Edamame Gohan (Brown Rice with Soy Beans, Nametake, Wakame)

Posted by Judy | Bebe Love Okazu on June 8, 2010 in Blog, Japanese Cuisine Favorites, Lakers, Slider | 11 comments

Edamame gohan (brown rice with soybeans) is a simple mixed rice dish of edamame, nametake (Japanese mushrooms) and seaweed. This combination of ingredients really brings plain ol’ rice to life. It’s the perfect alternative for folks such as myself who don’t really like rice. (Photo Credit: Hideki Ueha)

As a child, my parents made me sit at the dinner table until I finished my rice, but I was a stubborn child. I would just sit… and sit… refusing to eat any more of my rice than I’d already eaten. Although I like ajinori and furikake (kind-of), I couldn’t be bribed with either of these to mask the plainness of the rice and finish my bowl. Not even the threat of ‘no dessert after dinner’ motivated me to finish my rice. Eventually, my parents would give-up and allow me to leave the dinner table.

Mah-zeh gohan (mixed rice with various vegetables and/or meat, seafood) or mixed rice dishes such as my mom’s takikomi gohan and my friend C’s edamame gohan are so much more interesting to the palate than plain rice. If my parents had fed me mah-zeh gohan all the time, they wouldn’t have had a problem with me finishing my rice bowl. :)

The first time I ate edamame gohan was when C made this for a BBQ at her house. It was so good and it went really well with the Korean BBQ meat that we grilled. The second time I ate this, the mom of a friend made some for our family while my dad was in the hospital, and the flavors were very comforting. Eventually, I asked C to teach me how to make her edamame gohan and while I’ve modified the recipe just a bit, it’s now a part of my regular dinner repertoire and it goes well with baked fish. I decided to make this for Game 3. Apparently, edamame gohan was exactly the magic we needed to beat the Celtics. Yay!

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Edamame Gohan, SMALL PORTION

• 2 cups brown rice
• 1 1/2 cup shelled edamame (soy beans)
• 1/4 cup dried cut wakame (seaweed)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons nametake (mushrooms)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

1) Wash brown rice and set aside for 30 minutes before cooking.

2) Add 1/4 cup dried wakame into the rice cooker. There’s no need to reconstitute the wakame before putting it in the rice cooker. The original recipe calls for 1 bottle of Wakame-Chazuke Furikake but I typically don’t buy this and it’s more cost-effective for me to use dried, cut wakame since I keep this stocked in my pantry.

3) Let the rice sit for 15 minutes after it’s done cooking. You’ll find that the wakame floats to the top of the rice cooker – – – not that this is important, but it looks strange when you first open the rice cooker – don’t be alarmed.

Gently mix the wakame and rice together using a shamoji (rice paddle). Next, sprinkle salt over the rice and gently mix once again.

4) I had leftover edamame from the night before when I served some as an appetizer before dinner. (I usually stock-up on frozen edamame when it’s on sale at Marukai market. Sometimes it’s as cheap as $0.68 cents per bag – limit 5. I buy the limit since we eat a lot of this stuff.) Shell edamame and add 1 1/2 cups of edamame to the cooked rice, directly into the rice cooker. You can also find pre-shelled edamame at Trader Joes but I find it’s cheaper to shell them myself.

5) Next, add 2 1/2 tablespoons of bottled nametake to the rice cooker. If you’ve never tried this, I highly recommend it. Nametake is shoyu seasoned nametake mushrooms which is basically a type of enoki mushroom.

At this point, your edamame rice should look something like this.

Gently stir all of the ingredients together using a shamoji. I usually mix in all of the ingredients just before I’m ready to serve the edamame gohan. It’s nice to use the warming mode on the rice cooker to keep it warm for 30 minutes or so, but if you keep this rice in warming mode any longer, you’ll start to lose the beautiful green color of the edamame.

Another pantry item I like to keep is kizami nori. (I bought this specific package because my Uncle Yoshi designed this package for Yamamotoyama. :) I found it at both Marukai and Mitsuwa.)

Top the edamame gohan with a sprinkling of kizami nori for a tasty, and beautiful bowl of edamame gohan. Perfect!

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Edamame Gohan, LARGE PORTION

Here’s a quick alternative to the recipe I provided above if you need a rice dish for a larger number of people for a party or potluck.

• 5 cups rice (uncooked)
• 1 bag of shelled edamame
• 1 bottle of Ochazuke Wakame furikake (I used Mishima brand)
• 1 bottle of Nametake mushrooms

How about them Lakers?

In Game 3 of the Lakers vs. Celtics series, the Lakers won 91 – 84, and while the Lakers gave-up a 17-point lead, they came through in the end. Thank goodness! A win on their first game away is pretty awesome in my book. The series is now 2 – 1, Lakers. Fish played really well tonight. He has a lot of heart and it really shows in the way that he plays. I even got emotional with him when he was being interviewed right after the game. He just might be my favorite Laker now that Trevor Ariza is gone. Good job, Fish!

Unfortunately, the excitement of Game 3 of the Lakers vs. Celtics game was overshadowed by a family emergency, and my mind was someplace else during most of the game. It seems like things will be OK and I’m hopeful that I’m right. In many ways I’m thankful I can blog to keep my mind off things. I always tell my friends that cooking and my foodie blog are great stress relievers for me and that is certainly the case today.

Judy | bebe mama