (genmai)

1 measure of mixed grains and rice

1 measure of haiga brown rice

(all mixed, rinsed and cooked together in a rice cooker. Follow Rice cooker cooking dorections).

2 tbsp of sea salt

1 bowl of water

1/4 cup of sake  and 1/8 cup (or more for taste) of shoyu, mixed.

1tsp each of white and black sesame seeds, toasted.

To make Onigiri:

While the rice is still warm, and comfortable to handle, dip your hands in the water and sprinkle a little sea salt over your palms and rub your hands together.  Pick up approximately1/2 to 1.5 cup of rice (I like small onigiri) and start to compress it into a rough triangular shape.  Use the space between your thumb and forefinger to form one tip of the triangle.  Make sure it is uniform and compact.  Once finished, place the onigiri on a cookie sheet that has been misted with a cooking spray.  Finish all the rice.  This should give you 8 - 12 onigiri pending on the size you make them.

After all the cakes are made, turn on your broiler. Brush the top sides of the rice cakes with the sake and shoyu mix and  then broil for 3-5 minutes, checking to make sure it is browning and not burning. As soon as the tops are browned, turn the onigiri over and brush the other sides with the sake and shoyu making sure to coat the sides of the cakes as well.

Finish broiling until nicely browned.

Caution: do not to let the rice burn.

Remove the onigiri from the oven and sprinkle them with a few sesame seeds.  Usually the “rice balls”  don’t get too far from the cooking sheet, but if you have friends stopping by, serve them stacked up on a seasonally inspired  plate or a bamboo basket lined with freshly  washed, autumn colored, maple or oak leaves.

When I think of  autumn, I think of matsutake mushrooms, tasty hot pots and oysters

Fall oysters  are at a point where they’ve put on some meat  and flavor after their “busy” season.   I use them in a number of dishes from my favorite Saikyo Miso, Corn and  Oyster Soup to delcicous fried oysters  But this dish of Oysters cooked with rice is wonderfully simple and so tasty when served with other seasonal items.

The Koreans have a similar dish, but I like the extra  Japanese step of making a dashi  to give the broth even more flavor that remarkably works with the oysters to enhance their flavor.

I also like to add some sweet corn from time to time as I think the taste of corn and oysters goes so well together.  The fun part is adding your favorite condiment to make this recipe your own.

1.5 cups of Haiga Genmai  (slightly polished brown rice)

 soaked in 4 cups of water for 30 minutes

2 - 4” square of dried konbu

5 cups of water

1 big handful of katsuoboshi (dried bonito shavngs)

sea salt to taste

2 tbsp of sake

2 tbsp of marudaizu soy sauce

1 tbsp of mirin

10 shucked oysters

1.5 inch cube of ginger julienned

1 pack of Hon-Shimeji mushrooms

3 scallion minced/sliced thin

1 sheet of freshly toasted nori cut into slivers

Fresh toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Rinse the rise adn let soak.  Make the dashi by putting the Konbu in a pot witht he 5 cups of water.  Bring to a simmer and add the Katsuoboshi.  Cook for one minute adn then turn off the heat and let the katsuo sink to the bottom.  Strain the stock through a fine sieve,  Place the liquid in another pot.  Add the sake, soy suace, salt and mirin.  Once the mixture comes to a simmer, add the oysters adn let them cook for a minute.  Remove with a slotted spoon and reserve the oyters and the cooking stock.

Drain the rice and place in the bottom of a 2 quart, heavy bottomed pot. Add the approximately 3 cups of stock and bring the rice to a boil.  Wait for 2  minutes. Once it is simmerimng away

again, add the oysters, ginger mushrooms and cover, reducing the heat top low and let finish cooking with out removing the lid for 15 minutes.

To Serve: Place in individual bowls and top with the Nori, sesame seeds and minced Scallion.

Glazed  stoneware food bowl - Patti Rogoff

Ochoko (sake cups)- Cha Buta An

Old urushi (Lacquer) bowl , tamari colored - private collection

Celebrating Oshogatsu is a wonderful, meaningful way to spend the New Year Holiday.

For tea people, it means getting ready for the first tea of the year.

At home we start with a thorough cleaning.  Once the house is in order, we set about making the osechi foods that will go into the Jubako (laquered, tiered food boxes).

In our family, New Years Day starts with Okayusan for breakfast.

This is a rice porridge made with long brewed Hoji Cha and served with Narazuke (melon pickles from Nara).

This is similar to the porridge made at Daitokuji Temple in Nara.

Next is Obukucha.

This is thin Matcha tea (Usucha) with a small pickled plum added to the bowl after the tea is whipped.

Next, we toast the New Year with O-toso, sake and mirin that has been flavored with a special blend of herbs.

When it’s finally time to eat, we open up the Jubako filled with the Osechi food specialties;Rolled Omelet, seasoned herring roe, simmered carrots cut like plum blossoms, all foods that have special symbolism or significance for the New Year.

This is all accompanied by Ozoni, a soup with Mochi rice cake. We make the Kansai version that uses sweet, white Saikyo miso, Kyoto root vegetables with fried beancurd puffs and topped with Katsuo shavings

For many Japanese, a true taste of autumn can be found in  the Matsutake Mushroom.  Matsutake mushrooms grow near red pine trees in Japan, but can be found here in the US and Canada in coniferous forests in the north west. They are a pricey Item,  but if you ‘re lucky, a few fine specimens will give you all the flavor you need and this recipe is perfect for that.

We here at Cha Buta An make matsutake gohan as part of an overall dinner celebrating this delectable mushroom and the arrival of autumn : matsutake gohan served alongside a clear soup with matsutake and  a julienne of green yuzu skin ,  broiled tile  fish and shrimp grilled with uni, matsutake flavored tofu rolled in sweetened egg omelet, and seasonal vegetables and pickles to accompany.  Enjoy this meal with a nice bottle of sake or a pot of freshly brewed Hoji Cha.

4-5 mixed matsutake mushrooms (small and medium)

2 cups of koshihikari rice (washed until water runs clear)

2 cups of water

1 4 inch long piece of kombu for dashi (wiped with a dry cloth)

1 tbsp of sake

1 tsp of sea salt

1 tbsp of soy sauce

1 bunch of mitsuba (Japanese parsely-optional)

With a damp cloth, wipe the matsutake mushrooms of all dirt and grit.Trim the ends and slice the mushrooms thinly, lengthwise.

Place the cleaned rice in the bottom of the rice cooker.  Add the water, sake, soy sauce and salt , placing the kombu on top.and cook according to directions of the rice cooker. Let the rice stand for 10 minutes after cooking is complete.   Discard the kombu (or eat asa tasty snack with some of the rice). Serve hot in bowls as is.  If you like, you can sprinkle a few mitsuba leaves on top.

The nice thing about matsutake gohan is, that if you have left overs, you can make a quick treat for the next day...yaki onigiri.

Simply heat the rice (a  couple of minutes in a micro wave works fine).  Fill a bowl with water. and place a sprinkle of sea salt on a small plate. Dip your hand in the water and then in a few grains of salt.  Form the rice into a round or triangular shape and place on a foil lined cookie sheet.  Once all the Onigiri are made, then brush each one with a mix of soy sauce and sake.  Grill on each side in the oven until they are browned and crispy (approx 2-3 minutes per side).  Serve with other snacks and beer or sake.  These are delicious on an early  autumn evening, when the nights begin to turn chilly. I even serve them as part of an informal tea meal.

This simple preparation for dried shiitake mushrooms is , agave orquick, delicious  and  a Japanese classic.  These earthy  mushrooms combine with soy suace, mirin, sake and sweetners to create a wonderful accompaniement to rice, meats or sake.

I make this recipe and always include the simmered mushrooms  in my Osechi jubako for New Years, but they are simple to prepare and perfect for keeping in the fridge when you want a tasty topping for your rice.

12 dried shiitake mushrooms re-hydrated in warm water (reserve 1 cup of this for the cooking liquid)

1 tbsp of sake

1 tbsp of mirin

1 tsp of sugar or agave

1/3 cup of soy sauce

2 scallions sliced - green part only (optional)

Trim the tough stem ends and leave the mushroom caps whole

Place  all the ingredeints in a pan and simmer together over a medium heat for 1 hour or till the liquid level starts to thicken and concentrate.

Let the mushroom caps cool in the liquid and then place in an air tight container and store in the refridgerator. Use within  5 days.

Use them right form the fridge with hot rice for a delcious snack.  I like to  add them to a rice bowl topped with simmered chicken and eggs in a seasoned broth (Oyako Domburi).  The also make a delcious filling for Onigiri rice balls.

NOTE: This recipe can be made with fresh shiitake, but the flavor is not as intense.