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I hope you like Japanese food. This week’s meat free Monday recipe is inspired by my recent visit to Japan. As a vegetarian I was very apprehensive to Japanese food at first and in fact they’re not the most veggie-friendly country I’ve been too. But I love rice, and accepting that most dishes have fish stock, made my life easier. This dish particularly reminds me of Kyoto where we had something very similar,  and I’ve recently watched Memoirs of a Geisha too so I had to go get myself a wooden plate and chopsticks to look the part too!

Rice with fresh ginger is a lovely Japanese recipe and for me the stir fired pak choy completes it. It reminds me of the simplicity of Japanese lifestyle. I have now incorporated some of their healthier customs like eating in smaller plates and control my portion sizes without sacrificing any good food as part of my new year’s resolutions.

You will need the following ingredients for four. You can generally buy them from any large supermarket:

• 320 gms Japanese rice
• 30 gms fresh ginger chopped (yum)
• 2 garlic cloves chopped
• 250 gms pak choy each chopped into three
• 75 gms shimeji mushrooms roughly chopped (if you can’t find these shitake will do)
• 355ml dashi stock (fish stock)
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce for rice and a splash for the pak choy
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp sake (don’t go wild!)

Preparation

For the rice:

1. Wash the rice in water until the water becomes clear and let it stand for 10-15 minutes while it drains.
2. Add the dashi stock to the ilght soy sauce, miring and sake to make 400ml of liquid.
3. Put the rice in a heavy bottomed pan, add the ginger and mushrooms and the dashi mix, cover and let it come to a boil.
4. As soon as the rice is boiling simmer and let it cook for 10 minutes, turn off the heat and then let it stand for a further 10 minutes without taking off the lid.

For the pak choy

1. Heat a tiny bit of oil in a pan and when it is hot add the garlic and stir for less than a minute
2. Add the pak choy and cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Add a splash of soy sauce.
4. Cook until the darker sides start to wilt.

Serve both side by side and I hope you enjoy the simplicity.